Age and leadership: Africa versus ‘the West’
Does age influence leadership skills and ability? Just how old must you be to lead effectively? Without any more questions, consider the following stats which recently circulated through email and in the ‘blogosphere’
The ageing Mugabe
Abdoulaye Wade (Senegal): age 83
Hosni Mubarak (Egypt): age 82
Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe): age 86
Hifikepunye Pohamba (Namibia): age 74
Rupiah Banda (Zambia): age 73
Mwai Kibaki (Kenya): age 71
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia): age 75
Colonel Gaddafi (Libya): age 68
Jacob Zuma (South Africa): age 68
Bingu Wa Mtalika (Malawi): age 76
Paul Biya Mbinvondo (Cameroon): age 77
This brings the African leaders’ average age to 75.6 years, easily rounded up to 76 years.
In the ‘First World’, the ages of presidents are as follows:
The youthful Obama
Barack Obama (USA): age 48
David Cameron (UK): age 43
Dimitri Medvedev (Russia): age 45
Stephen Harper (Canada): age 51
Julia Gillard (Australia): age 49
Nicolas Sarkozy (France): age 55
Luis Zapatero (Spain): age 49
Jose Socrates (Portugal): age 53
Angela Merkel (Germany): age 56
Herman van Rompuy (Belgium): age 62
The average age of these leaders is 51.1, left at 51 years
If we take away 51 from 76, the difference is 25 years. Now, any wonder why Africans live about 25 years behind the superpowers? Stop wondering and start thinking about how much the age of the leader influences their leadership skills.
Victorine Ntambo
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Sean Jacobs
I am not sure what to take away from this: were talking about different kinds of political systems (with rules about term limits or the extent of pressure from civil society groups), different ideas about the links between age and experience, various types of regimes (including life presidents and dictators for the African countries cited), and, finally, it is not like having younger leaders have led to better policies (whether social, economic or political) in the First World.
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Wendy Willems
Thanks Sean – I agree with your comments. Perhaps this comparison tells us more about normative ideas on good leadership in Africa and the role of age in this regard. Mario Aguilar’s edited book “The politics of age and gerontocracy in Africa” could perhaps offer some more pointers in this regard. Linking age to Africa’s performance is highly problematic and also attributes too much agency to presidents who are after all part of broader political systems. A change in presidency rarely changes a country’s performance radically, whether in Africa or elsewhere. But it’s an interesting comparison nevertheless so thanks Victorine for sharing.
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Amílcar Tavares
Cape Verde is doing fine with a 50 years-old Prime-Minister. He was elected with 40 years-old and his predecessor were elected with 40 years-old too.
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Victorine
Interesting figures there Amilcar and Bravo to the Cape Verde people for guarding the ages of their leaders. Thank you Sean and Wendy for your insights. I would not want us to argue about age and leadership. Lets be practical in answering this question; Is the younger population more active than the aging population? The same question applies to reasoning. How can a country be active when the leader is aged?
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