Through the voices of the peoples of Africa and the global South, Pambazuka Press and Pambazuka News disseminate analysis and debate on the struggle for freedom and justice.
Features
Democracy before democracy in Africa
Alemayehu G. Mariam
2010-01-28, Issue 467
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61799
Printer friendly version
There are 2 comments on this article.
Since the dawn of African independence from colonialism in the early 1960s, African liberation leaders and founding fathers qua dictators, military junta and ‘new breed’ leaders have sought to justify the one-man, one-party state and avoid genuine multiparty democracy by fabricating a blend of self-serving arguments. These arguments converge on the notion that in Africa there is a democracy before democracy.
The core argument can be restated in different ways: Before Africa can have political democracy, it must have economic democracy. Africans are more concerned about meeting their economic needs than having abstract political rights. Economic development necessarily requires sacrifices in political rights. African democracy is a different species of democracy, which has roots in African culture and history. African societies are plagued by ethnic, tribal and religious conflicts which can be solved not by Western-style liberal democracy, but within the framework of the traditional African institutions of consensus-building, elder mediation and conciliation. Western-style democracy is unworkable, alien and inappropriate for Africans because the necessary preconditions for such a system are not present. Widespread poverty, low per capita income, a tiny middle class and the absence of a democratic civic culture render such a system incongruous with African realities. Liberal democracy can come to Africa only after significant economic development has been achieved. Any premature introduction or misguided imposition of it by the West could actually harm Africans by destroying their budding faith in democracy itself.
Stripped of rhetorical flourish, however, such self-serving arguments exploit manifest contradictions and deficits in African societies. They do this for the purposes of justifying the consolidation and fortification of the powers of the one-man, one-party state, and preventing the institutionalisation of a competitive, multiparty, democratic process with electoral and constitutional accountability. The claim of the primacy of ‘economic democracy’ is based on an impressionistic – not empirically substantiated – assumption that the masses of poor, illiterate, hungry and sick Africans are too dumb to appreciate ‘political democracy’. In other words, the African masses are apparently interested in the politics of the belly and not the politics of democracy and political rights. Africans live for and by bread alone. Elections, legal rights and liberties are meaningless to the poor and hungry masses.
This assumption is pure nonsense as various well designed and executed empirical studies of democratic attitudes in Africa have shown. The claim of ethnic conflict to justify the one-man, one-party system is internally self-contradictory. If, indeed, the communalism and the institutions of traditional, pre-colonial African societies are the most effective means for dispute resolution and consensus-building, it is illogical to insist on investing a single leader and his party with sweeping and expansive powers.
All the layered sophistry and paralogism of African dictators is intended to mask their insatiable hunger for power and to produce one set of self-serving, axiomatic conclusions: Africa is not yet ready for genuine multiparty democracy. The one-man, one-party system is the only means to save Africa from itself, and from complete social, economic and political implosion. The one-man, one-party system will evolve into a genuine multiparty democracy at some undetermined time in the future. In the meantime, the one-man, one-party show must go on.
Post-independence African history is instructive to understanding the scourge of one-man and the curse of one-party rule in Africa. As the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence from colonialism in 1957, Ghana and the role played by its first prime minister and later president, Kwame Nkrumah, are central to understanding the pervasive problem of civilian and military dictatorships in Africa. At the time of independence, Ghana was undoubtedly the most economically and socially advanced country in sub-Saharan Africa, with an advanced educational system and relatively well-developed infrastructures. Nkrumah was a role model for the dozens of leaders of African countries that achieved independence in the 1960s and 1970s. Despite Nkrumah’s status as the unrivalled champion of Pan-Africanism and his strong advocacy for a united Africa, he was also the single individual most responsible for casting the mould for the one-man, one-party dictatorship in post-independence Africa. Barely a year into his administration, the once fiery anti-colonial advocate of political rights and democracy had transformed himself into a power-hungry despot. He enacted a law making labour strikes illegal. He declared it was unpatriotic to strike. Paranoid about his opposition, he enacted a preventive detention act which gave him sweeping powers to arrest and detain any person suspected of treason without due process of law. He even dismissed the chief justice of Ghanaian Supreme Court, Sir Arku Korsah, when a three-judge panel headed by Korsah acquitted suspects who had been accused of plotting a coup. Nkrumah amended the constitution making his party, the Convention People’s Party (CPP), the only legal party in the country. He capped his political career by having himself declared president-for-life.
