Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa : Case Studies and Theoretical Solutions [1 ed.] 9781443857208, 9781443899390

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Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa: Case Studies and Theoretical Solutions By

E. Ike Udogu

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa: Case Studies and Theoretical Solutions By E. Ike Udogu This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by E. Ike Udogu All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9939-9 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9939-0

This book is dedicated to the African Union, for providing impressive templates for good governance in Africa, scholars, and civil society groups fighting for the advancement of consolidated democracy in this millennium.

CONTENTS

Preface ........................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... xi Acronyms ................................................................................................. xiii Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 General Introduction Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 13 Leadership Crisis in Africa: An Overview Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 47 Egypt and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 71 Ivory Coast and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 99 Zambia and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 133 Uganda and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 161 Angola and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 185 Conclusion: Applying Colin Powell’s and Abraham Lincoln’s Theories on Leadership to African Politics: Some Pointers for African Leaders Select Bibliography ................................................................................. 211 Index ........................................................................................................ 237

PREFACE

Proverbially, “They that are whole [have no need of a] physician, but they that are sick [do]” (Mark 2: 17). To paraphrase my preceding biblical reference in political terms, it is metaphorically fragile nation-states in the developing world, and Africa in particular, that need scholars to “nurse” their weak governance systems—especially democracy—into good health or consolidated democracy. In reality, this is what this book is all about because consolidated democracy could further stability and development. Since most African countries gained home rule from colonial powers during the second half of the 20th century, the issue of electing thoughtful and selfless political leaders dedicated to a good governance project has been tough. A consolation on this matter, if one is to refer to it as such, is that few regions of the world are immune from the “curse” of poor leadership in the management and administration of their polities. As a consequence of this development in Africa, many countries were confronted with political instability, military coups and counter-coups, economic collapse, civil wars, and refugee problems. Moreover, some countries have failed to function as viable states due in part to unstable institutions and structures, and accordingly some of these states have been referred to as failed or collapsed states in political science parlance. A major issue, related to the thrust of this volume, critical for advancing stability in this region is the leadership quandary that is frequently associated with a second problem: electoral malpractice. Africa needs scholars to diagnose the causes of her political illness and the abovementioned symptoms—i.e., leadership dilemma and electoral malfeasance—and produce solutions for the future. For this reason, the hypothesis I intend to examine and tackle in this book is that effective leadership is the foundation for the institutionalization of electoral democracy and sound governance that can pave the way for rapid and impressive development in the continent in this millennium. In order to pursue this line of inquiry, I discuss in the first chapter the general character and complexity of leadership notionally. This approach to my analysis is applied in an attempt to bring to the fore possible sources and intricacies of leadership qualities and why there are relatively few exemplary political leaders in much of Africa’s inchoate democracies.

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Preface

In the succeeding chapters, I discuss case studies on electoral democracy in five countries subjectively selected from Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone Africa. I do so for the sole purpose of illustrating the conflictive nature and divisive consequences of electoral malpractice in these societies and by extension much of Africa at this juncture of the region’s democratic experiments. This volume also explores the role played by leaders who undermine the fundamental basis of free and fair elections that are necessary in producing regimes with national legitimacy. In short, this study probes the linkage between the behavior of leaders and the extent to which they cleverly and myopically fix the electoral processes in their polities in order to retain power indefinitely. The outcomes of rigged elections do not “true” democracy make. My concluding chapter returns to the question of leadership and suggests what I hope should be useful templates that could modify leadership character and produce those I term incandescent leaders who aim to govern effectively, and how they could go about it. Specifically, I reference the leadership theories enunciated by General Colin Powell and President Abraham Lincoln and further suggest, inter alia, their ideas on leadership as useful pointers for leaders in Africa. In all, I argue in this volume that with adequate leadership, free and fair elections, political stability, and “good political life” for all, Africa can advance triumphantly toward its renaissance as the continent strives to claim the 21st century as her own.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To paraphrase John Donne, the late English poet, “No man is an island; entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent; a part of the main [i.e. community, state, country and world]....” In light of the preceding allusion, it would be perverse for me to pretend that my completion of this volume happened solely on the basis of my academic efforts without support from my family, institution, and the works of scholars worldwide. To this end, I am greatly indebted to the superb works of academics, civil society organizations, and governments that I reference in this book. Also, in a peculiar way, my thanks are extended to political actors whose electoral mal/practices inform the character of this book. My special thanks are extended, too, to the guardians of two imposing libraries—Belk Library and Information Commons at Appalachian State University and Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation Library at Florence, South Carolina—that “housed” me while writing this book. I thank my graduate assistant, Mr. C. S. Bare, for his help on this project, Dr. Onyile B. Onyile for formatting the volume, my colleague, Dr. Carey Fraser, and the University Writing Center for proofreading this manuscript. Finally, I thank the personnel at Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom, for producing and making this work available to you. —E. Ike Udogu Faculty Fellow and Professor of African, Comparative and International Politics Anne Belk Hall Department of Government and Justice Studies Appalachian State University Boone, NC, USA

ACRONYMS

AD AD-Coligacao ADD AG ANC ANPP APC APC APGA APP ASU AZ BSAC CASA-CE CDP CNE CP CPO CPSU DFRRI DP EC ECOWAS FDA FDC FDD FNLA FpD FOFAC FPI FUMA GASI GP

Alliance for Democracy Democratic Angola-Coalition Alliance for Development and Democracy Attorney-General African National Congress All Nigeria’s People’s Party All People’s Congress (of Zambia) All Progressives Congress (of Nigeria) All Progressive Grand Alliance All People’s Party Arab Socialist Union Agenda for Zambia British South African Company Convergence for the Salvation of AngolaElectoral Coalition Citizens Democratic Party National Electoral Commission Conservative Party Political Council of the Opposition Communist Party of the Soviet Union Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure Democratic Party Electoral Commission Economic Community of West African States Forum for Democratic Alternatives Forum for Democratic Change Forum for Democracy and Development National Front for the Liberation of Angola Front for Democracy Angolan Fraternal Forum Coalition Ivoirian Popular Front United Front for Change of Angola Global Awareness Society International Green Party

xiv

GURN HP IMF IPC KANU KY LR MAMSER MB MCP MMD MPs MPLA MPLA-PT NAREP NCC ND NDP NLD NMP NRMO NRA NRP NU PADEPA PAJOCA PAPOD PDCI PDP PDP PDP-ANA PF PIT PLD PNDA

Acronyms

Government of National Unity and Reconciliation Heritage Party International Monetary Fund Inter-Party Cooperation Kenya African National Union Kabaka Yekka Liberation Rally Mass Movement for Economic Recovery, SelfReliance and Social Justice Muslim Brotherhood Malawi Congress Party Movement for Multi-party Democracy Members of Parliament Popular Front for the Liberation of Angola Popular Front for the Liberation of AngolaWorkers party National Restoration Party National Christian Coalition New Democracy National Democratic Party National Leadership for Development National Movement for Progress National Resistance Movement Organization National Resistance Army National Restoration Party National Union Party for the Democratic Support and Progress of Angola Party for the Alliance of Youth, Workers, and Peasants People’s Party for Development Democratic Party of Ivory Coast People’s Democratic Party (of Nigeria) People’s Development Party (of Uganda) Democratic Party for Progress-Angolan National Alliance Patriotic Front Parti Ivoirien des Travailleurs Liberal Democratic Party Angolan National Democratic Party

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa

PPE PPP PRA PRD PRS PSI RDR R&D SADC SAP SDP SSS TPDF UDA UDF UDV UN UNC UNIP UNITA UPC UPE USD UN UNLF UPND USSR WWI WWII ZANU-PF ZED ZCTU ZRP

Electoral Political Platform People’s Progressive Party Angolan Reform Party Democratic Renewal Party Social Renewal Party Parti Socialiste Ivoirien Rassemblement des Republicains Research and Development Southern African Development Community Strategic Adjustment Program Social Democratic Party State Security Service Tanzania People’s Defence Force United Democratic Alliance Union des Forces Democratiques Unilateral Declaration of Victory United Nations Uganda National Congress United National Independence Party National Union for the Total Independence of Angola Ugandan People’s Congress Universal Primary Education Union des Sociaux Democrates United Nations Uganda National Liberation Army United Party for National Development Union of Soviet Socialist Republic World War 1 World War 11 Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Zambia for Empowerment and Development Zambian Congress of Trade Unions Zambia Republican Party

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CHAPTER ONE GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Now, of course, creating the conditions that allow people and communities to flourish in democracy cannot simply be a matter of holding elections; they are a necessary but not sufficient condition. Good governance requires free, fair, and transparent elections, a free media, independent judiciaries, and the protection of minorities. And democracy must also deliver results for people by providing economic opportunity, jobs, and a rising standard of living.1 —US Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton Speech at the Headquarters of the African Union, Addis Ababa June 13, 2011 It is much more important that the promise of democracy goes beyond just allowing people to freely choose their leaders. It is much more important that democracy should deliver on the promise of choice, of freedoms, of security of lives and property, of transparency and accountability, of rule of law, of good governance and of shared prosperity. It is very important that the promise embedded in the concept of democracy, the promise of better life for the generality of the people, is not delivered in the breach.2 —President Muhammadu Buhari Speech at Chatham House, London, UK February 26, 2015

This book, Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa: Case Studies and Theoretical Solutions, is intended to address the issues raised in the preceding quotations. It alludes to strategies that might lead to political stability, peaceful coexistence among political factions, and “good political life” for Africans in the 21st century. This approach to my scholarship on Africa implies that the political developments on this 1

Cited in Dominique E. Uwizeyimana, “Democracy and Pretend Democracies in Africa: Myths of African Democracies,” Law Democracy & Development, 16 (2012):141. 2 Full Text of “Buhari’s Speech at Chatham House,” Daily Post Nigeria (February 26, 2015), 3, accessed May 5, 2015, http://dailypost.ng/2015/02/26/full-text-ofbuhari-speech-at-chatham

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continent in the 20th century left much to be desired, and change in this new millennium is imperative. This was and is the case when other regions of the world that were former colonies, as was Africa, are doing relatively well politically and developmentally. In truth, an African adage, “the wise learns from the mistakes of others and from the past,” informs the philosophy and writings of many contemporary Africanists in their quest to proffer solutions to some of Africa’s basic politico-economic problems. In short, their intellectual and scholarly concerns today are those of providing possible answers to the obstacles impeding growth and transformation following decolonization in one of the richest continents in the world with abundant untapped natural resources. But in order to suggest ways for assuaging political, economic, and social maladies endemic in a polity, it would be worthwhile for a scholar to first identify the sources of its problems. In this instance, and in the context of this volume, I initially identified political leadership as an issue and later linked it to the problem of electoral democracy. It is to this end that my opening salvo of this book, in chapter 2, is “Leadership Crisis in Africa: An Overview.” In my discourses on leadership, I keep in mind its complexities, which I attempt to expose around some of its definitions, explications, and appurtenances. I also endeavor to bring to light the contexts in which leadership has been arrogantly displayed, and with disastrous consequences for the populations of African states. A paradox on the whole matter of leadership in Africa is that, with a few exceptions, African leaders admit that the major reason for Africa’s social, political, and economic crisis is bad leadership. Yet, the leaders that have emerged in post-colonial Africa have done very little to address the attributes of poor leadership. There is little wonder, then, that Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, laments poignantly that African leaders have failed the continent.3 Kofi Annan, a former Secretary General of the United Nations from Ghana, was blunt in advising African chiefs to stop blaming colonial powers and colonialism for Africa’s ineffective leaders, political and economic woes, and current level of under/development.4 Be that as it may, chapter 2 attempts to provide some reasons as to why the preceding conjectures have been the case and why Africa needs 3

Olusegun Obasanjo, “Leadership Have Failed African Continent,” GhanaWeb (24 April 2013), accessed June 27, 2015, http://ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=271990 4 Barbara Crossette, “Stop Blaming Colonialism, U.N. Chief Tells Africa,” New York Times (April 17, 1998).

General Introduction

3

transformative leaders. It suggests, among other factors, that the current crop of leaders has in many cases been influenced by the culture of colonial rule in the continent, which African leaders mimicked following the departure of autocratic dominion administrators. In other words, colonial governors ruled despotically and violently as strategies to control the majority indigenous populations. African leaders applied the same authoritarian and violent means in governing their often multi-ethnic states in post-colonial Africa. In doing so, they antagonized ethnic groupings that were and are not their own. The issue of legitimacy of multi-ethnic states came to the forefront when marginalized ethnic groups simply withheld their support for the central government. Sometimes these groupings, sensing that they were and are unable to tap into the country’s economy, or whose hands are metaphorically amputated from exploiting the national coffers by the leader and ethnic group in power, call for self-determination and secession. This was the case in the war for self-determination launched by Eritreans against Ethiopia, for example. The intricacy of uniting a polity stemmed from the failure to fully implement the ideology of nationalism and patriotism following decolonization. Nationalism was the tool with which nationalists gained freedom from colonial domination but they could do very little to advance its spirit, in part due to the allure of ethnonationalism in the struggle for power. This inability to forge an effective post-colonial state by post-colonial leaders has been one source of political instability. It fostered ethnic jingoism, its centrifugal tendencies and conflicts sometimes resulting in civil wars, internal displacements, and refugee crises as in Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia, and the Sudan to list a few. Given the fragility of the state inherited by African leaders from the colonial powers and their attendant oppressive governance techniques, with the rigging of elections and political turmoil in some, a number of African states have experienced military coups. Soldiers are warriors trained for the defense of the territorial integrity of a state. They are not politicos adept at democratic philosophy and practice. In order to draw attention to this antinomy and expose the political naiveté of the military, this chapter briefly makes reference to the impact of the military coup and regime of General Ibrahim Babangida in Nigeria. It highlights the authoritarian and leadership quagmire that defined Babangida’s tenure in this “giant of Africa.” As an overview on leadership, this chapter illustrates that the leadership quandary in Africa is not limited to politicians but extends to the military that claims it could

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Chapter One

succeed in the governance of society where civilian leaders have failed dismally. Moreover, this chapter provides lucid synopses of the character of some African leaders, which are not flattering given the megalomania in the way they view themselves as the masters, and not the servants, of their citizens. In short, once elected, they acted like the “emperors” in Arthur Lewis’ sketch of West African leaders who, inter alia, considered themselves to be above the law-cum-national constitution, and expected to be treated as such by society and law enforcement agencies.5 The governance technique in Africa also has a lot to do with the nature of the state or how leaders view the state as custodians. If, as noted above, African leaders see themselves as kings and emperors, it follows that the state lacks national legitimacy and autonomy since it caters to the interests of a few—the leaders, subordinates, and vocal elites. This construction of a plutocracy of sorts militates against the advancement of democracy— particularly liberal democracy. In order to consolidate their authority and fully control the state in this arrangement, political leaders connive with plutocratic oligarchs to manipulate the electoral process to facilitate their election and reelection. This chapter further discusses the implications of corruption, which is one strategy applied by leaders to retain political power. My discussion on leadership and corruption is intended to explain the elements that exacerbate the leadership crises on this continent as their impacts weigh heavily on the problem of good governance. Although corruption is semper et ubique and a global phenomenon, its effect on Africa’s inchoate or nascent democracies has devastating effects on societies. Indeed, so serious is the impact of corruption on society that the United Nations stated categorically that it impedes democracy and undermines the rule of law, which are essential for promoting free and fair elections and the advancement of stability and peaceful coexistence among the multiple ethnic communities in a nation-state. Because of its serious implications on contemporary African politics, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States crafted protocols intended to curb this malfeasance. These critical documents are reproduced in this chapter with a view to encouraging readers of this volume and anticorruption activists to use the tenets in these very important declarations to fight tooth and nail the evils of corruption 5

Arthur W. Lewis, Politics in West Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965): 30–32; see E. Ike Udogu, African Renaissance in the Millennium: The Political, Social, and Economic Discourses on the Way Forward (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 52–53.

General Introduction

5

that distort Africa’s systems of governance at this significant juncture of its political development. Chapter 2 also discusses the low premium placed on national constitutions by leaders. The importance of a constitution that outlines the structures, institutions, and rules with which to govern a society effectively is noted. It is worth stressing that as significant as this document is for good governance, many leaders see it as a nuisance—an obstacle to the way they wish to run their societies. In short, they fear that adherence to the provisions of the constitution could hinder their ambitions. So, some amend the constitution by bribing legislators to revise it. They do so not to further the interest of the polity but to enhance their power and stay at the helm of government, as in Burundi in 2015, for example. Constitutional crises sometimes arise when leaders call for an amendment to a constitution in order to boost their authority. If successful, elections that follow such an act are frequently rigged, and the process of fixing elections exposes the problem of electoral democracy in a nation-state and much of Africa that has often led to political destabilization. In sum, the preceding discourses in this chapter bring to the fore the centrality of some issues that leaders exhibit in the governance of African countries. In their quest to retain power by hook or by crook, many chiefs wittingly or unwittingly create a crisis of legitimacy by way of electoral malpractice. The following chapters of this book: chapter 3, Egypt and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy; chapter 4, Ivory Coast and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy; chapter 5, Zambia and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy; chapter 6, Uganda and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy; and chapter 7, Angola and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy are case studies intended to illustrate and illuminate some of the theories discussed in chapter 1. In each of the case studies, I provide a brief historic context within which to comprehend the country’s colonial and post-colonial political developments, leading to my discourses on the electoral quagmires in these polities. In my examination of the problem of electoral democracy in Africa, I make no reference to the formation, character, and role of political parties which are the vehicles through which political leaders in a democracy lose or gain power.6 It was not in my purview to do so in this volume, having 6

See Roy C. Macridis, “Groups, Parties, and Elections,” in Comparative Politics: Notes and Readings 7th edition, edited by Roy C. Macridis and Bernard E. Brown. (Pacific Grove, CA: Brook/Cole Publishing Company, 1990); Sigmund Neumann, “Toward a Comparative Study of Political Parties,” in Modern Political Parties: Approaches to Comparative Politics, edited by Sigmund Newman (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1956); Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their

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tackled the issue of “Political Parties, Elections and Political Legitimation” in Africa elsewhere.7 Instead, I focus my analysis on the activities of political factions and their leaders in the aforementioned countries and how they have struggled—and may continue to struggle—to accede to power by all means possible including, but not limited to, electoral misconduct. My concern in this volume is on elections, and how strategies and performances and their outcomes are frequently contested by political parties that believe they have been cheated out of power by rivals and their leaders. In this regard, my brief reference to and illustration of two elections in Nigeria, a bellwether in Africa, is useful. In 1999, following the birth of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, the political contest was between two political titans, General Olusegun Obasanjo, the presidential flag-bearer of the popular People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Olu Falae, the leader of a grand coalition between the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the All People’s Party (APP). Obasanjo (PDP) won 62.8% of the votes, but it was an election considered by many Nigerians and observers to have been fixed. Consequently, Olu Falae never accepted the result. The result of this election is presented in Table 1 below.

Organization and Activity in the Modern State (London: Methuen Publisher, 1959); M. Weiner, Party Building in a New Nation (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1967); Vickey Randall, ed., Political Parties in the Third World (London: Sage Publication, 1988); Dean E. McHenry, Jr. “Political Parties and Party Systems,” in Democratic Transition in East Africa, ed. Paul J. Kaiser et al. (Aldershot, EN: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004); Renske Doorenspleet, “Political Parties, Party Systems and Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa,” in African Political Parties: Evolution, Institutionalization and Governance, edited by M. A. Mohamed Salih (London: Pluto Press, 2003). 7 E. Ike Udogu, Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in the 21st Century (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 129–66.

