And the opportunism he practices and is about to put behind him seems to infect the aspiring journalist and future military strongman Mobutu, whose hunger for glory will outstrip any good that Lumumba will do.
President Obama summed up the sentiment in a recent speech to the UN: "It's no surprise that some argue the future favors the strongman". Trump promises to be that strongman, a Hercules -- the hero who will clean out the Augean stables.
The future of even Central Asia's venerable strongman tradition has been in doubt since the death in 2006 of Turkmenistan's Sapurmurat Niyazov, who called himself "Turkmenbashi", the father of the Turkmen.
Authoritarian regimes or highly invasive systems that might arise in our future need not take the form of strongmen like Lenin, Stalin and Hitler.
Today, the case remains stalled, with both Dostum and his bodyguards waiting out political negotiations over what has become not only a test case for Ghani's ability to ensure justice, but a clear example of the power strongmen wield over Afghanistan's future.
In its place are Mr. Humala's movement and others like the Alliance for the Future, which is led by Keiko Fujimori, the former strongman's daughter.
A doctor who spent years in prison under Mr Mubarak, he attracts mild Islamists who chafe at the grip of the Brotherhood's number two and strongman, Khairat al-Shater, a probable future prime minister in a coalition government.
In Mandoki's film, center stage belongs to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador: former Mexico City mayor, front-runner for Mexico's July 2 presidential election and, depending on whom you ask, either the country's best hope for a democratic future or the second coming of Venezuelan leftist strongman Hugo Chavez, considered the Antichrist on Wall Street and in the White House.
A family power struggle has put the political future of Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan's strongman president, in doubt.
As of last year Argentina still qualified as "free," if also officially deadbeat, though with Nestor Kirchner's cuddling up to Venezuela's Castroite strongman, Hugo Chavez, there's no telling what the future holds.