Other African leaders followed in Nkrumah’s footsteps. Julius Nyerere became the first president of Tanganyika (Tanzania) in 1962 and announced his brand of African socialism built around rural folk and their traditional values in a ‘ujamaa’ (‘extended family’) system. Millions of villagers were forced into collectivised agriculture. He modelled his constitution on Ghana’s and followed Nkrumah’s script. Nyerere established a one-man, one-party state around his Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), outlawed strikes, nationalised private banks and industries, duplicated Nkrumah’s preventive detention act to go after his opponents and greatly increased his personal power.
With the exception of a few countries, Africa was incurably infected by Nkrumah’s one-man, one-party virus by the end of the 1960s. Most of the leaders of the newly independent African countries followed Nkrumah’s political formula by declaring states of emergency, suspending their constitutions, conferring unlimited executive powers upon themselves, and enacting oppressive laws at will, which enabled them to arrest, detain and persecute their rivals, dissenters, and others considered to be threats.
By the end of the 1960s, the economic and political outcomes of the one-man, one-party dictatorships were dismal. Nkrumah’s programme of rapid industrialisation – to reduce Ghana’s dependence on foreign capital and imports – had a devastating effect on its important cocoa-export sector. Many of the socialist economic development projects that he launched failed. By the time he was overthrown in a military coup in 1966, Ghana had fallen from one of the richest African countries to one of the poorest. Similarly, Tanzania nose-dived from the largest exporter of agricultural products in Africa to the largest importer of agricultural products. The one-man, one-party state also proved to be ineffective in reducing ethnic tensions and preventing conflict. Civil wars, genocides, low-level ethnic conflicts and corruption spread throughout the continent like wildfire.
Waiting in the wings were Africa’s soldiers. Accusing the civilian governments of corruption, incompetence and mismanaging the economy, and claiming a patriotic duty to rescue their countries from collapse, military officers knocked off these governments one by one. General Joseph Mobutu seized power in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) following a protracted political struggle between Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasavubu. Colonel Houari Boumedienne overthrew Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria. A group of army officers overthrew the monarchy in Burundi. In the Central African Republic, Colonel Bokassa (later Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa) overthrew David Dacko. General Idi Amin overthrew Milton Obote in Uganda. Nigeria flipped two coups, one by General Johnson Ironsi, who was overthrown by General Yakubu Gowon. Many other African countries suffered similar fates.
There is overwhelming evidence to show that the one-man, one-party state has been a total failure in Africa over the past half-century. Under these dictatorships, African countries have faced civil and border wars and ethnic and religious strife. Famine, malnutrition and insufficient food production have caused the deaths of millions of Africans. Poverty and unemployment rates continue to rise despite billions in foreign aid and loans. Infant mortality is nearly 100 per 1,000 (compared to 5 in the United States). Africans have the lowest life expectancies in the world. After 50 years of independence, per capita income in much of Africa had declined so much that President Obama had to artfully remind Africans in his speech in Ghana that ‘Countries like Kenya, which had a per capita economy larger than South Korea's when I was born, have been badly outpaced.' Politically, the one-man, one-party dictatorships have brought neither ethnic harmony nor good governance, and they have failed to forge a common national identity for their people.
Today we still hear the same rubbish about a democracy before democracy, recycled by a ‘new breed’ of silver-tongued African leaders. Meles Zenawi, the chief architect of the one-man, one-party state in Ethiopia, says that establishing democracy in Africa is bound to take a long time and that elections alone will not produce democracy and do not necessarily bring about democratic culture or guarantee a democratic exercise of rule. He holds that creating a democracy in poverty-ridden and illiterate societies, that have not yet fully embraced democratic values and are not yet familiar with democratic concepts, rules and procedures, is bound to take a long time and to exact huge costs.
