The reason why some leaders fear term limits?

By Zechariah Manyok Biar

January 18, 2010 — Elections are coming up in Sudan and many leaders, the incumbents and the aspirants, are in fever on how to secure or maintain offices of their interests. This election’s fever is not unique to Sudan. Any leader in a democratic nation all over the world experiences the same fever during elections’ period. What makes the fever really depressing in many African countries is the approaching of term limit. Some leaders amend the constitution to eliminate term limit and others resort to military rule to eliminate democracy. The question that we in Africa do not take time to ask is why our leaders hate term limits. To put it in another way, why do our leaders love to cling to power?

Few people who take some troubles to ask such a question relieve themselves of the same troubles by saying that our leaders cling to power because they are greedy. But a deeper look into this answer will tell us that all human beings in the world are greedy and some of them do not cling to power. So what is it that makes leaders in some countries cling to power and exempts leaders from other countries from the same activity? Who knows!

“Who knows” is an easy answer too, but it is not what we need in South Sudan in the coming years if South Sudan is going to be a different nation. Leaders and intellectuals of South Sudan have mental work to do to answer the question of why some leaders cling to power and others don’t. I believe there is more to this question than just a “greed” answer.

Life outside office is miserable in many African countries because of the loss of both fame and luxury that leaders enjoy in office. So we need to address this miserable life outside office if we are to have smooth democracy in Sudan or South Sudan in the coming years.

The fear in the loss of fame is caused by our confrontational politics that aims at nothing more than a desire for regime change. Opposition politicians in many African countries hardly recognize positive things that incumbent leaders are doing. This lack of achievement-recognition makes the incumbent feels like he or she needs more time to build his or her legacy. Otherwise, he or she would be treated as criminal when out of office. The irony is that those who make incumbent leaders feel like criminals are the losers because the incumbent would resort to a military rule and get rid of democracy, or would amend the constitution to give him or her more time of legacy-building.

The fear of the loss of luxury is caused by the lack of pension plan. Some leaders in places like South Sudan have a lot of family problems during their time of office. They hardly build their future financial independence. So staying in office for them involves the desire for the building of after-office finances.

These are genuine concerns because all of us, human beings, would agree that it is really miserable for anybody to combine the loss of popularity with financial difficulties. It does not matter whether you are a politician or a private celebrity, the feeling is the same. So how can we avoid such a feeling in Sudan or South Sudan in the coming years?

First of all, I think our political aspirants should avoid focusing on mere regime change that makes incumbents feel like they are criminals who would be dumped into a trash if they take trouble to relinquish power. Political aspirants should recognize achievements of incumbents and tell the public that they should build on them, as well as pointing out the short-comings that they need to improve on if elected. That recognition may make incumbents feel like they have contributed something during their term of office that the next generation will build on.

Second of all, the upcoming leaders of South Sudan should address the financial life of leaders after office. This step needs research from experts in the areas of economics, business, and other social sciences. The research must look into the system of successful democracies all over the world to find out what kind of benefit leaders enjoy after their terms of office. The different findings will then be reconciled to form the best system for Sudan or South Sudan.

The upcoming leaders in South Sudan should use South Sudanese well-known scholars in this research. There are capable South Sudanese scholars who are willing to help if the government understands how resourceful they are.

This willingness was demonstrated recently by Dr. John Akech of Juba University in his article published by Sudan Tribune on January 11, 2010. Dr. Akech wrote: “However, in medium and long term, the government of South Sudan can seek the help of South Sudanese academic community. The government can do so in many ways: funding research into causes of conflicts, forming multidisciplinary task force to advise the government in forming new strategies for preventing and resolving ethnic conflicts, and funding think-tanks to carry out research and conduct strategic policy analysis on behalf of the government. Which way the government chooses to go, at the very least, such approach will help the government to deeply understand the causes of conflict (have the dots in hand) and then be able to interpret how these causes are intertwined (connect up the dots), and then form strategies, and multi-agency systems (with well defined roles) that will be successful in uprooting the tribal, political, and criminal violence in South Sudan.”

Dr. Akech was talking about the solution to tribal crisis in South Sudan. But the same thing can apply to every area of government policies and legislations. Long term problems like leaders’ clinging to power need well-qualified persons to find their solutions. Our government must take time to identify its resourceful human resource living anywhere in the world and facilitate their research to solve some problems like the one that I am talking about here.

One of these resourceful human resources for South Sudan is Dr. Laura Nyantung Ahang Beny of Lake State, South Sudan. Dr. Nyantung is now a full Professor of Law in the University of Michigan, USA. Not only is Dr. Nyantung qualified in Law, she is also a qualified Economist. Dr. Nyantung has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Stanford University in The United States, a Master’s Degree and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in the same Country, and Jurisdiction Doctorate from Harvard University.

If the government of South Sudan is interested in developing strategies that will let its leaders feel happy outside office, then Dr. Nyantung would help. What the government will need to do is to facilitate Dr. Nyantung’s research to find an answer to this question. Dr. Nyantung will not only deal with financial issues about the question, she will also understand legal implications of her recommendations after her findings.

Since Dr. Nyantung has connection to leading Universities in the world, like Harvard and Stanford, she can identify experts in the areas of Pension and Social Security to help her in finding solutions to the problem narrated above.

Inside Sudan, the government should listen to advices from university professors, like Dr. Akech, and use them in making informed decisions and policies. That is the only way South Sudan can join the 21 century global village in finding and solving tough questions that keep our continent behind.

Zechariah Manyok Biar is a graduate student at Abilene Christian University, Texas, USA. He just graduated with a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry and he is still pursuing a Master of Science in Social Work, specializing in Administration and Planning. For comments, contact him at email: [email protected]