Elizabeth Shackelford
Last week, Paul Biya declared victory for an eighth term as president of Cameroon, an extremely poor Central African country suffering from two violent insurgencies, entrenched corruption and poor governance. With such a bad track record, it’s unsurprising that the results are widely disputed.
Biya, who is 92, has had plenty of time to prove his worth. He is the longest-tenured leader alive today, having served since 1982 as president and as prime minister for seven years before that. He is the only leader most Cameroonians have ever known.
The opposition alleged widespread fraud, and protests erupted in several cities. Security forces responded harshly, with dozens of activists arrested and four killed. Some speculate that the global wave of Gen Z protests could give Cameroon’s opposition the boost it needs to stay the course in a country where the government uses a heavy hand to keep dissent at bay. Whether that will be enough to oust the world’s oldest leader remains to be seen, but Biya’s election begs the question: Why cling to power into old age?
Elderly leaders across Africa are insisting on sticking around. Earlier in October, the president of Ivory Coast declared victory for his fourth term at age 83. Yoweri Museveni of Uganda is set to run for a seventh term next year at 82. Robert Mugabe, the celebrated revolutionary leader who helped bring independence to Zimbabwe in 1980, ruled the country as a tyrant until he was deposed in a coup in 2017 at age 93. I wrote a paper about his turn to autocracy and brutal hold on power when I was in college. At that point, Mugabe still had nearly two decades to go.
Africa’s array of elderly strongmen is particularly impressive but not unique. Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has ruled for 36 years. Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has ruled for 31. Cuba’s Fidel Castro holds the record at 49 years before he handed power over to his brother due to his own failing health.
It is no coincidence that none of these leaders are known for good governance or national strength. All lead poor countries with low standards of living, and several are rife with insecurity, too. None is a competitive democracy. If they were, such poor results at some point would have been sufficient for the electorate to run these leaders out.
With authoritarianism on the rise around the world, we can expect this trend only to grow.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, global democracy reached a historic low last year and has been on the decline for nearly two decades. Less democracy means fewer checks on power, which means fewer opportunities to oust bad leaders and opt for better ones.
But this challenge isn’t limited to authoritarian states. Democratic states should be wary about the impact of entrenched rule too.
The United States is facing its own octogenarian power problem. President Joe Biden was running for reelection at 81 and only left the race long after it was clear he was no longer fit for the competition. President Donald Trump will be 82 when his term ends and has been toying with the idea of a third term, despite the clear unconstitutionality of the proposition.
In Congress, where seniority is the primary path to power, age is a stubborn issue too. Three members of Congress have died in office this year and 14 since 2020. The late Sen. Dianne Feinstein was perhaps the most visible warning sign. She died in office in 2023 at age 90, after a monthslong absence following embarrassing scenes where the impact of cognitive decline was on clear display.
Why don’t more leaders leave while they’re ahead? After all, the most well-regarded African leader to date is Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, who stepped down after a single term in office. The United States still reveres George Washington, who retired after two. Both were pressed to stay at the time, but their willingness to relinquish power remains a particular strength of both of their legacies.
The answer is that it’s human nature to cling to power. Whether people stay for the opportunities to corruptly cash in or simply to retain the feeling of importance, government leadership seems to be addictive. Democratic checks alone are insufficient to insulate us from unfit leaders overstaying their effectiveness, particularly in a political culture that greatly values incumbency and fears progress and change.
History has shown us that political leaders who stay too long don’t deliver, even after promising early days in office. So how can we better incentivize leaders to gracefully step away?
Since 2006, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has tried with an annual award for Achievement in African Leadership, accompanied by a $5 million prize and generous lifetime allowance, simply in return for voluntarily leaving office. In two decades, it has found six worthy recipients, most recently with Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou in 2020. As it turns out, it takes more than $5 million and a positive historic legacy to buy most leaders out of power.
Elizabeth Shackelford is a senior adviser with the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She is also a distinguished lecturer with the Dickey Center at Dartmouth College. She was previously a U.S. diplomat and is the author of “The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age.”
