The Bandwagon Effect?

The report yesterday by a committee of the World Bank that its president, Paul D. Wolfowitz’s role in the reassignment of his and award of salary package to his girl friend is in violation of the Bank’s ethics and governance rules should not surprise anyone. The same is also true of the Bush administration’s reported stepped-up efforts to forestall his ouster as Bank president.

Some people are beginning to link what they see as the aversion for responsiveness on the part of the Bush White House as a beckon of bad behavior for autocrats in Africa and elsewhere in the non-European world. Ever since the start of the war on terror, every autocrat in Africa and elsewhere has been quick to label opponents of his regime as terrorists. In Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo’s degeneration into a raving autocrat took a dramatic turn right after Bush’s war on terror began. He capped it with the most brazen manipulation of the electoral process in the country last month. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe often calls his opponents terrorists. The on-going turmoil in Pakistan started when the dictator, Musharraf removed a judge who is seen by many as an obstacle to the dictator’s resolve to use the war on terror to silence opponents of his regime.