As leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has survived longer than Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China. If it's coming to an end -- which seems likely given his apparent inability to emerge from house arrest after the military took charge -- it's worth reflecting on the mistakes he made to end such a remarkable run.
Daniel Treisman, a UCLA political scientist, argued recently that most dictators fall for reasons proving they are all too human: hubris, needless risk, liberalisation impulses that lead to a slippery slope, picking the wrong successor, counterproductive violence. Mr Mugabe, 93, is no exception; he groomed the wrong person to succeed him and relied too much on his military. When he tried to change his pick, the generals decided they'd had enough.
Almost throughout Mr Mugabe's 37-year rule, Emmerson Mnangagwa -- like Mr Mugabe, a veteran of the war for Zimbabwe's independence from the UK -- was the dictator's closest ally and aide. The country's first security minister, he ran the special units that suppressed tribal resistance to the rule of Mr Mugabe's party. These units forced villagers to dance on the freshly filled graves of their relatives, chanting pro-Mugabe slogans, Heidi Holland wrote in Dinner with Mugabe, an account of his transformation from a national liberation icon to an autocrat.
Later on, in the late 1990s, when Zimbabwe intervened on the government's side in the Second Congo War, Mr Mnangagwa built strong ties with the military, helping it gain mining concessions in exchange for propping up President Laurent-Desire Kabila.
Mr Mnangagwa's political ambitions grew, and in 2005, Mr Mugabe slapped him down, taking away his senior post in the ruling Zanu-PF party following a play for the vice president's post. But he survived the demotion and ended up rising to the vice presidency anyway in 2014. It was clear that, despite his lack of political prowess -- he's lost elections twice in his home constituency -- Mr Mugabe saw him as a potential successor.
As Mr Mnangagwa demonstrated his staying power, built ties and accumulated favors in various parts of the Zimbabwean establishment, Mr Mugabe was growing more dependent on the military. Charles Mangongera, a Zimbabwean researcher, wrote in a 2014 paper:
As the president's authoritarian grip on the state has been gradually slipping in the face of growing opposition, the military has grown more and more involved in politics. Military elites have gained institutional vetoes and blocked the country's transition to democracy through the militarisation of key state institutions and the use of state-sanctioned violence against Mr Mugabe's challengers. In return, those military elites have been rewarded with lucrative government contracts, access to prime land, mining concessions, and other perquisites from the predatory state presided over by the Mugabe regime.
The Zimbabwe Defence Forces are not the kind of military that, at critical moments, steps in to guarantee normality. The ZDF are inextricably linked with Zanu-PF, but not necessarily with Mr Mugabe. As the ageing dictator became more and more frail, often falling asleep in public, Constantino Chiwenga, the ZDF commander, became known as a Mnangagwa ally.
So, when Mr Mugabe fired Mr Mnangagwa earlier this month, accusing him of disloyalty, and when it became clear the dictator would like his wife Grace to serve as vice president and take over from him, Gen Chiwenga made his move, promising to stop "those bent on hijacking the revolution". The military takeover in Harare took place the following day, on Tuesday.
There's little to celebrate about it. Grace Mugabe, with her violent temper and love of luxury, probably wouldn't be a great president. Mr Mnangagwa, 75, is hardly an improvement. Observers have described him as a cruel, spiteful man. "The opposition candidate who defeated him in Kwe Kwe Central after a bitter campaign in 2000 narrowly escaped death when Zanu-PF youths who had abducted him and doused him with petrol were unable to light a match," Holland wrote.
Zimbabwe, which has gone through traumatising violence and economic upheaval under Mr Mugabe, doesn't have much to expect from the military intervention. This kind of change, born of palace intrigue rather than popular resistance, means things stay the same or get worse for them. The new dictator will seek to make sure he's more coup-proof than his predecessor, and that may mean more violent suppression.
For autocrats elsewhere, however, what happened in Zimbabwe can be a useful lesson. A longtime associate with succession ambitions cannot wait forever for a dictator to die. If he's allowed to build up power, and especially befriend the most powerful generals, a dictator's days in power are numbered.
Mr Mugabe won't be joining the ranks of these undefeated dictators because he's been negligent. It's only human, especially after almost four decades in power. ©2017 Bloomberg View
Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.
