Tag Archives: Levy Mwanawasa

The Case for Term Limits, Angola Edition

Posted on by
Reply

The erasure of Jose Eduardo dos Santos’ 38-year rule in Angola appears to be accelerating. Angola does not have executive term limits, but Eduardo dos Santos finally stepped down as president in late 2017.

On Wednesday his successor, Joao Lourenço, removed replaced his son (Jose Filomeno dos Santos) as head of Angola’s $5b sovereign wealth fund. This follows the sacking of Isabel dos Santos (Africa’s wealthiest woman) as head of the country’s state oil company last year. President Lourenço has also moved to replace key security chiefs in sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest economy and second biggest oil producer.

When Eduardo dos Santos said he’d retire I was skeptical. The anointment of his defense minister, Joao Lourenço, as his successor (while retaining position atop the ruling party) did little to change my mind. But like in Mozambique and Zambia before it, the mere change of guard in Angola appears to have initiated a process of elite churn that is accompanied by a dismantling of the old order (at the very least within the ruling party).

Now, there is no guarantee that this will lead to normatively desirable outcomes (such as better governance and service delivery in Angola). Change for its own sake is only good up to a point. But it is a testament to the political importance of term limits. Regular leadership turnover is a nice way of ensuring that no single interest group or ruling cabal completely dominates a country’s political economy.

Relatedly, I am not a close watcher of Angola but recent events have led me to update my view of the level of institutionalization of MPLA. For a long time I thought that it was just an electoral/patronage SPV for Eduardo dos Santos. But news events seem to suggest that its powers transferred almost intact to Joao Lourenço (I could be wrong of course).

 

What does a Sata Presidency Mean for Zambia?

Posted on by
Reply

UPDATE:

For a closer take on the Sino-Zambian connection check out Louise Redvers’ piece for the BBC.

************************************

So the Economist beat me to writing about what a Sata presidency means for the Zambian economy, especially with regard to foreign investment.

For the two of you out there who are not conversant with the campaign details in the Zambian election, Mr. Sata’s main campaign strategy involved characterizing incumbent President Banda as someone who was out to mortgage Zambia’s future to foreign investors, and especially China.

Here is what the Economist had to say:

“He is too savvy a politician not to realise how much this impoverished country of 13m people needs China’s cash. Over the past decade, the Chinese have invested over $2 billion in Zambia, the GDP of which is only $16 billion. More than half of that came in last year. And China is committed to pouring in billions more. There are now about 300 Chinese companies in Zambia, most of them privately owned, employing around 25,000 locals. Standards differ: some companies treat their workers badly, but most of the big state-owned companies genuinely seek to respect local labour laws.”

The long and short of it is that Sata will definitely kick out a few shady companies that were operating outside the law – and these are not just Chinese firms; the South Africans and Australians also have some shady businesses in Zambia. The former, especially, have a lot of money-laundering operations.

More on this here and here.

On the democracy and governance front, things won’t change much. President Sata’s camp is full of recycled UNIP veterans. UNIP was the independence party that ruled Zambia between 1964 and 1991. Mr. Sata, however, could surprise us by finally passing through a new constitution for Zambia. The last parliament killed the proposed constitution.

Sata is Zambia’s president-elect

Posted on by
1

NB: Still hoping from airport to airport and will give my reaction to the Sata victory when I finally get back to Palo Alto on Friday evening Pacific Time.

Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front is the new president of Zambia. Mr. Sata beat incumbent president Banda after getting 43% of the declared results in the just concluded general elections in Zambia.

As was expected, the high turnout (from the numbers I have, low 60s), favored Mr. Sata. In the last election turnout was a dismal 45%.

For more of this read the Post.

 

more on the zambian elections

Posted on by
Reply

Check out African Arguments for a brief backgrounder.

The election remains too close to call, which means that Banda is winning.

Given how stacked things are against the opposition, they can only win if they do so convincingly. If it is close (like it was in 2008 when the president won by just over 30,000 votes) the electoral commission will be under immense pressure to hand the ruling party, MMD, the win.

Mr. Sata (the main opposition (PF) candidate) has urged his supporters to stay at polling stations to monitor the tallying and relay of results. I understand there will be an NGO-led parallel vote tallying (but which won’t be publicized because of govt. sanctions). I hope I can get a hold of these results before the end of the week. The electoral commission of Zambia has promised to release the results within 48 hours of the polls closing – that is Thursday evening.

In Lusaka everything is slowing down in readiness for the elections. There is a sense that there will be isolated violence in some parts of the city but nothing too serious. From what I gather the Copperbelt is the region most at risk of election-related violence. People there have (or believe that they do) the most to gain if PF wins (The Copperbelt is also majority Bemba. Mr. Sata is a Bemba speaker).

The MMD’s privatization drive (of the mining sector) since the early 1990s has hit this region the most. Many lost their sinecures in parastatals;  free medicare and schooling disappeared; and there is also a sense that foreigners are benefiting at the expense of ordinary Zambians in the region. Mr. Sata has promised to channel more resources from the mining sector into social programs and a more aggressive job drive.

This is largely campaign hot air but it appears to be sticking. The MMD will be lucky if it gets even a single parliamentary seat in the Copperbelt.

zambian president dies in france

Posted on by
Reply

Levy Mwanawasa, the president of Zambia, has died in a French hospital. Mwanawasa was admitted in the hospital after he suffered a stroke several weeks ago. The country’s vice president, Rupiah Banda, has assumed the position of acting president, at least until new elections are held.

Mwanawasa became president in 2001 and has been a darling of the West particularly due to his distaste for corruption and love of free markets. In the last election, his opposition opponent accused him of selling his country to the two Asian giants; china and India.

It is important to note that Mwanawasa along with Kagame, Khama and Wade are the only African presidents who came out to forcefully criticize the murderous regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He will be missed for his honesty and love of straight talk.