Robert Mugabe exit offers us vital lessons

Former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. (Photo: Courtesy)

After a series of trips to Zimbabwe, Uganda and Sudan in 2005, I wondered what happens to leaders who fail to effectively manage governance transitions. Last week’s events in Zimbabwe gave me my answer. It also offers a lesson for President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta as he approaches his second and last term.

Political legitimacy is the life-blood of all political systems. No level of economic or military power, smoke or mirrors can keep a government in power if it loses the will of its people. Robert and Grace Mugabe discovered this painful lesson this week. Tiyambi Zeleza argues that by failing to manage the transitions from the liberation struggle to the development state, authoritarian to pluralist politics and an intergenerational leadership transition, Mugabe just torpedoed his 37-year legacy. It would be a stretch to draw too many parallels between Kenya and Zimbabwe. The countries are different, but there are some lessons.