<p> INTL 484: REGIONAL STUDIES AFRICA</p><p>From Common Beginnings to Contrary Endings The different styles and results of leaders Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe</p><p>Annamarie Jones 4/21/2010</p><p>In a time period when knowledge about the world is growing day by day, it is important to be able to compare and contrast the actions of leaders that have for the most part been put into the same situations, only to create totally different outcomes. Such is the case with Robert Mugabe and Nelson </p><p>Mandela. Both men were part of the movement to end apartheid and both men suffered at the hands of their country at the time. Yet both men took completely different approaches to leadership and the policies that they enacted while president. Robert Mugabe is a man driven by retribution and the need to exert power and control to the furthest extent possible, using any means necessary to repress any opposition. Nelson Mandela, on the other hand, is a man who led a country through his actions in regards to the people and the government that put him in jail for twenty seven years. Mandela publicly forgave his torturers and was willing to put this past behind him in order to ensure that the country of </p><p>South Africa could strive as it came out of the end of the apartheid movement.</p><p>Robert Mugabe was constantly involved in political circles, especially pertaining to freeing blacks from the oppressive apartheid movement. Mugabe emerged from eleven years of imprisonment with a view of revolution against the Zapu, who were not so different from Mugabe’s own party, the Zanu, in their ideals (Meredith), and yet there was fighting and disagreement between the two that led to a revolution that Mugabe supported. Mugabe ended up winning the elections in what he coined </p><p>“Zimbabwe” and was therefore elected to the post of president of the nation.</p><p>In the beginning, Mugabe’s intentions were fairly well received and he held up to many of the issues that he promised not only to address, but to fix when he became president. Early on in the presidency, Mugabe left nearly everything in regards to the white population alone or enacted policies that actually benefitted them, and instead focused on building a strong relationship with his previous adversaries (Meredith). On his first day as president, Mugabe requested to be taken to the room in the police station where he had been tortured. Even after revisiting the scene of his torture, Mugabe vowed that the country would start off with a clean slate, which basically meant that Mugabe was promising not to harbor any ill-will toward anyone who had been one of his adversaries before his rise to power </p><p>(Meredith). Mugabe also promised white farmers that he would protect their land for ten years, which would allow them to continue farming and collecting funds from property that they may or may not have taken before he became president. It seemed in the beginning of Mugabe’s presidency that there were many more benefits to the prior ruling class, which was predominantly white. Growing confrontations with South Africa ended up turning Mugabe in the exact opposite direction and due to </p><p>Mugabe’s overwhelming and constantly growing suspicion that whites in South Africa would try to overthrow the presidency he had just secured. In 1981, just a year after Mugabe was nominated president, Mugabe’s policies and actions turned from one of collaboration and a hope of rebuilding the nation, to one of mistrust and an overwhelming need for power.</p><p>At this point, many questioned the abilities of Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe because as he adopted his radical nature, he also used violence and scare tactics in order to attempt to influence the people of Zimbabwe. One writer working for the London Times noted that “the protection all Zimbabwe citizens deserve from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment without due process disappears; liberty depends on the whim of one individual.” (Meredith) This hardly sounds like the same Mugabe that took office earlier, yet this Mugabe is now driven by not only his need of power but also his bitterness toward the white men who detained him for eleven years, translating into a dislike of an entire race. This then gave Mugabe and his “elite” a justification for their actions. Any time that the world spoke out about </p><p>Mugabe and his policies, he would blame the whites for having caused the disruption and state that it was just his job as president to move swiftly against the attack. </p><p>Mugabe’s actions and decisions from around 1981 until the present time are riddled with choices made and policies enacted to gain power and influence so as to build a one-party state. By having a one party state, Mugabe would be able to ensure that he had no dissenters to his policies, and he could do as he wished (Meredith). Mugabe gained more and more power, mainly due to the power that he gave himself by writing legislation that gave him over-reaching authority on many fronts and which gave him and his follower’s power in the parliament of Zimbabwe. In December of 1987, the parliament gave Mugabe the power to be “executive president, which combined the roles of head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the defense forces, with powers to dissolve parliament and declare martial law and the right to run for an unlimited number of terms of office” </p><p>(Meredith). This new amount of power was used for ill, and everything that Mugabe had promised </p><p>Zimbabweans when he was elected never came to fruition.