Poverty had deepened under Mr Moi's 24-year misrule, except of course for the governing elite and their cronies.
He watched in dismay as Latvia's misery deepened under a harsh austerity drive that scythed wages, jobs and state financing for schools and hospitals.
In the intervening eight years, divisions have only deepened under the rule of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been acting on behalf of the long-oppressed Shiite majority, forcing Sunnis into the arms of extremists.
Mr. Thompson, who as the city comptroller is New York's chief financial watchdog, laid out a series of policy proposals that he said would begin to reverse the economic disparities that have deepened under Mr. Bloomberg.
The approach was continued, and deepened, under Kelly, with the murder rate falling from its 1990 peak of 2,245 to a record low of just 333 last year.
In the long term, he doesn't believe the country will hold together because of strife among its disparate factions that began after the U.S. invasion and deepened under ISIS.
