A president by any other name could be a dictator

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza. PHOTO | AFP 

In Summary

• Political shifts mean that even a president for life, and dictatorships, need to have some democratic coating to generate a basic consensus to rule.

By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
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A few days ago, Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza was named “Eternal Supreme Guide” by his ruling CNDD-FDD party.

The import of that is no one is allowed to disagree with his choices, party secretary-general Evariste Ndayishimiye said.

“He is our parent, he is the one who advises us. That is why I ask all our members to respect that because a home without the man (its head) can be overlooked by anybody,” Ndayishimiye offered. By the way, CNDD-FDD in full is National Council for the Defence of Democracy–Forces for the Defence of Democracy.

Despite the party having “democracy” twice in its name, critics say the cult of personality developing around Nkurunziza has everything to do with the forthcoming national referendum which is all but certain to make him president for life, enabling him to remain in office at least until 2034.

In that regard, Nkurunziza is not unique. Term limits have been falling like dominoes in East and Central Africa in recent years, with both Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, to keep to the East African Community, also having the possibility to be in office until around 2034.

What is unusual about Nkurunziza’s move is that, though at 54 he is the youngest leader in the East African Community, he is turning out to be its most old-fashioned.

For while there has not been a full-blown democratic outbreak in the region, the one thing that has changed is presidential titles. Our presidents are just that, “His Excellency the President,” and some like to drop in the “and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces” bit.

The convoluted presidential honorifics fell out of fashion. Uganda’s military ruler Idi Amin’s self-bestowed title was “President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji, Doctor, Victoria Cross [VC], Distinguished Service Order [DSO], Military Cross [MC], Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.”

Across Burundi’s western border in DR Congo, then Zaire, the thief Sergeant-Major Joseph Mobutu, became Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Waza Banga, meaning “The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.”

However, several changes, including dramatic cultural and political shifts, mean that even a president for life, and dictatorships need to have some democratic coating to generate a basic consensus to rule.

That is why, while the likes of Amin could declare themselves president for life and all-conquering warriors on radio, and it became law, today you need that referendum or an election — even a rigged one — to get by.

Nkurunziza is departing from the East African presidential manual in one significant way. He is “re-religionising” politics. A born-again Christian, he can be seen in the countryside kneeling in gardens praying for potatoes, and blessing bean harvests at public rallies.

The goal seems to remove the provision of public goods and services from being the product of policy, and therefore subject to political and democratic interrogation.

It becomes a matter rooted in deep culture, or subject to the will of God, and only those in whose ears he whispers, like Nkurunziza, know his ways and cannot be questioned.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is publisher of Africapaedia.com and data visualiser Roguechiefs.com. Twitter@cobbo3