General Introduction

7

Table 1: Republic of Nigeria Nigerian Presidential Election of 27 February 1999 Parties AD: Alliance for Democracy APP: All People’s Party PDP: People’s Democratic Party ____________________________________________________________ National Summary Registered Voters 57,938,945 Votes Cast 30,280,052 (52.3%) Invalid Votes 431,611 (01.4%) Valid Votes 29,848,441 (98.6%) ____________________________________________________________ Candidates Party Votes % ____________________________________________________________ Samuel O. Falae AD-APP 11,110,287 37.2 Olusegun Obasanjo PDP 18,738,154 62.8 ____________________________________________________________ Total 29,848,441 100 ____________________________________________________________ Source: Alex Kireev, Nigeria: Presidential Election 1999, accessed June 22, 2015 https://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/n/nigeria/niger...

Again, in the 2003 presidential polling, the PDP under an incumbent President Obasanjo won reelection by 61.8% of votes; retired General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) bagged 32% of the ballots, and Odumegwu Ojukwu of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) got 03.3%. Buhari (ANPP) and Ojukwu (APGA) did not concede victory to the PDP on the basis of electoral malpractice by PDP in the procedure and methods leading to the polling.8 Below is the result of 2003 election in Table 2.

8

Udogu, African Renaissance in the Millennium, 53.

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Chapter One

Table 2: Republic of Nigeria Presidential Election of 19 April 2003 Parties ____________________________________________________________ All Nigerian People’s Party ANPP All Progressive Grand Alliance APGA People’s Democratic Party PDP ____________________________________________________________ National Summary ____________________________________________________________ Registered Voters 60,823,022 Votes Counted 41,331,691 (67.9%) Invalid Votes 2,319,620 (00.6%) Valid Votes 39,012,071 (99.4%) ____________________________________________________________ Candidates Party Votes % ____________________________________________________________ Muhammadu Buhari ANPP 12,495,326 32.0 Olusegun Obasanjo PDP 24,109,157 61.8 Odumegwu Ojukwu APGA 1,295,655 03.3 17 Others 1,111,933 02.9* ____________________________________________________________ Total 39,012,071 100 ____________________________________________________________ *An approximation Source: Nigerian Independent National Election Commission, accessed June 22, 2015. http://www.electoralgeography.com/new/en/countries/n/Nigeria/Nigeriapresidential-election-2003.html.

Indeed, in his refutation of this result, Buhari of the ANPP, and current president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria following the 2015 presidential election between the All Progressives Congress and People’s Democratic Party, expressed his distressing condemnation of the result of that polling thus: [President] Obasanjo’s so-called second term has not been obtained through the power of the ballot. He may force himself on the people by continuing to remain in power beyond May 29 [2003], but his government shall not be a democracy and should not be so treated. …Nothing ever built on falsehood and deceit has endured and this one also shall follow the time honored pattern. …His continued hold on power beyond May 29 runs against the grain of popular democracy and is therefore illegal. His government, as we have posited earlier, is consequently illegitimate and

General Introduction

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shall continue to remain so for as long as it is based on the April 19 contraception.9

Such a political culture, I contend, in which “defeated” candidates in balloting fail to officially and publicly concede to the victor, has frequently led to political instability, violence, and even civil war.10 In some cases, too, political turbulence has led to military coups, with disastrous consequences for populations in a nation-state. Even so, contentious electoral democracy is commonplace in much of Africa, and it informs and brings to the limelight my concerns and concise analytic thrust in the case studies. To sum up, my case studies reveal the problem of electoral democracy in both single and multi-party democracies. In the case of a single-party democracy such as in Egypt, the frequency of electoral malpractices led to an argument or hypothesis that politics in single-party states is less conflictive because it unites all opposition forces. Put another way, the theory that a single-party system mitigates centrifugal forces and the conflicts rampant in multi-party party democracies did not hold. In order to illustrate the foregoing postulation, my selected case studies provide information on election results in tables followed by pointed explorations and analysis as to why the voting patterns were distinctive and, indeed, conflictive. In short, my analysis constantly brings to the forefront the problem of electoral democracy and relates the crisis to the leadership genre in these societies. These studies also allude to the troubling aspect of a president or leader being constitutionally mandated with controlling the apparatus of the electoral process. In many, if not all, cases, the president appoints the officers of the National Electoral Commission responsible for organizing and supervising national elections. This power in the hands of a leader tends to corrupt the system when members are very close to the chief. In order to stay in power, a leader may bring pressure to bear on the commissioners to fix elections in his favor. In light of the problems of electoral democracy that exist in the process of balloting and the attendant issues of political violence and social malaise, there is the possibility of a military coup, as in Ivory Coast, due partially to the lack of national support for a leader. The question is: what is to be done? This is the question I attempt to tackle in chapter 8:

9

E. Ike Udogu (ed.), Nigeria in the Twenty-First Century: Strategies for Political Stability and Peaceful Coexistence (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 238. 10 Udogu, African Renaissance in the Millennium, 54.

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Chapter One

“Applying Colin Powell’s and Abraham Lincoln’s Theoretical Templates on Leadership to African Politics: Some Pointers for African Leaders.” In Africa, making the democratic transition to a consolidated democracy, as in the United States, Britain, France, and Canada, for example, with peaceful elections in which political power shifts from one party to another, has been tough. I argue, as many academics and politicos in Africa also do, that this problem has its roots in poor and inadequate leadership. These leaders often place their narrow interests above those of the nation-state. What is encouraging today, however, is that the process of transitioning to consolidated democracy is on the right trajectory, despite the fact that its pathway has been wobbly.11 My supposition is borne out of the fact that the African Union, through its African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance,12 supports this movement to the hilt. Assistance from civil society organizations, scholars, donor countries, and democratic Western powers for good leadership and democratic opening has been persistent, on the rise, and impressive. Overall, it was probably within the context of my foregoing conjectures that a former South African leader, President Nelson Mandela, stated without equivocation that Africa is beyond bemoaning the past for its problems. The task of undoing that past is on the shoulders of African leaders themselves, with the support of those willing to join in a continental renewal. We have a new generation of leaders who know that Africa must take responsibility for its own destiny, that Africa will uplift [herself] only by its own efforts in partnership with those who wish her well.13

In truth, it is against the backdrop of my preceding suppositions that the concluding chapter should be visualized. Here, I examine and discuss theories and templates that could produce the genus of leaders Africa yearns for. These are leaders who will advance political stability, the respect of human rights, peaceful coexistence, development, and a “good political life.” Indeed, such striking political, social, and economic growth could curb the exodus of Africa’s best and brightest to the developed world and elsewhere, not to mention the many poor and marginalized Africans 11

Udogu, African Renaissance in the Millennium, 39–63. See “African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance,” accessed June 27, 2015, http://www.achpr.org/instruments/charter-democracy/ 13 See “African Leaders on African Leadership & Governance: Excerpts from Selected Articles,” The African Leadership and Progress Network, accessed June 27, 2015, http://www.africanprogress.net/Africanleaders.htm 12

General Introduction

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fleeing poverty and war zones to other African countries and Europe, with disastrous consequences. In applying Powell’s and Lincoln’s theories and templates for producing effective political leaders in chapter 8, I emphasize that this is only one important model. In fact, when this chapter was presented as a paper at the 28th meeting of the Global Awareness Society International (GASI) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, in 2015, one of the questions asked following my presentation was: Why use Powell’s and Lincoln’s theories and templates for leadership in Africa? My metaphoric explication was that “a drowning individual never hesitates to clutch at a straw—any straw—with a hope for survival.” In short, these complementary theories and overlapping templates for effective leadership augment the impressive Mombasa Declaration: The Code of African Leadership crafted by African leaders for producing exceptional leadership in Africa.14 Accordingly, combining elements contained in the Code of African Leadership with Powell’s and Lincoln’s models has the propensity to advance good leadership capable of propelling Africa to an impressive political, social, and economic revival in the 21st century.15

14

See “Code of African Leadership, Mombasa, 20 March 2004,” accessed June 27, 2015 http://www.worldpeacefoundation.org/ALC.code%20of%20African%leadership; see also E. Ike Udogu, “The Issue of Political Leadership in the Third World: What is to be Done?” Journal of Third World Studies, XXV, 1 (2007): 13–23. 15 Udogu, African Renaissance in the Millennium, x.

CHAPTER TWO LEADERSHIP CRISIS IN AFRICA: AN OVERVIEW

Introduction It is easy to experience a sense of déjà vu when analyzing political leadership in Africa. The perception is that African leaders rule failed states that have acquired tags such as “corruptocracies,” “chaosocracies” or “terrorocracies.” Perspectives on political leadership in Africa vary from the “criminalization” of the state to political leadership as “dispensing patrimony,” the “recycling” of elites and the use of state power and resources to consolidate political and economic power. Whereas African states enjoy external sovereignty, internal sovereignty has taken on a new meaning as political leaders outside the so-called formal Westphalia arena compete for power, provide state-like services and have monopoly of and over organized violence...1 —Jo-Ansie Van Wyk

This chapter does not draw its analytic sap from theoretical explanations of leadership. Indeed, notional discourses on the attributes and characteristics of leadership have been robustly and splendidly discussed elsewhere.2 My view on leadership in this chapter is aimed at 1

Jo-Ansie Van Wyk, “Political Leaders in Africa: Presidents, Patrons or Profiteers?,” Occasional Papers Series: Issue 1, 2007, accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.africaportal.org/dspace/articles/political-leaders-africa-presidentspatrons-or-pro%EF%AC%81teers 2 See, for example, J. Adams and J. D. Yoder, Effective Leadership for Women and Men (Norward, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1985), 1–34; F. E. Fielder, The Theory of Leadership Effectiveness (New York: McGraw-Hill Publishers, 1967), 154–80; P. Bachrach, The Theory of Democratic Elitism (Boston, NY: Little Brown, 1967); E. Ike Udogu, “The Issue of Political Leadership in the Third World: What is to be Done?” Journal of Third World Studies, 25, 1 (2008): 13–23; Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing,

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examining that intricate interlacement between the leadership style of African leaders and the complicated nature of the conduct of elections in their polities. In other words, attempts are made to expose some of the problems that often arise at that fundamental—some might say unique— intersection between leaders’ vaulting and often blinkered ambition to be elected and reelected to power and citizens’ conflicting choices at the ballot box. In the end, this chapter and volume suggest that such scenarios exacerbate political instability. It is how to mitigate the destabilizing political actions of politicos issuing from fraudulent, malfeasant, and virulent electoral competitions that retard the process of democratic consolidation in Africa that this chapter aims to tackle. Accordingly, the following discourses relate to the question of leadership and, in a broad spectrum, its character in the governance of a society. Though an indispensable and important component of power, in most political, economic, and socio-religious situations, the meaning or denotation of leadership in all regions of the world is very complicated, and difficult to fully comprehend and explain. Part of its intricacies flow from the character of those who exercise a leadership role in a society. For that reason, the definition of leadership is not only convoluted but also hard to define to the full satisfaction of scholars. Added to this dilemma is the fact that different disciplines—especially in the social sciences— visualize leadership in different ways. Even so, good leadership is a critical attribute, essential for the successful management and governance of a polity.3 Consequently, many scholars have contended that, insofar as 2010); E. Ike Udogu, “Political Leadership and Governance in Democratic Nigeria,” Africa Quarterly, 40, 3 (2000): 109–31; P. Hersey, The Situational Leader (Escondido, CA: Center for Leadership Study, 1984); P. G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004); Glen D. Paige, The Scientific Study of Political Leadership (New York: The Free Press, 1977); James M. Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978); Robert C. Tucker, Politics of Leadership (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1981); Jean Blondel, Political Leadership: Towards a General Analysis (London: Sage Publishers, 1987); Boutros Boutros-Ghali, “Leadership and Conflict,” in Essays on Leadership: Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1998); Edgar F. Borgatta, Robert F. Bales, and Arthur S. Couch, “Some Findings Relevant to the Great Man Theory of Leadership,” American Sociological Review, 19 (December 1954); B. M. Bass, Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectation (New York: Free Press, 1985); B. M. Bass, “From Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share the Vision,” Organizational Dynamics, 18, 3 (Winter 1998): 19–31. 3 Udogu, “Political Leadership and Governance in Nigeria,” 114.

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Africa continues to elect, select, or appoint selfish, ineffective, unpatriotic, and non-transformational leaders, this issue of bad governance and its concomitant side-effects of political commotion, malaise, and anguish will persist in the region.4 So, what exactly is leadership?—a concept that has been actively and deeply studied by academics and yet still not fully understood. As noted earlier, leadership conceptually implies different things within different groups and societies. Little wonder, then, that Stogdill states that there are as many definitions of leadership as there are scholars who have attempted to explain the concept.5 John Cartwright defines leadership as “a relationship between individuals, in which one person manages to get others to do what he [or she] wishes,…It involves voluntary compliance by those over whom it is exercised.”6 Robert C. Tucker sees leadership as “a process of human interaction in which some individuals exert, or attempt to exert, a determining influence upon others.”7 James M. Burns defines leadership as “leaders inducing followers to act for certain goals that represent the values and motivations—the wants and needs, the aspirations and expectations—of both leaders and followers.”8 Hodgetts and Stevens identify leadership as “the process of influencing people to direct their efforts toward the achievement of some particular goals.”9 Newstrom and Bittel conceptualize leadership as “the process of influencing and supporting others to follow and to do willingly the things that need to be done.”10 Gardner defines leadership as “the process of persuasion or example by which an individual induces a group to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers.”11

4

Ibid. R. M. Stogdill, Handbook of Leadership, A Survey of the Literature (New York: New York Free Press, 1974), 259. 6 J. R. Cartwright, Political Leadership in Africa (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), 21. 7 R. C. Tucker, Politics of Leadership (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1981), 21. 8 J. M. Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 19. 9 R. M. Hodgetts and A. Stevens, Organizational Behavior (Philadelphia, PA: V. B. Saunders Company, 1971): 182. 10 J. W. Newstrom and L. R. Bittel, Supervision Managing for Results 8th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007); see also G. A. Agbude and P. I. Etete, “Ethical Leadership, Corruption and Irresponsible Governance: Rethinking the African Dilemma,” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 4, 6 (July 2013): 481. 11 John W. Gardner, On Leadership (New York: Free Press, 1990), 1. 5

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Lester Seligman elucidates leadership within the context of what he termed the “politics of leadership conception” by examining four types of relationships. These are: 1. The relations of leaders to those being led within particular structures. 2. The relationship between leaders of political structures. 3. The relationship between leaders of one structure and the followers of another. 4. The relationship between leaders and [and what he referred to as] unorganized or non-affiliated followers.12 Clearly, if there is one lesson to be learned from the concise preceding definitions it is that the explanation, application, and character of leadership qualities in most settings are quite confounding. This confusion exposes the term "leadership” to all forms of manipulations that complicates its study. Even so, the centrality of my concern in this chapter is on how some African leaders have imbibed and applied inefficiently and “negatively” the accoutrements of leadership in their methods of political governance. As a consequence, many leaders have impeded the process of political stability and advancement of democratic consolidation. And, let it be sufficient to say that the nature of the leadership genres displayed by African leaders today cannot be divorced from Africa’s socio-political milieus and those of the European powers that hitherto governed colonial Africa. Put another way, the experience and quality of African leaders and their governance techniques cannot and should not be detached from the historicity and specificity of Africa and its colonizers—Britain, France, Portugal, and Belgium. In brief, the governance architecture in much of pre-colonial Africa was fundamentally centered on the king, his chiefs, and subjects—an arrangement somewhat similar to those of the empires that thrived on the continent. These kings and chiefs governed their territories effectively, signed treaties, engaged in wars, and managed their inter-ethnic conflicts fairly well. The introduction of colonial rule gradually changed the political arrangements by arrogating power to the colonialists while kings and chiefs became the interlocutors between the foreign powers and indigenous Africans—who fortuitously became British, French, and Portuguese subjects. In order to govern, London, Paris, Lisbon, and Brussels built 12 L. G. Seligman, “The Study of Leadership,” American Political Science Review, 14, 4 (1950): 914.

Leadership Crisis in Africa: An Overview

17

schools to educate some of the natives. The educational schema was carefully planned so that educated subjects would remain subservient to the policies of the colonizers.13 The very best and brightest were carefully chosen to be educated in Europe, and were thoroughly socialized and acculturated in European cultures, ways, and mores. They spoke, wrote, and behaved very much like the elite of the colonizing overseers. In the waning years of the colonial experiment, in the second half of the 20th century, it was these African cadres, who had been tactically and beautifully socialized in Western ways, who negotiated the terms for home rule with the colonial powers. Indeed, the few and diverse members of the African intelligentsia, who were splendidly schooled in Occidental political philosophies, sought to unite their multi-racial, multi-lingual, and multi-ethnic societies that had been hitched together following the Berlin Conference of 1884/5, attended by the colonizers, their allies, and observers.14 Having created nationstates made up of diverse and often competing ethnic groupings, as in Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, Ghana, the Sudan, and so on, a later concern was how these new leaders (drawn from teachers, journalists, labor unionists, and other professions) were to govern these societies efficiently. After all, an effective policy pursued by Europeans for successfully governing their huge colonial estates was that of divide et empera, or divide and rule. In this schema, an ethnic group could be encouraged to challenge another in order to checkmate a recalcitrant and stubborn collective bent on sabotaging European rule. Such, for example, was the policy enacted in Rwanda in which the Tutsis were “carefully groomed and used” to checkmate any possible threat to colonial authority from the majority Hutus. In any case, the onerous task before the political princes who inherited power from the departing colonial rulers was how to unite these disparate 13

See James R. Sheffield, Education in Kenya: A Historical Study (New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University Press, 1973); Ann Beck, “Colonial Policy and Education in British East Africa, 1900-1950, ” Journal of British Studies, 5, 2 (May, 1966): 115–38; R. M. Walsh, “Education in British East Africa,” New Blackfriars, 33, 382 (January, 1952): 22–32; Gail Paradise Kelly, French Colonial Education: Essays on Vietnam and West Africa (New York: AMS Press, 2000); James Duffy, “Portuguese Africa (Angola and Mozambique): Some Crucial Problems and the Role of Education in Their Resolution,” Journal of Negro Education, 30, 3 (Summer, 1961): 294–301; Rayford W. Logan, “Education in Former French West and Equatorial Africa and Madagascar,” Journal of Negro Education, 30, 3 (Summer 1961): 277–85. 14 Adekunle Ajala, “The Nature of African Boundaries,” African Spectrum, 18, 2 (1983): 177–89.

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ethnic groups and meld them into a governable nation-state or country. One strategy was to adopt a bonding ideology, and this dogma was nationalism before and after independence. It is argued that this period marked a unique development in African history; it was an epoch that Lord Acton lucidly described thus: “then began a time when the text simply was, that nations would not be governed by foreigners…”15 What, then, is nationalism? In Ernest Gellner’s definition, nationalism is the: “Theory of political legitimacy, which requires that ethnic boundaries should not be cut across political ones, and, in particular, that the ethnic boundaries within a given state—a contingency already formerly excluded by the principle in its general formulation—should not separate the powerholder from the rest.”16 The criticality of this ideology in shaping the leadership genus among African chiefs cannot and should not be taken for granted. In a way, it is this attitude of inseparability of the leader from the state that brings to the fore the very nature and problem of the relationship between them. In other words, the tenacity with which many African leaders hold onto their political position has a lot to do with this dogma; i.e., the leader is the state and the state is the leader. This was a position commonly accepted by the leaders’ privileged subordinates for the selfish purpose of exploiting the state and its coffers. Strategically, African leaders applied the preceding doctrine of nationalism in their quest to decouple their nation-state from the colonial yoke by calling for unity under their leadership for self-rule and for them to assume power indefinitely. All the same, after they were granted independence, the glue theory that united these ethnicities started to erode as ethnic leaders competed for power within the nation-state. Accordingly, the spirit of nationalism in the struggle against the colonialists was superseded by ethnonationalism in the competition for power and scarce resources. As a result, the nationalism of the independence movement morphed into an ethnic nationalism in postcolonial Africa. From the 1960s to the present, the politics of leadership in Africa overall has not been adequate for democratic consolidation and the advancement of unity and peaceful coexistence. It is this leadership quandary demonstrated in the crisis of electoral democracy that is also at the heart of this chapter and book. As noted previously, nationalism as an ideology informed the character of Africa’s pre- and post- colonial leaders. Additionally, a number of 15

Cited in Hans Kohn, Nationalism, Its Meaning and History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955), 122–23. 16 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), 1.