</p><p>In a book written in 2001, Good to Great, the author, Jim Collins states that the importance of personal humility and strong will are what drive great leaders. A great leader is one who is able to not only have a strong will to enact the right change at the right time, but one that also has personal humility. While Mugabe certainly had a strong will, that will was only used to further his political agenda so that he may one day be the leader of a one-party state. Mugabe used his influence for all of the wrong reasons. Mugabe used threats and scare tactics in order to ensure that the people of </p><p>Zimbabwe would continue to vote him into office, amid rising support for the Zapu party. Even though </p><p>Zimbabwe held elections, under Mugabe, these elections were certainly not fair elections and there was overwhelming corruption that overshadowed the actual wants and needs of the people of Zimbabwe. </p><p>Personal humility is something else that Mugabe lacks. He does not have the ability to do the right thing for his country without taking credit for it. Mugabe thinks himself this amazing leader who is committed to the advancement of Zimbabwe, when actually he is concerned solely with the advancement of his agenda. This shows a complete lack of personal humility, and when coupled with a strong will that is self-serving, shows the complete lack of the framework that Collins states is necessary for a leader </p><p>(Collins). Nelson Mandela, like Mugabe, was imprisoned due to his violent and radical actions during the fight to end apartheid, and he was imprisoned for twenty seven years, from 1963 to 1990. When </p><p>Mandela was released, he was greatly supported in South Africa, and was able to “overthrow apartheid and create a nonracial democratic South Africa” (Stengel). Mandela came out of prison after twenty seven years and wanted to change and reform the country, but he also knew that it had to be a transitional period and not just blatant over-ruling action, like what had been happening in Zimbabwe for many years. Mandela’s transition to presidency in 1994 was just what the country had been longing for after so many years of apartheid, and Mandela chose to forgive those that had jailed him and instead moved on to bigger and better reforms that were built on taking South Africa into the future rather than constantly dwelling on the past. </p><p>One of the most important things that Mandela gave South Africa was the ability to continue holding fair elections, and unlike Mugabe, Mandela stepped down after one term in order to allow the next best person to step up and lead the country. This was important for the country because Mandela was able to pave the way for any other president (Stengel). He showed that even amid overwhelming support, that he, nor anyone else, deserved a lifetime appointment to the presidency, and in this way, he ensured that South Africa would continue strive for fair elections that were not controlled by someone who thought that they were the only thing that the country could ever need. Mandela, in this instance, encouraged dissent and encouraged discussion, debate, and interaction in order to govern the country effectively. By giving the people of South Africa a model of how a president should act and run the country, Mandela gave the people a comparison to use in order to strike down an oppressive dictator early, and gave them the ability to know what they wanted in a president.</p><p>Jim Collins also speaks of what is known as the Stockdale Paradox, which states that leaders are able to “retain the faith that they will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time, they are able to confront the most brutal facts of their current reality” (Collins). Mandela is one of the leaders in history that is able to apply this to his leadership style. As Richard Stengel states in his article on Mandela’s eight lessons of leadership, Mandela was able to “lead from the front” without </p><p>“leaving his base behind.” In this section in the article, Stengel interviewed Cyril Ramaphosa, who said of Mandela that in prison Mandela “was thinking in terms of not days and weeks but decades. He knew history was on his side, that the result was inevitable” and that “he always played for the long run” </p><p>(Stengel). This example shows that no matter how hopeless the situation, Mandela had an overriding faith that he would succeed, but that the time frame did not matter, what mattered was making the most of the time that he was in prison and not wasting time dreaming of the day when he would be vindicated, just as is stated in the Stockdale Paradox (Collins).