‘The President is dead, long live the acting President!’

The uncertainty of Nigeria’s leadership is over: President Umaru Yar’Adua died yesterday. Elected in 2007 Yar’Adua was, in what observers claim to have been a flawed and rigged election, elevated to the top post in Nigeria. Already at the time when he assumed office his health was reported to be fragile as he was suffering from heart and kidney problems.

Fragile health is already a handicap for the leader of any country, but especially in a state that is suffering from a festering civil conflict in the oil-rich Niger delta, ethnic tensions between the largely Christian south and the Muslim north as well as an incomplete process of establishing a transparent, effective and accountable government. Yar’Adua, a softly spoken professor of chemistry who had run on a platform of anti-corruption and political reforms, aimed at narrowing the gap between the ‘have’s’ and the ‘have-not’s’ . The 2007 elections, despite the criticism they received, marked the first peaceful transfer of power from one civilian president to another. But Yar’Adua stood for more than this: as the first university educated president of the country, he represented for many Nigerians a symbol for replacing the closely knit public and private network of personal relationships with a more open and just system that would help the growing number of young people to find work based on their skills, rather than their background.

Besides initiating reforms in the financial and regional political sector, Yar’Adua was able to offer an amnesty to the rebels in the Niger delta before falling sick in November last year. His condition turned out to be so critical that he had to leave the country to receive treatment in Saudi-Arabia. Due to what is rumored to be pressure from his family and close supporters, he did not resign or appoint an acting head of state and thus caused what many observers called a ‘power vacuum’. The peace process of the Niger delta got stuck in limbo, ethnic tensions in the borderland between the Christian and Muslim areas flared up occasionally and domestic reforms stalled, especially in the infrastructure and petrol sector but also in education and electoral law.

More than that: during the first period of the former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria had established itself as one of the countries with the most active foreign policy in Africa. Nigerian peacekeepers were found in Liberia and Sierra Leone; in Togo the pressure coming from Lagos was decisive in weakening the rebels and generally Nigeria’s foreign policy provided stability in a turbulent region. The promise of this stability was also to support the exploitation of the fossil fuel sector of Nigeria itself: not only were the rebels in Niger delta threatening foreign investments necessary for the oil to flow, but also Nigeria lacks its own refineries and has, as a major oil exporter, imported petrol that then disappears in the dark channels of a corrupt network, leaving most Nigerians without reliable access to energy. The absence of a leader that can offer stability and leadership has largely blocked improvements in this sector.

Nigeria’s leadership crisis has reduced its position in Africa and the rest of the world, and has increased the difficulties for the acting president, Goodluck Jonathan. In February 2010, when the Nigerian parliament finally decided to bury its hope for a word from Yar’Adua and declare Jonathan acting president, he was facing an uphill struggle: as a Christian he was endangering the careful balance that rules the presidential office – based on the principle of alternating the office by a Christian and Muslim occupant. Jonathan’s next step will be to announce a Muslim vice-president, hoping that this step will calm the religious tensions that divide the country.

The question now is not only whether Jonathan can start where Yar’Adua had stopped, but also whether he will be able to reenergize the reputation and influence of Nigeria abroad, stabilize the domestic sector in order to attract foreign investment and push ahead with the fight against corruption. The other major obstacle he is facing is related to the office of the president in Africa’s most populous nation. The prolonged absence of a strong man at the helm of the country for the first time since independence has shown many Nigerians that the country can function without a president – especially in regards to use of personal networks and favoritism. This is seen by many as a good sign, but a bad one for Jonathan.

It is also important to bear in mind that he only has only one year to go before the next elections. His vice-president will have the highest chance to become the next president, and so Jonathan’s decision for whom he will choose for the post will contain the deliberation between an influential politician from the north and the risk that this will further weaken his presidency. While he was able to consolidate some of his powers by appointing his own cabinet without major obstacles, the remaining time of Jonathan’s tenure may become infamous of what in the US would be known as a ‘lame duck’ president. It is too early to call, but Nigeria may well find itself in a prolonged political deadlock until the next elections.

Nigeria has a new president, but in political terms he will be short-lived. 

Christian Kramer is Programme Assistant of the LSE IDEAS Africa International Affairs Programme.