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leaders espoused an economic ideology that was contradictory to the existing one—capitalism. Specifically, some advocated socialist economic philosophy and anti-capitalist sentiment in their drive for economic development. Having sought help for their liberation from the East, mainly from the Soviets, satellites of the Soviet Empire, and China, they opted for an alternative model of development from those of their former colonial masters. This had disastrous consequences, as in Ethiopia, for example. Paradoxically, one of the rationales for embracing the Soviet model of development, also referred to as the Marxist-Leninist model, was the sales pitch made by Moscow. In truth, the Kremlin persuaded some African leaders that the USSR was able to develop considerably and, in particular, rival the United States in development within such a short time following the 1917 revolution partially because of its one-party system—the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). If African countries emulated the Soviet development model, they too could develop significantly. This propaganda influenced the thoughts of such leaders as Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea, Modibo Keita of Mali, Chief Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, inter alia, who anxiously wanted significant development in their societies. With some newly independent African countries and leaders seeking to repudiate Western political and economic models and gravitate toward the East, London and Paris, mainly, decided to fight back. The battle waged by Western powers in a so-called second scramble for Africa was exacerbated by the Cold War between Moscow and Washington. The Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone African embrace of the Eastern politico-economic models (as a result of colonization and exploitation) was frowned upon by former colonial overseers. The concern and strategy was how to entice the African leaders that had decamped from their former colonial administrators to return to the fold of Western influence. John O. Igue summed up one of the strategies applied by a Western power— France—to suffocate and dislocate some African leaders’ fascination and romance with socialism or the Eastern model of political and economic development thus: It was not long after [the cuddle of Eastern economic and political culture] that France managed to divide the African [by] associating with Felix Houphouet-Boigny. This association dealt a fatal blow to unified left-wing action. These [new African] leaders were profoundly divided on the essential questions relating to the future of Africa. On one side, there stood the group from Casablanca which, around King Mohammed V and his successor, Hassan II [of Morocco], brought together the pro-Westerners

20

Chapter Two such as Felix Houphouet-Boigny (Cote d’Ivoire), Leopold Sedar Senghor (Senegal), Omar Bongo (Gabon) and Ahmadou Ahidjo (Cameroon). On the other side, ardent supporters of the opposing doctrines created the Monrovia group around Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Sekou Toure (Guinea), Modibo Keita (Mali), and William Richard Tolbert (Liberia). In between these conflicting [ideological groups and leadership styles], there floated the “unbiased” participants such as Sourou Migan Apithy (of Dahomey now Benin), Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria), Aboubacar Sangoule Lamizana (Upper Volta now Burkina Faso) and Ngarta Tombalbaye (Chad)… These different tendencies also influenced the intellectual elites and the training of leaders until the arrival of the military…17

Military leadership in Africa is unique to the extent that under normal political conditions they are not expected to intervene in politics. Their major task in virtually every country, in all regions of the world, is that of defending territorial integrity from foreign invaders. A brief discussion on military leadership, within the context of this chapter, issues from the fact that the African military and its leadership in Africa played the role of politicos—a function they are not adept at performing. Even so, their involvement in the leadership and governance processes of a polity has had a problematic and devastating impact on the quality of politics. It markedly slowed down the democratic transition and consolidation in the societies they governed. For example, military leadership happened in the governance of Mauritania, Guinea, Niger, Ghana, Mali, Egypt, Uganda, and Nigeria, to list a few. I contend that the role played by the military and its leadership in Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria in shaping the character of the politics in these countries is peculiar. Nevertheless, for the purpose of elucidating the military’s leadership role and impact on a society’s politics, I have subjectively chosen Nigeria—often touted as the giant of Africa—as a case study of sorts. This is so because of Nigeria’s wealth, vast population in the continent, and, sadly, the crisis of electoral democracy in this polity. In a way, it is intended to show how the character of leadership—whether civilian or military—exacerbates the problem of electoral democracy in Africa. It is also a federal multi-ethnic state with very strong regional tendencies that can generate paralysis at the national level. 17

John O. Igue, “Une Nouvelle Generation de Leaders en Afrique: Quels Enjeux?” Or “A New Generation of Leaders in Africa: What Issues Do they Face?” (translated by Sara Jordan). Accessed December 12, 2014, http://polder.revues.org/139; see also E. Ike Udogu, Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 72–82.

Leadership Crisis in Africa: An Overview

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The narrative as to why the military intervened in Nigerian politics has been told and retold, and so has the story of its “contamination” of the political system as demonstrated in the “negative” outcomes of military authoritarian rule. Ironically, this military cabal claimed to have been a political Messiah sent to clean up the country’s political mess as a result of electoral malfeasance, corruption, poverty, and inadequate leadership.18 Because of the longevity of military interference in the political affairs of the country, eight military leaders (Ironsi, Gowon, Muhammed, Obasanjo, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, and Abubakar) governed this nation-state between 1960 (the year of home rule) and 2015.19 This republic has had seven civilian leaders, two of which were former retired generals—Obasanjo and Buhari. Arguably, none of these warriors, as military leaders, had as much influence on the politics of Nigeria as General Ibrahim Babangida, who, although not elected by the populace, arrogated the title of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Despite the fact that he was a military man unschooled in the art of politics, he was astute and very clever at manipulating the electoral system in Nigeria. During his tenure, he created a combustible electoral crisis in a polity that some believe should not only serve as a model for West Africa but also the continent.20 Accordingly, I shall provide a concise discussion on his leadership genre for the purpose of illustrating how a “free and fair” presidential election conducted under his watch turned out to be a farce. In order to briefly examine Babangida’s political shenanigans in Nigerian polity, I shall allude to the character of civil-military relations in Nigeria and to Babangida’s biography.21 Let it suffice to say that when a template containing procedures for the governance of a political system is faulty, as in a military coup d'état and authoritarian rulers, the process of governing such a political system is likely to be defective. This is so regardless of the caliber of those who craft a framework and process for military rule in a democratic system partially because of the contradiction inherent in the character of military 18 Pita O. Agbese, “The Military as an Obstacle to the Democratization Enterprise: An Agenda to Permanent Military Disengagement from Politics in Nigeria,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, 31 (1996): 82–98 19 Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), xix-xxxii & 234. 20 Goodwin Okafor, Nigeria’s Stumbling Democracy and its Implications for Africa’s Democratic Movement (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008). 21 Dan Agbese, Ibrahim Babangida: The Military, Politics and Power in Nigeria (London: Adonis and Abbey Publishers, Ltd., 2012).

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(authoritarian) and civilian (democratic) regimes. My preceding hypothesis should help explain the wobbly political saga in this republic, and of the leadership of Babangida and his military junta. To be sure, it’s one thing to stage a successful coup and quite another to govern a sophisticated and democratic society effectively. Babangida and his cabal deluded themselves that they could tackle the polity’s political, social, and economic issues effectively where civilian-cum-military regimes before his administration had failed spectacularly. In his work, The Military as an Obstacle to the Democratization Enterprise: Towards an Agenda for Permanent Military Disengagement from Politics in Nigeria,”22 Pita O. Agbese provides a rationale on why the military had become the eminence grise in Nigerian politics. He did so by referencing General Ibrahim Babangida’s address at the 12th graduation ceremony of the military Staff and Command College at Jaji. On this occasion, the General emphasized, inter alia, why the military was and is not to be taken for granted in Nigeria’s political affairs even though its members were not politicos. He proclaimed in 1990: We [military officers] are the government of the day and, as such, are responsible for the normal day-to-day running of the affairs of the nation. We are the defenders of our territorial integrity. We are the planners and implementers of the political program of transition from military to civil rule. We are the reformers of the institutions and organizations of power in the polity as evidenced by the exercise of creating new states and local governments. We are the reformers of the existing battered economy through the [much maligned] Structural Adjustment Program. We are the re-directors of the political process and the architects of the institutions of civil political power. We are the planners and implementers of the process of social reorientation of the civil values in the polity as illustrated in the activities of MAMSER [Mass Movement for Economic Reconstruction, Social Justice and Self-Reliance] and DFRRI [Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure].23

Indeed, before this speech, Babangida’s leadership, through the power of the military and the barrel of the gun, had issued Decree No. 25 of 1987, in which his government singularly determined who could qualify to contest for political offices. In this militocracy—i.e., the government of 22 Agbese, “The Military as an Obstacle to the Democratization Enterprise,” 82– 98. 23 Ibrahim Babangida, For Their Tomorrow We Gave Our Today: Selected Speeches of IBB, Vol. 2 (Lagos, Nigeria: Safari Books, 1990), 154; Agbese, Ibrahim Babangida, 269 & 301.

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the military, by the military, and for the military, with the population as its subjects—Nigerians were denied the right of electing citizens of their choice.24 In fact, to midwife the democratic and electoral processes in the society, his military regime made its political position abundantly clear. It was affirmed unequivocally that “it would not permit any Nigerian who wanted to offer a political agenda different from the military’s own agenda to contest for power. It seemed that only scoundrels and those wishing to do the bidding of the military government could participate in politics, therefore stultifying political contest.”25 The seduction of power that flows from politics, and in this case the military in Nigeria, tends to corrupt leaders, particularly those unable to control the interests and influence of their selfish and sycophantic subordinates. Such was the case when Babangida and the Armed Forces Ruling Council were reluctant to relinquish power to civilians. And so the nation witnessed a period of equivocation marked by a policy of “transition without transition” to democracy and civilian rule, orchestrated by Babangida at a time when politicians and society were sick and tired of military governance and desperate for civil rule. Little wonder, then, that Babangida met his Waterloo when he approved a series of electoral plans that could have led to civilian rule that never happened between 1987 and 1993.26 One such electoral crisis was the nullification of the June 12, 1993 election that was won by Moshood Abiola over his rival Bashir Tofa, believed to have been one of the freest and fairest in the republic.27 When Abiola decided to claim his mandate, during General Sani Abacha’s administration, as president on June 12, 1994 by establishing a rival reign within the reign, the political repercussions were disastrous for the society.28 Arguably, the lesson to be learned from the preceding narrative is that the Nigerian military leadership and dictatorship created a crisis of electoral democracy in this polity by its attempts to prolong its stay in power and not really to advance a democratic culture. Ironically, too, while soldiers in Africa use their guns to stay in power, the civilian leaders of many African countries 24 Agbese, “The Military as an Obstacle to the Democratization Enterprise,” 91; Pita O. Agbese and E. Ike Udogu, “Taming of the Shrew: Civil-Military Politics in the Fourth Republic,” in Nigeria in the Twenty-First Century: Strategies for Political Stability and Peaceful Coexistence, ed. E. Ike Udogu (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 15. 25 Agbese, “The Military as an Obstacle to the Democratization Enterprise,” 91. 26 Agbese, Ibrahim Babangida, 377–78. 27 Agbese, Ibrahim Babangida, 377–402. 28 E. Ike Udogu, ed., Nigeria in the Twenty-First Century: Strategies for Political Stability and Peaceful Coexistence (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 10.

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manipulate and rig elections to stay in power perpetually, with the attendant political commotions, civil wars, and refugee crises—hence the discourses around the issue of electoral democracy in this chapter and volume. In order to illustrate further how African leaders—be they civilian or military—have captured states and selfishly and less democratically governed them, a number of scholars and observers of African politics have provided unflattering synopses of the character of the leaders that render problematic electoral democracy in Africa. In his lecture “Engaging the Leviathan: Constitutionalism and the New Politics in Africa,” Julius O. Ihonvbere asserts: The lack of autonomy of the African state and the style of politics which is associated with it produces governments which are lacking in legitimacy. Given the Hobbesian character of the politics, only a limited range of social forces articulate as constitutive elements of the state, and the government which emerges from the political struggle is necessarily based on a very narrow range of interests. It becomes extremely difficult to endow the government with any veneer of legitimacy. The high incidence of political violence in the political struggle and the heavy reliance of the government on coercion reveal the nature of the political system [controlled by political leaders] as a form of domination. This is underlined by the absence of even the liberal façade of democratic choice [instigated in part by the problem of electoral democracy], the lack of institutionalization of accountability [and transparency], the lack of any meaningful form of popular participation, and of any prospect of changing the government by peaceful means. Without a veneer of legitimacy, the government is de-linked from the society and alienated from it…29

Also, writing on “Constitution-making from the Middle: Civil Society and Transition in Kenya,” Willy Mutunga provides a lucid and vivid description of the behavioral pattern of an African leader—the character of which makes it very difficult for leaders to resist the seduction of power and, as a consequence, abhor the relinquishment of authority. It is in such a situation that elections are frequently rigged. This scenario is nourished by what is often referred to in African politics and parlance as the “big man syndrome” in which the views and stance of a leader are said to be sacrosanct. They retain their position in power by fixing elections, and 29

Julius O. Ihonvbere, “Engaging the Leviathan: Constitutionalism and the New Politics in Africa,” ICES Events—Annual Lectures, Geneva (May 18, 2001), 2. See also, Udogu, Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in the 21st Century, 35.

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could not care less about the legitimacy of the state issuing from electoral malpractice. For that reason, the crisis of electoral democracy continues to persist in much of African politics today. Accordingly, the conflictive character of electoral democracy—often championed by many African leaders—has to be reformed in this millennium in order to further political stability and peaceful coexistence. In any case, Mutunga paints superbly the picture of the “big man” and his cult of personality in Kenyan and other African countries thus: His face is on the money. His photograph hangs in every office in his realm. His ministers wear gold pins with tiny photographs of “Him” on the lapels of their tailored pinstriped suits [if they wish to “chop” or exploit the national coffers with him; party loyalists and citizens are encouraged to wear Tee shirts and wrappers adorned with his photograph]. He names streets, football stadiums, hospitals and universities after himself. He carries a silver inlaid ivory or an ornately carved walking stick… He insists on being called doctor, the conqueror [of the British Empire as in the case of Idi Amin of Uganda], teacher or the big elephant… the [cock that leaves no hen untouched as in the case of Mobutu Sese Seko], the wise old man…the most popular leader in the world. His off-the-cuff remarks have the power of law… He shuffles ministers without warning [and] packs the civil service with his “ethnic cabal.” He rigs elections. He emasculates the courts [and disobeys court rulings against his policies and personality] and opposes press freedom. He demands thunderous applause from the legislature [and public when he appears before the people]… [He demands] a presidential [castle or] mansion. He amends the constitution at will. His [rivals] are harassed by youth wingers from the ruling party. His [real or putative] enemies are detained or exiled, humiliated or bankrupted, tortured [just to teach them a lesson] or killed.30

Because of the perks and accolades associated with being a leader in Africa, a number of chiefs, for example, have led their countries for over 20 years. Some of such leaders are Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Paul Biya (Cameroon), the late Muammar Al-Qaddafi (Libya), the deposed Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), and the deposed Blaise Compaore (Burkina Faso).31 They have, with the help of their subordinates

30

Willy Mutunga, “Constitutional-making from the Middle: Civil Society and Transition in Kenya” (Nairobi, Kenya: SAREAT and NWENGO, 1999), 44; see also Udogu, Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in 21st Century, 36. 31 Udogu, Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in the 21st Century, 36–37

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and ethnic groupings, remained in power frequently by way of electoral malpractice. Apropos the problem of leadership in Africa immediately following the contentious 2008 national elections and the crisis of electoral democracy in Zimbabwe, I expressed my thoughts on the matter in a USA/Africa dialog submission thus: We have seen this kind of leader in Africa before. Dr. Kamuzu Banda of Malawi (who proclaimed himself President-for-Life) comes to mind. The political problem of leadership that I see in Zimbabwe and much of Africa may be visualized within the context of the existing “Oligarchic State” that needs to be deconstructed in this millennium in order to make Africa more relevant, and to move the continent forward within the pan-Africanist credo. By oligarchic state, I am implying a state-system that is run by very few political and economic elite—the oligarchs—who see the polity as their private estate. Since they see themselves as an embodiment of the polity—they are the state and therefore are free to exploit it ad libitum… The masses and poor are “useless” and their lives are to be sacrificed in pursuit of their insular interests. Mugabe’s home was a castle at the time he chased out the poor from their bidonvilles in the capital city and elsewhere. Ditto this supposition for other leaders in Africa… I read and heard Mugabe invoke the imagery of King Henry VIII of the 16th century fame. Since Henry’s authority in England did not flow from the “Bishop of Rome,” it must issue from “God Himself.” To quote Mugabe, the Great King of Zimbabwe, “it is only God that can dethrone me from the presidency [not the ballot box].” This delusional stance of some African leaders is furthered by what Wisdom Tettey referred to as “gerontocratic infallibility.” Old men (and women) don’t make mistakes; how could Mugabe at 84 make a mistake…?32

One of the keys to understanding Africa’s leadership dilemma is a comprehension of the character of the state bequeathed to Africa’s chiefs by the departing colonial powers. More importantly, it is how African leaders have constituted themselves and governed their inherited societies that reflect on the character of post-independence Africa. In the words of Claude Ake, “they privatized and exploited the state for economic gain and used it oppressively to absolutize their power.”33 Sociologically, it 32

E. Ike Udogu, “USA/Africa Dialogue Series,” accessed November 8, 2014, [email protected]. See also Udogu, Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in 21st Century, 37. 33 Claude Ake, Democratization of Displacement in Africa (Port Harcourt, Nigeria: CASS Occasional Monograph No. 1, 1994), 7. E. Ike Udogu, African Renaissance

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seemed that African leaders not only mimicked the governance techniques of colonial administrators but also adopted their own peculiar genres of leadership to sustain them in power and to construct the kind of polity they thought best suitable for their citizens.34 As a consequence of the nature of the new states in Africa, the leaders adopted four types of leadership, according to Goran Hyden. These are princes, autocrats, prophets, and tyrants.35 Briefly, princes are leaders who manipulate their subordinates and followers. They govern with a few trusted allies, who are not discouraged from exploiting the national coffers in order for the leaders to count on their loyalties. Indeed, it is common, as a quid pro quo, for a leader to plead with his or her subordinates to “steal” but not so much as to rouse the anger of the public. Autocratic leaders govern their state as though it’s their private fiefdom. They control the apparatus or tools of governance and demand that their political party, civil servants, and institutions function at their behest. In this way, they are able to suffocate and dislocate opposition groups or anyone with oppositionist tendencies. Prophets are those leaders who see themselves as visionaries, determined to construct a futuristic society that would benefit the whole society—and not just a few. Tyrants are brutal leaders who govern through intimidation and lack of any modicum of respect for human rights.36 With the exception of prophets, all the other forms of leadership have been problematic for the continent in terms of good governance. In other words, from the period immediately after self-rule, virtually all African leaders adopted one of the three “negative” attributes (princes, autocrats, and tyrants) of leaders referenced above. These leaders were responsible in part for the current underdevelopment and political malaise that arose at the beginning of independence in Africa. Paradoxically, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in 1991 summed up Africa’s dilemma since sovereignty in Africa accordingly: Africa is now home to the world’s largest number of least developed countries. The continent further boasts of the largest refugee population in the world. Furthermore, it is a theatre of endless conflicts, civil strife and gross human right abuses. Whereas standards of living in other continents have risen over time, in Africa, present standards of living are not better in the Millennium: The Political, Social and Economic Discourse on the Way Forward (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 121–26. 34 Goran Hyden, African Politics in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 67. 35 Hyden, African Politics in Comparative Perspective, 100–02. 36 Hyden, African Politics in Comparative Perspective, 101–02.

