Gerontacracy in ECOWAS countries
The recent re-election of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, age 73, in Mali reminds me that ECOWAS has more than its share of elderly presidents in the world.
Six years ago Todd Moss and Stephanie Majerowicz of the Center for Global Development noted that Sub-Saharan African countries tend to have a larger gap between the president's age and the median age of its citizens, relative to other countries; 8 of the top 10 biggest gaps were in Africa. They speculated that large such gaps could lead to public anger, protests, and government turnover. They noted that that President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, at 85, was 66 years older than the median Senegalese, and seemed out of touch, and that Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was 59 years older than the median Egyptian at the time that public protests led to his overthrow. In the case of Zimbabwe, this speculation was prescient - the largest gap in the world was Robert Mugabe, 69 years older than the median Zimbabwean, and indeed public protests helped bring him down last year.
However, despite the inclusion of Benin with its maximum age of 70 for presidential candidates, the electoral defeat of Abdoulaye Wade in 2012, and the recent replacement of term-limited 79-year-old Elizabeth Sirleaf of Liberia with a 51-year-old youngster, ECOWAS continues to have some of the oldest presidents in the world relative to the age of their populations:
Six years ago Todd Moss and Stephanie Majerowicz of the Center for Global Development noted that Sub-Saharan African countries tend to have a larger gap between the president's age and the median age of its citizens, relative to other countries; 8 of the top 10 biggest gaps were in Africa. They speculated that large such gaps could lead to public anger, protests, and government turnover. They noted that that President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, at 85, was 66 years older than the median Senegalese, and seemed out of touch, and that Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was 59 years older than the median Egyptian at the time that public protests led to his overthrow. In the case of Zimbabwe, this speculation was prescient - the largest gap in the world was Robert Mugabe, 69 years older than the median Zimbabwean, and indeed public protests helped bring him down last year.
However, despite the inclusion of Benin with its maximum age of 70 for presidential candidates, the electoral defeat of Abdoulaye Wade in 2012, and the recent replacement of term-limited 79-year-old Elizabeth Sirleaf of Liberia with a 51-year-old youngster, ECOWAS continues to have some of the oldest presidents in the world relative to the age of their populations:
- Liberia: George Weah, age 51
- Togo: Faure Gnassingbé , age 52
- Gambia: Adama Barrow, age 53
- Sierra Leone: Julius Maada Bio, age 54
- Senegal: Macky Sall, age 56
- Benin: Patrice Talon, age 60
- Guinea-Bissau: José Mário Vaz, age 60
- Burkina Faso: Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, age 61
- Cape Verde: Jorge Carlos de Almeida Fonseca, age 67
- Niger: Mahamadou Issoufou, age 67
- Mali: Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, age 73 (minus median age 16 = 57 year gap)
- Ghana: Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, age 74 (minus median age 20 = 54 year gap)
- Nigeria: Muhammadu Buhari, age 75 (minus median age 18 = 57 year gap)
- Cote d'Ivoire: Alassane Dramane Ouattara, age 76 (minus median age 18 = 58 year gap)
- Guinea: Alpha Condé, age 80 (minus median age 19 = 61 year gap)
Comments
Post a Comment