Dr Jose Pascal da Rocha Lecturer, MSc program in negotiation and conflict resolution Columbia University p.darocha@columbia.edu

Leadership and Electoral Processes in Africa 1

Agenda

¨  Introductory Themes and Questions ¨  Leaders or Institutions?

¨  The Formative Experiences

¨  Patterns of Democratization

¨  Recent Experiences

¨  Case Studies and Conclusions

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Some Dilemmas

¨  Do Elections produce quality leaders? Yes, Africa has been holding competitive elections since the early 1990s, but we need to probe whether there is a new crop of men and women emerging out of these processes. Do we have better executives responsive to people’s needs? Are parliaments peopled with legislators who can legislate? Has the quality of representation improved or declined with electoral democracy? Are things getting better or worse?

¨  Tensions between Leaders and Institutions: Our dilemmas revolve around how we assign priorities in the process of political change and the real problem in thinking about the links between leaders and institutions;

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Two Faces of Institutions

¨  The Primacy of Institutions: In his first trip to Africa as US President, Barack Obama noted presciently in Accra, Ghana: “Africa needs strong institutions, not strong leaders.” Question: what are institutions are why are they important to understanding politics?

¨  Institutions as Enablers: Institutions are rules and structures that enable action, permit actors (men and women) to do good things for the service of communities and societies; institutions are human creations for the pursuit of the good society and the good life, as the ancient Greeks via Aristotle told us almost 2500 years ago;

¨  Institutions as Disablers: By the same token, institutions are systems of constraints and restraints that prevent men and women from abusing offices and positions; left on their own devices, men and women can run roughshod over conventions and norms of good behavior, hence the importance of restraining mechanisms;

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Leaders, Leadership, and Institutions

¨  Leaders as Actors: Obama’s point is that Africa is inordinately fixated on leaders as actors: people who, routinely, should come and go; we typically should not be worried about whether they are strong or weak, visionary or transformational, messianic or mortals; leaders are actors with some energy and common sense;

¨  Leadership and Institutions: Leadership is the exercise of authority and power for the common good; leadership is the acceptance of the enabling and restraining components of institutions;

¨  More leadership, more institutions: The priority in Africa should be how to build solid institutions that stabilize rule and authority;

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Key Questions

¨  The Heart of the Debates: Is it leaders or institutions that should be

important in shaping Africa’s destiny? What should come first, leaders or institutions? How are leadership issues sequenced with institutional ones?

¨  Leaders or Citizens? The quality of citizens is more important than the quality of leaders; Informed and engaged citizenries are more critical in Africa than visionary leaders because citizens make leaders and should routinely hold them accountable within clearly established institutions; otherwise, we end up with leaders who claim to be authors and owners of institutions;

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Formative Experiences

¨  Repudiation of Old Truth: The elections that inaugurated Africa’s

democratic transitions in the 1990s, reversed the legacy Africa’s Founding Fathers who had supported strong leaders as tools for development; democracy as competition was too ‘expensive,’ since it tended fragment societies along by ethnic and regional lines;

¨  Elections as political Renewal: In the 1990s, there was popular invocation of the notion of renaissance, second liberation, and new social compacts between the governors and governed; National (sacred) constitutional conventions in Franchophone Arica epitomized the triumphalism of this period;

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Formative Experiences

¨  New Leaders? Where there were meaningful elections, new leaders emerged as the emblems of the new order: Chiluba in Zambia; Soglo in Benin; Konare in Mali; Muluzi in Malawi; others such as Kerekou were reborn via elections;

¨  Old Wine in New Bottles: For the most part, however, the electoral transitions of the early 1990s led to more continuity than change because elites could now use elections to renewal their mandates or merely mollify donors demanding elections; thus, Moi in Kenya, Eyadema in Togo, Bongo in Gabon, and others creatively used elections to disorganize the budding opposition and used electoral violence and intimidation to renew their mandates;

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Formative Experiences

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¨  Whither Developmental Dictatorships? Elections created the biggest headaches for leaders who had billed themselves as “developmental dictatorships” or in the words ofW Bill Clinton, “Africa’s new generation of African leaders;” Museveni in Uganda, Meles in Ethiopia; Isiais in Eritrea; and Kagame in Rwanda; question: would developmental dictatorships persist in perpetuity or would they transition to electoral democracies?

