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The Imperial Presidency Gone and All but Forgotten

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The Imperial Presidency Gone and All but Forgotten Coda: The Imperial Presidency Gone and All But Forgotten DAVID A. ANDELMAN AP PHOTO/RIA-NOVOSTI, ALEXEI DRUZHININ, GOVERNMENT PRESS SERVICE WINTER 2013 / 2014 111 Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 16, 2014 CODA here was a time, in the not-too- Thus far, I’ve taken on the judiciary, the distant past, when the Office of bureaucracy or permanent government, Tthe President carried with it all and the legislature. Now it’s time to ex- but unprecedented powers. Not unlike the amine the very top—in theory where all great emperors of old, a president could power flows, downward to the rest of the launch wars, proclaim peace, even change government and at the same time, in the the course of history. In a democracy or an best of circumstances, upward from the oligarchy, in political systems far removed people. But all too often in one direc- in every other respect from the traditional tion. And this failing, beyond all others dictatorship, presidents still wielded all of government, is most central to our un- but unfettered power. No longer. derstanding of how rulers rule and how Where once France’s imperial and im- people are governed. perious Charles de Gaulle could launch wars in Algeria and Indochina with bare- POWER TO THE PEOPLE ly a gesture to the National Assembly In March 1983, there was panic across that met, regularly and futilely, across the a stretch of Africa. Libyan dictator Seine from the Elysées Palace where he Muammar el-Qaddafi was contemplating presided, today François Hollande must an invasion of its neighbor to the south— turn to a deeply fractured parliament for Chad, a country straddling the desert approval on every major and most mi- and jungle. Libyan forces had a clear and nor political decisions. In London, where direct shot across the Sahara and into Winston Churchill and his War Cabinet the heart of Chad. The French, who for could join his American allies in defense a century or more controlled this part of of the Empire, with barely a nod to the Africa, still maintained close economic, House of Commons just down the block, political, and cultural ties with their today his successor David Cameron bows former colony. So it was hardly surprising meekly as the same body spends seven that a detachment of the French Foreign hours shouting down his efforts to join Legion would find its way to the capital, the same American military in Syria, a N’Djamena, as a show of force. At the Middle Eastern state with few clear ties same time, though, the imperious ruler to the British Commonwealth. of Chad put somewhat more faith in Rarely in modern history have chiefs a neighboring dictator—Mobutu Sese of state or government been so handcuffed Seko—president, at least in name, of the as they are today—hostage to the power Democratic Republic of Congo. And if of the electorate, barely able to keep a ever there was an Imperial President, it was single unblinkered eye on how history Mobutu. For 32 years, Mobutu presided, might treat them. all but unchallenged, as ruler of the At the start of this year, I pledged to deeply impoverished nation he renamed devote each of my four Codas to exam- Zaire, amassing a vast personal fortune, ining a different branch of government which, at its peak in 1984, was estimated that directly impacts the people it rules. at $5 billion ($11 billion today). He was David A. Andelman is editor of World Policy Journal. 112 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 16, 2014 THE EXECUTIVE known to charter a supersonic Concorde down at N’Djamena airport. As both jet for shopping trips to Paris. His power presidents had anticipated, the world press at home and across broad stretches of the turned out. This would be a real specta- African continent was all but unfettered. cle—just the ticket, they both hoped, to It was at this peak of his power that I first show Qaddafi and his forces just what they stumbled across him. would be up against. Or at least provide Hissène Habré, president of belea- quite a nice diversion to distract the lo- guered Chad was an aspiring Mobutu cals from their manifold problems of the character. Cut from the same bolt of cloth, moment. And a spectacle it was. Habre’s he was born in the town of Faya-Largeau, advance team had turned out a respectable an oasis deep in the central Sahara where rent-a-crowd, thousands lining the route daytime temperatures are so high that, from the airport to downtown and in clear- unshaded, they would boil away the ly a festive mood. Then, the plane’s door emulsions of photographic film. Habré opened and out stepped Mobutu. Clad in had come to power in a coup the year