The impact of politics on economics

Responding to an invitation, President Barack Obama has contributed an article in The Economist dated October 8 to 14 2016 titled The Way Ahead.
Two statements he has made have partly inspired this article. First, he says economies are more successful when we close the gap between the rich and poor and growth is broadly based. Second, he says unfortunately, good economics can be overridden by bad politics.
More than half a century has gone since Africa cast off the yoke of colonialism. During that period, Far East Asian countries have managed to grow more than 20 or 30 times the level they had started with. Some countries such as South Korea and Singapore boast of having joined the first world group of the most developed countries. Has Africa’s lucklustre performance been due to bad politics or bad economics.
Economists have been debating for years whether development moves faster under democracy or under dictatorship. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan were ruled by one-party dictatorship during the time they experienced highest levels of development. Their leaders Rhee and Park of South Korea, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Chiang Kai-Shek of Taiwan were authoritarian, but they were committed to developing their countries to survive external threats.
South Korea had to develop fast by the way of self-defence against communist north. Singapore having been expelled from the Federation of Malaysia had to develop fast enough before its neighbours could crippled it economically. In all these countries, the two-party system beloved of western democracies did not exist.
Japan or Far East economies were not governed by dictatorship. True for most of the time following World War II, Japan was managed by one political party, the Liberal Party, but opposition parties existed. None of its prime ministers stayed in office long enough to entrench dictatorship.
The first 30 years of their independence, African countries adopted the one-party system. Some of their presidents were highly authoritarian while others were mildly so. Their economic performance was not impressive by world standards and Africa remains the poorest continent in the world. Was this due to bad politics?
Some African presidents did not put a correct balance between their own need for personal economic security and the interests of their countries. Men such as Sani Abacha of Nigeria and Mobutu Sese-Seko of Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), were reported to have taken billions of dollars out of their countries and stashed them in foreign banks. They did this in case they lost power due to coup d’etats.
Dr Kamuzu Banda in Malawi, Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia and Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, presided over one-party system for as long a period as the presidents of Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. Why did they not utilise their monopoly of power to achieve sustainable development? Possibly their economic policies were faulty and they did not surround themselves with competent technocrats.
Two British colonies in Africa, the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Uganda, were very prosperous at the time they attained independence. Their economies declined because of perpetual coup d’etats, resulting in execution or exiles of some of their most useful people.
Uganda is a good example of how the politics of inclusiveness can transform a country. Major tribes like Buganda, Bunyoru, Achole and so on had been putting up leaders who abysmally failed to stabilise the politics and economics of the country.
For 30 years, Uganda has known the sort of economic progress and political stability she had not known under the previous leaders from the big tribes.
The same is true of Nigeria. During the first three decades, Nigerian politics was dominated by the Muslim north whose main tribes the Hausa and Fulani endlessly staged coup d’etats.
When the northerners agreed to the idea that political elites from minorities could form government as well as those from big ones, the Yoruba, put forward Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria grew to become the largest economy in Africa.
The politics of a country have impacts on the course of development. Politics of greed, avarice and monopoly retards progress.n