Presidential Elections in Africa: What’s the Point?
Lyse Mauvais, lmm348@cornell.edu
“Should we keep organizing presidential elections in Africa?” — perhaps not, argues Professor Alfred Babo, an Ivorian sociologist and university professor. In an article published on September 9th article in France’s leading international affairs newspaper, Le Monde, Professor Bado questions the necessity and utility of presidential elections in certain African countries.
-Le Monde.fr 2016
The argument presented in the article reflects, unfortunately, a provocative vision that has its supporters on the African continent. During the 2010 presidential election in Burkina Faso, I remember being told by various friends or acquaintances that there was no point in holding presidential elections in their country, seeing as the elections would not result in change and that they were more likely to crystallize tensions than to serve any purpose.
When I returned to France in 2014 to begin studying political science, I expected geopolitical discussions with friends to be filled with a more optimistic outlook that reflected greater faith in the ultimate importance of democracy. Yet whenever the discussion ventured to discuss the politics of the African continent, someone in the crowd would invariably bring up the idea that most African societies were still unfit for democracy, that the weight of traditions and kinship was an obstacle impossible to overcome in the short time African nations have had to build themselves after decolonization. No one was daring enough to suggest suppressing elections altogether, but there was a general sense of hopelessness, a shared belief that the importation of democracy was doomed to fail in this region of the world.
With this context in mind, Professor Bado’s article immediately caught my attention, especially because it had found a spot in such a prominent newspaper as Le Monde. Reading such a clearly voiced opinion article on the topic prompted me to examine more seriously Bado’s claim.
In Professor Bado’s words, “democracy is a luxury” for many African states. The prohibitive cost of organizing elections in Africa is a burden on public budgets, draining a significant proportion of international funding and foreign aid away from concrete development issues and channeling them instead towards disputed electoral institutions. At best, this divestment of funds serves to feed local elites and legitimize pseudo-democratic regimes. Yet in the worst case scenario, organizing elections sparks further economic loss through the political turmoil, riots and destructions ensuing the contestation of results by competing parties. Bado turns to the situation of the Ivory Coast in 2010, the 2007 Kenyan electoral crisis, or the current tensions surrounding the outcomes of the presidential election in Gabon to demonstrate that presidential elections are factors of uncertainty and instability likely to draw investors away, tarnish a country’s international image in the long run, and weaken existing industries. Why then would we risk upsetting a country’s balance in the name of elections that serve no other purpose than to consolidate ageless leaders through the creation of a democratic façade?
One could object, however, that the “cost” of presidential elections is a necessity. Even when they are cosmetic, elections provide the government with a legitimacy that is crucial in negotiating and distributing economic aid. The oldest dinosaurs of West African politics, who have been in power “democratically” for over twenty years, understand that organizing elections factors into their longevity, as it makes them more acceptable in the eyes of the international community and of their own people. On a less cynical note, actually transparent and efficient elections are the only instruments through which the interests of citizens can be consulted nationwide. The development of a country should not, in theory, be conducted by a small elite without popular input. So while democracy is certainly not a luxury, Bado’s point should inspire us to think of ways in which the cost of democracy should be lowered. The presidential or semi-presidential system found in many African countries requires that both legislative and presidential elections be frequently organized. If these countries were to turn towards a parliamentary model, or a different electoral system that would distribute power through local elections rather than concentrate it in the hands of one president, we could avoid the costs of one set of elections while reducing the risks associated with concentrating executive power in a single entity (we will return to this point later).
Bado views presidential elections as a window of opportunity for competing political figures seeking to enter a closed and controlled political system. The elections provide an occasion to mobilize support from minorities and dissatisfied groups in the hope of a better redistribution, access to power, and a chance at leadership. Funneling community frustrations and organizing acts of violence is a great tactic for politicians running on an ethnic platform. Some political players rely on violence as a way to make themselves indispensable and forcefully enter the power game. This is because presidential elections in presidential/semi-presidential systems provide the only access to executive political power, and they often mobilize much more passionate involvement than legislative ones.
Bado’s point is certainly very relevant, and presidential elections are indeed likely to crystallize resentments and tensions. In 1990s Kenya, Moi attempted to organize ethnic clashes in rural areas once national pressure groups started pushing for democratization. The situation we witness today in Burundi largely stems from the Pierre Nkurunziza’s consciously and coldly planned attempt to stay in power against the constitution. The message is: remove the old order that I represent, and the system will collapse. The system, however, does not collapse because democratic elections are organized — rather, the lack of democracy within the state allows for some to organize the system’s collapse. Kenya provides us with an interesting case study on how to improve a system that is conflict-conducive: after the 2007 contested presidential elections, which resulted in clashes and violence widely reported in international media, constitutionalists and politicians redesigned the Kenyan political order in order to redistribute executive power, give less weight to the president and more to local governors or legislators, and write electoral rules that would include both geographic spread and population size in the election (in order to avoid electoral divisions based on one single ethnic group). Should African countries struggling with tribalism and ethnic politics move away from the presidential model and try to spread executive power in the hands of several actors? This is at least one of the solutions advocated for by Professor Bado.