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Chapter Two than they were two decades ago. High unemployment, inflation, civil strife, poverty, refugee crisis, desertification, disease, malnutrition—the list is endless—appear to be the only legacy the continent is capable of passing from one generation to the other.37

If President Mugabe, in today’s politics in Zimbabwe and Africa, was to repeat the preceding speech, one would regard it as political assentation. Even so, Mugabe’s observation was and is spot on, even though his policies in Zimbabwe—particularly his land distribution policies, for example—have been disastrous to the agricultural sector, economy, and country. This is a country that once produced enough food to feed its population and for export. It goes without saying, however, that electoral malpractices in this polity has kept him in power for decades; and the crisis of electoral democracy has not only exacerbated political turmoil in Zimbabwe but also led to the exodus of some of its best and brightest citizens. As a consequence of his policies, it’s the multitudinous ordinary Zimbabweans who suffer. Another area of concern with respect to the leadership quagmire and the crisis of electoral democracy in Africa is corruption. Once in power, African leaders enjoy many benefits within the nation-state from his or her control of the levers of power. More significantly, they control the national treasury, the military, and law enforcement agencies. They do not hesitate to use these structures and institutions at will. In order to sustain themselves and their subordinates in power, they tend to spend lavishly on these organizations and the individuals that would support their leadership—at all costs, and time and again through electoral malpractices. The discourses on corruption in contemporary African and international politics are striking, and the challenge of this “cancer” in African elections and politics was strong enough that it has been suggested elsewhere that it has to be tamed in the struggle for the creation of a United States of Africa in the 21st century.38 Not only that, the African Union was so disturbed that it crafted an inspiring protocol to lessen its severity in Africa. It is to this end that I turn to the issue of leadership and corruption for a concise analysis.

37

Robert Mugabe, “Africa in the New World Order: Europe 1992 and Beyond, A Daily Times (of Nigeria Newspaper) Special Lecture,” Daily Times Newspaper (January 9, 1991): 22. 38 John Mukum Mbaku, “The Challenges of Corruption Control in in Africa,” in Imagining the United States of Africa: Discourses on the Way Forward, ed. E. Ike Udogu (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), 25–59.

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Leadership and Corruption Ironically, Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military leader and civilian president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in alluding to the evils of corruption in Africa in general and Nigeria where it has become endemic, affirmed: Corruption, the greatest single bane of our society today, will be tackled head-on at all levels. Corruption is incipient in all human societies and in most human activities. But it must not be condoned. No society can achieve anything near its full potential if it allows corruption to become the full-blown cancer it has become in Nigeria. Nobody, no matter who and where, will be allowed to get away with breach of the law or the perpetration of corruption and evil.39

Although corruption happens in all regions of the world, its rampancy in Africa’s “Garden of Eden” (with its abundant wealth in gold, diamond, copper, uranium, crude oil, and so on) is arguably responsible for making this rich continent one of the most underdeveloped regions of the world; this anomaly—with respect to its wealth and under/development—is due in part to the crisis of leadership brought about by electoral manipulations.40 Also, it was the impact of poor leadership and lack of “measurable growth” in this region that led me to note elsewhere with a soccer or football metaphor that Africa belonged to the 5th eleven (and not the 2nd or 3rd eleven) in spite of the fact that it is probably the most endowed continent in the world with its abundant untapped resources.41 39 Olusegun Obasanjo, “Moving On: The Significance of Reform and Change in Nigeria.” An inaugural speech delivered at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s Session, Abuja, August 6, 2005. Also cited in Godwyns Ade Agbude and Paebi Ibenadou Etete, “Ethical Leadership, Corruption and Irresponsible Governance: Rethinking the African Dilemma,” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 4, 6 (July 2013): 482. 40 John M. Mbaku, Corruption in Africa: Causes, Consequences, and Cleanups (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), xi; see also John M. Mbaku, Bureaucratic and Political Corruption in Africa: The Public Choice Perspective (Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Company, 2000); John M. Mbaku, ed. Corruption and the Crisis of Institutional Reform in Africa (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1998); John M. Mbaku, “Bureaucratic Corruption and Policy Reform in Africa,” The Cato Journal, 16, 1 (1996): 99–118. 41 E. Ike Udogu, “Introduction,” in African Mosaic: Political, Social, Economic and Technological Development in the New Millennium edited by E. Ike Udogu et al. (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 1.

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There are various forms of corruption, viz. bureaucratic and political, for example. Nevertheless, I am interested in the political corruption often championed by political leaders and their lackeys. Operationally, political corruption is defined as the application of skills, laws, and institutions to build or construct political affiliations and in the process help certain powerful politicians assume the mantle of leadership of the state.42 In this process, a quid pro quo relationship is developed whereby “kingmakers” are allowed by the leader through corruption to enrich themselves, and in return political “godfathers” will deliver votes for the leader by hook or by crook. But corruption contaminates and negates the outcomes of an electoral process. Indeed, in a written forward to the UN Convention against Corruption, it is opined that: Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. It undermines democracy and the rule of law [when free and fair elections are weakened], leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life and allows organized crime, terrorism and other threats to human security to flourish…This evil phenomenon is found in all countries—big and small, rich and poor—but it is in the developing world that its effects are most destructive. Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government’s ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice and discouraging foreign aid and investment. Corruption is a key element in economic underperformance and a major obstacle to poverty alleviation and development.43

Two related legal documents that address the issue of corruption signed by African leaders intended to assuage the “evil” of corruption in the continent and to further good governance are instructive. Because they are so imperative in the “war on corruption,” I reproduce below pertinent excerpts from these conventions verbatim. They superbly highlight the interlacement between the crisis of corruption and the problem of electoral democracy. These are the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (Articles 2–16) and the Economic Community of 42

Mbaku, Corruption in Africa: Causes, Consequences, and Cleanups, 11–13. United Nations Convention Against Corruption (New York: United Nations, 2004), accessed December 12, 2014, http://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNCAC/Publications/Convention/0850026_E.pdf ; see also Samuel Mondays Atuobi, “Corruption and State Instability in West Africa: An Examination of Policy Options (KAPTC Occasional Paper December 2007), accessed December 12, 2014, http://www.kaiptc.org/publications/Occasional.Papers/Documents/No._21.aspx 43

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West African States (ECOWAS) Protocol on the Fight against Corruption (Articles 2 and 6).

African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption Preamble The Member States of the African Union: …Concerned about the negative effects of corruption and impunity on the political, economic, social and cultural stability of African States and its devastating effects on the economic and social development of the African peoples; Acknowledging that corruption undermines accountability and transparency in the management of public affairs as well as socioeconomic development on the continent; Recognizing the need to address the root causes of corruption on the continent; Convinced of the need to formulate and pursue, as a matter of priority, a common penal policy aimed at protecting the society against corruption, including the adoption of appropriate legislative and adequate preventive measures; Determined to build partnerships between governments and all segments of civil society, in particular, women, youth, media and the private sector in order to fight the scourge of corruption…; Recalling resolution AHG-Dec 126(XXXIV) adopted by the Thirty–fourth Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in June 1998 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, requesting the Secretary General to convene, in cooperation with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, a high level meeting of experts to consider ways and means of removing obstacles to the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, including the fight against corruption and impunity and propose appropriate legislative and other measures;

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Further recalling the decision of the 37th ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU held in Lusaka, Zambia, in July 2001 as well as the Declaration adopted by the first session of the Assembly of the Union held in Durban, South Africa in July 2002, relating to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) which calls for the setting up of a coordinated mechanism to combat corruption effectively. Have agreed as follows:

Article 2: Objectives The objectives of this Convention are to: 1 Promote and strengthen the development in Africa by each State Party, of mechanisms required to prevent, detect, punish and eradicate corruption and related offences in the public and private sectors. 2 Promote, facilitate and regulate cooperation among the State Parties to ensure the effectiveness of measures and actions to prevent, detect, punish and eradicate corruption and related offences in Africa. 3 Coordinate and harmonize the policies and legislation between State Parties for the purposes of prevention, detection, punishment and eradication of corruption on the continent. 4 Promote socio-economic development by removing obstacles to the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights. 5 Establish the necessary conditions to foster transparency and accountability in the management of public affairs.

Article 3 Principles The State Parties to this Convention undertake to abide by the following principles:

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1 Respect for democratic principles and institutions, participation, the rule of law and good governance.

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2 Respect for human and peoples’ rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and other relevant human rights instruments. 3 Transparency and accountability in the management of public affairs. 4 Promotion of social justice to ensure balanced socio-economic development. 5 Condemnation and rejection of acts of corruption, related offences and impunity.

Article 4 Scope of application 1 This Convention is applicable to the following acts of corruption and related offences: the solicitation or acceptance, directly or indirectly, by a public official or any other person, of any goods of monetary value, or other benefit, such as a gift, favour, promise or advantage for himself or herself or for another person or entity, in exchange for any act or omission in the performance of his or her public functions; the offering or granting, directly or indirectly, to a public official or any other person, of any goods of monetary value, or other benefit, such as a gift, favour, promise or advantage for himself or herself or for another person or entity, in exchange for any act or omission in the performance of his or her public functions; any act or omission in the discharge of his or her duties by a public official or any other person for the purpose of illicitly obtaining benefits for himself or herself or for a third party; the diversion by a public official or any other person, for purposes

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unrelated to those for which they were intended, for his or her own benefit or that of a third party, of any property belonging to the State or its agencies, to an independent agency, or to an individual, that such official has received by virtue of his or her position; the offering or giving, promising, solicitation or acceptance, directly or indirectly, of any undue advantage to or by any person who directs or works for, in any capacity, a private sector entity, for himself or herself or for anyone else, for him or her to act, or refrain from acting, in breach of his or her duties; the offering, giving, solicitation or acceptance directly or indirectly, or promising of any undue advantage to or by any person who asserts or confirms that he or she is able to exert any improper influence over the decision making of any person performing functions in the public or private sector in consideration thereof, whether the undue advantage is for himself or herself or for anyone else, as well as the request, receipt or the acceptance of the offer or the promise of such an advantage, in consideration of that influence, whether or not the influence is exerted or whether or not the supposed influence leads to the intended result; illicit enrichment; the use or concealment of proceeds derived from any of the acts referred to in this Article; and participation as a principal, co-principal, agent, instigator, accomplice or accessory after the fact, or on any other manner in the commission or attempted commission of, in any collaboration or conspiracy to commit, any of the acts referred to in this article. 2 This Convention shall also be applicable by mutual agreement between or among two or more State Parties with respect to any other act or practice of corruption and related offences not described in this Convention.

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Article 5 Legislative and other measures For the purposes set-forth in Article 2 of this Convention, State Parties undertake to: 1 Adopt legislative and other measures that are required to establish as offences, the acts mentioned in Article 4 paragraph 1 of the present Convention. 2 Strengthen national control measures to ensure that the setting up and operations of foreign companies in the territory of a State Party shall be subject to the respect of the national legislation in force. 3 Establish, maintain and strengthen independent national anticorruption authorities or agencies. 4 Adopt legislative and other measures to create, maintain and strengthen internal accounting, auditing and follow-up systems, in particular, in the public income, custom and tax receipts, expenditures and procedures for hiring, procurement and management of public goods and services. 5 Adopt legislative and other measures to protect informants and witnesses in corruption and related offences, including protection of their identities. 6 Adopt measures that ensure citizens report instances of corruption without fear of consequent reprisals. 7 Adopt national legislative measures in order to punish those who make false and malicious reports against innocent persons in corruption and related offences. 8 Adopt and strengthen mechanisms for promoting the education of populations to respect the public good and public interest, and awareness in the fight against corruption and related offences, including school educational programmes and sensitization of the media, and the promotion of an enabling environment for the respect of ethics.

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Article 6 Laundering of the proceeds of corruption States Parties shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences: a The conversion, transfer or disposal of property, knowing that such property is the proceeds of corruption or related offences for the purpose of concealing or disguising the illicit origin of the property or of helping any person who is involved in the commission of the offence to evade the legal consequences of his or her action. b The concealment or disguise of the true nature, source, location, disposition, movement or ownership of or rights with respect to property which is the proceeds of corruption or related offences; c The acquisition, possession or use of property with the knowledge at the time of receipt, that such property is the proceeds of corruption or related offences.

Article 7 Fight against corruption and related offences in the public service In order to combat corruption and related offences in the public service, State Parties commit themselves to: 1 Require all or designated public officials to declare their assets at the time of assumption of office during and after their term of office in the public service. 2 Create an internal committee or a similar body mandated to establish a code of conduct and to monitor its implementation, and sensitize and train public officials on matters of ethics. 3 Develop disciplinary measures and investigation procedures in corruption and related offences with a view to keeping up with technology and increase the efficiency of those responsible in this regard.

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4 Ensure transparency, equity and efficiency in the management of tendering and hiring procedures in the public service. 5 Subject to the provisions of domestic legislation, any immunity granted to public officials shall not be an obstacle to the investigation of allegations against and the prosecution of such officials.

Article 10 Funding of political parties Each State Party shall adopt legislative and other measures to: a Proscribe the use of funds acquired through illegal and corrupt practices to finance political parties; and b Incorporate the principle of transparency into funding of political parties.

Article 12 Civil society and media State Parties undertake to: 1 Be fully engaged in the fight against corruption and related offences and the popularisation of this Convention with the full participation of the Media and Civil Society at large; 2 Create an enabling environment that will enable civil society and the media to hold governments to the highest levels of transparency and accountability in the management of public affairs; 3 Ensure and provide for the participation of Civil Society in the monitoring process and consult Civil Society in the implementation of this Convention; 4 Ensure that the Media is given access to information in cases of corruption and related offences on condition that the dissemination of such information does not adversely affect the investigation process and the right to a fair trial.

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Article 16 Confiscation and seizure of the proceeds and instrumentalities of corruption 1 Each State Party shall adopt such legislative measures as may be necessary to enable: (a) its competent authorities to search, identify, trace, administer and freeze or seize the instrumentalities and proceeds of corruption pending a final judgment; (b) Confiscation of proceeds or property, the value of which corresponds to that of such proceeds, derived, from offences established in accordance with this convention; (c) Repatriation of proceeds of corruption. 2 The Requested State Party shall, in so far as its law permits and at the request of the Requesting State Party, seize and remit any object: (a) which may be required as evidence of the offence in question; or (b) which has been acquired as a result of the offence for which extradition is requested and which, at the time of arrest is found in possession of the persons claimed or is discovered subsequently. 3 The objects referred to in clause 2 of this Article may, if the Requesting State so requests, be handed over to that State even if the extradition is refused or cannot be carried out due to death, disappearance or escape of the person sought. 4 When the said object is liable for seizure or confiscation in the territory of the Requested State Party the latter may, in connection with pending or ongoing criminal proceedings, temporarily retain it or hand it over to the Requesting State Party, on condition that it is returned to the requested State Party… Adopted by the 2nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union Maputo, 11 July 2003. Source: http://www.jus.uio.no/English/services/library/treaties/04/404/combating_corrupti on_xml Accessed December 1, 2014.

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As a consequence of the problematic nature of corruption in West Africa, leaders of the Economic Community of West African States adopted an important protocol intended to ameliorate its blight in terms of furthering political stability and attracting investments to the region. A reproduction of Articles 2 and 6 in the protocol below will suffice for the purpose of illustration.

Economic Community of West African States Protocol on the Fight against Corruption Preamble We, the Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); Considering that the aims and objectives of the Community are to achieve the integration of its members…; Recalling the provisions of Articles 48 and 49 of the Protocol relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peace keeping and Security that call on ECOWAS Member States to eradicate corruption and adopt measures for combating money laundering and to promote transparency, accountability and good governance within their territories; Conscious of the grave consequences of corruption on investment, economic growth and democracy; Convinced that transparency and good governance strengthen democratic institutions; Recognising the role of States in the prevention and suppression of corruption; Convinced that the success of the fight against corruption requires sustained cooperation in criminal matters…; Expressing satisfaction at the efforts of the United Nations Organisation, as well as the global efforts of international, regional and nongovernmental organisations in the fight against corruption;

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Convinced of the need to adopt preventive and suppressive measures to combat corruption and more particularly to take appropriate measures against persons who engage in acts of corruption in the exercise of their public and private functions; Resolved to join the efforts of our States in the fight against corruption…;

Article 2 Aims and Objectives The aims and objectives of this Protocol are: i) to promote and strengthen the development in each of the State Parties effective mechanisms to prevent, suppress and eradicate corruption; ii) to intensify and revitalise cooperation between State Parties, with a view to making anticorruption measures more effective; iii) to promote the harmonisation and coordination of national anticorruption laws and policies.

Article 6 Acts of Corruption 1. This Protocol shall be applicable to the following acts of corruption: a) a public official demanding or accepting, either directly or indirectly through a third party, any object of pecuniary value such as a gift, offer, a promise or an advantage of any nature, whether for himself or for another person, in exchange for an act or an omission in the discharge of his duties; b) offering or giving a public official, either directly or indirectly, any object of pecuniary value such as a gift, a favor or an advantage, whether for himself or another person, in exchange for an act or an omission in the discharge of his duties; c) any person who promises to offer or to grant directly or indirectly any undue advantage to any person who declares or confirms that he can exercise some influence on decisions or actions of persons occupying positions in the public or private sector, whether or not this influence had been exercised or not, or whether the supposed influence had the desired result or not; d) any person who declares or confirms that he can exercise some influence on decisions or actions of persons occupying positions in the

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public or private sector, whether the influence is used or not, and whether or not the supposed influence had the desired result; and asking for or accepting directly or indirectly any undue advantage from whatever quarters; e) a public official diverting from its initial purpose, either for his own benefit or for the benefit of another person, any assets, whether moveable or immoveable, or deeds and securities belonging to the State, an independent agency or an individual, given to the public official by virtue of his position and for the needs of the State for safe-keeping and for other reasons. 2. Each State Party shall adopt necessary legislative and other measures to make the acts of corruption enumerated in this Protocol criminal offence… Source: http://www.afrimap.org/english/images/treaty/ECOWAS_Protocol_on_Corruption. pdf Accessed January 25, 2015

These protocols, or sets of rules, aimed at curbing corruption at regional and continental levels are enlightening. In a way, they are splendid templates for African chiefs to follow; and, if African leaders were to commit themselves to functioning within the procedures enshrined in these official documents, the current crisis of corruption would be lessened, the problems of electoral democracy mitigated, and good governance and democratic consolidation advanced. Scholars are also concerned about the extent to which African leaders apply extra-constitutional powers to extend their stay in power and postpone elections when it seems as if a scheduled balloting process would work against their reelection. Particularly disturbing to observers of politics in the developing world and especially Africa, in the governance of society, is the extent to which leaders that had sworn to uphold the constitution frequently flout national laws and electoral regulations with impunity. Such actions often create constitutional crises and exacerbated leadership quandaries on the continent. It is this issue that I shall pithily examine in the following pages.

