THE African continent’s adherence to democracy as it is understood and applied by the West has been a long and difficult process. In a June 1990 speech, then French president François Mitterrand called on African countries to move more quickly towards democracy. Even he recognised that it took two centuries for Europe to do so, while also struggling through setbacks such as Nazism and Stalinism.
It’s no wonder that the desire of certain African heads of state to remain indefinitely in power is raising questions — not only about their objectives, but also the appropriateness of the means being used to achieve them.
US President Barack Obama has been outspoken on the subject, castigating elected leaders who have pushed aside term limits. At the 2014 US-Africa Business Forum, he championed the transfer of power peacefully. In doing so, he won opposition parties’s support in a number of African countries.
It’s less certain that the leaders themselves paid much attention. There are 16 presidential elections taking place in Africa this year, many under constitutions that dispense with term limits.
Are these "tampered" constitutions, to use the term commonly employed? Whatever the case, huge protests broke out in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Burkina Faso, a huge uprising against the proposed third term for President Blaise Compaoré pushed him from power in October 2014.
Neither popular resistance nor the repeated injunctions of US Secretary of State John Kerry have convinced the continent’s various autocrats and dictators to abandon their desire to cling to power. Indeed, more voices are being raised against presidential term limits, and it’s worth examining the arguments put forth.
...
Some of these arguments are so basic as to be almost naive. In the Côte d’Ivoire daily Inter on January 6, Ivorian Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reform Cissé Bacongo called for the removal of term limits in the next constitution — a position contrary to that of his political party, to which President Alassane Ouattara also belongs. Without charismatic, competent, credible and honest officials who can assume power, the people could find themselves compelled to elect a president by default, even as the current president will be excluded from the race.
Bacongo went on to say that being consistent with the West in such matters would be premature because "in large democracies, the political class is full of competent managers".
The country’s young political activists certainly appreciated his point of view.
But there are also arguments more likely to receive popular support. In the weekly Jeune Afrique dated January 10, François Soudan lays out a fairly widespread view, but one rarely expressed so openly by the continent’s autocrats or those close to them.
"Democracy and development don’t move forward at the same speed…," Soudan writes. "Establishing (democracy) is impossible without its being embraced by the public, which has certain prerequisites: education, health, access to water and electricity, but also order and stability, even if that requires constraining civil liberties. (Thus in Rwanda), the media are controlled, as are political parties, associations and NGOs (nongovernmental organisations)."
...
THIS is apparently the price of the flattering economic record of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
In his 1990 speech, Mitterrand said: "There is no development without democracy and there is no democracy without development."
Soudan’s assertion confirms the first part and contradicts the second. In fact, let’s admit it: "Democracy is not profitable" — as journalist and writer Jean-Claude Guillebaud asserted in 2011. He was referring to Tunisia’s financial downgrade after the fall of longtime ruler Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
Park Chung-hee’s South Korea, Augusto Pinochet’s Chile and communist Vietnam have already demonstrated the same truth.
If we’re to believe that development is best achieved through political stability, even to the point of allowing autocrats and dictators to remain in power indefinitely, why bother adding a veneer of democracy at the risk of triggering violence at home or running afoul of the international community?
The mechanisms used to amend countries’ constitutions aren’t always undemocratic. And it is precisely here that there’s a misunderstanding about the essence of democracy. Those who cling to power do so for the wrong reasons, but they often use legal means to get there — parliaments, which could well be in their pockets, or referendums.
In Rwanda, Kagame and his party launched a countrywide petition that gathered signatures from more than 60% of the country’s registered voters. That led to a referendum that received 98.9% yes votes, and allows Kagame potentially to remain in power until 2034.
Yet opposition forces, which swear by the rules of democracy, are generally hostile to referendums. When Compaoré suggested using one to allow him to run for a third term, there was an outcry that he would inevitably win because rural areas were in favour of the idea.
Herein lies one of the stumbling blocks of democracy in Africa: on one side there are townspeople — politically aware and active — and on the other those who live in the countryside, who are more attached to the stability and security offered by an established leader. Remember, more than 50% of Africans live in rural areas.
...
IF THIRD presidential terms in Africa signal a shift towards dictatorship, they’ve usually been given some degree of democratic legitimacy — and it is hard to tell if it’s the result of electoral fakery, popular support or the deep conviction that there can be no real development without political stability.
So we have to ask ourselves: has the West been reckless and hasty in trying to transfer "universal" political models to Africa? Or is more time required for a genuine democratic spirit to be present, rather than just mere words?
