Former President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, wins Mo Ibrahim’s $5 million prize for deciding to step down after two terms as leader of his country.

Ibrahim wants us to get the incentives right, providing African leaders with more legal income from the prize than from looting their country’s resources for additional terms. This is the largest individual award in the world, comprising US$5 million over 10 years and US$200,000 annually for life thereafter.

It’s a terrific idea, but does it get all the incentives right? Take a perfect candidate, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, who turned a sure win down by running for a third term. What did $5 million do for Chissano that it didn’t do for Museveni?

For starters, Museveni is probably concerned with more than just Museveni. After 10 years as an elected leader, and ten as an (unelected) revolutionary victor, he has a lot of friends who would not fare very well should the opposition come into power. Deals have been cut, patronage has been patroned. His own brother holds a suspiciously high number of road contracts in the country. Museveni could run away with his money, but he would leave an awful lot of people vulnerable. Look at what happened to Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya after leaving power–while the investigations stayed well away from him, many former cronies came under a microscope.

What’s more, we assume that Museveni is in it for the money. Museveni has a vision for his country, and has been micromanaging the place for two decades to get it there. He is unlikely to hand off power when the mantle is most likely to fall to an opposition candidate (and personal nemesis). If we are lucky enough to have an African leader with principles, is (s)he likely to sacrifice them for cash when the handover of power will work against all their accomplishments?

So, while I applaud Ibrahim’s efforts (and hope that it tips more than one leader towards stepping down when his or her time comes) I have to admit that my guess is that it will carry little weight in most leaders’ decisions–those who were already going to step down will step down, and those that were going to stay will still try to stay.

But I hope to be proven wrong.

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UPDATE:

Chissano does not even seem to have been aware of his financial incentives, according to the BBC reporter who broke the news to Chissano!