¨  Party-States: With no pretensions to democratization and wearing ‘developmental’ hats, these leaders were reluctant to effect real change because leading post-civil war movements had transformed into insular party-states, barely countenancing opposition; as Meles told an American envoy, “the opposition can vegetate in jail,”

Case Studies: Ghana and Uganda

¨  Better Rawlings than Museveni: Rawlings prepared Ghana for democracy, leaving power in 2001; Museveni was forced by donors to democratize in 2005, and he has since changed the constitution to continue holding onto power, a recipe for political disaster;

¨  The Centrality of Institutions: The institutions Rawlings bequeathed are the envy of Africa: a functional electoral commission, an independent judiciary, and vibrant civil society; Museveni has decimated institutions because he doesn’t believe in rules that constrain his erratic and errant behavior; soon, his legacy of a ‘developmental dictatorship’ will fade;

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The Patterns of Democratization

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¨  Donor democracies? Elections of the early 1990s were held to ward off the prying eyes of donors; after holding elections, most countries resumed the normal pattern of exclusive politics; in most of these cases, elections legitimated authoritarian outcomes (Democratization on the cheap);

¨  Democracy without Liberalization: The central explanation for half-hearted democratization was that it was narrowly defined in electoral terms; there were no efforts to build liberal institutions that would underpin the democratization agenda;

¨  Absence of constitutional reforms: Elections were conducted in the 1990s without significant alteration in the rules that governed competition (or in cases where there were imperfect rules for pluralism);

The Patterns

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¨  The upsurge of Electoral Violence: Amidst the crisis of weak and precarious democracies, electoral violence surfaced as a major challenge to democracy-building, witnessed in Kenya, Nigeria, Zanzibar, and Zimbabwe; electoral violence resurrected debates and doubts about problems of building democracies on weak and incoherent states;

¨  The problem of power-sharing: Governments of national unity (GNUs) that became the vehicles out of contested elections raised issues about trivializing the democratic process; the examples of Kenya and Zimbabwe until recently were lessons in the limits of GNUs; Zanzibar is an equally cautionary tale on the dangers of GNU’s for democracy;

The Patterns

¨  Constitutional reforms: Where they have occurred, such reforms underline the commitment to structure competition in new and more certain directions (Kenya, 2010: Tanzania, Zambia, on-going);

¨  No guarantees for Democratization: Constitutional reforms can be hijacked by elites for narrow ends; thus broadly participatory constitutional reforms in Uganda and Ethiopia in the 1990s never changed the political landscape of authoritarianism;

¨  Constitutional Reversals: Some countries that were on the path of

democratization in the late 1990s faced obstacles from constitutional changes that reversed democratic gains through abolition of presidential term limits (Algeria, Burkina Faso, and Uganda);

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Recent Experiences

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¨  Dynastic Successions: Democracy has also come under siege from attempts to build dynastic successions (Gabon and Togo, successful cases) and potential cases (Burkina Faso; Equatorial Guinea; and Uganda); these attempts underscore regime contempt for democracy in Africa; but they have also been spectacular failures of such successions (Egypt, Malawi, Senegal, and Libya);

¨  Fourth Wave Democratization? In a co-edited book published in October 2010, I suggested that Africa was ripe for a ‘fourth wave democratization,’ characterized by mass vigilance, intolerance for stolen elections, and yearning for clean leaders; all these factors, I argued, are spurred partly by generational and institutional change; North African uprisings seemed to confirm this hunch;

Recent Experiences

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¨  North African Uprisings: Democratization has been afforded a new lease of life with the January-February 2011 social upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya; the referendum in southern Sudan referendum also fits this picture of mass-based pressure for change; but we are also beginning to see reversals;

¨  Resurgence of the Spirit of the 1990s: Authoritarian governments in

North Africa faced the same circumstances as the popular agitation, riots, and mass anger that Africa witnessed in the early 1990s; the uprisings were the latest phase in Africa’s democratization, giving prominence to popular pressures for good governance, representation, accountability, and participation; but, like before, consolidation is another story;

¨  Similar Shared Values: North Africa and sub-Saharan African can now

share the same traditions, removing the gulf between authoritarian Arab regimes and democratic African ones;

Recent Experiences

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¨  Beyond Donor Democracies? North African convulsions were driven by grievances from below, potentially putting African democratization processes on stronger endogenous grounds than the previous democratization efforts that were driven by donor and other external pressures;

¨  No More Trade-offs: Consensus is also finally growing that in Africa participation and accountable governance are important ingredients of development; they cannot be sacrificed on the altar of dictatorships;