Similar arguments are made by Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Paul Kagame of Rwanda. Even the wily old coyote, Robert Mugabe, pulls the same stunt at age 85 to justify clinging to power.
The new-breed dictators are trying to sell the same old snake oil in a new bottle to Africans. But no one is fooled by the sweet-talking, iron-fisted new breed dictators who try to put a kinder and gentler face on their dictatorship, brutality and corruption. They should spare us their empty promises and hypocritical moral pontificating. For half a century, Africans have been told democracy requires sacrifices and pain; they must look inwards to their village communities, traditional elders and consensus dialogue to find the answers. Africans don’t want to hear that democracy takes time and they must wait, and wait, and wait as the new breed of dictators pick the continent clean right down to its bare bones. Africans want Africa no longer to be the world’s cesspool of corruption, criminality and cruelty.
The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as democracy before democracy. There could be either democracy or one-man, one-party dictatorships in Africa. We all know exactly what the latter means. The only question is how best to implement constitutional multiparty systems in Africa. On this question, there may be an ironic twist of history. As Ghana was the original model of the one-man, one-party state in Africa, Ghana today could be the model of constitutional multiparty democracy in Africa.
As I have argued previously – in Abugida Ethiopian American Information and Ethiopia Media Forum – Ghana today has a functioning, competitive, multiparty political system guided by its constitution. Article 55 guarantees that ‘every citizen of Ghana of voting age has the right to join a political party’. Political parties are free to organise and ‘disseminate information on political ideas, social and economic programmes of a national character’. But tribal and ethnic parties are illegal in Ghana under Article 55 (4). This is the key to Ghana’s political success. The Ghanaians also have an independent electoral commission, which ensures the integrity of the electoral process and, under Article 46, that it is an institution ‘not subject to the direction or control of any person or authority’. Ghanaians enjoy a panoply of political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights. In 2008, Ghana (with a population of 23 million) ranked 31 out of 173 countries worldwide on the World Press Freedom Index. In contrast Ethiopia (with a population of 80 million) ranked 142 out of 173. There are more than 133 private newspapers, 110 FM radio stations and two state-owned dailies. Ghanaians express their opinions without fear of government retaliation. The rule of law is upheld and the government follows and respects the constitution. Ghana has an independent judiciary, which is vital to the observance of the rule of law and protection of civil liberties. Political leaders and public officials abide by the rulings and decisions of the courts and other fact-finding inquiry commissions. Ghana is certainly not a utopia, but it is positive proof that multiparty constitutional democracy can and will work in Africa.
Africa’s and Ethiopia’s future in the 21st ‘brave new globalised century’ lie in genuine multiparty democracy, not in recycled one-man, one-party, pie-in-the-sky-promising dictatorships. Poverty, ethnic conflict, illiteracy and all of the other social ills will continue to haunt Africa for decades to come. Dealing effectively with these issues cannot be left to the failed-beyond-a-shadow-of-doubt, one-man, one-party dictatorships. If Africa is to be saved from total collapse, its ordinary people must be fully empowered in an open, pluralistic and competitive multiparty political process. For those who have any doubts about Ethiopia’s readiness for genuine multiparty democracy, let them look at the facts of the 2005 election: 26 million eligible Ethiopians were registered to vote in that election out of a population of 74 million. A stunning 90 per cent of the 26 million actually voted. No more one-man, one-party dictatorships in Africa. Genuine multiparty democracy now!
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Alemayehu G. Mariam is professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles.
* This article was originally published by The Huffington Post.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.
Readers' Comments
Let your voice be heard. Comment on this article.
