What qualifies for a successful presidency?

In a few weeks’ time, what was Tanganyika will celebrate 60 years of political independence, being the second country in the troubled neighbourhood of Africa’s Great Lakes to achieve that feat. As a young country celebrated her independence, few knew exactly what that meant. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere had to spell it out for the rest of the country that it meant hard work. The issues he outlined back then as being the major challenges confronting the ‘new’ country are still with us even as the country reaches legal retirement age in the public sector. Mwalimu ruled the longest in the country, became one of the titans of Africa’s liberation struggles of the twentieth century perhaps it was symbolic that his ancestors came calling as that century was coming to a close. Despite the many economic challenges he faced, a country being under one-party rule, his time in office is considered a success on its own or when compared to the rest of his contemporaries. He inspired many others to rise to power in the region through armed struggle.Mwalimu was in power for twenty four years that time has since been eclipsed by his political heirs who have been in charge of the country for thirty six years and counting. His successors in office have been accused of either ‘selling’ the country, handing it to neo-colonial forces through privatization and the increased influence of foreign powers in domestic affairs to them being ‘dictators’. They have all been seen as failing to live up to the standard set by the man who delivered political independence. None of his successors in office had a defined political philosophy that guided them and their convictions during their time in power. Their times are different from those of Mwalimu and his contemporaries; could that partly explain their perceived and actual failures?

Has enough time and resources being expended to understand the major decisions of his time? Why did the generation that delivered political independence opted for a single-party rule? Could things have been better had the country travelled a different path? Even by this standard, the country has been with multipartism for a longer period than when it was under the one-party rule.

Why was he so passionate about the liberation of other countries on the continent and beyond it? The material cost to the country was enormous. There was also the price paid in blood and limbs by some of the border communities and those he sent to assist in liberating other countries. His successors inherited a vastly changed world. The region, an active, constantly rumbling volcano has never been silent. At one time it witnessed the horrors of the genocide, plunged in what commentators described as ‘Africa’s Great war’ or ‘a war between comrades’, as those fighting in the jungles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo were once comrades in arms.

His successors have danced to different tunes to the regional troubles, by focusing on economic integration to increase interdependence and some were accused by some neighbours for covert dalliances with some forces to destabilize their countries.

Through it all though, the domestic front has always been of paramount importance.

If Mwalimu was a success in his domestic agenda of building a peaceful country in a very rough neighbourhood, one which did away with the colonial preoccupation of ethno politics, to a robust, independent-minded foreign policy, why has his successors in office not seen in the same light even where they have achieved some remarkable things during their times in office?

What qualifies for a successful presidency?

Is it national building efforts? Is it mega-infrastructure projects to connect the country? Is it about opening the political space? Or it has something to do with opening the country’s economy even if that means introducing controversial economic reforms? Is it about the provision of social services to the majority of the population?

One of his successors was preoccupied with opening up the economy; another one said his work was expanding the reforms started by his immediate predecessor. Another successor had a lofty political agenda and allowed his opponents space for their harsh judgments but had no precise roadmap. There was one who built like none of his predecessors ever had.

And yet, all these are somehow lumped up together.

Sixty years down the line, we are still searching for the ingredients to a successful presidency.