Case Studies in Leadership

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¨  The Class of the 1990s: The new leaders were: Museveni, Kagame in Rwanda, Meles in Ethiopia, Isiais in Eritrea; and for a while, Laurent Kabila of the DRC; none was a friend of democracy nor elections; they continued the past tradition of “elections as irritants;”

¨  The Class of the African Renaissance, early 2000s: A new promise of

African leadership converged about the notion of African regeneration; new leaders who promised sound constitutions, good governance, democracy, and transparency: Thabo Mbeki, South Africa; Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria; Abdoulaye Wade, Senegal; Bouteflika, Algeria;

¨  Same Old Leaders: All reverted to old practices: attempts to change constitutions (Mbeki, Obasanjo); success in changing constitutions (Wade, Bouteflika); resurgence of authoritarian practices (Wade, Bouteflika);

Botswana

¨  Democratic Accountability can be reversed: After years of stable democracy, Ian Khama, with a militaristic streak took over power in Botswana; he has no respect for the democratic institutions that his father, Sir Seretse Khama, carefully constructed; instead he is wont to harangue the people about Discipline, Democracy, Development, Delivery; he seems set to destroy institutions; there are fears he may attempt to change the constitution to seek an extra-term;

¨  Party Fragmentation, the Precursor to Chaos: As a result of intolerance, leading members of the ruling party broke away to form another party before the last elections;

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Liberia

¨  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the new leader: Re-elected in a run-off vote in October, 2011 after having been named a Nobel Peace Prize that boosted her re-election prospects; criticized by opponents as unfair interference in Liberia’s voting; the election was dampened by violence and low voter turnout;

¨  Has she made a difference? Since her first election, she has tried to make Liberia a post-conflict success story, has faced tremendous obstacles; about half the population has no access to safe drinking water; far fewer people have access to electricity; there have been complaints about corruption and shoddy natural resource deals with foreign investors;

¨  Promise Not kept: She promised a one-term presidency and broke it; in 2009 TRC recommended she stays out of power for 30 years; Dubious appointment of her children to ministerial positions;

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Zambia

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¨  Sata, Gbagbo, Idi Amin: Was in opposition for many years until the last elections, when he ended the MMD’s 20 year rule; like Gbagbo, he had democratic credentials as an opposition leader, but became an authoritarian and intolerant leader a la Amin when he took power; he has militarized politics, repressed the press, and governed erratically;

¨  Death of Democracy: Civil society groups and opposition parties have appealed to the Commonwealth to intervene to mediate because Sata is set to extinguish Zambian democracy; they recently held a conference in South Africa because they would be arrested at home;

Malawi

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¨  Bingu the Great: When he was elected by a narrow parliamentary majority in 2004, Bingu was hailed as a reformer, quickly transforming Malawi’s agricultural sector and boosting food production; his first term was seen as broad success;

¨  Spoilt by a Majority Vote: With a parliamentary majority during his second term, Bingu ran roughshod over Malawian institutions, increasingly becoming an autocrat, launching a crack-down on opposition and civil rights organization; picked unnecessary fights with donors, reversing the economic gains of previous years;

¨  Joyce Banda, Bingu’s nemesis: Has tried to correct Bingu’s policy but she has had lots of troubles governing; corruption has flourished under her short rule;

Conclusions

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¨  Democratization Waves: Africa has made remarkable progress in democratization since the 1990s, as most countries have held competitive elections, build political parties, and learnt the game of political competition despite the persistence of ethnicity and fragmentation; the fourth wave may deepen these trends;

¨  More Elections, More Learning: Countries that have held more than two elections, have done better in subsequent elections, creating a culture of competition and alliance-building among parties;

¨  Growth in Voice: Representative institutions are still young, but their existence speaks to the importance of popular voice;

Conclusions

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¨  Setbacks, Setbacks: Building institutions is not a uni-linear process, there are going to be setbacks; but unlike in the past where the pattern was one step forward, two steps backwards, most African countries are on the institutional trajectory of two steps forward, one step backward;

¨  Half-Full, Half-Empty: Democracy in Africa has always reflected this reality; this is not going to change soon;

¨  Institutional Sins of their Fathers: New leaders without sound institutional anchorage in systems of restraint will merely inherit the institutional sins of their fathers; Uhuru Kenyatta without a new constitution in Kenya would have become a Jomo Kenyatta; just as Muhoozi Museveni will, after inheriting his father’s seat;

¨  New leaders are inevitable, new institutions are not: As old generations die, new leaders will emerge; the search for new leaders is thus misguided as a policy priority.