Africa Braces Itself for 'Democrazy' as Most Countries Prepare for Elections
While elections bring enthusiasm and hope for democratic consolidation and change, more often than not elections in Africa are also notorious for spawning violence. As many of African countries prepare for elections, the fear for many is whether these elections are going to be accompanied by violence.
Solomon A. Dersso, Senior Researcher, Peace and Security Council Report Programme, ISS Addis Ababa
This year, 2011 is perhaps one of the busiest years in the electoral calendar of Africa since the 1990s. More than 18 African countries are scheduled to conduct elections that might determine a change in leadership. West Africa is the busiest of all with six countries, followed by Southern Africa where four countries including Madagascar are expected to hold major elections. While central and East Africa will each have three countries going for election, two countries in North Africa will go to the polls this year.
While elections bring enthusiasm and hope for democratic consolidation and change, more often than not elections in Africa are also notorious for spawning violence. Accordingly, as many of these countries prepare for elections, the fear for many is whether these elections are going to be accompanied by violence. The reason for this is that in most cases the outcome of these elections are what Paul Collier called 'democrazy' - a Kenyan style electoral contest involving a life-and-death struggle which is not itself subject to rules of conduct.
This fear has become particularly acute not only due to the number and diversity of African countries going to the polls, but also because of the post-election violence in Cote d'Ivoire with which Africa entered 2011. Cote d'Ivoire held its long-delayed presidential election in October and November 2010. Following the refusal of the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo to concede defeat and relinquish power to the opposition leader Allasane Ouattara, the country descended into a dangerous post-electoral crisis. This has presented to the AfricanUnion (AU) a serious challenge in at least two important respects. First, if Gbagbo continues to defy the will of the people and stays in power, his action will set a dangerous precedent. In what is surely Africa's busiest election season, the timing cannot be any worse than it is, as Africa and the world closely watch developments in Cote d'Ivoire. Second, the situation also seriously undermines the legitimacy of the principles on elections and democracy that the AU subscribes to and upholds and endangers the AU's nascent credibility as a champion of democracy.
Cote d'Ivoire was among the dozen other African countries that went to the polls in Africa during 2010. Only a few of these elections, most notably Somaliland, were free from violence and controversy. While many of these elections were held under circumstances that did not meet international standards of free and fair elections, apart from Cote d'Ivoire, the elections in Burundi, Rwanda, Guinea and Comoros were marred by violence.
It is not always because elections fail to meet international standards that violence erupts. As in Guinea, electoral violence erupted in spite of the fact that the election was declared to be free and fair. The factors that contribute to election violence include exclusionary political practices, including the use of the state for dispensing patronage; near absolute control of the state and its machinery by the ruling party and corruption or lack of impartiality of supposedly independent state institutions - particularly election management bodies and the judiciary. It also includes winner-takes all electoral systems; a lack of an even playing field; deep ethnic and regional divisions and manipulation of regional and group grievances; the refusal of incumbents to leave power; abusive and violent security institutions; restriction of political freedom and repression of opposition politics as well as freedom of the press; and inadequate and often incoherent election monitoring. The root of all these problems is that the post-colonial African state lacks the structural qualities that make the holding of non-violent democratic elections possible.
Despite their diversity, many of the countries that will be going to the polls this year exhibit many of the conditions that generate electoral violence. At the one end are countries which continue to face rebellion and violence including the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad and Madagascar, among others. In other countries such as Egypt, Cameroon, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Djibouti, there are ruling parties that dominate almost all aspects of public life and a leadership that has dominated the political landscape of these countries for years and seems determined to hold on to power. Nigeria and Zambia also have some of the major conditions conducive to electoral violence, such as deep ethnic and regional divisions and a history of manipulation of regional and group grievances and winner-takes-all electoral systems.
Given that these and other countries lack the required radical democratic transformation of the state and will hold their elections under conditions that often precipitate electoral violence, they face serious risks of witnessing electoral violence. While in some of these countries, violence and civil unrest may be contained with only limited loss of life and destruction of property, in others it may lead to a major political crisis. The immediate challenge for the AU and other regional and international actors is how best to respond, mediate and resolve election-related violence and political crises .
The long-term challenge is, however, how to realise what Ambassador Ramtane Lamamra, AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, has proposed, namely that 'the context in which our elections are held must change, and only then can we hope for a behavioural shift on the part of the participants.' Until then, our wish should be anything but modest; for the AU to enhance its role of responding to, mediating and resolving election-related violence and crises. It is the AU's success or failure in this role that will ultimately build or destroy its credibility as a champion of democracy in Africa.