While the spirit and ideas for electoral reforms may be present on the continent, one of the main issues faced by African democrats in tackling organized destabilization (on ethnic bases, by power elites) is the short (and especially narrow) attention span of international media on African politics. Often international focus is drawn only to “crisis” situations in sub-Saharan Africa, and not to their political origins. Far too many times has the media placed an African country under its lights only to report situations of “ethnic” or “tribal” conflict, reducing the situation to a schematic interreligious or intercommunity divide without documenting how this resentment had been crafted by particular political agents. The coverage of the Central African Republic crisis, or the current crisis in Burundi, or 2007 electoral turmoil in Kenya, focused on the ethnic or religious affiliation of protagonists without wondering what had sparked the shift from peaceful cohabitation to armed violence. This permanent reduction of crisis situations to mysterious identity roots builds the image of a continent immature for democratic dialogue, and reinforces the discourse that strong and stable authoritarian leadership is preferable to unstable democracy. In short, it detracts our attention from the institutional factors that help dictators stay in power, or that create a favorable climate for ethnic conflict.
Contrary to what Professor Bado argues, doing away with elections would only temporarily reduce opportunities for organized violence — until the next rebellion, secessionist movement or ethnic repression which would ensue in any state where basic rights are violated and fair representation of interests not achieved. Democracy is supposed to create a space for communities and individuals to dialogue, to figure out the best way to govern themselves. Oppression and state coercion may very well be able to quell dissent and “stabilize” a country for forty, fifty, or a hundred years. But the history of the Biafran independence war, or the current situation in Iraq and Syria, should warn us that no regime is able to keep an iron lid on dissatisfied populations forever.
Professor Bado rightly remarks that today, the elections that do take place almost never lead to change. Political turnovers only occur through coups and violence, and the elections that run smoothly are usually rigged confirmations of a dictator’s political supremacy (as has been observed in Burkina Faso during 25 years of Blaise Compaoré’s leadership). The few exceptions that do exist (Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria), are so fragile that every election attempt immediately attracts international scrutiny while donor countries hold their breath and cross fingers of a peaceful outcome. The issue, for Bado, is that political elites in many African countries have no democratic culture. Finding elaborate ways to circumvent constitutional provisions is a common exercise: DR Congo, Burkina Faso, and Burundi are only a few recent examples of attempts made by aging political dinosaurs to hold on further to their political privileges, and extend their number of mandates to a new maximum. But even the “democratic” opposition is not free from blame: for them, contesting results has become an automatism. Elections are never legitimate, and are contested in a systematic manner sometimes even before the voting booths have closed.
This issue is largely linked to the very limited turnover within certain countries political elites. Of course, the older generations have known nothing but decades of a rotten post-colonial system where meddling by former colonizing powers was systematic and where access to power was almost totally locked. Whichever side they may stand on in the political divide between rulers and official opponents, they often belonged to the same circles, shared the same mentors, learnt to govern together in the wake of the first generation of post-independence leaders. Gabon today is a striking example, with a single family (the Bongos) and their allies competing for the spoils of the patriarch. There is evidence that Ali Bongo, the current president, is actually attempting to dismantle the corrupt network installed by his father and predecessor, but his opponents (also former allies and relatives of his father) are intent on maintaining the old system in place — in reality, the fate of the country is being fought over by the single same network Omar Bongo Ondimba established himself decades ago. Similarly, Senegal is today headed by a man who reached power by turning against president Abdoulaye Wade, his old mentor and spiritual father — hardly a real renewal of ideas and interests. Against this situation, not much can be done except waiting for the new rising political generations and incoming high civil servants, raised in a globalizing world, better attuned to the substantive content of democratic rule, to replace the old elites.
Against Bado’s cynical outlook, which dangerously fuels the arguments of the anti-democrats on the continent, I would argue for a more generous vision of the role played by presidential elections today on the African continent. Regardless of their outcome, elections are an opportunity for groups to attract international media attention (more or less successfully) to particular pleas or concerns they have regarding what takes place in their country. In the past year, President Kabila in Congo made attempt after attempt to push back the elections and find a legal way to run again for office. Though this situation is disappointing, it has also given the civil society an opportunity to organize and make itself visible in international media, with historical opposition leaders resurfacing and coverage being given to past and current human rights violations. Congo’s war in the Katanga province is at last receiving a (small) portion of the international attention it has deserved for so long. If electoral tensions can prompt regional and international leaders to invest themselves in resolving this issue, then they will have served at least one of their purposes: to spark dialogue on national issues and allow new actors and solutions to be heard on the political scene.
Sometimes, elections do bring change. The failure of the 2007 Kenyan presidential elections sparked a massive constitutional reform and the crafting of new institutions that aimed to distribute power across agencies, strengthen the parliament and the judiciary, and lessen the role of the president. The prospect of presidential elections in Burkina Faso in 2015, and the belief that President Compaoré would twist the constitution in order to forcefully run again was enough to spark a relatively peaceful and transforming revolution in this nation which had known over twenty years of Compaoré leadership. Elections are not the cause for civil strife, but the stage on which its tensions are revealed. Attacking the concept of the elections is pointing to the symptom, but not the cause: the kind of pessimistic, provocative argument made by proponents of “democracy is not for all African states” theory does more to fuel the antidemocrats cause, than to help unveil the institutional, social and economic issues driving politics on the continent.