Iran: Where The Power Lies

By Kevork Oskanian

Since the days of the Islamic Revolution, and certainly since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s clerical elite has included a variety of factions – broadly classified as reformist, pragmatist, conservative and radical. For a long time, many in the West pinned their hopes for change on a shift in the balance of power in favour of the first two – the reformists and pragmatists. During the presidency of Mohammed Khatami, there was a palpable sense that a shift in emphasis from the theocratic towards the democratic aspects of the institutional structures of the Islamic Republic would be possible. However, any such hopes were soon dashed by the dominance of conservatives and radicals within the regime’s theocratic arm.

The Supreme Leader Khamenei – himself considered a conservative – has over the past few years gradually moved from acting as a supreme arbiter over the different factions, towards openly wielding partisan political power himself, by overtly supporting Ahmadinejad in the aftermath of the 2009 election. With the increasingly brutal suppression of the Green Movement – including arrests of establishment figures and pressures on Rafsanjani, a pragmatic regime insider previously deemed ‘untouchable’ – it seems the limited pluralism that has marked Iran in the past few decades will become even more constrained. This could finally remove any pretence of democratic rule and dramatically reduce any realistic prospect for peaceful – or violent - change. In effect, the Supreme Leader has moved from being a power-broker to being a power-holder. With much of his legitimacy gone (at least in large parts of the urban middle class), he will have to rely much more on the raw power of cooptation and repression to realise his prime objective: the maintenance of the Islamic Republic and, of course, his own position within it.

During the past year, two elements have kept alive the hopes of those who are aiming for an overhaul of the country’s political system. Firstly, there is the loss of legitimacy of the clergy – including Khamenei – among large parts of the urban, middle-class population. Its most blatant expression was, perhaps, the willingness of protestors to use slogans against the Supreme Leader similar to those used against the Shah in the run-up to the 1979 revolution. Secondly, the chairmanship of the pragmatic Rafsanjani on two crucial clerical bodies: the body overseeing the Supreme Leader’s performance – the Assembly of Experts (with a theoretical constitutional authority to remove Khamenei), and the Expediency Council (an advisory body to the Supreme Leader). The hope here was, of course, that Rafsanjani could become the focus for change within the crucial theocratic arm of Khomeini’s republic. Yet, in both cases, such hopes have been misplaced. Yes, the legitimacy of Iran’s political system, which was up to now partially shored up by a democratic façade, seems to be withering away fast. However, rather than heralding the imminent collapse or fundamental transformation of the regime, this means stability will be increasingly based on the Supreme Leader’s control of a modern-day Praetorian Guard – the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC or Pasdaran), and Iran’s de-facto social-security network – the Islamic Foundations or Bonyads.

The loss of legitimacy of the Supreme Leader is partially offset by his (and Ahmadinejad’s) continued authority in the more conservative countryside, and among the urban poor. But more importantly, Khamenei’s authority over the IRGC remains largely unaffected; he has used his powers of appointment and promotion within the Pasdaran to staff its officers’ corps with ‘ideologically reliable’ elements. And the commanders of the IGRC have duly made it clear that they would be prepared to use force to uphold the institutional integrity of the Islamic Republic. As the IRGC also controls strategically important sections of the Iranian economy, appointments within it have also given the Supreme Leader an opportunity for economic cooptation and elite patronage. Khamenei’s economic cooptative power is furthermore enhanced through his control of the all-important Islamic Foundations – the Bonyads – that control up to 20% of the Iranian economy and that have in recent years supplanted the state as the primary purveyors of social security (and social mobility) for the Iranian poor, through a network of clientelism and corruption.

Control over the IRGC and the Bonyads has therefore given Khamenei the crucial sticks and carrots with which to control both the elite and wider society in the absence of more ‘spontaneous’ forms of authority and legitimacy. The recent ‘suspension’ of two major, previously legal opposition groups – the Mujahedin of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Iran Participation Front – indicates the regime is indeed moving towards more blatant repression of reformist factions now deemed a threat to national security. Various pressures exerted on Rafsanjani, including the arrest of family members, seem designed to push and/or lure the (wealthy and allegedly corrupt) cleric back into the fold. Further economic sanctions by the outside world will certainly serve to enhance this consolidation of power among the hardliners. In any case, it seems Khamenei has both the ability and the willingness to employ the levers of power at his disposal in order to safeguard the system, and his position within it; the protestors’ menacing chants will merely have served as a reminder of the Shah’s fateful indecisiveness in 1978-79.

Kevork Oskanian is a PhD Candidate at the LSE Department of International Relations.

Shifting Sands is the blog of the Middle East International Affairs Programme at LSE IDEAS, analysing current events in the Middle East and contributing to the ongoing deliberations over policy prescriptions.

Amber Holewinski, Editor

If 9-11 had Happened in the UK, would Bush have backed Blair?