Leadership and Constitutional Predicament Historically, the context and content of African constitutions reflected the character of interaction between national leaders and those of colonial hegemonies. Constitutions, overall, outline how a state and its citizens are to be governed effectively. My emphasis in this discourse, however, is on

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how leaders sometimes foment chaos by ignoring the provisions outlined in constitutions relating to free and fair elections and the executive term limit, for instance. But, what is a constitution? Jan-Erik Lane avers that a constitution is “a compact document that comprises a number of articles about the state, laying down rules which state activities are supposed to follow. Whether these rules are obeyed or implemented is another matter.”44 Jack C. Plano and Milton Greenberg defined a constitution as “a fundamental or ‘organic’ law that establishes the framework of government of a state, assigns the powers and duties of governmental agencies, and establishes the relationship between the people and their government.”45 Also, it is defined as a document that outlines the structure and character of interaction between a government and its citizens. Additionally, it creates the institutions and structures with which to govern a polity efficiently.46 In spite of the thrust and purposes of a constitution outlined above for the peaceful governance of society, an irony exists; it is a paradox that issues from the idea that although a constitution is often crucial for the effective governance of a polity, notionally speaking, it can also be problematic in its operation, particularly in the developing world where many leaders tend to defy it—without retribution—and for selfish and parochial reasons.47 It is the interpretation and inadequate applications of the tenets of this important document by competing political leaders/parties that time and again result in political tragedy, violence, civil wars, and refugee crises in many African countries. Operationally, a constitutional crisis entails some measure of conflict arising from the attempts by the political actors in power to manipulate provisions of the constitution to further their interests and the actions of civil society against such measures. Also, constitutional breakdown may erupt when problems exist in resolving a discrepancy or disagreement that involves important provisions of this legal document, such as the conduct of free and fair elections. But why are constitutional crises commonplace in Africa? Are there historic antecedents to explain the reasons for this phenomenon?

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Jan-Erik Lane, Constitution and Political Theory (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1996), 5. 45 Jack C. Plano and Milton Greenberg, The American Political Dictionary (Holt, NY: Rinehart and Winston, 1985), 33. 46 E. Ike Udogu, “National Constitutions and Human Rights Issues in Africa,” African and Asian Studies, Vol. 2, no. 2 (2003): 103. 47 Udogu, “National Constitutions and Human Rights Issues in Africa,” 103.

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It has been noted in relation to the attitude of African leaders toward the post-independence constitution as follows: African struggles for independence from colonial rule were invariably cast as struggles to realize freedom, equality, individual liberties and democracy. Thus apparently all African countries who gained independence did so under constitutions imbued with notions of constitutionalism. These constitutions provided for the separation of powers, government accountability to parliament, an independent judiciary, various versions of limited governmental authority and constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights. But one after the other, these constitutions were amended, modified or altogether overthrown until the overwhelming majority of independent African countries had constitutions which bore little resemblance to the constitutions of Independence Day… The process of opting out [of the independence constitution] took various forms which included coups d’état, total abrogation of the independence constitutions, ignoring the provisions of the constitution, amending or modifying the constitution. The net effect of each of these methods was to depart completely from the concepts of constitutionalism as provided for by the independence constitution.48

To be sure, the colonial overseers governed their colonies in an authoritarian fashion and, ironically, left the nationalists that acceded to power with all the superb elements of a “liberal” constitution similar to those adopted in London and Paris, for example. The socialization pattern of these new African leaders in the ways in which colonial governors administered their outposts influenced their political psychology. Thus, they tended to govern their sovereign states in the same way the colonial governors did. It was such a development that probably prompted Claude Ake to postulate, among other things, that the character of the colonial state did not change significantly at independence since with few exceptions the colonial state was inherited rather than transformed. Like the colonizer before them most of the national leaders regarded the state as the instrument of their will. They privatized, and exploited it for economic gain and used it oppressively to absolutize their power…49

48

See Speech by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development at the African Renaissance Conference on Constitutionalism, 16 November 1999, accessed December 13, 2014, http://www.polity.org.za/polity/govdocs/speeches/1999/sp1116a.html 49 Claude Ake, Democratization of Displacement in Africa (Port Harcourt, Nigeria: CASS Occasional Monograph No. 1, 1994), 7; see also E. Ike Udogu, African

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Pressed to wax philosophically, if African leaders were to govern their “inherited” states effectively, the bulk of the “liberal independence constitutions” crafted and packaged in Britain and France would have had to be jettisoned since they were obstacles to the African leaders’ governance model—authoritarianism—which, as noted earlier, was the governance technique of the colonial governors. For Africa’s chiefs to govern autocratically, “liberal” constitutions a la London and Paris had to be abandoned because they were alien. Africa’s political captains claimed, superfluously, that European-imposed constitutions were deliberate attempts by imperialist powers to render African regimes weak and stifle their endeavor to tackle the challenges of underdevelopment. Accordingly, some of these African leaders proceeded to abrogate their independence constitutions and replace them with constitutions that gave them the freedom to amend them at will. Further, they demonstrated—and still demonstrate—in their political actions that having crafted the constitution of their nation-state themselves, they were above it, thus creating an era of constitution without constitutionalism. And, by way of definition, constitutionalism is “the political doctrine that claims that political authority should be bound by institutions that restrict the exercise of power. Such institutions offer rules that bind both the persons in authority as well as the organs or bodies that exercise political power…”50 Partially because of the practice of constitution without constitutionalism in many African countries, many states on the continent have not only experienced a constitutional crisis but have also produced a high number of oppressive and dictatorial leaders who have so come to love power, and the perks and glamour that issue from it, that they have simply refused to relinquish their authority. And many have remained in power by constantly rigging and manipulating national elections, with the help and support from their subordinates who also derive benefits from fixing elections. Some such leaders, for example, who were and are in power for 20 or more years are: Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea (1958-1984); Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast (1960-1993); Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi (1963-1994); Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia (1964-1991); Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo/Benin (1967-2005); Omar Bongo of Gabon (1967-2009); Moussa Traore of Mali (1968-1991); Mohamed Siad Barre of Somalia (1969-1991); Albert Rene of Seychelles (1977-2004); Daniel arap Moi of Kenya (1978-2002); Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Renaissance in the Millennium: The Political, Social, and Economic Discourses on the Way Forward (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 121–26. 50 Lane, Constitutions and Political Theory, 2

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Equatorial Guinea (1979-present); Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola (1979-present); Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (1980-present); Paul Biya of Cameroon (1982-present); Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya of Mauritania (1984-2005); Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia (1987-2011); Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir of Sudan (1989-present); Idriss Deby of Chad (1990-present); Paul Kagame of Rwanda (1994-present); Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia (1994-present);51 and Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso (1987-2014).52 My previous discourses made no allusion to military interventions and the frequency with which the military cabals suspended national constitutions. In fact, in a number of instances, the stated rationale for military coups (besides corruption and abuse of power) has been that of constitutional crises brought about by the problem of electoral democracy when politicians breach the rule of law and constitution. Take for instance the political uproar instigated by President Obasanjo’s attempt to abrogate the constitution so that he could run for a third term as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The constitution calls for two terms of 4 years, with a maximum of 8 years. His attempts to amend the constitution created a crisis in the polity. The president’s strategy to defy the rule of law was opposed by members of the informed public, civil society, and influential political actors aspiring for the post of president after the expiration of his term in office. Another example of how presidents provoke constitutional crises in Africa happened in Burkina Faso. Having overthrown the revolutionary leader, Thomas Sankara, in 1987, Blaise Compaore usurped power and went on to serve as the military head of state and, later, the civilian president of the country. His usurpation of power and involvement in fixing the electoral system in the country led to his retention of power for 27 years, as noted above. His endeavor to extend his stay in office in a political maneuver for another five-year term beyond the constitutional mandate was met with violent demonstrations and a military coup. The violation of the constitution and rule of law first by the President and second by a military coup staged by General Honore Traore in contravention of Article 3 (2) and Article 4 (1) of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance forbidding unconstitutional change of government in the continent exacerbated national angst and political instability in this nation-state. Indeed, Article 3 (2) states: Access 51

See “List of Dictators: Africa,” accessed December 14, 2014, http://www.conservapedia.comlist_of_dictators#Africa 52 John Mukum Mbaku, “Has Military Intervention Created a Constitutional Crisis in Burkina Faso?” Brookings: Africa in Focus (November 4, 2014).

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to and exercise of state power [must be done] in accordance with the constitution of the State Party and the principle of the rule of law; and Article 4 (1) avers: State Parties shall commit themselves to promote democracy, the principle of the rule of law and human rights.” 53 In a real sense, President Compaore’s act in Burkina Faso precipitated a constitutional and political crisis. Possibly, if he had governed within the tenets of the constitution and rule of law, the mayhem that happened in this country following his attempts to exercise extra-constitutional powers in this country would have been avoided. Ditto my preceding theory with respect to African leaders in Egypt, Ivory Coast, Zambia, Uganda, Angola, and other African countries.

53 See African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, accessed December, 14, 2014, http://www.ipu.org/idd-E/afr_Charter.pdf

CHAPTER THREE EGYPT AND THE CRISIS OF ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY

History Historians, particularly political historians, are generally quick to remind us that in order to comprehend the political, cultural, and social conditions in any society, at any given moment in time, requires an understanding of the nation’s political past. In other words, it is safe to argue that the present history of a society is informed by the past, and the future history may be determined by the present. So, in order to appreciate the character of Egyptian polity and politics today, a very brief look at its history might be helpful as a springboard from which to later examine its problem of electoral democracy. It has been noted that: Egypt is the oldest cohesive nation in the world, its history dates back to before 3,000 B.C. Unlike other Middle Eastern and African countries it has a clear sense of national identity, but part of that identity comes from long periods of subordination to foreign powers. Persia, Macedonia, Rome, Muslim Arabia, Ottoman Turkey, France and England successively exercised dominion [over the area]. Indeed, following his assumption of power in the 1950s, Gamal Abdel Nasser liked to describe himself as the first Egyptian to rule Egypt since the pharaohs.1

All the same, it is said that the era of the modern Egyptian state began following the rule of Muhammad Ali, an Albanian, who served as an autocratic emissary of the fearsome Ottoman Empire, which established its suzerainty over the region. An officer in the Ottoman garrison, he was appointed governor of Egypt. His governance structure was authoritarian and insular; he confiscated peasant lands and imposed a draconian tax Charles H. Cutter, The World Today Series: Africa 2003, 38th edition (Harpers Ferry, WV: Stryker-Post Publication, 2002), 276–77.

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burden on them simultaneously.2 By way of socialization, Ali’s despotism left an indelible mark on the political, social, and religious character of leadership and other political actors in modern Egypt. Egypt also fell within the colonial ambit of the vast British Empire and remained a protectorate from 1882 to 1956. However, as a consequence of Egyptian nationalism, Britain gave up the protectorate in 1922 but maintained control over the country’s foreign policy and defense; Britain also sought to protect minorities and the Sudan, which had been part of Egypt since the 1880s.3 From the late 1920s to a military coup d’état in 1952, very little, if any, major economic or social development happened in Egyptian society, thus creating a condition of political uncertainty. In 1923 a constitutional monarchy was established, with Sultan Fuad as king. King Farouk became the Egyptian monarch in 1936, but his leadership was inept and weak. London, however, reinstated its protectorate over Egypt as a result of WWII in order to protect it from German conquest. The British administrative system, like those of prior administrators of Egypt, was authoritarian. At the end of WWII, the clamor of the marginalized lower classes over their destitute conditions in this society reached its crescendo. The discontent emerged because Egyptian citizens were governed and exploited by King Farouk and a number of rich landowners who monopolized almost all the country’s wealth. These oligarchs spent much of their time in Europe. In so doing, they isolated themselves from the miseries of the poor in Egypt. Their nonchalant attitude toward the plight of ordinary citizens ignited open demonstrations and opposition to the king’s regime. Indeed, such outbursts of anger toward the government, organized by staunch nationalists and radical Islamists, not only became rampant but also violent. It was in the face of this unsteadiness in the polity that a group of army officers known as the Free Officers Movement, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrew the king.4 Since the coup of 1952, only three leaders—ex-military chiefs—have led the country through to early 2012, a period within my purview in this study of the problem of electoral democracy in Africa. These military cadres were Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak. Building upon the authoritarian governing techniques of previous regimes and leaders occasioned by the political culture, the leadership style of the 2

Wayne Edge, Global Studies: Africa, Eleventh Edition (Dubuque, IA: McGrawHill/Dushkin Company, 2006), 117. 3 Ibid. 4 Cutter, The World Today Series, 278–79.

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military—steeped in its organizational command and authoritarian tradition—worsened the crisis of the democratic governance structure under the leadership of these three warriors turned civilian presidents. It is on the character of their regimes, particularly as they relate to the authoritarian character of their domestic politics, that I shall center the following extraordinarily brief analysis.

Gamal Abdel Nasser Generally referred to as the father of modern Egypt, President Nasser ruled with an iron fist and in a dictatorial manner in sync with military governance culture in a supposedly democratic system. In this process, he “invented” real and imagined political enemies, particularly from religious factions, fractions, and zealots. Though a “custodian” of the Islamic faith in Egypt, he was never seen among devout Muslim groups as a trusted ally. To many orthodox Muslims, he was too secular in his governance of Egypt. The outcome was that his genus of governance was seen as antithetical to the “genuine” doctrine of Islam and how a “true” Muslim should govern—even in a pluralistic or diverse polity. Indeed, he was a “bad” Muslim. Clearly, Nasser and some conservative Muslim groups eyed each other with mutual suspicion. An antagonism arose between Nasser’s attempts to be accommodative to different publics in the politics of Egypt and the political vision of radical Muslims. It was clear that Nasser and these Muslim fanatics were on a collision course. The question was whether he or these entrenched Muslims groups would blink first. Little wonder, then, that an assassination attempt by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954 allowed Nasser to unleash his political vengeance on this source of domestic resistance to his authority. As if to teach this religious grouping a severe lesson, many of its leaders were killed and others jailed, but they were not to be cowed. Strategically, in order to be more effective in its opposition to the regime, a number of the Muslim Brotherhood joined the police and army. When the “plot” to use these institutions and structures to undermine Nasser’s regime was uncovered, he arrested and executed those who were culpable, including the ideological and intellectual leader of the then Islamic militancy, Sayyid Qutb. He was “guillotined” in 1966.5 In order to assuage fastidious Muslims and to brandish his Islamic credential, as it were, Nasser cleverly branded Egypt as a Muslim Socialist Republic on paper. He then imposed on the polity a Leninist political 5

Cutter, The World Today Series: Africa 2003, 38th edition, 279.

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orthodoxy and socialist economic ideology. To top it all off, political parties were banned and a single-party system instituted. He named the party National Union but later changed it to the Arab Socialist Union (ASU). To concretize his fiat, he enacted a constitution that made Egypt a single-party and socialist Arab state. Islam was made the official religion of the state in January 1956—to the chagrin of members of the Egyptian Coptic Church, which was consequentially marginalized in the polity as a result of this diktat and tenet in the new constitution. The result of a referendum on this constitution was a resounding and overwhelming 99.8% in support. And, as if to add icing to the cake, Nasser received about 99.9% of the ballot as president of Egypt in 1956.6 Nasser served as the leader of Egypt from 1952 to 1970, when he died of a heart attack under the heavy weight of the country’s political, social, economic, and religious burdens.

Elections under a Single-party System Political parties are often referred to as factions with different and clashing ideologies. They compete for political power in order to govern a society in their own way. Having overthrown the monarchy, Nasser was determined to reshape the society based on his ideology, which was socialist in character, with limited national consultation. If he was to be successful, it was necessary to combat real or putative competitors and rival doctrinal views.7 If the hitherto existing quasi-political groupings or factions were to be checkmated in order for Nasser and his supporters to control the political system effectively, it was significant to form a single party. Such a single-party system should be able to unite the existing disparate factions that behaved very much like political parties.8 It could be argued that the maneuvering of political factions by Nasser’s administration, with the aim of dislocating any oppositional competing groupings, brought to the fore the problem of the crisis of electoral democracy in this society. In other words, the strategy of the administration was to seek ways to influence and control the process of electing citizens with opposing viewpoints to political office. In this way, the government would be able to mute their opposition. Accordingly, by reorganizing its political union into a one-party system, it was able to 6

Cutter, The World Today Series, 279. John Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 308. 8 Leonard Binder, In a Moment of Enthusiasm: Political Power and the Second Stratum in Egypt (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 36. 7

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confront and overcome exogenous threats from a broader society— especially resistance from powerful wealthy elites of the ancien regime.9 In his attempts to remain agile and ward off competition from those forces that benefited inordinately from the system he overthrew in the 1952 revolution, Nasser launched a mass political organization referred to as Liberation Rally (LR). Very much like any revolution of this kind, the formation of such a mass organization with devout cohorts was intended to consolidate power, and serve as a bulwark against possible counterrevolutionary moves by disgruntled forces in the country; it also was intended to curtail the ambitions of political and economic opportunists in the society. A stratagem following the revolution and the formation of the LR was to keep the political space closed. In this way, free speech and expressions of opinions by its members in a “democracy” were reduced; it was, arguably, an attempt to establish a vanguard of the revolution of those imbued with the spirit of sustaining the power of this new socialist regime. In a reflection on this political development, Binder avers thus: The mass parties [and others that followed] were means of mobilizing sentiment for the regime and means of rendering the masses unavailable to alternative leaders. Later, when the security of the regime was better established, additional uses of the mass party were recognized. Only in the fields of interest-groups coordination and the redress of individual grievances did the mass party appear to serve anyone but the government itself.10

As a precursor to other mass organizations instituted by the Free Officers of the 1952 revolution, the LR recruited in general “liberal” student organizations and trade unions into its fold, and it served the inchoate regime’s interest as a structure with which to fight off “reactionary” but powerful forces in the system.11 Even so, the LR formed the basis for internal elite competition for influence that was later to create the crisis of electoral democracy, whose characteristics were those of

9

Mark N. Cooper, The Transformation of Egypt (London: Croom Helm, 1982), 30. Binder, In a Moment of Enthusiasm, 4; see also Lisa Blaydes, Election and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 30. 11 P. J. Vatikiotis, The Egyptian Army in Politics: Patterns for New Nations? (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1961): 83; Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes, 312. 10

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promoting the interests of the governing elite within the organization and not necessarily those of ordinary Egyptian citizens.12 As a mass organization whose raison d’être was sustaining the new revolution, its structures and activities served the regime’s interest very well, but its “usefulness” later became moribund due in part to internal political inertia. There was, accordingly, a need to reconstitute it or to create another mass organization to address the challenges faced by the regime—as a socialist state. In this new schema, LR morphed into the National Union (NU), which called for the mobilization of every segment of society—pastoral and urban. Such an organization was more likely to provide the system with legitimacy since it could claim support from the entire polity. In spite of its composition, however, the NU never displayed authority over the government’s significant policy. Thus, the electoral or selection process of leaders of the group at the grassroots level—also referred to as the second stratum13—was a farce in terms of its influence in the body-politic of Egypt. The process of selecting important members of the NU may have been democratic, but its effectiveness in constructing national policies abridged the important effect of “genuine” electoral democracy. It is to this end that I made reference to the “crisis of electoral democracy” as a thrust in my analysis in this chapter and book. This is so because political leaders basically promoted elections—which were seldom free and fair— to legitimize their regime for the purpose of furthering their insular interests, which often ignored the interest of rural citizens. If the NU, as a mass movement, lacked the clout to influence policies at the top, why did citizens strive for membership and leadership in it, queried Lisa Blaydes.14 Leonard Binder answered that question accordingly: Membership or even office-holding in the National Union did not convey much political influence, but given the close control over the distribution of political values in Egypt, this is the only manner in which participation by outsiders is possible. Redress of grievance, protection of existing rights, retention of social prestige, and attainment of minimal qualifications for cooptation into higher political echelons—these are the benefits of membership in the mass political party.15

12

Iliya Harik, The Political Mobilization of the Peasants: A Study of an Egyptian Community (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1974), 68–69. 13 Binder, In a Moment of Enthusiasm, 11, 28. 14 Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 30. 15 Binder, In a Moment of Enthusiasm, 42.

