In the governmental antiquity of the world, politicians are the core pronouncement of a country. The people of a nation never decide how they want to live or to be governed, it is their political elites who discourse the prompt action, just to produce the final choices of country’s political strategy, economic viability and social coherence. Political figures are the cognitive process of any political believe or judgement, with the intention of studying, identifying and finally choosing the value and the preferences of the political will of a nation state. These elites should lead and influence the public policy of their country, which is not what is good for their interest but to the nation state. Politicians should also design a high level plan to achieve strategic goals under the conditions of uncertainty.
To set political goals of a nation, intellectual, independent thinking is the first prominent role of country’s long term economic security, political stability and social development. Therefore, in my previous articles, I demonstrated the political success of Somaliland, the legality of statehood qualification, peace and the democratic state building and the reason why the world still pushing them to join the inferno domicile. In this article I would like to illustrate the political mechanisms of a nation state, and the role of incumbent political figures (politicians of the government, the political parties and the recognised independent elites). I will also elucidate the strategic thinking by exploring the most possible political endurance of our people and the strategic foresight of long term premeditated hazard avoidance.
The Role of the Politicians
The reason I put these concepts into consideration is that leaders are the innovators and visionaries of every nation state. Before, I make my point clear, I would like to mention that there are four political leaders in the world according to the great political scientist Baber: – The main characteristics of successful leaders are as follows:
- Active – Positive; firstly, these political leaders are vigorous in terms of the energy they put into their jobs. This refers the commitment of the politicians and how they want to improve the political economy and national security of their countries. The word positive means leaders’ frame of mind and outlook of the political bureau, it is about the responsibility and knowing the job itself as well as the surrounded expectations of their people and the demand of their nations. To be young and energetic is important, despite the fact that experience, knowledge and political skill are the main criteria of all active-positive leaders of the world. President Clinton and the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi are the fairer examples of this political terminology of Active-Positive. President Clinton superintended the largest substantial economic growth during his tenure, before he came into office the income per capita of the United States was $37, 9800 to about $45,300 when he left office in 2001, he also reduced the national debt more than 10%. On the other hand, Prime Minister Meles reshaped the political culture of his country by transporting democratisation and the peace process. He also improved the long term Ethiopian economic down-ward trend, with an average GDP growth of 2.5% and per capita GDP down-fall -0.4% before his tenure. It is still in the hearts and minds of his people about the economic overlapping progression year by year with the GDP growth of 11.9% before their bereavement in 2012, today it is 10.6%.
- Active – Negative; these political leaders are those who eager to do something better for their country as the term active indicates. But unfortunately, they are at the same time negative, which denotes a lack of political responsibility, experience, knowledge and political skill, as they mostly go pear-shaped to create economic development and social security. Examples are President Omar Hassan Al- Bashir of Sudan and President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt. We all aware that the above Presidents are active and enthusiasm to do their jobs, but the political strategy and economic viability mechanism are all misplaced, they are irresponsible by harassing and killing their own citizens, the taxpayers of the state.
- Passive-Positive; these political leaders are those who cannot do their jobs, for the reason that of how they feel about the political office, because of an old age or lack of political will. But fortunately, their countries are doing fine politically and economically. As the surrounded environment is active. This refers, that there are strong elites behind the curtain, who are indirectly running the regime doctrinally. The first example of these Presidents is the former Zayid bin Zultan Al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, as the people of that country loved him very much, because the country was doing great economically. The reason was not him, because he was too old at the time, but the core selective political elites of his family who were behind the curtain, they managed and put the country into the right track. Dear my beloved readers, I will leave the other example for you to fill the gap for your own choices, please do not hesitate to fill the gap, as there are plenty of Passive-Positive Presidents and Prime Ministers for some parts of the world.
- Passive-Negative; the last and the fourth political leaders are those who are good for nothing. They are passive, which is lack of energy of innovation and political will, and at the same time they are negative, which is politically irresponsible and lack of political strategy. The best examples are the safeguarded President Hassan Sheikh of Mogadishu, the Acting President of Catherine Samba-Panza of the Central African Republic and President Salva Kiir Mayardit of South Sudan. There are also many other political leaders who are very close to fell into these criteria, and this happens when people of a country miss to choose from their leaders either by ignorance or other unnecessary low politics. The above leaders are symbols of failure as their countries are politically miscarried states and broken countries.
Leadership Quality
According to the great philosopher of Aristotle ‘’men are marked out from the moment of birth to rule or be ruled’’. This ‘’rule or be ruled’’ refers the individual quality of leadership. In other words, Heywood stated that leadership can only be understood either as a pattern of behaviour or as a personal quality. The core meaning of his ideology is that leadership is the influence exerted by an individual or group over a larger body to organise, or direct its efforts towards the achievement of desired goals. But when it comes to the personal attribute or quality, leadership refers to the character traits that enable the leader to exert influence over others. Therefore, the internationally agreed characteristics of political leadership are as follows:
- Honest; the first pillar of decent leaders is honest, responsible politicians are ethically truthful. People of a nation are the reflection of their politicians, if the politicians, whether they are the governing or the opposition political figures responsibly behave honest, people will follow suit.
- Ability to Select; before doing or deciding anything else effective political leaders select the right people to the right positions. The secret of the successful Presidents are those who choose intelligent, well educated, experienced and visionary team, just to facilitate the political, economic and social improvement of the country. Poor politicians always afraid to select an effective team to help the country stand to its feet.
- Confidence; political leaders should not be indecisive or uncertain for the important political and socioeconomic decisions of their country. But they should also always consult their top elites of government members, opposition leaders and other political stakeholders such as business people, cream academics and other professional influential national citizens.
- Organisational Necessity; bureaucracy is the organisational necessity that arises from the need of consistency. Effective governments of the world rely on bureaucracy as every nation requires specialisation, it creates hierarchy of the public institutions, the chain of command, accountability and transparency of power and rightfulness. It is the main political body of every successful government. Political philosophers called this the Legal-Rational Authority, it dictates the written rules and regulations of the governing system. Nations invest political leadership with a strong bureaucratic framework to ensure power is vested in a political office rather than individual office holder. This means that power and resource are to be dispersed throughout government institutions not the President’s or Prime Ministers Offices.
- A political Skill; the final theory of leadership is the political skill, which is the inevitable feature of democratic politics in an age of mass communication. Modern political figures do not need power and money, they need to succeed in achieving their personal vision, which is to prosper the nation state by building social fabrics, political certainty and economic viability.
In conclusion, the chief intention of this article is not merely about leadership or the rightful of political figures of a country, it is far more beyond that, it is about political and socioeconomic survival of our country Somaliland. Political survivability is important to be cited by every social scientist and political researchers, who sincerely want their country to achieve better. It is about the geographical location of Somaliland, it is about its people and the surrounded geopolitics of our nation state.
There are always bigger questions of how can we survive in the Horn of Africa, which is in an absolute inferno, not only politically but also socially? These require a gigantic political research and sociological in-depth analysis. That is why I chose this topic of political leadership, because it is our first political, social and economic priority. We must predict the future, as it is about the question of survival now. Unfortunately, what I hear from the people of Somaliland, which is tribal unnecessary dogma and my socio-political research on the global political issue is contradicting. Yemen is going to be a broken country sooner or later, is there any political plan for us to tackle next door challenges? The dynamics of global and regional politics are active, wait and see politics cannot work for long, it is time to set the National Interest of Somaliland.
Mohamed Hagi Mohamoud. Department of Politics and International Studies. The University of Warwick. Email:m.hagi-mohamoud@warwick.ac.uk, mohamedomar1@hotmail.com.
