Personal Vision and African Leadership

When I did my last post I was wondering what you thought about the role that personal vision plays in our leaders lives. How many of them can we actually point to as successful people in their private lives aside from politics? Do you even think we should be scrutinizing them from a personal level or should we let their political manifesto speak for itself? Just some questions to ponder?

In the USA, personal track record plays a huge role in whether a person runs for political office or not. They never elect under-achievers. When a person stands for political office their whole life-their vision, accomplishments and failures alike are on the line.You cannot divorce personal vision from your political intentions and aspirations.
However, its not like that in Africa or many third world countries. Many politicians are elected on the platform of popularity rather than on vision and personal track records. Why do you think this is? Are they taking advantage of the lack of education or sophistication of the common man or woman? And what should be done to correct this anomaly?