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In a way, since membership in the party was mandatory for all adult citizens, approval of someone because of his or her support for the regime nearly always guaranteed advancement and upward mobility within the political system. More importantly, the NU served as the umpire for the selection of candidates seeking seats in the republic’s National Assembly, as was the case in 1957.16 Indeed, in the 1957 elections, it was noted that kinship relations rather than lively party politics determined the electoral results17—hence the problem of electoral democracy in Egypt and Africa that is frequently engineered by the leadership in my contemplation and hypothesis. In any case, “the return to legislative elections in 1957 (sans parties),” noted Mona El-Ghobashy, “was a token of the ‘sound of democratic life’ promised by Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Free Officers.”18 Since the NU presented itself as an academy of sorts to train and prepare Egyptians to become political actors, with the attendant power and prestige that issued from that training, the organization started to be infiltrated by those feared to be right wing, wealthy, and privileged members of the polity. The philosophy and ideology of this group were inimical to those of socialism as visualized by President Nasser, the champion of greater Arab unity. Disillusioned with the political activities of the NU and its possible challenge to his authority, Nasser dissolved it and replaced it with the Arab Socialist Union. As a mass political organization, it was becoming clear that this group, with its members’ clashing interests, was becoming unwieldy; therefore, Nasser instituted a wide range of objectives for the Arab Socialist Union and ways for taming its clumsiness. Critical to assuaging the internal political disarticulations in ASU was the pre-emption of the positive activities of opposition political factions as well as an effective mobilization of citizens for the advancement of the regime’s policies and political stability. In order to implement its aims, the ASU was structured in such a way that it had different levels or strata of membership. Additionally, membership was not open to all. As a result, “only activists” whose views were congruent to those of the regime, and who duly paid a fee to demonstrate their commitment to the party, could apply for 16

Vatikiotis, The Egyptian Army in Politics, 113, 169; Ninette Fahmy, The Politics of Egypt (London: Routledge, 2002), 57. 17 Binder, In a Moment of Enthusiasm: Political Power and the Second Stratum, 68. 18 Mona El-Ghobashy, “Egypt’s Paradoxical Elections,” Middle East Research and Information Project, accessed September 19, 2014, http://www.merip.org/mer/mer238/egypts-paradoxical-elections?ip_.

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membership. In this way, the party became selective and also developed a vanguard of sorts to propagate the ideologies of the ruling clique. Little wonder, then, that by the time of parliamentary elections in 1964, membership in the ASU was approximately 4 million in a country with about 6 million eligible voters.19 It was within the context of the above suppositions that Harik noted that the organization of the single-party system was such that sub-national leaders, aware that their safety and retention of their prestigious position in the party and society depended on their unwavering support for the regime, “sold” their conscience and political beliefs to the whims and caprice of the party.20 Thus, their concern was not that of furthering national interests but rather their self-interests and the interests of the party and its leader; internal elections within the party for top posts were often conflictive. And, such competitions for advantage in which the best party candidates were not necessarily elected for important jobs in part exposed the problem of electoral democracy in Egypt. To recap, the formation of the ASU in Egyptian politics under President Nasser’s leadership was, inter alia, intended to control the system and construct a society within his socialist principles. In doing so, or in his attempt to do so, he steadily reshaped the ASU in order to efficiently implement his regime’s policies. The introduction of internal party elections after 1968 is instructive. Leaders in the party were elected and not appointed, as was hitherto the case. It has been suggested that this strategy of introducing elections within the party was intended to create a balance between the leftist and rightists blocs in the ASU, thereby neutralizing any major pressure that either the left or right could bring to bear on Nasser and his regime.21 In this process, electoral democracy was aimed at controlling any opposition, mollifying the angst of non-governing elites, and promoting the regime’s interests of furthering political 19 Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes, 314; Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 31. 20 Iliya Harik, “The Single Party as a Subordinate Movement: The Case of Egypt,” World Politics, 26, 1 (1973): 81–82. 21 See Pete W. Moore, “The International Context of Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World,” Arab Studies Quarterly, 16, 3 (1994): 214; R. Hrair Dekmejian, Egypt under Nasser: Studies in Political Dynamics (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1971), 259; Binder, In a Moment of Enthusiasm, 336-338, 348; Hamied Ansari, Egypt, the Stalled Society (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1986), 151; Mark N. Cooper, The Transformation of Egypt (London: Croom Helm, 1982), 55.

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stability,22 not necessarily advancing the interests of the average Egyptian. Even so, the culture of corrupt elections within the ASU left much to be desired—a problem that has become endemic in Egyptian society today. President Nasser was succeeded by his second-in-command, Anwar Sadat, after his death in 1970.

Anwar Sadat In order to legitimize his authority and to prove that he was as tough politically and religiously as his charismatic predecessor, Sadat quickly declared himself a true believer in the Islamic faith. He did so partially to beef up his support from a powerful Muslim faction seeking to make Egypt an Islamic rather than a secular state. To demonstrate his commitment to the religious character of the state, he “introduced Sharia law (that is an Islamic form of jurisprudence) to the constitution, lifted restrictions on the activities of Muslim fundamentalist organizations, and permitted the proliferation of private mosques which escaped state supervision and control.”23 In spite of these strategic moves, however, other mundane issues worked against his desire to make an indelible imprint on the psyche of Egyptian citizens and society. These were political and economic. Following Nasser’s death in 1970, Sadat’s political concern was on how to manage the clashing interests of the rightist and leftist wings within the ASU. In an attempt to resolve the problematic rivalry between these forces, Sadat sided with the conservative arm of his party. Indeed, to underscore his disdain for the leftists and to whittle down their power in the party in the parliamentary elections of 1971, many leftists were not allowed to compete for office.24 Such an action underscored the issue of electoral democracy in this society. In light of this development, or because of this purge in the party, leftist-cum-liberal students demonstrated against President Sadat’s undemocratic action. Internal political squabbles within the party led to a dialog to determine the future character of the ASU.25

22

Raymond Hinnebusch, Jr. Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-populist Development of an Authoritarian-Modernizing State (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1988), 18. 23 Cutter, The World Today Series, Africa 2003, 38th edition, 280. 24 Ninette Fahmy, The Politics of Egypt (London: Routledge, 2002), 61. 25 John Waterbury, Egypt: Burdens of the Past, Options of the Future (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1978), 355.

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An economic problem for Sadat was how to fix the country’s fiscal woes. In light of this dilemma, he implemented an economic template in 1974 intended to boost the economy. His 1974 economic plan was named Infitah (opening)—which is somewhat analogous to Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika (in the Russian Federation). This monetary strategy was to open up the economic space, bringing a stop to or deconstructing Nasser’s state-run socialist system, which was believed to have been responsible for the country’s fiscal stagnation. It was an economic revolution of sorts that would introduce free-market capitalism to Egyptians and slowly but steadily reduce the impact of a socialist economy. In this schema, “foreign investors would be encouraged to invest in Egypt, and foreign experts would [be encouraged to] bring their technological knowledge to help develop industries.”26 An optimistic assumption then was that an efficient application of Infitah could lead to an industrial revolution in Egypt. Alas, instead of this scheme boosting an anemic economy for the good of the polity, it generated fortunes for a few greedy oligarchs, leaving the great majority of Egyptians worse off. The few who capitalized on the system were members of President’s Sadat’s family and those with close ties to him. The ogre of corruption among the governing class and nouveau-riche contractors rose and provoked political angst and vocal opposition to this policy from the Egyptian grassroots.27 After three years of this economic experiment, the economy did not improve. To make matters worse, the administration increased the price of bread—a staple food. This action was a coup de grace in the pent-up anger against the regime’s fiscal policy, and so demonstrations and riots broke out and Sadat was compelled to rescind the increase. Confronted, as it were, with these frontal attacks (i.e., political and economic), Sadat decided to initiate a political dialog to tackle the issues. In a rather tactical move, Sadat engaged professionals and intellectuals in a prolonged debate on the nature of a political system conducive for governing Egypt.28 An idea or hypothesis issuing from this strategy was 26

Edge, Global Studies, 119. Yahya Sadowski, Political Vegetables: Businessman and Bureaucrat in the Development of Egyptian Agriculture (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1991): 93; see Mohamed Heikal, Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat (London: Andre Deutsch, 1983); John Waterbury, “The ‘Soft State’ and the Open Door: Egypt’s Experience with Economic Liberalization, 1974-1984,” Comparative Politics, 18, 1 (1985): 65–83. 28 Cooper, The Transformation of Egypt, 179; Waterbury, Egypt, Burdens of the Past, Options of the Future, 25; Raymond Baker, Egypt’s Uncertain Revolution under Nasser and Sadat (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), 164; Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-populist Development of an 27

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that as long as the regime kept the vocal publics talking, criticisms of the regime could be muted, buying the government some time to construct solutions for the problems facing the country. In short, it was propitious to keep “troublemakers” or critics engaged in a dialog as a way of distracting them from the government’s inadequate policies for a while. It was after two years or so of intense dialog that Sadat introduced a competitive multi-party system as one possible panacea for addressing the political anomalies and contradictions in Egypt. Sadat’s wish to move toward multi-partyism in Egypt was in part informed by a number of indigenous and exogenous factors. He attempted to lean toward the powerful, dominant, and rich conservative elites with whom he had so much in common; curtailed the leftist influence in the party and society; lessened the ideology and influence of the late popular and charismatic President Nasser on the system; and appealed for external and financial support, mainly from the West. Indeed, it has been suggested that the desire to open up the political space and allow the competition of different political parties at the parliamentary level fulfilled many objectives that included but are not limited to: “the desire to differentiate his regime from Nasser’s, satisfy participatory pressures, win support from liberal elements of the bourgeoisie, please the Americans (after having de-coupled from Moscow), on whom his diplomatic initiative depended, and encourage the economic liberalization he was launching…including seeking funds from the United States.”29 My thesis in this chapter and volume is that electoral democracy, while vital in the successful governance of a polity because elections promote the legitimacy of a regime, is often corrupted by political leaders in many countries of the developing world—not least Africa—for insular reasons. Indeed, in Egypt, Blaydes observed and noted that: The elections, therefore, were introduced during a time when there still existed fairly clear ideological distinctions between two important factions of Egypt’s political elite, although these ideological differences may have been strongly motivated by pragmatic concerns. The move toward elections was seen as a shift in favor of right-leaning and business-oriented elements of this political class. It is this class, in fact, that continues to dominate the Egyptian elite. Although the importance of external factors— Authoritarian-Modernizing State, 159; Kirk Beattie, Egypt During the Sadat Years (New York: Palgrave MacMillan Press, 2000), 38. 29 Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 37; Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics under Sadat: The Post-populist Development of an Authoritarian-Modernizing State, 158–59; Fahmy, The Politics of Egypt, 63–64.

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Chapter Three particularly the desire to court the West—cannot be ignored, the decision to hold elections was rooted, at least to some extent, in a desire to manage the [narcissistic pressures from] the country’s elite [with little, if any, concerns for the massive poor compatriots who provide a majority of votes].30

On October 6, 1981, young military officers belonging to a Muslim sect, Al Takfir Wal Hijra, which advocated the reestablishment of a pure Islamic society in Egypt, assassinated President Sadat during a military parade.31 He was succeeded by his vice-president, Hosni Mubarak, whose reign as leader of Egypt was highly eventful with respect to his domestic politics and paternalistic and authoritarian rule in particular.

Hosni Mubarak A recurrent problem that Mubarak confronted in his rule of Egypt issued from the incessant threat to the nation-state and its institutions by political Islam. It seemed that nothing Mubarak and his associates would do short of Islamizing the country would satisfy them. Islamists were hell bent on overthrowing Mubarak’s regime, as was the case with Sadat’s government, by violent means. Moreover, Coptic Christians, secular intellectuals, law enforcement agents including army officials, as well as politicos and cabinet secretaries were earmarked to suffer the wrath of Muslim activists and extremists; they were designated enemies of the true Islamic faith. But such a confrontational scenario seldom leads to political stability; indeed, conflict and instability are complementary; they serve as an important catalyst in nourishing, promoting, and exacerbating human rights breaches and their attendant political malaise. Such a development is often the case in autocratic systems like Egypt, in which the president frequently ruled with an iron fist in the hope of promoting stability in an unsteady socio-political nation-state. When groups don’t find peaceful ways of venting their opposition to obnoxious and repugnant policies as a result of political repression, they often resort to other, violent, means. Such was the case in 1995 when an effort was made to assassinate the president while he was attending a conference in Ethiopia. When that attempt on his life failed, a radical group, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, decided to sabotage the nation’s economy, not only as a strategy to delegitimize Mubarak’s administration but also as a political iconoclastic gesture to destabilize the government. This group assailed an economic 30 31

Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 7–38. Edge, Global Studies, 119,

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foundation of the government. In fact, a master blow was struck in 1997 when 58 Western tourists were cruelly slaughtered in a mass execution in Luxor.32 To Mubarak, this carnage was the straw that broke the camel’s back; his patience with the anti-regime activities of nefarious political Islamists petered out. The violence had to stop, and he, as a former warrior, was adept at the strategies for doing so—tactics that matched and even surpassed those of the militants. Indeed it was noted, in response to the dastardly act in Luxor, that he had to accomplish a conspicuous reduction of violence through a combination of savage repression and indulgence. … In the war against terrorists, mass arrest, torture, extrajudicial executions [were applied with reckless abandon], and the use of military courts to try civilians [was used to hand out harsh punishments]—[actions] that … prompted criticism of the regime’s human rights violations.33

It goes without saying that the character of a single-party system in which political space is open only to those who kowtow to the regime’s philosophy and subordination to a one-man’s rule is often problematical. Because of this development, the country remained combustible as opposition groups expressed their outrage in aggressive ways. The urge to control the political life of the society in a quest for stability created political anxiety that found expression in the so-called Arab Spring, which brought the entire edifice of the Egyptian state, and its leader Mubarak, to an unceremonious, and satisfying to many reformists and ordinary Egyptians, crash. This titbit of political history notwithstanding, the centrality of this chapter is on the issue of leadership and the problem of electoral democracy in this society and Africa. The issue of electoral democracy has frequently made difficult the ability of African leaders to govern effectively because of resistance to unfair electoral practices from opposition groups and parties. Such was the case in the February 18, 2016 presidential election in Uganda, which pitted President Yoweri Museveni against the main opposition leader Kizza Besigye. It is on this subject that I shall focus my subsequent discourses. The conflicted nature of the electoral competitions among political parties introduced by President Sadat in the Egyptian system did not help quell the socio-political angst in this society. The introduction of electoral democracy had a disastrous effect on a society that was not fully adjusted 32 33

Cutter, The World Today Series, Africa 2003, 38th edition, 282. Ibid.

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to the nature of political interactions in a multi-party system. The National Democratic Party (NDP) was founded in 1976 when President Anwar Sadat “dismembered” the ASU into three separate groups that corresponded to the right, center, and left ideologically within the NDP. As has often been the case in much of African politics, incumbent parties are seldom defeated in an election. Little wonder, then, that NDP dominated the Egyptian political scene from 1976 “until the Supreme Administrative Court issued a ruling on April 16 [2011] ordering the NDP to be dissolved for engaging in corruption and election fraud during Mubarak’s rule.”34 Be that as it may, because of the dominance of the NDP in Egyptian politics, Mubarak was confident enough to encourage political pluralism. Even so, some factions within the society sought to be recognized. Such was the case when the Wafd opposition party won a lawsuit in 1983 that permitted this faction to compete in the 1984 election. In that election a coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood—i.e., a Wafd-Brotherhood alliance, bagged 58 seats and 15% of the total vote.35 In view of NDP’s domination of the political landscape in Egypt, my following analysis on the problem of electoral democracy will center on President Mubarak and his party—the National Democratic Party. First, a brief theoretical analysis will be attempted below.

Theories on the Character of Elections in Autocratic Regimes A brief discussion on some theories of the function of elections in autocratic systems may help to shed some light on the crisis of electoral democracy in Egypt. Further, it will expose some strategies applied by the leadership on how to conduct elections in order to advance their interests and not those of the general population per se. My preceding assumptions should set the groundwork for understanding the political character and astute activities of the powerful NDP and its leader, President Hosni Mubarak, regarding Egypt’s electoral process. 34

“Egypt Elections: National Democratic Party,” The Cairo Review of Global Affairs (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 13, 2011), 1, accessed February 12, 2015, http://www.aucegypt.edu/gapp/cairoreview/pages/articleDetails.aspx. 35 See Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 38; McDermott, Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak: A Flawed Revolution, 77; Robert Springborg, Mubarak’s Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), 135–37, 157.

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In fact, it has been argued by some scholars that many authoritarian regimes that hold elections are not democratizing at all. In truth, these leaders are astutely institutionalizing authoritarianism in the guise of holding elections; hence the issue of electoral democracy in this society is central to the deliberation of my analysis. Moreover, elections, or the appearance of elections contend some students of authoritarian regimes, serve to solidify autocratic rule for years on end.36 Some contemporary examples of regimes and leaders in Africa that mimic my above postulations are those of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Paul Biya of Cameroon. Notionally, a measure applied by a regime for the consolidation of power is the co-opting of legislators from opposition parties. In much of Africa, since holding political office is a sure way of enriching oneself, the dominant party could use political appointments or cash as bait to persuade opposition members of the legislature to cross the floor, in British political parlance, to the dominant party. This is the case, regrettably, because the philosophy of many politicians in Africa is not anchored on solid ideology. Membership in a political party—especially in relatively poor countries—is pecuniary. Thus, the attitude of politicians is “every political actor has a price.” All a dominant party and authoritarian leader have to do is provide the right incentive for a politician to cross the floor. In some cases, the vote of opposition members in a parliament or legislature could be bought for their support on a piece of legislation— especially since, as suggested earlier, party ideology does not matter much to political entrepreneurs in current political contestations in Africa; it is financial reward or remuneration that matters because with it, one could take care of immediate and extended family. Some scholars explain the theory of demonstration effects in elections held in authoritarian systems within the context of how these effects tend to boost support for a despotic leader and regime.37 Blaydes contends: “One important theory regarding the way authoritarians use elections involves electoral institutions as a means to perpetuate certain types of ‘national fictions,’ particularly with regard to the popularity and strength

36 Beatriz Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy: The Politics of Party Hegemony and Its Demise (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Kenneth Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose: Mexico’s Democratization in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 14. 37 See Lisa Wedeen, Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2008).

