Livstidspræsidenten og mavens politik Fra Condé over Museveni og Zenawi til Kagame 2021. Ti år senere står det klart, at Condé på et eller andet tidspunkt har besluttet sig for at blive ved magten, koste hvad det vil. Han er der endnu. Om det var hans hensigt allerede før, han blev valgt, skal være usagt, men det kan tænkes, at han er blevet lokket af den exceptionelle chance, embedet giver til at skrabe til sig og sine. Han har i hvert fald et eller andet sted undervejs konkluderet, at det er hans ”tur til at spise” – til at føre ”mavens politik”, som er et udbredt fænomen blandt statschefer i ”Afrika”: Har man magten, kan maven fyldes. Uden magt risikerer man at gå sulten i seng . Den exceptionelle chance består i, at Condé med præsidentmagten har kontrol over samarbejdet med udenlandske firmaer og investorer, som han tapper Guineas rige ressourcer sammen med . Som de fleste afrikanske lande har Guinea ingen nævneværdig intern eller regional handel. Det, der batter, er det vestlige eller asiatiske udland. Det er her, mulighederne for import, eksport, udenlandske investeringer og bistandshjælp findes. Condé har måske på et tidspunkt overvejet at lytte til velmenende donorer og lægge grunden til gode institutioner som et skattesystem men gør det ikke, fordi han ved, at skat ikke er populært hos landsmændene, og fordi der alligevel ikke er meget at hente hos de store masser, som ikke ejer eller tjener noget. Eliten omkring ham ville heller ikke bryde sig om det. Han udelukker altså et vigtigt fundament under potentiel udvikling, nemlig et system, der kunne bidrage til at omfordele landets rigdomme, som så ville komme flere til gode end blot de få. I stedet har han på et eller andet tidspunkt sat gang i en plan om at blive ”livstidspræsident”, som så mange andre præsidenter i ”Afrika”, og den plan kommer fuldt til udtryk i 2020, da Condes anden forfatningsmæssige præsidentperiode udløber. Nu lader han sine håndgangne mænd fortælle offentligheden, at han støtter en folkeafstemning om en ny forfatning, fordi den gamle aldrig har været til høring i befolkningen. At forfatningen stipulerer, at en præsident kun må sidde to perioder, bliver ikke nævnt, men alle ved, hvad hensigten er. I ”Afrika” kaldes eksercitsen et ”konstitutionelt statskup”. Når forfatningsændringen er gået igennem, skal der være valg, som Condé regner med at vinde, og det gør han i oktober 2020 . Condé er ikke den første afrikanske præsident, som lægger ud med at kalde sig samfundets frelser for bagefter at klæbe til magten. I vores tid i ”Afrika” har vi oplevet et par stykker, og den første var Ugandas Yoweri Museveni, som USA's præsident Clinton kom til at kalde en af ”Afrikanske nye ledere”. Musevenis klæberi er beskrevet i tidligere kapitler, hvor han også er citeret for at kalde sig selv ”ekspert i regeringsførelse” og derfor berettiget til at blive siddende i embedet resten af livet. En anden var Etiopiens almægtige premierminister Meles Zenawi, som døde i 2012 efter 17 år ved magten og efterlod sig et land, der på UNDPs Human Development Index hvert år ligger helt i bunden . Han lå i 1998 i krig med en tredje af Clintons ”nye afrikanske ledere”, nemlig Isaias Afwerki, der ville løsrive den nordlige Eritrea-provins fra Etiopien. Det lykkedes. Eritrea fik sin uafhængighed, og så gik Afwerki i gang med at forvandle landet til et undertrykkende et-parti-regime, som befolkningen stadig flygter fra i titusindvis. FN har beskrevet Eritrea som et land, der ”systematisk” bryder menneskerettighederne i en ”kontekst af total mangel på lov og orden”. Landet bliver også kaldet ”Afrikas Nordkorea”. Afwerki er der stadig. Den fjerde af Clintons ”nye ledere”, Paul Kagame, har været chef i Rwanda, siden han i 1994 rykkede ind i landet med sin Rwanda Patriotic Front og satte en stopper for folkemordet, der havde kostet næsten en million mennesker livet. Fra 1994 til 2000 var han vicepræsident og forsvarsminister, men reelt leder af landet, og i 2000 satte han sig på præsidentposten. Tre år senere fik han indført en forfatning, som begrænsede præsidentperioderne til to. Det lokkede bistandsorganisationerne tilbage til Rwanda, hvor de 12-13 år senere kunne følge en intens kampagne for atter en forfatningsændring, denne gang for at sikre Kagame præsidentposten udover de stipulerede to perioder. Kagames kampagne slog på, at det var ham, som havde standset myrderierne i 1994. Et slogan lød, at rwanderne uden Kagame risikerede, at vejen blev ”åbnet for en ny sæson med macheter” – en henvisning til den brede og lange kniv, der er et arbejdsredskab overalt i Afrika, men som under folkemordet blev svunget flittigt for at myrde. Kagame fik i 2015 sin forfatningsændring, og i 2017 blev han valgt for en syvårs periode for derefter at kunne vælges i to fem-års-perioder. Han kan altså blive siddende indtil 2034, hvor han vil være 77 år. Kagames loyale mænd i den nationale valgkommission bekræftede valgresultatet, som gav ham 98,79 procent af stemmerne