</p><p>Even though Mandela and Mugabe both started as protesters of apartheid in South Africa and even though they were both jailed for a period of time, what they did when they became president is what differentiates them. Mugabe and Mandela both had the intentions to forgive their torturers, but after Mugabe was in a position of power, his focus shifted to doing whatever it took to keep him in office as long as possible (Meredith). Mandela, on the other hand, was able to forgive the people who tortured him, and was able to show the world that the end of apartheid did not mean that the blacks had to revert to the same racism that they fought against for so many years. In comparison, not only did</p><p>Mugabe not forgive the people who tortured him, but he made it his personal mission to blame every problem in Zimbabwe on the white population and actually applied the same racism to the whites that had been applied to the blacks prior to Mugabe’s appointment to the presidency (Meredith). </p><p>Another important distinction between the two leaders is the personal humility (Collins) and constraint that was exercised, or in the case of Mugabe, not exercised. Mandela made sure to place restrictions on his term in office in order to ensure that a precedent was set. He believed that it was important to not only speak of stepping down, but to also set the precedent that even though he was overwhelmingly popular and would have undoubtedly been elected to another term, that he practiced personal humility and was able to see himself as just another human being who had served his people. </p><p>Mandela did not act for his own interests, but instead for the interests of the country, and as such he provided the country with a model of how the country deserved to be governed (Collins). Mugabe started his presidency with the best intentions, but shortly after taking office, his policies were directed at keeping him in power as long as possible because not only did he love the power that his position as president gave him, but he also still felt animosity toward the Napu party and was determined to ensure that they would never take over the government (Meredith). This, as well as his use of other oppressive policies, solidified the “deep misgivings” that whites had “about the consequences of black rule” </p><p>(Meredith) which ultimately ended any hope of reconciliation between the black population and the white population in Zimbabwe and led to a mass movement to leave Zimbabwe and its oppressive leader.</p><p>Richard Stengel also wrote about Mandela’s ability to “lead from the back and let others believe they are in front” (Stengel). By allowing others to speak their minds, Mandela “formed a consensus” and was able to “subtly steer the decision in the direction he wanted without imposing it” (Stengel). </p><p>Mandela not only listened to but encouraged dissent because it created a forum where everyone felt that they were being heard, and also created an opportunity for Mandela “to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea” (Stengel). This shows Mandela in more of a self-less light in that he was willing to create positive change for the country and allow others to take the credit. </p><p>Mandela was also able to create an environment that supported succession planning for when he stepped down from the presidency. He was able to create a group of people that could think for themselves and that could understand the role of the government. Mugabe’s need for power also drove him to be very paranoid. Not only did he not ever consider training someone as his successor, but he also oppressed all opposition to his views. While Mandela used what some called “gentle nudging” in order to enact what he thought was important for the country, Mugabe would just enact whatever legislation he wanted, which was usually made to serve his need for power. Mugabe would threaten voters in order to attempt to ensure that he would win elections, but when that no longer worked, </p><p>Mugabe used corruption to his advantage and would have his supporters add extra ballots that voted for him so that he could remain in power (Meredith). This shows that Mugabe was never concerned with making anyone think that the government was run by fair elections and legislated from the parliament because he would simply change any law that stood in his way.</p><p>Possibly the biggest distinction between the two leadership styles of Mandela and Mugabe is what Stengel states as “quitting is leading too” (Stengel). Mandela knew “how to abandon a failed idea” and knew how and when to lead by quitting. Stengel states that “in the history of Africa, there have been only a handful of democratically elected leaders who willingly stood down from office” and that </p><p>“Mandela was determined to set a precedent for all who followed him” (Stengel). This is important because Mandela knew that the best thing for South Africa was to be the great leader who not only knew how to lead, but who also knew when to give up his power to another person. This is obviously something that Mugabe has never learned because he is still in office due to unfair elections that are riddled with corruption and threats against any who support the opposition. The biggest action that </p><p>Mandela took that would solidify the differences between him and Mugabe was that he knew a leader led “as much by what they chose not to do as what they did do” (Stengel). Mandela knew that it was not only what he chose to do, but also what he chose not to do, that would differentiate him as a leader.