Alemayehu G. Mariam attack on the common concept that economic democracy must be achieved before abstract political rights; rooted in the legacy of one-man, one-party rule designed to ‘avoid genuine multiparty democracy’ and buffer personal power, is timely and apposite. This is especially significant at a time when the dearth of participatory democracy is wrecking havoc on human security and draining the continents resources
Africa is a new continent modelled under the influence of it historical past. Centuries of slavery and colonial occupation have debilitated political, economic, and social formations as described prolifically in literature. The impact of post-independence super-power influence is also signifi-cant. The ripple effect of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the rise of globalisation is bound to vary from country to country, with the maximum effect probably on countries, which were so closely tied with that bloc. It also relates to the strength of the mass and popular movements for democratic reforms inside Africa itself. The post-Berlin Wall political dynamics has ushered in a new era in the Western liberal democratic model to be taken as the strategic mode of democratic governance. The target that a host of other African countries set themselves in the process is the attainment of institutions and practices that have been the basic ingredients of the Western democratic tradition – elections, rule of law, economic, social and political gov-ernance etc.
Highly sensitive and sometimes satirical observers have not been oblivious to the limits of these acknowledged paragons of democracy. Hence the notion of naïve realism (that has been invoked in most discussions as the first mark of transition to democracies in Africa). Such naiveté refers to certain conceptual shortcomings in current perspectives relating to democratic reforms in Africa. These can be seen as outcomes of more or less conscious attempts of indigenous governments and their international backers to quickly get their hands on 'urgent' or 'practical' matters such as 'elections' associated with the democratisation of politics without worrying much about the 'abstracts' of developing democratic rules of the game and insti-tutions. One manifestation of naive realism is the pre-emotive 'socialisation' of democratic ideas and practices, as demonstrated, for example, by the dimensions, and the implications of these dimensions, of popular participation in the national and local elections, every where in the continent; with the exception of few nations.
Another manifestation of the naiveté in Africa is the simple equation of partisan elaboration of democratic ideology. Here, our attention and thought are diverted from the critical destination between, a system of abstract categories as a construct of an explicit rationalisation, a formal conceptualisation and design on the one hand, to broad and diverse domains of ideology and purposefulness in the plenitude of social experience, on the other. We are discouraged from acknowledging the distance and tension between these two spheres of democratisation. Instead, one is led to believe that ideological construction in one sphere is reducible to ideological construction in the other. As the statements such as: 'the Constitution must be a creation of the citizenry ...' and '...laws should come from the populace rather than the palace" suggests, and assumes the form of a putative attribution of authorial agency in the making of a democratic constitution to an organisationally underdeveloped, democratically inexperienced and largely, to a civil society that has been deliberately rendered ineffective.
Well sill another expression of naive realism in existing perspectives and projects of transition to democracy in Africa is the common assumption that the proliferation of social organisations, mainly NGOs, is in and of itself an index of democratisation. The assumption seems plausible. After all, what is more obvious in projects of democratic transition in Africa is the goal of increas-ing the number of social institution's that will build stronger civil societies that in turn could spawn favourable conditions for the growth of democracy? Nevertheless, there forces that assert that the assumption is open to question. As one component of civil society, NGOs may be prob-lematic in that, far from contributing to the strengthening of civil society vis-Ã -vis the state, they can function as instruments for the consolidation of a technocratic elite within the non governmental sector. The growing number and diversity of NGOs (the proliferation of which has been more as outcome of funding by external donors than an indigenous "grassroots" phe-nomenon) mean that the organisations have very uneven political and professional capabilities, and differing levels of commitment to processes of democratisation. True, they provide a range of social, humanitarian and relief services of varying proximity and relevance to the ends and purposes of democratic reform. They do not function simply as instruments to those ends, but have their own inclinations, concerns and motivations, which democratisation of African politics and societies must take into account. Problems such as these constitute significant challenges to the realisation of the democratic potential of African NGOs themselves.
In sum, naive realism within existing perspectives and projects of democratisation emphasises the immediacies of institutional and political activity to the neglect of the constitutive and regulative concepts and norms that define, structure and validate democratic institutions and democratic practices. It attempts to establish a direct relation to social experience, largely bypassing the intangible yet no less significant terrain of critical political thought. Its immediate turn to the practical tasks of inducing people to participate in ostensibly democratic activities such as elections, the full meaning of which is often beyond the grasp of the participants, tends to become a substitute for the making of transparent and open rules of political engagement.