A really interesting question that has a bearing on the character of the 'special relationship': had '9-11' (which I guess would have been dubbed '11-9' by us or else required elaborate translation for American audiences) happened on British soil and involving just as many casualties, how would the United States have reacted to it? I am not talking about the immediate outpouring of shock and sympathy but what followed - a declaration by the US of a 'global war on terror', the war in Afghanistan and, later, and more controversially, war on Iraq. Would President George W. Bush have backed to the hilt whatever course of action Prime Minister Tony Blair decided upon?

That question was put to me by a 6th form student at a meeting I addressed recently. What a great question to ask - it blew me away! It had never occurred to me to ask it; nor had I ever heard it asked by any academic expert or journalist, let alone a politician. So much for the political apathy of British youth - they are interested in the world around them and do ask questions when given a chance. I just wish that that student's question - her name is Caitlin - had been put to the three party leaders during the second election debate, a 'debate' which failed to address any issues pertaining to Anglo-American relations.

Back to that great question, which has me scratching my head. My immediate response was that the US would NOT have backed Britain to the same extent that Britain backed the United States. Why? Because an attack on Britain, a middle-ranking power, would have been seen as a 'regional' question and not a global one (by the US). Attack America and you attack the world's 'regional' power - the lone superpower, the planet's policeman, and its financial centre. That 'demands' a massive retaliatory response. Attack Britain, and the world order gets a bloody nose but the world order does not go into a tailspin. And the lone superpower would probably play a restraining role so as not to exacerbate the situation.

That was my immediate response. But I did tell Caitlin that I would probably have a better answer a few hours later. But all I could do was think up further arguments to back my initial response. When had Britain been militarily engaged before and what had been the US response? Well, there was the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands back in 1982: President Ronald Reagan had had to choose between two US allies and decided to back Britain with intelligence and logistical support but did not commit military support (but was not asked to either). That did not change my initial response to the Big Question.

Then there was the British-French-Israeli attack on Egypt - the Suez 'incident'/crisis - in 1956, when the US forced the aggressors to back down. That also suggested that US support after a British '9-11' would not be automatic. (But id did remind me that the US is happy to take its opportunities to increase its own influence in world affairs when they present themselves).

And then there was WWII - the US did not enter until the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 - over two years after was was declared. That also backed up my initial response (the US sold arms and equipment to the UK, provided aid too, but also moved swiftly into British overseas markets across the world, especially in Latin America: again, 'natural' opportunism of the type most states would engage in).

But a doubt kept nagging away centring on one thought: that the first response of Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice, to the 9-11 attacks was to ask how the US could use the event to assert American power? And that Tony Blair's liberal interventionism - displayed in the Bosnia/Kosovo conflicts, Sierra Leone, support of greater US interventions and attacks on Iraq and the Sudan in the 1990s- would have been highly persuasive in Washington, DC, given the strength of voices such as Vice President Dick Cheney's, among others, not to mention the neo-cons so close to Bush. The 9-11 attacks gave a clarity of vision to US policymakers as well as their Democratic political opponents because they furnished the world's superpower with a clear and present danger, a plausible enemy, a 'global' threat, with which to replace the Soviet 'threat'.

Would US policymakers have permitted such a political opportunity to pass? Or would they have reacted in the way they actually did after 9-11? There is still the matter that robust US responses to an attack on British soil would need 'selling' to the American public. And also that, as Britain was the victim, it would have to be seen to be calling the shots, as it were, as to what to do and how to go about it. But I cannot imagine that Blair, viewing the US as a 'force for good in the world', would not have urged America to flex its muscles, declare Anglo-America's moral superiority in a world of failing states and terrorist safe havens, and commit to a generations-long war on terror. And Blair's religiosity - there is 'good' and 'evil' in the world and the latter must be vanquished - would have played well in the White House.

Then I got to thinking about the Truman doctrine (1947) when the US president used Britain's inability to intervene in Greece to counter the Soviet 'threat' to declare that America was ready to support and defend 'free peoples' everywhere against 'armed minorities' and communist aggression.

It could well be, then, that had 9-11 been 11-9, the United States would have 'backed' Britain but with a view to re-legitimising and reasserting US global dominance. Maybe history would have turned out pretty much as it did after 9-11 but taking a slightly more circuitous route?

But I am still scratching my head. What a great question!

Inderjeet Parmar is Professor of Government at the University of Manchester and Vice Chair of the British International Studies Association.  This post first appeared at his excellent US Blog