LIFE PRESIDENCIES MUCH SAFER

A social media post in which Gwede Mantashe, a South African cabinet minister, excoriates African presidents who want to rule from the grave recently went viral. Interestingly, while he characterises this as an African phenomenon, the reality is that it is actually global. In the SADC region, the prominent examples are those of Ian Khama ( Botswana) and Jacob Zuma ( South Africa). However, a holistic view of this matter reveals that even in the supposedly democratic west, former presidents also want to rule from the grave. One ( Donald Trump) didn’t even want to step down after losing elections – whereupon law enforcement had to quietly plan for a scenario in which he had to be dragged out of the White House kicking and screaming. In Europe, Boris Johnson is quietly planning to end the colonisation of Britain by an Indian. More interesting is that no one has proposed solutions to this problem. We propose two. Firstly, there should be an addiction treatment programme for national leaders in the last two years of office. Political power, like a type of SADC malt beer called Power, is addictive and there should be a clinical plan to help leaders kick this addiction. In that regard, Masisi’s treatment programme should have begun in late September of last year. Supposing there is not enough expertise to treat this addiction – which is worse than that an imbiber gets from drinking Power, then presidents shouldn’t step down. In other words, state presidency should be a lifetime appointment. Come to think of it, Botswana would still be Africa’s most politically stable nation if Khama was still president. Sure, the 24/ 7 booze bar in Block 6, Gaborone wouldn’t have come into being, an officially undeclared curfew for adults would still be in force and DIS would still be literally cracking skulls with axes but there wouldn’t be the political circus we are seeing every day.