Mindy Belz
Mindy Belz is the editor of WORLD and has covered war in Bosnia, Sudan and Iraq as well as serving as a writer for the magazine for over 20 years.

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A weight of hopelessness

Street-level discontent in 2012 may grow along with unchecked authoritarianism in Africa | by Mindy Belz

KAMPALA, Uganda—The spectacle of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak wheeled into a Cairo courtroom, prostrate and strapped to an oxygen tube, should be a warning sign to other heads of state who get used to a lifetime of being the boss.

Sadly, it isn't. Africa is plagued with "elected" heads of state who began as the people's advocates, usually by overthrowing some other dictator, but somewhere along the line decided that the statehouse mansion is too nice a place to give up. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is one of the latest—a longtime U.S. ally who has been in power since 1986. Like others in the 73-year-old's position, six years ago Museveni wheedled members of parliament into eliminating presidential term limits from Uganda's constitution.

As we saw in places like Egypt and Tunisia, with no legal requirement to transfer power plus the steady accumulation of cronies who control the bureaucracy and the military, "election" victories come easily while corruption and poverty grow. Resentment, meanwhile, may ultimately empower the most militant extremists. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is consolidating parliamentary victories at all levels.

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