I Wonder

Taking a few snippets out of an article (snippetly) titled A Tale of Two Countries, I began to wonder, 'Which would he be more like?'

Ian Khama, leader of Botswana-

"...Democratic Party..."

"...thus becoming the first half-white leader..."

"The exceptional humility of... politicians is just one positive consequence of such “grassroots democracy.”

"...adopted pro-market policies on a wide front. His new government promised low and stable taxes to mining companies, liberalized trade, increased personal freedoms, and kept marginal income tax rates low to deter tax evasion and corruption.”"

"But why did Khama chose to embrace the free market and limited government at a time when Marxism seemed to be on an unstoppable march...?"

OR

Robert Mugabe, Leader of Zimbabwe-

"...Ian Smith—the last white prime minister of Rhodesia,... answered the summons to meet with Robert Mugabe, the newly-elected prime minister of Zimbabwe... Instead, Smith was greeted with “a warm handshake and a broad smile.” In his own words, Smith was “completely disarmed.”... maybe he had been wrong about Mugabe. “Here’s this chap, and he was speaking like a sophisticated, balanced, sensible man. I thought: if he practices what he preaches, then it will be fine.”"

"...Zimbabwe had an independent judicial system and a constitution that protected minority rights. It also had one of the continent’s largest economies. Zimbabwe seemed destined to become an African success story."

"Things turned out very differently."

"...megalomania grew as time went by."

"...the leaders are so far removed from day-to-day public scrutiny that they behave with impunity and in an embarrassingly rapacious manner."

"...Mugabe turned on his onetime ally Joshua Nkomo... killing some 20,000 in the process."

"...a police state where armed gangs of government supporters harass, beat and kill members of the opposition with utter impunity."

"The ripple effect that farm seizures created turned into a tsunami that, in a few years, washed away some 60 years of gradual economic improvements."

"The Fraser Institute’s 2007 Economic Freedom of the World report, for example, found Zimbabwe to be the least free economy out of the 137 economies surveyed."