乌干达总统该不该退位 Even the good leaders should know when to quit

Like many African leaders, Yoweri Museveni preached democracy even as he was seizing power through the barrel of a gun. In his stirring inaugural speech of January 1986, three days after his National Resistance Movement stormed Kampala, Uganda’s new leader spoke eloquently about the cycle of coup and counter-coup despoiling Africa’s political landscape. “We have had one group getting rid of another one, only for it to turn out to be worse than the group it displaced,” he said. “The first point in our programme is the restoration of democracy.”

同许多非洲领导人一样，约韦里•穆塞韦尼(Yoweri Museveni)即便在通过枪杆子夺得政权之时还在宣扬民主。1986年1月，他率领的全国抵抗运动组织(National Resistance Movement)攻占了坎帕拉，3天后，这位乌干达新领导人在就职演说中发表了滔滔雄辩，谈到政变与反政变的恶性循环败坏非洲的政治生态。“我们经历过一个统治集团赶跑另一个统治集团，结果却是迎来了比之前更糟糕的统治集团，”他说，“我们计划的首要着力点是恢复民主制度。”

Thirty years after those rousing words, Mr Museveni is still in charge. Barring a violent upheaval of the sort that propelled him to power all those years ago, he will remain so for at least another five years following deeply flawed elections that culminate at the ballot box today. After a campaign marred by intimidation, Mr Museveni will be duly returned for a fifth term. He has already amended the constitution once to scrap two-term limits. If he can do so again, this time to end an age limit of 75, then Mr Museveni, already 71, may be able to carry on as leader of Uganda well into his eighties.

那些激动人心的言论发表30年后，穆塞韦尼仍掌控着这个国家。除非爆发当年将他推上权力宝座的那种暴力动荡，否则他至少将再担任5年总统——乌干达刚刚举行了问题多多的选举。在经过一场被恐吓蒙上阴影的竞选之后，穆塞韦尼将开启第5届总统任期。他早已将宪法修改过一次，废除了最多连任两届总统的限制。如果他能再次修宪——取消总统年龄不超过75岁的限制——已经71岁的穆塞韦尼或许能继续担任乌干达领导人至80多岁。

That is quite a feat for someone who once said that the problem with Africa was leaders “who want to overstay in power”. Even so, Mr Museveni is not the overstayer-in-chief. That honour goes to Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea and José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola, who have both lasted 36 years. Robert Mugabe, who turns 92 this weekend, is not far behind. He will celebrate 36 years as Zimbabwe’s leader in April and has pledged to run again in elections due in 2018. Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, who secured power the old-fashioned way in a coup, once told the BBC he was ready to serve for a billion years if Allah willed it. He didn’t mention the will of the people.

对于曾说过非洲的问题就在于国家领导人“恋栈”的人来说，这可是一项壮举。即便如此，穆塞韦尼还不是掌权时间最长的领导人。赤道几内亚总统特奥多罗•奥比昂•恩圭马•姆巴索戈(Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo)与安哥拉总统若泽•爱德华多•多斯•桑托斯(José Eduardo dos Santos)的执政时间都达到了36年。刚到92岁高龄的津巴布韦总统罗伯特•穆加贝(Robert Mugabe)紧随其后。今年4月，穆加贝将庆祝自己担任津巴布韦领导人36周年，他还誓言要再次参加2018年大选。通过政变这种老方法上台的冈比亚总统叶海亚•贾梅(Yahya Jammeh)曾在接受BBC采访时表示，如果真主有意，他愿意再干10亿年。他没有提到人民的意愿。

The temptation is to see strong leaders — the right ones, of course — as the best solution for weak and troubled states. Nic Cheeseman, an academic and author of Democracy in Africa, says that the prerequisites of democracy are generally taken to be “a coherent national identity, strong and autonomous political institutions, a developed and vibrant civil society, the effective rule of law and a strong and well-performing economy”. If that is the case, then, sadly, most African countries need not apply.

世人面临的诱惑在于，把强势领导人——当然是那些合适的领导人——视为虚弱、陷入困境国家的最佳出路。著有《非洲的民主》(Democracy in Africa)一书的学者尼克•奇斯曼(Nic Cheeseman)说，实现民主体制的先决条件通常应包括“一致的国家认同、强大且自治的政治机构、发达且充满活力的公民社会、有效的法治以及强劲且运行良好的经济”。若是这样的话，那么，不幸的是，大多数非洲国家都谈不上实现民主。

In Asia, some of the most successful economies, from Taiwan to South Korea and, of course, China, took off during dictatorship, even if some of them eventually became robust democracies. The problem for Africa is that leaders of the calibre of China’s Deng Xiaoping or Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew have simply not emerged, save perhaps Nelson Mandela.

