President Mwai Kibaki
President Mwai Kibaki could be picked for a US university programme honouring African leaders who leave office in democratic circumstances, the programme’s director said in what could boost the Kenyan leader’s legacy who is expected to retire in 2012.
“Kibaki would appear to satisfy the baseline requirement for the programme,” said Charles Stith, the head of the African Presidents-in-Residence initiative at Boston University.
The programme offers a paid professorship, usually for one year, to a former African president who is judged to have come to power democratically or to have at least surrendered power democratically.
Ambassador Stith also said that his project at Boston University includes Kenya in the group of 16 sub-Saharan African countries that it regards as democracies.
Referring to the deadly violence that followed the disputed 2007 election, Mr Stith said, “They’ve resolved it, however imperfectly.” The Grand Coalition qualifies as a functioning democratic government, he said.
Responding to a recent report that a professorship had been offered to Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni in 2005, Mr Stith similarly denied he had made such an overture to the Ugandan leader.
Mr Stith said Museveni “was certainly somebody we would have looked very favourably upon” prior to the president’s move to amend the Constitution to allow himself to seek a third term.
Now that he has run successfully for a fourth term in an election that “raised questions,” Mr Stith added, “my sense is he’s not willing to give up power.”
Tanzania’s place of pride
Seven retired African presidents have held posts in the Boston University programme since its inception a decade ago.
Zanzibar’s former leader, Amani Abeid Karume, is currently in residence.
Tanzania ranks as one of Africa’s most successful democracies, according to the US ex-ambassador to the country.
Tanzania has completed six democratic election cycles, qualifying a number of its former presidents for positions with the Boston University programme, Mr Stith added.
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