</p><p>Mandela of all people would have been invited to “be president for life” but he knew that he would be able to lead his country better by stepping down than by forcing his leadership on the country for many more years. Mugabe has never been able to lead his country because his actions were never for the benefit of the country, but were instead used to advance his desire for power and prestige. Mugabe has only ever acted in his best interest, as well as the best interests of his elite, and has yet to choose an action, or lack of action, that benefits the country of Zimbabwe (Meredith). This is where the stark differences between Mandela and Mugabe are most pronounced.</p><p>Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe are both politicians that both fought to end apartheid and fought to establish a better life for Africans after colonialism, but their leadership styles and attributes stand in stark contrast to each other, as do the results of their time as leaders. Where Mandela was strong willed and strove for a country that could forgive and move on from its past, Mugabe has been strong willed only in relation to ensuring his position of power is uncontested. Where Mandela practiced humility through his actions of letting others take credit for his own ideas and stepping down after only one term, Mugabe has believed himself the only one able to address and fix Zimbabwe’s problems, when in all actuality, he is the cause of Zimbabwe’s problems and current situation of economic ruin. Where Mandela came out of his imprisonment with the full commitment to forgiving those that put him there, Mugabe still holds a grudge and enforces policies that exercise this lack of forgiveness and espouse the racism that was once exercised against him. So, the biggest accomplishments of Mandela (his ability to lead a country from apartheid, his ability to forgive, his humility, and his ability to step down from his position of power) are the biggest failures in Mugabe (his lack of ability to lead his country, his inability to forgive, his lack of humility, and his lack of ability to step down from his position of power). These actions, or lack thereof, are the distinguishing factors between two presidents who experienced much the same treatment prior to their election, yet exercised their power and influence in completely opposite ways. Not only have the people of Africa noticed this stark contrast, but so has the rest of the world. Richard Stengel stated quite correctly how Mandela was seen and would continue to be seen by the world, even years after stepping down from his position of power;</p><p>“he would be the anti-Mugabe” (Stengel). Works Cited</p><p>Collins, Jim. Good to Great. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2001.</p><p>Hall, Anthony L. Zimbabweans Pray for Liberation From Their Liberator. 29 March 2005. 5 April 2010</p><p><http://www.theipinionsjournal.com/index.php/2005/03/zimbabweans-pray-for-liberation- from-their-liberator-robert-mugabe/>.</p><p>Mandela Condemns Mugabe. 26 June 2008. 7 April 2010</p><p><http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/26/world/fg-zimbabwe26>.</p><p>Meredith, Martin. Mugabe: Power, Plunder, and the Struggle for Zimbabwe. New York, New York: Public</p><p>Affairs, 2007.</p><p>Newsmaker - Neslon Mandela. 19 October 2005. 5 April 2010</p><p><http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/19/cnn25.mandela.tan/index.html>.</p><p>On Leadership Panelists: Zimbabwe Dictator Robert Mugabe Leads Because We All Follow. 31 January</p><p>2009. 5 April 2010 <http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/panelists/2009/01/following- mugabe.html>.</p><p>Stengel, Richard. Mandela: His 8 Lessons of Leadership. 9 July 2008. 5 April 2010</p><p><http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1821467,00.html>.</p><p>Ward, Graham. The Leadership Space: Robert Mugabe: The Dark Side of Leadership. 29 March 2008. 7</p><p>April 2010 <http://theleadershipspace.blogspot.com/2008/03/robert-mugabe-dark-side-of- leadership.html>.</p><p>Worthington, Peter. A Saint and a Despot. 22 March 2010. 5 April 2010</p><p><http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/peter_worthington/2010/03/19/13294436.htm l>.</p><p>Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe Regime Rejects Nelson Mandela Criticism. 26 June 2008. 7 April 2010</p><p><http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/2198518/Zim babwe-Robert-Mugabe-regime-rejects-Nelson-Mandela-criticism.html>.</p>