在亚洲，一些最成功的经济体——从台湾到韩国，当然还有中国——都是在独裁统治时期实现了经济起飞，即便其中一些经济体最终形成了稳健的民主政体。非洲的问题在于没有出现像中国的邓小平或者新加坡的李光耀(Lee Kuan Yew)那样有水平的领导人——或许纳尔逊•曼德拉(Nelson Mandela)除外。

To be fair to Mr Museveni, his tenure has not been all bad. In his first decade, he presided over a period of political stability after the horrors of Idi Amin. Growth was brisk. Infrastructure was repaired. And Mr Museveni did better than most of his peers — some of whom were shamefully neglectful — in tackling the Aids epidemic head on.

平心而论，我们也不能全盘否定穆塞韦尼的总统生涯。当政的第一个10年期间，在结束了伊迪•阿明(Idi Amin)的恐怖统治后，他为乌干达带来了一段时期的政治稳定。经济实现快速增长。基础设施得到修复。在抗击艾滋病疫情方面，穆塞韦尼比多数非洲领导人——有些可耻地根本不重视——做得更好。

Yet the problem with successful leaders, says Mr Cheeseman, is that “they start to believe their own hype”. While villains and kleptocrats cling on because they fear reprisal, he says, better leaders stay in power because they genuinely believe no one else can do the job. Without their firm hand, they imagine, the state will slip back into penury or chaos. But holding on means hollowing out the institutions on which the future must be built. That is what has happened in Uganda.

然而，奇斯曼说，成功领导人的问题在于“他们开始相信自己的宣传造势”。他说，恶棍和窃国大盗因为担心报复而恋栈，而较好的领导人不愿下台是因为他们真的相信没有别人能胜任这份工作。在他们的想象中，离开了自己的铁腕统治，国家将再度陷入贫困或混乱。但抓住权力不放意味着，打造未来所必需的各种机构遭到空心化。这正是乌干达所发生的情况。

The west is often complicit. By the mid-1990s, outright grants accounted for more than half of the Ugandan state’s revenue, up from just 10 per cent when Mr Museveni gained control. One of Africa’s supposedly great success stories was being bankrolled from afar.

西方国家经常与这些领导人沆瀣一气。到上世纪90年代中期，援助赠款占到了乌干达政府财政收入的一半以上，而这一比例在穆塞韦尼上台时仅为10%。号称伟大的非洲成功故事之一，其实是依靠遥远国度的资金支撑起来的。

History repeats itself. These days Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda since 2000, has replaced Mr Museveni as many donors’ African leader of choice. Though he has lost a little of his lustre, Mr Kagame is credited with ending the 1994 genocide and bringing rapid development. Today, donors account for 30-40 per cent of Rwanda’s operating budget. The price of all that love means turning a blind eye to some of the seamier aspects of the Kagame administration: political assassinations, hollowed-out institutions and a cowed press.

历史往往重复自己。如今，自2000年以来一直担任卢旺达总统的保罗•卡加梅(Paul Kagame)已取代穆塞韦尼，成为许多捐赠机构偏爱的非洲领导人。虽然不如以前那样风光，但卡加梅因结束了1994年种族大屠杀并为本国带来快速发展而受到赞扬。如今，援助赠款占到了卢旺达政府预算的30%至40%。这种偏爱的代价意味着对卡加梅政府比较阴暗的一些方面——政治暗杀、机构空心化以及受打压的媒体——视而不见。

True to type, Mr Kagame has started to see himself as indispensable. After amending the constitution, he is now seeking a third term, a possible prelude to a fourth and fifth. That could see him maintain his hold on power until 2034. If he makes it anything like that long, he will have joined the ranks of the overstayers. By then, his reputation will almost certainly be in tatters.

典型的是，卡加梅开始将自己视为不可或缺的人物。修改宪法之后，他如今正在寻求第3届任期，这可能成为其第4和第5届任期的序曲，从而让他一直掌权至2034年。若果真如此，他将加入那些把持权力过久的领导人行列。到那时，他的声望几乎肯定将会一落千丈。