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of an authoritarian regime or leader.”38 In Syria, paradoxically, the president wins 99% of votes in election after election. The notion that these outcomes demonstrate the charisma or political mystique of Assad and the extent to which he is loved by Syrians is an illusion. Yet, this political façade has often been applied to shore up the regime in this authoritarian and patrimonial state.39 Here, citizens are either forced to vote in elections or elections are rigged with the connivance of the leader. An outcome of this process is a lopsided vote for the chief and regime. Little wonder, then, that the winds of the so-called Arab Spring blew across Syria, resulting in a civil war and its disastrous consequences. In President Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, the demonstration effect is frequently displayed in the media and society with sycophantic plaudits along the line “Mugabe is our savior who confiscated our rich arable lands from the whites and handed them to us and therefore deserves our unflinching support.” Ironically, these fertile lands were distributed to party stalwarts and not to the ordinary citizens on whom the regime depends for its majority votes. Another strategy in this dictatorial regime is persistent reference to Mugabe as a champion who liberated this country from white minority rule and, ipso facto, has earned the right to rule Zimbabwe for life and choose his successor. In this and other autocratic societies, the state media is used effectively to perpetuate the myth of the leader and party as indispensable. Therefore, the leader and party ZANUPF must be kept in power. Little wonder, then, that President Mugabe has been in power since home rule was granted in 1980. Given the number of military coups in some African countries and their entrenchment in the governance of these societies, politicians tend to eye the country’s military cabal with antagonistic suspicion. The formation of parties and the application of efficient elections, argue some scholars, are ways to checkmate the military. An assumption that authoritarian leaders and the institutions (such as effective parties, parliaments, and electoral commissions) with which they govern exist to the extent that they can be used to balance potential threats from within the military is compelling. The problem is how to implement these theories in Egypt and the African countries. In Egypt, for example, virtually all of her political leaders have been from the military (Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and el-Sisi, with the exception of Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood). These authoritarian leaders have often maintained close ties with the military. The military protects Egypt’s 38

Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 16 Lisa Wedeen, “Acting “as if”: Symbolic Politics and Social Control in Syria,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 40, 3 (1998): 504–06, 519. 39

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autocratic regimes because it is heavily invested in the economic system. The Egyptian military receives sweetheart contracts from the government (as entrepreneurs) to produce various and sundry goods for the society, thereby making it possible for officers to become filthy rich.40 In fact, Waterbury noted that “the military got into the business of arms production and the manufacturing of civilian goods. By the 1980s, defense industries sold civilian goods, including refrigerators, heavy turbines and food products, worth hundreds of millions of Egyptian pounds annually.”41 This symbiotic relationship between the military and president, one of its own, in a manner of expression, means the military ignores electoral malfeasance in this autocratic state. Comparatively, a similar situation in which a despotic leader furthered the crisis of electoral democracy played itself out in the mutual relationship between the controlling regime of Mugabe and his military cabal. Following an election in 2008, in which Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change was said to have defeated President Mugabe of ZANU-PF, Craig Timberg of the New York Times reported how Mugabe could not be trounced in a country under the grip of ZANUPF: President Robert Mugabe summoned his top security officials to a government training center near his rural home in central Zimbabwe on the afternoon of March 30 [2008]. In a voice barely audible at first, he informed the leaders of the state security apparatus that had enforced his rule for 28 years that he had lost the presidential vote [probably because they had not done a good job at fixing the election] held the previous day. [As if to test their loyalty and commitment to him and his autocratic regime], Mugabe told the gathering he planned to give up power in a televised speech to the nation the next day… But Zimbabwe’s military chief, General Constantine Chiwenga, responded [emphatically] that the choice was not Mugabe’s alone to make. [In what sounded very much like a good music to his ears], Chiwenga told Mugabe his military would take control of the country and keep him in office…42 40 Steven Cook, Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 19. 41 John Waterbury, Exposed to Innumerable Delusions: Public Enterprise and State Power in Egypt, India, Mexico, and Turkey (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 105. 42 Craig Timberg, “Inside Mugabe’s Violent Crackdown,” Washington Post Foreign Service (Sunday, July 5, 2008), accessed February 15, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/04; see also E. Ike Udogu, Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of

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Against the backdrop of my concise notional discourses on authoritarian regimes in Africa, I shall return to the problem of electoral democracy in Egypt. I will do so within the context of Egypt’s National Democratic Party.

National Democratic Party and the Shenanigans of Electoral Democracy The history of how the NDP under the leadership of Hosni Mubarak dominated the political scene has been told and retold. The narratives that follow explain in brief some of the shrewd measures undertaken by his authoritarian regime to control the political landscape by way of sham elections for 30 years from 1981 to 2011. For the survival of this powerful despotic leader and party, the political game necessary for the retention of his regime in power was in the words of Thomas Hobbes “nasty and brutish.” It is, however, essential to alter this genus of politics in Egypt and Africa. But how was it possible for the NDP and President Mubarak to manipulate the principles of democracy in Egypt by the use of farcical elections in the 30 years that he was in power? The answers to this query will form the basis of the following discussions in which I shall attempt to expose the quandary of electoral democracy in this republic and other African countries. In the words of Blaydes: Elections allow the regime to manage distributive expectations for Egypt’s rent-seeking elite, particularly with regard to the distribution of power, promotions, rents, access to state resources, and immunity from criminal prosecution for corrupt practices. In this way, elections provide a wellstructured environment for elite competition and preempt more serious conflict between individuals and groups. At the same time, elections allow the authoritarian leadership to push off some of the costs of political mobilization onto this elite class [who frequently recouped the costs through corruption and shady deals]. Elections, therefore, contribute to the health of an authoritarian regime in a variety of ways.43

In part, the quagmire of electoral democracy in Egypt is illustrated by the extent to which politicians spend inordinate amounts of cash to African States in the 21st Century (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 13. 43 Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 53.

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compete for seats in the Shura, or Legislature, which is fundamentally a rubber stamp organization that serves at the behest of the president. It will suffice to say that elections are hotly contested in the country and within the dominant party—the NDP. Because the rewards for winning a seat are so enormous, candidates who fail to get the nod within the party have frequently opted to run as independents. For example, in 1990, Auda noted, independent contestants were more numerous than official contenders of the NDP. Even though the NDP won only 57% of the seats, successful independent candidates who were de jure members of the NDP quickly rejoined the party, thereby providing the party an overwhelming majority. These quasi-independents were cognizant of the fact that one way to recoup their exorbitant financial inducements to voters and corruption in an electoral competition was to rejoin the NDP. Accordingly, the purpose of electoral democracy in this polity is not solely that of electing politicians who would enact policies for the benefit of all Egyptians but as periodic rituals for boosting an individual’s social status, wealth, and power.44 The effect of how money corrupts the electoral process as candidates lock political horns for a seat in parliament is illustrated during economic tough times. The IMF and World Bank- imposed Strategic Adjustment Program (SAP) are indicative of such hard times. As a matter of fact, the fiscal crisis during the SAP era reduced the cash in politicians’ wallets with which they bribed electorates for their votes.45 Nevertheless, AlShoubaki notes crisply that: This situation [SAP] was behind the emergence of a new pattern of parliament members who gained seats through direct vote buying rather than promises to provide services [as politicians often pledged in electoral campaigns] to the people. Thus, the unprecedented process of vote buying appeared on the surface to reflect the absence of people’s confidence in deputies with political discourse as well as those of services. [Not to be outwitted by smart politicians and] because voters were sure that they would not see candidates [after an election], they preferred to directly sell their votes to those who can afford them. [Another] significant phenomenon was the dominant role of cash money, which came to substitute for the services that were usually offered to residents of many electoral constituencies.46 44

Gehad Auda, “Egypt’s Uneasy Party Politics,” Journal of Democracy, 2, 2 (1991): 75–76. 45 Moheb Zaki, Civil Society and Democratization in Egypt: 1981-1994 (Cairo: Adenauer Stiftung, 1995), 229. 46 Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 56.

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What is especially striking with respect to the attitude toward electoral democracy was brought to the limelight in the data on voter turnout for the 2000 and 2005 parliamentary elections and, in particular, the data for the municipal council-cum-presidential elections of 2005. The data on voter turnout showed, inter alia, that twice as many “illiterates” in this republic turned out to vote than their “literate” compatriots.47 This finding in Egypt is interesting because of the assumption that illiterates tend to be more apathetic to politics vis-à-vis literates. In any case, it is quite plausible that illiterate voters are more susceptible to selling their votes than members of the informed public. Even so, the poor who use their votes to create wealth for the political elite remain victims of the system in rural Egypt and in the slums of Cairo and Alexandria. Be that as it may, my contention is that electoral processes that are treated like an open market where candidates for political office could go vote buying are problematic. Moreover, this procedure could impede the trajectory toward democratic consolidation. In short, vote buying promotes a crisis in electoral democracy that can mitigate the state’s legitimacy. This problem of electoral democracy in Egypt was also made more severe following the introduction of the multi-candidate or open presidential election in 2005 and the subsequent election of 2010. It is on the character of these presidential elections and the activities of the hegemonic NDP in them that I shall briefly focus my discussions in the following pages. I shall do so with a view to emphasizing how the issue of electoral democracy in these elections furthered political instability in this polity. On May 10, 2005, Parliament historically approved a constitutional amendment that opened up the political space for multiple candidates to contest the post of president of Egypt for the first time. It was observed that approval of the amendment was considered a forgone conclusion since the powerful NDP, which proposed the amendment, controlled 90% of the seats in the People’s Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, and the only organ with the authority to pass laws. This measure received the support of 405 members against 34.48 This amendment was carefully crafted to favor the NDP. It was criticized for the strict rules that made opposition candidate/s less likely to be able to compete effectively against an incumbent president.49 Before the change to this electoral law, an 47

Blaydes, Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt, 101. Neil Macfarquhar, “Egypt Approves Election Law that Critics Say Favors Mubarak,” New York Times (May 10, 2005), accessed December 20, 2014, www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/international/africa/10cnd-egypt.html?page wanted=print&_r=0 49 Ibid. 48

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election for the president “was merely a yes-or-no referendum on Mubarak’s rule, decided with a 90 percent margin, and the ruling National Democratic Party took sizable majorities in both houses of parliament.”50 This vote, however, came about during a period of uncertainty and demonstrations in the country. Political activists demanded a fair democratic process and a stop to Mubarak’s autocratic rule. Even though the deck was stacked against opposition parties, including the influential but much maligned Muslim Brotherhood, they were prepared to test this experiment by going to the polls. Having opened up the political space constitutionally for a multicandidate election, the 2005 contest pitted the perennial incumbent candidate, President Mubarak, against a twice-elected Member of Parliament (MP), the audacious Ayman Nour of the el-Ghad (Tomorrow) party. The oppositional Muslim Brotherhood, which had always been a thorn in the flesh of the NDP and the ASU before it, was banned from fielding a candidate for the presidency51 on the basis that it was a religious party.52 Before the multi-candidate electoral début and competition, Nour, a viable opposition candidate, was accused of fraud and jailed on trumpedup charges just to teach him a lesson for daring to challenge Mubarak and the NDP.53 He was released before the election, but not until he had been thoroughly discredited by the ruling party and state-controlled media. The result of the People’s Assembly vote was as follows: “National Democratic Party, 311 seats, Muslim Brotherhood (MB), 88 seats (MB candidates officially ran as independents), Wafd Party, 6 seats, [and] Tagammu, 2 seats. At the presidential level, Mubarak won convincingly with the official record showing him with 89% of the vote to Nour’s 7% and the other candidates’ 4%.”54 But how free and fair the election was, was in doubt, thus highlighting the problem of electoral democracy in Egypt. Moreover, it was not enough that Nour was defeated in the poll, it 50

Gregg Carlstrom, “Explainer: Inside Egypt’s Recent Elections”—Country has had checkered history of elections, with most under Hosni Mubarak thought to have been deeply flawed (15 November 2011),”1–4, accessed February 22, 2015, www.aljazeera.com/indepth/sportlight/egypt/2011/11/201111138837156949.html 51 Jason Brownlee, “A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt,” Brown Journal of World Affairs, XIV, 1 (Fall/Winter 2007): 74; see Macfarquhar, “Egypt Approves Election Law that Critics Say Favors Mubarak.” 52 Brownlee, “A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt,” 81. 53 Brownlee, “A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt,” 74. 54 Carlstrom, “Explainer: Inside Egypt’s Recent Elections”, 3; see Brownlee, “A New Generation of Autocracy in Egypt,” 74; Brian Whitaker, “How Mubarak won the Election,” World Dispatch (Tuesday 13 September 2005). Accessed February 22, 2015, www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/13/worlddispatch.egypt

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was also significant that the NDP sent a tough message to any Egyptian who might have the nerve to challenge the authoritarian leader and his party; the “presidency was not vacant.” Accordingly, Nour was, after the election, sentenced to five years in prison for fraud.55 The 2010 parliamentary elections were confrontational and problematic following a major challenge to the NDP at the 2005 ballot, in which the opposition parties performed relatively well. Sometimes when leaders flatter themselves about their indispensability in a political system, they become overconfident and complacent. The Muslim Brotherhood’s impressive performance at the previous lower house elections (as Independents) was not to be tolerated in future polling. The NDP party stalwarts, who had not done their job of fixing or rigging the 2005 elections with finesse, were determined not to let their guards down in the 2010 parliamentary elections. Indeed, it was reported that: During the first round of the November 2010 parliamentary elections, the NDP won [over other contending political parties]...amid widespread allegations of ballot fraud and vote-rigging. In protest, several opposition forces, including Wafd, el-Ghad, and the Muslim Brotherhood, decided to boycott the run-off round on December 5 [resulting in political jubilation for the NDP stalwarts]. With nearly all opposition candidates abstaining from the second round, the NDP easily secured 420 of the 508 available seats. This left the NDP with an 87 percent majority in the People’s Assembly; in addition, many of the nominal independents making up the remainder of the assembly were former NDP members. The results prompted a severe backlash from opposition and civil society groups, which accused the ruling party of rigging the election and staged several days of protests.56

The results of the ballot for the People’s Assembly in what was termed the last-prerevolutionary vote in Egypt were “National Democratic Party, 420 seats (plus 53 NDP-affiliated ‘independents’), Wafd Party, 6 seats, Tagammu, 5 seats, and others, 20 seats.”57 Indeed, many who observed this electoral malfeasance dubbed this poll as the most rigged election in the history of Egypt. The preceding lucid narratives of electoral fraud and vote-rigging bring to the fore the problem of political leadership in this polity and African politics. They also expose the predicament of electoral democracy in Egypt at this juncture of multi-party democracy as it was

55

Carlstrom, “Explainer: Inside Egypt’s Recent Elections”, 3. “Egypt Elections,” 1–2. 57 Carlstrom, “Explainer: Inside Egypt’s Recent Elections,” 4. 56

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reported that only 10% of eligible electorates turned out to cast their votes in the 2010 election.58

Conclusion My analytic emphases in this chapter and volume have been to explore the roles that some African chiefs play in stifling the growth of democracy in Africa. This chapter argues that electoral democracy in this society is one in which citizens are urged to vote, but do not have a free choice— especially at the presidential level. Frequently, they are told who to vote for and threatened or punished if they fail to do so. Citizens who are nonmembers of the dominant party are frequently ignored; they are denied the benefits and infrastructure which they and members of their constituencies or communities should enjoy as Egyptians. Such a policy commonly leads to political agitation, as the history of political opposition to the despotic rule of the NDP by the Muslim Brotherhood and civil society reveals. Further, the problem of electoral democracy is exacerbated by the party’s and leadership’s collaboration to fix elections. Citizens’ votes are bought, leading to the “commercialization” of the democratic process in this society. President Mubarak, who wanted to stay in power by hook or by crook, met his Waterloo when Egyptian political activists overthrew him during the epoch of the so-called Arab Spring. Historically, from the revolution of 1952, which brought the Free Officers Corp to power in Egypt, to the present with President Adel Fattah el-Sisi at the helm of government, so much water has flowed under the bridge, carrying with it so many problems—not least political upheavals. Military strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser discovered that masterminding a military coup was much easier than governing a resilient society. Indeed, soldiers are not democrats—at least not by their training and culture. Consequently, the institutionalization of democratic principles in the governance of this society has not been easy. He was the political alpha and omega. As far as he was concerned, the ASU was set up to help him govern and to checkmate those segments in society with oppositional tendencies to his authoritarian rule. His governance techniques were not aimed at encouraging democratic principles as in free and fair elections. Other military generals who became civilian leaders, such as Sadat and Mubarak, mimicked Nasser’s despotic rule. They used their hegemonic political parties, as in the case of the NDP, which superseded the ASU, to advance their interest of serving as heads of state for as long as they could; 58

Carlstrom, “Explainer: Inside Egypt’s Recent Elections,” 5.

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these leaders did very little to mollify the dilemma of electoral democracy by organizing free and fair elections. When a multi-party system was introduced, it was at the weak parliamentary level and not at the presidential where the vote was done in referendums of a “Yes or No” ballot for the president. President Mubarak’s later introduction of a multicandidate balloting system for the presidency was undertaken following internal as well as Western pressures; even so, the outcomes of the elections of 2005 and 2010, for example, demonstrated the manipulation of electoral democracy in order for Mubarak to retain power. The clamor, as in Tahrir Square, Cairo, for free and fair elections to replace the current crisis of electoral democracy in this republic will continue to be felt in this millennium. In short, the struggle for consolidated democracy in Egypt will persist. After all, it is the zeitgeist in Africa today.

CHAPTER FOUR IVORY COAST AND THE CRISIS OF ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY

Brief History and Introduction The history of the area called Ivory Coast today is not well known. Nevertheless, some of the artifacts found in the territory suggest that a Neolithic civilization thrived there. It was during the period of European exploration and colonization that information regarding the natives of the area started to come to the fore. Oral history, since there were no known written documents on the history of the people, hinted that different groups migrated to the area and that one of such groups was the Mandinka, also known as Dyuola people.1 Indeed, when the Europeans arrived in the territory, they found three powerful kingdoms, namely, the Krindjabo and Bettie in the North and the Bondoukou in the East. Moreover, there were 50–60 ethno-linguistic groupings that inhabited the area, with relatively minor contact between them except for commerce and trade.2 It was in 1482 and in the 1600s that the Portuguese arrived in the region and started to trade in gold, ivory (from which the area was later named Ivory Coast), and spices. Portuguese exploration was followed by the French, whose first contact with the peoples there is said to have happened in 1637.3 The French were interested in promoting the Christian gospel in the region, among other things. Suffice it to say, too, that in the 1750s the area was invaded by the Akan population, who were under attack by the powerful Asante empire (of modern Ghana). The Akan 1

“A Short History of Cote D’Ivoire,” accessed April 11, 2015, http://africanhistory.about.com/od/ctedivoir1/a/def-Cote-d-Ivoire.htm 2 Charles H. Cutter, Africa 2002 (Harpers Ferry, WV: Stryker-Post Publication, 2002), 32; Daniel Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,” Journal of Democracy, 17, 2 (April 2006), 65; Aristide R. Zolberg, One-Party Government in Ivory Coast (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 11. 3 Richard Chipchase, The Ivory Coast: A Short History,3, accessed April 11, 2015, https://suite.io/richard-chipchase/5c5d2d9

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founded the Baoule (or Baule) kingdom around the city of Sakasso. This movement of groups from one location to another, inter alia, points to how the histories and cultures of African people are intertwined in much of Africa. French trading centers were launched in the 1830s in part as a result of a competitive political and economic scramble for Africa by European powers. By the time of the famous Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 in which colonial overseers carved up Africa into their spheres of influence, the boundaries of Ivory Coast had been formalized, with Liberia and the British colony Gold Coast (now Ghana) as neighbors. In 1904, Ivory Coast, which would be used interchangeably with Cote D’Ivoire (its French name), amalgamated with other French colonies to form a greater Federation of French West Africa known as Afrique Occidentale Francaise. Ivory Coast was granted home rule by France on August 7, 1960, and Felix Houphouet-Boigny became its first president.4

Ethnicity, Democracy and Elections There are approximately 60 different ethnic groupings in Ivory Coast, which cluster around five dominant linguistic collectivities. On the basis of the 1998 census data, approximately 74 percent of the population were Ivoirians; consequently, 26 percent were foreigners. Jeanne Maddox Toungara provides the population breakdown of the ethno-linguistic groupings as follows: 42.1 percent are Akan speakers who inhabit the southeastern region. Its major subgroup is the Baule of which President Houphouet-Boigny and Henri K. Bedie claim membership. The others are the Kru speaking 11 percent with the Bete as a major subgroup. Laurent Gbagbo is of this ethnic stock; southern Mande constituted 12 percent of the population; northerners make up 32 percent that is almost equally divided between Northern Mande and Voltaic-speakers. It is further noted that Northern Mande include the Malinke in the northwest and Dioula in the east of the Senufo and that Alassane Ouattara is an indigene of this group.5

Elsewhere, Daniel Chirot notes that the Akan, Krou, Northern Mande, Southern Mande, and Gur (known also as Voltaic) make up the five major ethnic groupings in Ivory Coast. He further noted that slightly different 4

Cutter, Africa 2002, 32. Jeanne Maddox Toungara, “Ethnicity and Political Crisis in Cote d’Ivoire,” Journal of Democracy, 12, 3 (July 2001): 65.

