Straight forward question. Been trying to gauge the man’s politics and I think he leans more toward being an anti-colonial nationalist rather than an outright socialist. Still based and deserving of critical support, but maybe not the next Thomas Sankara; not that he needs to be, but it’d be cooler if he was.
“You will know them by their fruits.”
“It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”
I care more about the concrete results he is able to deliver than his stated ideology. There are many socialists and communists who have not achieved a fraction of what he has already achieved. So i say let’s wait and see.
People also grow over time. If he is really serious about breaking the neocolonial grip and uplifting his people he will inevitably come to Marxism-Leninism or something akin to it sooner or later.
The correctness of Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution and liberation was borne out of practice. If all Marxist-Leninist works disappeared tomorrow it would eventually but inevitably be recreated through trial and error, even if under a different name.
Already many of the anti-colonial nationalist leaders have, knowingly or unknowingly, converged on many of the same recognitions and strategies that communists have long since known and spoken of.
The advantage of studying Marxism-Leninism is that you can make the process of arriving at those conclusions much shorter and less painful. In that sense i certainly hope that he has been exposed to or has people around him who can lead him to the theory.
But in the long term the arc of history bends toward liberation, which exerts its own inescapable force of gravity, regardless which label you place on it. The forces of empire and reaction can only delay it for a while.