In our cross-national analysis of democratic transitions in Africa at the beginning of the wave of democratic experiments in Africa, we asserted that political culture and democratic development derives from the following three distinct sets of factors… firstly, many assert that certain structures, which reflect long-term historical developments in the economy and society, determine whether there is an enabling environment for democratic development. Various structures have been proposed as preconditions for democracy such as the emergence of an independent middle class, the attainment of widespread literacy and education, or a shared sense among citizens of national unity. The structural factor most commonly cited as favouring democracy is an advanced industrial economy with a high average of per capita income.
Secondly, on the other had there is the school of though that underpins the fact that, from a con-tingent perspective, democratic development is installed as a result of the conscious reform initiatives of individual leaders, elite factions and social movements. The trajectory is driven by the short-term calculations and immediate reactions of strategic actors. Outcomes are indeterminate because all these actors make hurried reactions to unforeseen events, and must struggle against one another. If predictable at all, the prospects for democratic development seem to depend on the relative strength and cohesion of a shifting set of conservative and re-form coalitions within the state and outside of it.
A third school of thought submits that democratic development depends upon the emergence of supportive set of political institutions. Institutions are recurrent and valued patterns of political behaviour that give shape and regularity to politics. They may be manifest as political rules (either legal or informal) or as political organisations (within the state or civil society). As the building blocks of democracy, certain combinations of political institutions must be extant or emergent if a democratic transition is to occur.
These explanatory factors operate at different levels of analysis. A socio-economic structural approach considers the characteristics of whole societies at a macro-level, which are represented in aggregated statistical data sets. A contingent approach focuses on the behaviour of individuals and groups at the micro-level as represented in events and data reported in daily newspapers, periodical news magazines, and other publications. An institutional approach locates the analyst at an intermediate level between individuals and whole systems. Institutions draw attention to the regularities rather than the quirks of individual behaviour. Political institutions are more proximate to transition dynamics than "deep" socio-economic structures.
An institutional approach to political culture development would appear to offer considerable explanatory power. The widespread incidence of social conflict and political instability in Africa is directly attributable to basic weaknesses of political institutions. While African states have greatly expanded since independence, especially in terms of the number of public employees and the share of public consumption in the government budget, this growth has not usually been accompanied by a concomitant improvement in the capacity of the state to extend authority throughout the territory to deliver public services. With few exceptions, African state institutions have failed to win popular legitimacy. As for civil society, its institutions also remain generally underdeveloped. Compared with other parts of the world, African countries possess relatively few authentic, large-scale organisations that can articulate and aggregate social interests.
One source of this institutional condition is the practice of neo-patrimonial rule adopted by many African leaders. These leaders have concentrated power (changing constitutional and electoral laws when these proved to be disadvantageous) in their own hands and eliminated checks and balances on executive authority. The process of decision-making has thus come to be characterised more by personal authority than by rational planning or democratic accountability that undermined the rule of law.
Democratic transitions can be explained with reference to two institutional factors: political or-ganisations and political rules.
The central hypothesis is that the relative strength of political organisations determines the rules of the political game that are installed. Democratisation requires a plural set of political organisations which promote and protect rules of peaceful political participation and competition. Together, democratic institutions (plural organisations plus rules of accountability) ensure control of the state executive. In taking an institutional perspective, we assume that actors in the political system express preferences through organisations and that these organisations vary in strength according to their resource base. The relevant organisations are found both in society, where they represent and aggregate individual interests, and in the state, where they check and balance executive authority.
Different kinds of organisations play a leading role during different phases of transition. Popular protest against a regime may be initially driven by a few resentful agent provocateurs or the independent Press as a critical element. As political momentum accumulates, the organisational strength of the opposition becomes a more critical variable; mass membership organisations like unions and faith groups step in to sustain and direct protest. Concurrently, the organisational cohesion of the state becomes important; the state may begin to fragment, as elite factions use the legislature, bureaucracy and judiciary to assert autonomy from the chief executive. If and when elections are convened, political parties and the electoral agency, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, become the leading institutions. We hypothesise that the absence or weakness of certain kinds of organisations explains why transitions stall at certain key junctures.
