A recent interaction on BBC Radio got me to think really hard. The topic on the show known as #BBCAfrica Debate was whether democracy can deliver for Africa. The debate involved citizens from Zambia and Nigeria. These are two African countries that consider themselves to be under democratic governance. Nigeria has been a democracy for just 14 years after years of military rule. After that transition, it has been dogged by civil wars, religious chaos, terrorism and most recently, protests of hundreds in major cities demanding greater transparency from their leaders.
Zambia is currently battling civil strife from opposition groups that claim misrule and poor governance, unfulfilled promises by the government and lack of sensitivity to the plight of common citizens. They advance issues like a broken health system, poor education and infrastructure, suppression of any kind of dissent and lack of political space for the opposition and civil society. An opposition figure was dragged through court proceeding for three years for alleged defamation of the president.
First things first, it’s important to define democracy? It is a system of government based on the principle of majority decision making and equal representation of people where every citizen has a free and equal right to participate in decision making process.
Generally this definition tries to emphasize the fact that ultimate power belongs to the people, In this case, the citizens of a nation.
The basic tenets of a democracy include a government of three arms; The Executive, Judiciary and Legislature (Parliament). More so, the existence of rights and basic freedoms of speech, expression, worship, movement and choice of leaders through periodic elections also hinge democracy. The power belongs to the people and all other authority is subject to their will.
I felt it important to spell out these aspects clearly so that we get a clear hindsight before we discuss what works for Africa and what doesn’t. I won’t visit every country but, events in South Africa, Sudan, Egypt and other nations facing suppression of freedoms, lawlessness, impunity have quite a story to tell. Considering Uganda which I’m more familiar with, perhaps we can draw parallels about democracy. It is important to point out that Uganda has never had a peaceful regime change since Independence. Change of government has only come to us through military coups, assassinations and exiling leaders. However, when she made the choice to go democratic and promulgated what is celebrated as one of the best constitutions in Africa, we went to the polls in 1996. The two landmark achievements of a new constitution and elections were the baby steps of a young democracy. Over the years, we have had routine elections every five years and however much we have wanted change; we seem unable to cause it especially at the top.
Looking at Uganda’s situation logically, the idea that we are a democratic country is just that, an idea. In my country, the president (a semi-retired army General) appoints all Judges of the Supreme Court of the land including the Chief Justice, Court of Appeal/ Constitutional Court, the Attorney general, Solicitor general, Inspectorate of Government, the Head of Electoral Commission, the Inspector General of police (who is a military General), the Chief of Defence Forces and his party elects Speaker of Parliament. In a situation where the citizens fall out with the regime, it would be wishful to think that with all these powers in appointments borne by the president and the institutional breakdown that he has presided over for the past close to three decades, the people can still wield the power given to them as would be in a true democracy.
Elections are rigged in broad daylight with the full knowledge of the EC boss who works on instructions, the army is used to whip and intimidate people to vote against their will. Evidence adduced in Court finds cadre Judges waiting to quash it after a phone call from State House. Military men are appointed in civil ministerial positions and the Appointments committee of parliament is intimidated to uphold such in clear contravention of the very constitution they swore to protect. High Court justices are cadres of the ruling party and yet we still expect to go to these courts and get fair judgements when we are towing a different line from that of the ruling party. Parliament has become a voting machine for draconian laws that are proposed with the sole aim of suppressing dissent and further entrenching the president in power. Case in point is the recent Public Order Management Bill.
Orders from above have replaced constitutionalism and rule of law. Everything that can possibly go wrong has gone wrong. Institutions have been intentionally run down and the little breath left in their lives turned into appendages of the regime. Regime sympathisers are put in influential positions without a shred of merit and they end up running down the institutions and carrying away sacks of money, totally oblivious of the plight of the citizens. Theirs is no accountability to the citizens whatsoever. All we see is thieves being offered bigger positions in government as reward for sticking to the party positions.
Ghana who are supposed to be our heroes of democracy in Africa vote on tribal lines and the president can boldly say, ”northerners” should vote for him. Dirty politics and ethnocentrism lie under that shiny veil of Ghana's democracy.
True democracy can only hold with strong institutions, literacy and empowered people. True democracy comes from below, where leaders are accountable to the people below them and the people have the space to enjoy their rights and freedom to change leadership in periodic free and fair elections.
Unfortunately for most African Nations, what we have here is not democracy. It’s an illusion of democracy. It’s a periodic trek to the polling station while confronted with the thought that probably your choice will not matter but also hoping for serendipity. It’s the politics of pre-determined election results and imposition of leaders on people. This painful helplessness and lack of power to cause change has pushed the numbers of those who choose to abscond from voting to grow exponentially
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A friend of mine, out of frustration once suggested that we should outsource governance to Rwanda or China for decade so as to set things back on track. Unfortunately, none of those countries has an impeccable record of democratic governance.
Back to the question; Can democracy deliver for Africa? My answer is, Yes it can. The issue is we do not have it yet. It would be a grave mistake to confuse Elections (a periodic ritual with no real substance) and civil rule with democracy. Those are not one and the same. Just like absence of war doesn’t necessarily mean peace.
@PathyKlinn
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