• Bouquet is professor emeritus in political geography at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne. This article first appeared on The Conversation
Burkina Faso’s former president, Blaise Compaoré, was pushed from power by protests when he tried for a third term in power. Picture: REUTERS/THIERRY GOUEGNON
THE African continent’s adherence to democracy as it is understood and applied by the West has been a long and difficult process. In a June 1990 speech, then French president François Mitterrand called on African countries to move more quickly towards democracy. Even he recognised that it took two centuries for Europe to do so, while also struggling through setbacks such as Nazism and Stalinism.
It’s no wonder that the desire of certain African heads of state to remain indefinitely in power is raising questions — not only about their objectives, but also the appropriateness of the means being used to achieve them.
US President Barack Obama has been outspoken on the subject, castigating elected leaders who have pushed aside term limits. At the 2014 US-Africa Business Forum, he championed the transfer of power peacefully. In doing so, he won opposition parties’s support in a number of African countries.
It’s less certain that the leaders themselves paid much attention. There are 16 presidential elections taking place in Africa this year, many under constitutions that dispense with term limits.
Are these "tampered" constitutions, to use the term commonly employed? Whatever the case, huge protests broke out in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Burkina Faso, a huge uprising against the proposed third term for President Blaise Compaoré pushed him from power in October 2014.
Neither popular resistance nor the repeated injunctions of US Secretary of State John Kerry have convinced the continent’s various autocrats and dictators to abandon their desire to cling to power. Indeed, more voices are being raised against presidential term limits, and it’s worth examining the arguments put forth.
...
Some of these arguments are so basic as to be almost naive. In the Côte d’Ivoire daily Inter on January 6, Ivorian Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reform Cissé Bacongo called for the removal of term limits in the next constitution — a position contrary to that of his political party, to which President Alassane Ouattara also belongs. Without charismatic, competent, credible and honest officials who can assume power, the people could find themselves compelled to elect a president by default, even as the current president will be excluded from the race.
Bacongo went on to say that being consistent with the West in such matters would be premature because "in large democracies, the political class is full of competent managers".
The country’s young political activists certainly appreciated his point of view.
But there are also arguments more likely to receive popular support. In the weekly Jeune Afrique dated January 10, François Soudan lays out a fairly widespread view, but one rarely expressed so openly by the continent’s autocrats or those close to them.
"Democracy and development don’t move forward at the same speed…," Soudan writes. "Establishing (democracy) is impossible without its being embraced by the public, which has certain prerequisites: education, health, access to water and electricity, but also order and stability, even if that requires constraining civil liberties. (Thus in Rwanda), the media are controlled, as are political parties, associations and NGOs (nongovernmental organisations)."
...
THIS is apparently the price of the flattering economic record of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
In his 1990 speech, Mitterrand said: "There is no development without democracy and there is no democracy without development."
Soudan’s assertion confirms the first part and contradicts the second. In fact, let’s admit it: "Democracy is not profitable" — as journalist and writer Jean-Claude Guillebaud asserted in 2011. He was referring to Tunisia’s financial downgrade after the fall of longtime ruler Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
Park Chung-hee’s South Korea, Augusto Pinochet’s Chile and communist Vietnam have already demonstrated the same truth.
If we’re to believe that development is best achieved through political stability, even to the point of allowing autocrats and dictators to remain in power indefinitely, why bother adding a veneer of democracy at the risk of triggering violence at home or running afoul of the international community?
The mechanisms used to amend countries’ constitutions aren’t always undemocratic. And it is precisely here that there’s a misunderstanding about the essence of democracy. Those who cling to power do so for the wrong reasons, but they often use legal means to get there — parliaments, which could well be in their pockets, or referendums.
In Rwanda, Kagame and his party launched a countrywide petition that gathered signatures from more than 60% of the country’s registered voters. That led to a referendum that received 98.9% yes votes, and allows Kagame potentially to remain in power until 2034.
Yet opposition forces, which swear by the rules of democracy, are generally hostile to referendums. When Compaoré suggested using one to allow him to run for a third term, there was an outcry that he would inevitably win because rural areas were in favour of the idea.
Herein lies one of the stumbling blocks of democracy in Africa: on one side there are townspeople — politically aware and active — and on the other those who live in the countryside, who are more attached to the stability and security offered by an established leader. Remember, more than 50% of Africans live in rural areas.
...
IF THIRD presidential terms in Africa signal a shift towards dictatorship, they’ve usually been given some degree of democratic legitimacy — and it is hard to tell if it’s the result of electoral fakery, popular support or the deep conviction that there can be no real development without political stability.
So we have to ask ourselves: has the West been reckless and hasty in trying to transfer "universal" political models to Africa? Or is more time required for a genuine democratic spirit to be present, rather than just mere words?
• Bouquet is professor emeritus in political geography at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne. This article first appeared on The Conversation
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