Democracy can be attained only if legal texts are applied to ensure full accountability, transpar-ency and predictability of executive authority. Invariably, this means that we need to build the capacity for political culture development even before we go to the polls for elections that may be harbingers of more violent protests. Democratisation is a process of institutional learning, in which state and societal organisations develop a new and stable set of mechanisms to manage conflict peacefully. Historically, it is clear that few authoritarian regimes successfully achieve a transition to full democratic rule on their first attempt. As we have seen in Ghana, in a majority of cases, several unsuccessful attempts have been necessary before a transition was actually consolidated and sustained for the long term
Indeed on can ask how would one recognise that democratisation had occurred? Essentially, democratic norms and procedures would have to become fully assimilated by a majority of the players within the political system. There must be consensus on the rules of the game, whether these rule are embodied in legal texts, or in less formal but no less real customs of politics as it is practised. As scholars have noted, democratic rule institutionalises uncertainty. It can succeed if and when all the political actors accept this uncertainty as preferable to the rigidities of dictatorship.
Election observation and monitoring are indeed legitimate instruments to ensure peaceful political participation and contestation. They must be encouraged at all costs. However, notwithstanding the rights of Africans to question their governance regimes, many now believe that the dialogue on our democratic development has been usurped by foreigners, albeit with little ground- zero information. While it is not difficult to bash African ruling regimes these days, many are beleaguered why the international community are so intent in launching Africa into chaos in the aftermath of elections. True, elections cannot be expected to be absolutely problem free, notwithstanding the boorish behaviour of ruling political parties. Nevertheless, many claim that the damage caused by observers is indeed far reaching; quickly adding that elections hold great promises, but may have been aborted by such recklessness. In good age-old international relations, how diplomats from observer nations (who at the same time couple as donors), manage to handle such sad interludes is bound to reverberate throughout Africa.
Because democratisation requires a plural set of political organisations which promote and pro-tect rules of peaceful political participation and competition, observers could be a contributing force for sanity during this critical period in the liberated spirit of African; for the alternative is too ghastly and terrifying to contemplate.
BT Costantinos, School of Post Graduate Studies, AAU
I have read this article, which attempts to address the economic develoment versus democracy conundrum.
But I mist take exception to his claim that Kwame Nkrumah became a "power hungry despot". The writer goes on to describe the much repeated mantra, much of which is taken out of context, about the PDA, arrest of opponents, etc. Whatg a load of nonsense?
I lived in Ghana at the time. I was a Young Pioneer activisits, and comes from Northern Ghana which was lifted out of deep depths of poverty, thanks to Kwaem Nkrumah. Was the writer and the US adminstration which overthrew him beneficiries of Kwame nkrumah's efforts? Does the writer know how many Ghanaian children were maimed by bomb-throwinbg western agents in Ghana? Does the writer actually know what Kwame Nkrumah did for Ghana and Africa?
I am tired of people always picking on Kweame Nkrumah, claiming he was a dictator and all that crap. Look objectively at what Kwame Nkrumah achioeved. If Ghana is today rec ognised as a beacon of 'democracy', that is due to Kwame Nkrumah and the foundations he laid for us as a country. If I am a Pan Africanist today, it is because of the education he made possible.
By all means make your arguments, but stop this abuse of African heroes, especially if the abuse is underserved, and is derived from the propaganda of is derived from the CIAS ahdbook of cheap anti-African propaganda. The CIA and those who eventually overthrew Kwame Nkrumah are now ashamed of themselves, or should be.
The man (Kwame Nkrumah) took us out of poverty, developed Ghana into a middle income country. Ghana was on the path to industrialisation and economic independence. There were some people both in Ghana and the world who did not want to see genunie development in an African country and sabotaged Kwame Nkrumah, hounded him into exile. It took us several years and lots of struggle to get back to where we are today.
Kwame Nkrumah was no 'power hungry despot'. This is a lot of nonsense, stop repeating it.
IU rest my case.
Zaya Yeebo
Zaya Yeebo