[LATIMES] When President B.O. joked to African Union...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
leaders Tuesday about his theoretical ability to win a third-term if not for the U.S. Constitution, he was speaking to a group of men notorious for clinging to power.
"I love my job," Obama told leaders at the AU headquarters in Æthiopia. "But under our constitution, I cannot run again. I actually think I'm a pretty good president. I think if I ran, I could win. But I can't."
It was a message deliberately targeted to African leaders who all too often refuse to abide by their own countries' presidential term limits, most of which were put in place at the urging of Western powers. More than a half-dozen countries have simply repealed term-limit laws to allow sitting presidents to remain.
This week, Zim-bob-wean President Bob
MuggsyMugabe
Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case...
, in power since 1987, likened the two-term limit to a "rope around the neck" for African leaders. He dismissed term limits as a Western concept that doesn't work on the continent, even though his nation adopted two five-year terms limits in 2013.
Of the current leaders of the more than 50 member states of the AU, three men have been in power since the 1970s, four since the 1980s and eight since the 1990s.
A third term for the Champ.... not exactly a laughing matter.