I have been tracking the developments of Zimbabwe and the vying for position of its leaders. Robert Mugabe has declared himself president despite election results indicating otherwise and that Tsvangirai to have won. Since last spring’s election the country, with some help of the South African Development Community’s appointed mediator – Mbeki, to navigate them through the implementation of a coalition goverment rule.
Well, to say the least, progress is nill. Leadership is failing in its responsibilities.
Another resprenstation of Mugabe not wanting input or comments from the outside is his request of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former US President Jimmy Carter and Dr Graca Machel, wife of Nelson Mandela to postpone their pending trip to his country. They are scheduled to arrrive on Friday to assess the humanitarian situation. Mugabe expressed his concerns of it appearing to be a “partisan mission”.
But what and who is this “Global Elders”? www.theelders.org/
After reading this post and the previous one, I keep thinking about power and leadership.
What do we want to see reflected in the use of power?: restraint; accountability; transparency; check/balance.;etc.
What’s source of power?: moral authority (a moral sense); legal authority (capturing the tools of the state — military, branches of gov’t).
Mugabe is morally bankrupt; Mandela is the polar opposite. Mandela uses state power for reconciliation – to increase access and participation. Mugabe uses state power to separate, isolate, and punish. The Mugabe strategy works against what we’ve called emergence and innovation (i.e., a change in adaptive capacity).