be- his signature long leopard-skin toga, a fore I arrived, and quickly moved to ce- leopard cap perched on his head, and enor- ment his hold as president mous mirrored sunglasses, (self-proclaimed, of course), he strode confidently down using a feared secret police mitterand the steps, mounted a colos- organization he created— had in so many sal, customized jeep with the Documentation and tires higher than his shoul- Security Directorate, whose respects perfect ders, stood magisterially methods included spraying pitch when in the back, grasped a tall gas into the eyes, ears, and it came to his ebony staff with gold figure- noses of opponents, forcing head, and signaled the vehi- detainees’ mouths onto the sense of how cle to move slowly down the exhaust pipes of running a president path. Running ahead of it, cars, and a primitive tech- a host of native-clad escorts nique of water boarding that should rule. beat loudly on jungle drums few survived. Now, howev- as the crowd chanted “Mo- er, Habré was anticipating the arrival of BU-tu, Mo-BU-tu, Mo-BU-tu.” It was Qaddafi’s tanks, which seemed likely to awe-inspiring, brilliant jungle theater and follow a route straight through his birth- as consummate a demonstration of presi- place in the desert. So it was hardly sur- dential power as I have ever witnessed. Qa- prising that Chad’s recently-arrived and ddafi, incidentally, never invaded. hardly democratically-elected president, Such dictators in presidents’ clothing might want to hedge his bets and seek still exist, of course, in many corners of some backup from a national leader whose the world. Since independence in 1994, views of governance might be somewhat the former Soviet republic of Belarus more congruent than those of France’s has never known any president but the Socialist President François Mitterrand thoroughly Stalinist Alexander Lukash- 3,000 miles away. Cue Mobutu. enko who has maintained an iron-fisted On Saturday morning, August 20, control over the nation, not to mention 1983, Mobutu’s presidential jet touched influence over its major industries, in- WINTER 2013 / 2014 113 Downloaded from wpj.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 16, 2014 CODA cluding finance, media, and every other Mitterrand had in so many respects aspect of life in what is effectively a lat- perfect pitch when it came to his sense ter-day gulag sandwiched between Po- of how a president should rule, where land, Russia, and Ukraine. In the tiny In- to pull every lever to achieve maximum dian Ocean island nation of the Maldives, impact. Even as the power of his office its president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was slipping away from the vast hold hung onto office for some 30 years, and exerted by Charles de Gaulle, Mitterrand appears still to be pulling strings as his did his level best to slow the progress. nation seeks to lurch toward a semblance One late afternoon, Foreign Minister of democracy. Gayoom has accumulated Claude Cheysson had concluded a partic- little wealth on the scale of Teodoro Obi- ularly sensitive diplomatic negotiation at ang Nguema Mbasogo, the Quai d’Orsay and was who’s served as president of exiting the foreign ministry oil-rich Equatorial Guinea presidential in haste, running the gaunt- since August 1979 and leadership, let of a scrum of French is said to have amassed a and western journalists. I personal net worth in ex- indeed thrust my CBS microphone cess of $600 million. These leadership of in front of him and asked and a host of other world any stripe, him a question in English, leaders, while bearing the to which Cheysson replied, title of president, maintain has become reflexively in his impeccable many of the trappings of seriously English, then disappeared hereditary monarchs that diluted. into his black Citroen before still proliferate across the my French homologue could Persian Gulf littoral and assorted Asian interrogate him in French. Each evening kingdoms. Each rules as he wills, with at the Elysées, Mitterrand would convene barely a nod to those he holds in his sway. a group of his ministers and counselors Lukashenko, for instance, warns he is all to watch the “Journal de 20 Heures,” the that stands between his people and utter eight o’clock national evening news. That instability, broad poverty that has en- particular evening, French TV was com- slaved vast stretches of the former Soviet pelled to use my sound bite in English of Union, and the depredations of powerful Cheysson, subtitled in French. “What an Russian mafia crime families. embarrassment,” an appalled Mitterrand sniffed. “A French minister speaking in SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS English on French television.” Trust me, If these serve as one extreme of the it never happened again.
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