African busi­ness­man Mo Ibrahim has a yearly award that rec­og­nizes a for­mer politi­cian for good gov­er­nance. This year, Ibrahim could find no win­ners. The prize comes with a five mil­lion dol­lar award the high­est prize of any such award. Fes­tus Mogae, Botswana’s for­mer Pres­i­dent and for­mer pres­i­dent of Mozam­bique, Joaquim Chissano are past win­ners of the award.

From the BBC, we read more about the deci­sion not to give an award this year and what it means for African politicians.

Mr Ibrahim said peo­ple could draw their own con­clu­sions about why no prize was awarded this year.

But he said there was “no issue of dis­re­spect” meant towards eli­gi­ble candidates.

“The prize com­mit­tee wel­comed the progress made on gov­er­nance in some African coun­tries while not­ing with con­cern recent set­backs in other coun­tries,” said a state­ment from the panel which made the decision.

“This year the prize com­mit­tee has con­sid­ered some cred­i­ble can­di­dates. How­ever, after in-depth review, the prize com­mit­tee could not select a winner.”

For­mer pres­i­dent of Ire­land and UN High Com­mis­sioner for Human Rights Mary Robin­son, one of the panel-members, said that if there had been a sim­i­lar award for for­mer Euro­pean lead­ers this year, it might have been equally dif­fi­cult to select a wor­thy winner.

BBC Africa ana­lyst Mar­tin Plaut says Mr Ibrahim estab­lished the prize because well-run African democ­ra­cies are not thick on the ground.

Mr Ibrahim argues that the prize is needed because many African lead­ers come from poor back­grounds and are tempted to hang on to power for fear that poverty is what awaits them when they give up the levers of power.

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