The lifetime president and the politics of the stomach From Condé over Museveni and Zenawi to Kagame 2021. Ten years later, it is clear that at some point Condé has decided to stay in power, at any cost. He's still there. Whether that was his intention even before he was elected remains to be seen, but it is conceivable that he has been lured by the exceptional opportunity the office provides to scrape for himself and his. At least somewhere along the way, he has concluded that it is his "turn to eat" - to pursue "politics of the stomach", which is a widespread phenomenon among heads of state in "Africa": If you have the power, the stomach can be filled . Without power, you risk going to bed hungry. The exceptional chance is that Condé, with the presidency, has control over cooperation with foreign firms and investors, with whom he drains Guinea's rich resources. Like most African countries, Guinea has no significant internal or regional trade. What strikes is the Western or Asian foreign lands. This is where the opportunities for import, export, foreign investment and aid come from.Condé may at some point have considered listening to well-meaning donors and laying the groundwork for good institutions as a tax system but does not do so because he knows that tax is not popular with his countrymen and because there is still not much to be gained from the big ones. masses who do not own or earn anything. The elite around him would not care about that either. He thus excludes an important foundation under potential development, namely a system that could help redistribute the country's riches, which would then benefit more than just the few. Instead, he has at some point launched a plan to become "lifetime president", like so many other presidents in "Africa", and that plan will be fully expressed in 2020, when Condes' second constitutional presidency expires. Now he is letting his handcuffed men tell the public that he supports a referendum on a new constitution because the old one has never been heard by the people. That the constitution stipulates that a president may only sit for two terms is not mentioned, but everyone knows what the intention is. In "Africa", the exercise is called a "constitutional coup".Once the constitutional amendment has passed, there must be elections that Condé expects to win, and he will do so in October 2020. Condé is not the first African president to set out to call himself the savior of society and then cling to power. In our time in "Africa" ​​we have experienced a few, and the first was Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, as US President Clinton came to call one of "African new leaders". Museveni's stickiness is described in previous chapters, where he is also quoted as calling himself an "expert in government" and therefore entitled to remain in office for the rest of his life. Another was Ethiopia's almighty Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died in 2012 after 17 years in power, leaving a country at the bottom of the UNDP's Human Development Index each year. In 1998, he was at war with a third of Clinton's "new African leaders", namely Isaias Afwerki, who wanted to secede the northern Eritrean province from Ethiopia. Managed. Eritrea gained its independence, and then Afwerki set about transforming the country into an oppressive one-party regime, from which the population still flees for tens of thousands.The UN has described Eritrea as a country that "systematically" violates human rights in a "context of total lack of law and order". The country is also called "Africa's North Korea". Finishing is still there. The fourth of Clinton's 'new leaders', Paul Kagame, has been head of Rwanda since moving into the country in 1994 with his Rwanda Patriotic Front, putting an end to the genocide that had claimed nearly a million lives. From 1994 to 2000, he was Vice President and Minister of Defense, but the real leader of the country, and in 2000, he took the presidency. Three years later, he introduced a constitution that limited presidential terms to two. It lured aid organizations back to Rwanda, where 12-13 years later they could pursue an intense campaign for another constitutional amendment, this time to secure Kagame's presidency beyond the stipulated two terms. Kagame's campaign claimed that it was he who had stopped the murders in 1994. A slogan was that the Rwandans without Kagame risked the road being "opened for a new season with machetes" - a reference to the wide and long knife that is a work tool all over Africa, but which during the genocide was swung diligently to murder.Kagame got his constitutional amendment in 2015, and in 2017 he was elected for a seven-year term and then to be elected for two five-year terms. He can therefore remain in office until 2034, when he will be 77 years old. Kagame's loyal men in the National Electoral Commission confirmed the election result, which gave him 98.79 percent of the vote