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population figures for the groupings could be found in the 1998 census. This population breakdown is as follows: “Akan 31 percent; Krou 10 percent, southern Mande 8 percent; northern Mande 12 percent; and Gur 13 percent. The remaining 26 percent of the population are classified as aliens.”6 The essentiality of the preceding ethnic composition of this polity continued to play itself out in competitions for political and economic power in Ivory Coast that time and again exacerbated the crisis of electoral democracy in this society. This ethnic rivalry is especially acute in a society with scarce resources, as in Ivory Coast, which depended mainly on coffee and cocoa. During economic downturns, ethnic groups tend to assert themselves and vociferously claim their share of the national pie; in democracy, the electoral process copes with the vying for scarce resources. The political climate in Ivory Coast was unique to the extent that this republic had one dominant political party—the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), headed by an indomitable president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny. Thus, the whole history of political development and intrigues that led later to a multi-party system is fascinating. Indeed, the problem of electoral democracy on which this chapter and the entire edifice of this book rests could be explained within the context of this republic’s ethnic mosaic.7 The predicament of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast also rests on the ambitions, ethnic undertones, and biases of its major dramatis personae— Houphouet-Boigny, Bedie, Gbagbo, Ouattara, and General Guei—in the state’s politics. Houphouet-Boigny dominated the politics of this country from 1960– 1990 within the context of a single-party system. However, an economy based on just the proceeds from cocoa and coffee can face real problems when the world prices for these commodities plummet. It was the cash from cocoa and coffee that the clever president used effectively to mitigate opposition to his one-man rule since self-rule in 1960. As a consequence of dwindling revenues, however, ethnic tensions surfaced and the power of the PDCI to hold its factions within the party system crumbled. Other political interest groups in Ivory Coast, wishing to participate as key players in the system, started to challenge Houphouet-Boigny’s singleparty system.

6

Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,” 65–66. E. Ike Udogu, “Introduction,” in African Mosaic: Political, Social, Economic and Technological Development in the New Millennium, ed. by E. Ike Udogu et al. (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), 1–9.

7

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The claims that political power was dominated by an ethnic group— the Baule from which the president hailed—resonated among other ethnic groupings who wanted a shot at the presidency in order to be in a position to exploit the national coffers, as they believed Houphouet-Boigny was doing. The clamor for the birth of a multi-party democracy reached its crescendo following the demise of communism in Eastern Europe and the triumphalism of democracy. Despotic African leaders before now were reluctant to open up the political space. In fact, some political chiefs had expressed the notion that democracy was un-African, as in Kenya, and attempted to resist it.8 But political upheavals in some African nationstates are related in part to the fact that the political system disenfranchises many ordinary Africans by way of political intimidations in the electoral process. Such political situations created unsteadiness—even civil wars— fomented by those ethnic groups which, because of structural defects in the system, were unable to partake in the general feast of exploiting national resources, as the dominant and privileged groups in society did. How, then, were political conflicts in Francophone Africa and especially in Ivory Coast to be tackled? In 1990, following the political changes in Eastern Europe in which some of the newly independent countries started adopting democracy, French president Francoise Mitterrand proclaimed that France would only provide economic aid to African countries that democratized their political system.9 Mitterrand’s proclamation, on “democracy for economic aid policy,” was so powerful that the strong-minded President HouphouetBoigny, who had affirmed earlier that multi-party democracy was alien and dangerous to his country, became malleable. He acquiesced to Mitterrand’s demand in part because he badly needed French economic assistance to fix the economic quagmire he was confronted with. So, because of the financial pains that Ivory Coast was experiencing at that moment, he announced that he was ready to open up the political space and allow a multi-party democracy in a system that he and his PDCI had dominated for over 30 years. A multi-party election was to be held in 1990. In this multi-party contest, the president’s chief rival was a history professor, Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI), whose ideological underpinning was leftist. Gbagbo, a nationalist, was a perennial campaigner against colonialism and autocracy. Ethnically, he is a Bete and a leader of a southwestern ethnic group that had never liked the 8

Daniel Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 196. 9 Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,” 67.

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Baoule elites dominating the political landscape of the society. He resented the president because of his ability to use political patronage and cash for wooing national and local elites and, consequently, retaining his popularity and political power even in the rural northern region. Houphouet-Boigny strategically granted 26 percent of the immigrants who had settled in Ivory Coast citizenship rights; these were citizens likely to vote for him and his party on the basis of this liberal policy. This masterstroke in political engineering was promulgated to the chagrin of political opponents, who felt the idea was harmful to their interests and those of bone-fide Ivoirians. In order to neutralize possible northern opposition, Houphouet-Boigny cleverly appointed Alassane D. Ouattara, a Muslim, prime minister of Ivory Coast.10 By this act or arrangement, he created a Christian/Muslim political bulwark. Against the background of this political maneuver, Ivoirians went to the polls in 1990 for the first time as a multi-party state. It is, however, the character of elections held from 1960 to 2010 that informs my following discourses within the context of the dilemma of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast.

Electoral Democracy in a Single-Party System 1960-1985 In my discussion of the crisis of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast, emphasis will be placed on presidential elections, with brief and occasional references to legislative elections where necessary. I have approached my analysis in this way against the background of the nature of executive elections in African politics. Indeed, this is the locus of real prestige and power. Elected presidents have often arrogated for themselves a major authority of disbursing funds from the national treasury at will. They do so partially as a stratagem to consolidate their influence in national politics. Below, I provide tables 1 to 6 in order to illustrate the outcomes of the 1960 to 1985 elections and to briefly examine in general terms some 10 Cyril K. Daddieh, “Elections and Ethnic Violence in Cote ‘d’Ivoire: The Unfinished Business of Succession and Democratic Transition,” African Issues, 29, 1/2 (2001): 14; Richard C. Crook “Winning Coalitions and Ethno-Regional Politics: The Failure of the Opposition in the 1990 and 1995 Elections in Cote D’Ivoire,” African Affairs, 96 (1997): 215; Richard C. Crook, “Cote d’Ivoire: Multi-party Democracy and Political Change: Surviving the Crisis,” in Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. John A. Wiseman (London: Routledge, 1995), 12-17; Cutter, Africa 2002, 33; Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,” 68; Christof Hartman, “Cote D’Ivoire,” in Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook, ed. Dieter Nohlen et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 301.

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problems arising from a single-party system. In particular, I examine the political structure the president, Houphouet-Boigny, monopolized and did everything in his power to dominate and control his society. Also, my discussions allude to the tainted electoral strategies that the President and PDCI applied to stay in power and to lubricate the machinery of this oneparty system. I argue that political maneuvering by PDCI led to structural and institutional weaknesses that finally resulted in weakening the dominant political party—the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI). Table 1 1960 Registered voters Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Felix Houphouet-Boigny (PDCI)

Total Number 1,661,833 1,641,542 190 1,641,352 1,641,352

% 98.8 0.1 99.9 100.0

Table 2 1965 Registered voters

Total Number 1,875,547

%

Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Felix Houphouet-Boigny (PDCI)

1,641,542 332 1,867,605 1,867,605

99.6 0.1 99.9 100.0

Total Number 2,020,000 2,003,714 668 2,003,046 2,003.046

%

Table 3 1970 Registered voters Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Felix Houphouet-Boigny (PDCI)

99.2 0.1 99.9 100.0

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Table 4 1975 Registered voters Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Felix Houphouet-Boigny (PDCI)

Total Number 2,410,042 2,405,407 502 2,404,905 2,404,905

%

Table 5 1980 Registered voters

Total Number 3,395,056

%

Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Felix Houphouet-Boigny (PDCI)

2,795,456 306 2,795,150 2,795,150

82.3 0.1 99.9 100.0

Table 6 1985

Total Number

%

Registered voters

3,517,259

Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Felix Houphouet-Boigny (PDCI)

3,516,542 3,516,542

99.8 0.1 99.9 100.0

100.0

Source: Christof Hartman, “Cote D’Ivoire,” in Dieter Nohlan, Michael Krennerich, Bernhard Thibaut (eds.), Elections in Africa: A Handbook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 310–11.

In an attempt to investigate the character of the crisis of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast analytically, I divided the activities in this country into two important eras. The first is the single-party epoch from 1960 to 1985, the electoral data of which are shown above. The second period is from 1990 to 2010. This phase saw the emergence of a multiparty system during which the political space was open to other political actors. The issue of electoral democracy in the single-party period forms the basis of my subsequent discussions. Given President Houphouet-Boigny’s position of power as head of the popular Democratic Party of Ivory Coast, he had to capitalize on it, as did

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some of his fellow African leaders such as Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and President Kamuzu Banda of Malawi. In this way, opposition to his authority would be muted. But in order to silence possible opposition groups or individuals in the system, he lubricated the party’s political machine with largesse from the national coffers. His ability to be successful in political brinkmanship and retain power for life is illustrated in the peculiar and unique electoral outcomes in tables 1–6 above. In some ways, they mimicked the election results in communist single-party systems. For instance, in the 1960 presidential election, the number of registered voters was 1,661,833 and the number of votes cast was 1,641,542; invalid votes were 190 and valid votes were 1,641,352, all of which went to the president. In 1965, the number of registered voters was 1,875,547; the number of votes cast was 1,867,937; invalid votes were 332; and valid votes were 1,867,605; Houphouet-Boigny swept them all. In 1970, registered voters were 2,020,000; votes cast were 2,003,714; invalid votes were 668; and valid votes were 2,003,046, all of which went to the president. In 1975, the number of registered voters was 2,410,042; votes cast were 2,405,407; invalid votes were 502; and valid votes were 2,404,905 all of which the president won. In 1980, the number of registered voters was 3,398,056; votes cast were 2,795,456; the number of invalid votes was 306; and the valid votes were 2,795,150, which the president garnered. In 1985, the number of registered voters was 3,517,259 and valid votes were 3,516,542, which the president bagged. No figures were given for the total votes cast and invalid votes. All the same, the outcome was a foregone conclusion—victory for the only presidential candidate. The first period of quinquennial elections in this republic from 1960 to 1985 was marked by its unique single-party system that was dominated by President Houphouet-Boigny and the PDCI. To be sure, following home rule in many African countries, some politicians argued that because of the existence of multitudinous ethnic groups in Africa it would be appropriate to form a single-party system to which all nationalities would subscribe. Such a system would help heal the divisive nature of ethnic politics in which collectivities tended to vie virulently for the control of power.11 Even so, the question in Ivory Coast was, and is, which one of the 60 or so ethnic groups will produce the head of state or president? Indeed, as fortune would have it, so to speak, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, through his excellent education, hard work, family fortune, and powerful Baule ethnic 11

E. Ike Udogu, “Reviving Democracy and Good Governance in Nigeria’s Current Politics: A Concise Analysis,” Africa Quarterly, 44, 2 (August 2004), 69–70.

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heritage, was able to rise to the occasion. He was a legislator in Paris and when France granted self-rule to Ivory Coast, he was in an advantageous position to accede to power. Be that as it may, these voting data or records are problematic in a democracy—hence my reference to the issue of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast. That the president and his PDCI in all six presidential elections would receive 100 percent of the votes cast in a polity with ethnic centrifugal interests smacks of electoral malfeasance. In short, these records suggest that each one of these six elections was tainted. Let’s take, for example, the 1970 electoral outcome in which there were 2,020,000 registered voters. Indeed, that such a high number of voters—2,003,046, representing 99.9 percent of the electorate— voted for the president seems somewhat exaggerated. Why? It could be argued that the electorate, having gone to the polls in 1960 and 1965, and both times the president won 99.9 percent of the votes cast, a sizable number of the electorate simply stayed at home in the 1970 election, and successive presidential elections, because the result was a foregone conclusion—the president, as the only candidate, would win in part because the election had been fixed by party loyalists. Moreover, it is astonishing to some political observers that only 16,286 registered voters did not show up to vote and only 668 votes were declared invalid in the 1970 election. What the results of the 1960–1985 presidential elections further suggest is that party stalwarts, at all levels of the political system, were possibly instructed to massage the number of votes and assign 2,003,046 votes in the 1970 election to the president. It is such tinkering with the electoral process and results that brings to the fore the dilemma of electoral democracy in this country and other African countries. My concern, analytically, is that such a problematic electoral democracy diminished the system’s legitimacy, especially among members of the informed public. This hypothesis played itself out in the 1990 multi-party presidential election.

Multi-party Democracy 1990–2010 It goes without saying that the monopoly on power by a single man and party in a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society in which politics tended to have an ethnic undertone was, by the 1980s, irritating to ambitious political actors who wanted very much to wear the golden crown of president of the Republic of Ivory Coast. Moreover, internal economic and political realities started conspiring, as it were, against this octogenarian leader. Internationally, as noted previously, the collapse of

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communism in Eastern Europe and the triumphalism of democracy resulted in many authoritarian, despotic, and autocratic leaders in the developing world realigning their countries with Western democratic traditions. Countries that failed to open up their political spaces to allow the flowering of multi-party democracy were ostracized. Furthermore, some of the Western powers threatened developing countries that reneged as a result of the democratic zeitgeist with cutting economic aid if they did not conform to the spirit of the times. Paradoxically, as noted before, that same President Houphouet-Boigny who had repudiated multi-party democracy in his country changed his mind after the PDCI cleverly planned to institute the process in a way that it could still retain power electorally.12 To lessen the political itchiness of actors who were just dying for a multi-party system, the PDCI invoked a peculiar tenet from the 2000 constitution in Article 7, which states that: Every human being has the right to the development and to the full realization of his personality in the material, intellectual and spiritual dimensions. The state assures to all citizens equal access to health, to education, to culture, to information, to professional formation and to employment. The state has the duty to safeguard and to promote the national values of civilization as well as the cultural traditions not contrary to the law and to good morals.13

Although it remains ambiguous as to how this provision opened up the political space, what was important to opposition candidates was that the “unthinkable” a few years back was about to happen—multi-party competition for political power. However, the party, after carefully mulling over the dialog for a multi-party system, claimed tactically that it was not in opposition to the idea after a thirty-year domination of the political landscape. In fact, it stated that it was flexible and, indeed, amenable to such a political metamorphosis. However, the political tempo and temperature before the 1990 multi-party election soared when it appeared that President Houphouet-Boigny, who had been in power for 30 years and was in relatively poor health, was going to step down as president and head of the powerful PDCI. Following this development, opposition forces in the political system were in high spirits but had only five months or so to prepare for this important multi-party election. This was especially the case with respect to 12

Crook, “Cote d’Ivoire,” 15. See “2000 Constitution of the Republic of Ivory Coast,” accessed April 15, 2015, http://abidjan.usembassy.gov/ivoirian_constitution.2.html; see Crook, “Cote d’Ivoire,” 15. 13

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a major opposition party—the Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI) headed by an academic, Laurent Gbagbo. The ruling party, given its firm roots in the republic and electoral system, dismissed Gbagbo as a threat to its political power. Even so, the FPI was determined to give the PDCI a run for its money in the 1990 election. It was against this backdrop of excitements and anxieties that political parties organized to do what was hoped would represent the mother of all battles against an indomitable PDCI.

The 1990 Election Following the legitimization of the multi-party system in Ivory Coast, the one thousand flowers were let to bloom, in a manner of expression. About 26 parties were formed but only four were viable. These were the Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI), Parti ivoirien des travailleurs (PIT), Union des sociaux democrates (USD) and Parti socialiste ivoirien (PSI).14 To highlight the issue of electoral democracy in this polity, Richard C. Crook noted that: The FPI was the only one with the resources and capability to fight a nation-wide campaign and to put up a presidential candidate. In the legislative elections the FPI was able to field candidates in 114 constituencies out of 157, and would have fought more had the PDCI not used the local administrative machinery in some areas to prevent opposition candidates from being nominated [thus exposing an aspect of the problem of electoral democracy in this society]…. The chances of this fragmented opposition beating the PDCI were further reduced by the formidable array of advantages in the hands of the governing party. The government administration (loyal to the President) controlled the electoral process at the local level: nominations, party campaigning, voters’ registers, giving out of polling cards, voting stations [et cetera].15

The outcome of the post-independence multi-party election is presented in Table 7 below:

14

Crook, “Cote d’Ivoire,” 18. Crook, “Cote d’Ivoire,” 18–19; see also Richard C. Crook, “Winning Coalitions and Ethno-Regional Politics: The Failure of the Opposition in the 1990 and 1995 Elections in Cote D’Ivoire,” African Affairs, 96 (1997): 220. 15

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Table 7 1990 Registered voters

Total number 4,408,808

%

Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Felix Houphouet-Boigny (PDCI) Laurent Gbagbo (FPI)

3,049,133 55, 327 2,993,806 2,445,365 548,441

69.2 1.8 98.2 81.7 18.3

Sources: Christof Hartman, “Cote D’Ivoire” in Dieter Nohlen, Michael Krennerich, Bernhard Thibaut (eds.), Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook (Oxford: Oxford University 1999), 311; Richard C. Crook, “Cote d’Ivoire: Multiparty Democracy and Political Change: Surviving the Crisis,” in John A. Wiseman (ed.), Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (London: Routledge, 1995), 20.

Election rigging is commonplace in African elections and the 1990 election was not an exception. Felix Houphouet-Boigny picked up 2,445,365 votes, representing 81.7 percent of the votes cast, compared to the 548,441 and 18.3 percent of votes for Laurent Gbagbo. This percentage for the president was a far cry from his previous (1960–1985) striking percentages—99.9 percent in a single-party system. Be that as it may, the opposition adamantly accused the ruling PDCI of electoral malfeasance. Indeed, in addition to its repertoire of accusations of rigging and unfair electoral practices, the opposition noted that PDCI stalwarts made sure that immigrants were given polling cards and shepherded to polling stations to vote for the party. This act in no small measure problematized the process of electoral democracy because it denied free and fair elections, a major hallmark in a consolidated democracy. Little wonder, then, that in the years immediately following the 1990 multi-party elections (presidential and legislative), the FPI took to the streets in mass demonstrations against the outcome of the election, with disastrous consequences for the polity. In part or because the top echelon of the FPI was made up of some of the country’s intelligentsia, the legitimacy of the electoral process amongst this group was repudiated as it also came into question.16 As the political system simmered following the momentous multi-party elections and the health of the president, who was rumored to be in his late 16 Crook, “Winning Coalitions and Ethno-Regional Politics,” 222–23; Crook, “Cote d’Ivoire,” 37.

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80s, started deteriorating, the issue of succession came to the fore. There were two possible contenders, viz. the prime minister, Alassane Ouattara, and Henri Konan Bedie, former speaker of the National Assembly, both members of the PDCI. As the health of the great and powerful “elephant” of Ivory Coast started waning, Houphouet-Boigny appointed Bedie from his ethnic group—the Baule—to succeed him as president and head of the party, thus confirming an earlier claim that he favored politicians from his ethnic group over others. The President died in office in 1993 after 33 years at the helm of this republic. Henri K. Bedie was appointed president under the provision of Article 11 of the constitution; he would serve as president until the next election in 1995.

The 1995 Second Multi-party Election The “act of succession” that enabled Bedie to accede as president, Article 11 of the constitution, created political angst among the political class in PDCI and, especially, the opposition. Alassane Ouattara, who had been eyeing the position while his boss was alive, resigned his post as prime minister as soon as Bedie acceded to the throne as president. Laurent Gbagbo of the FPI, who was audacious enough to take on the mighty Houphouet-Boigny, and in so doing rocked the very foundation of national politics and the dominant party itself, was not prepared to honor the President’s choice and accept Bedie’s political ascendancy. If Bedie was “unqualified” to become president of Ivory Coast, who then was? Well, it must be Gbagbo, who took on Houphouet-Boigny in 1990 in the first multi-party presidential election. This Act 1, Scene 1, as it were, in the political drama that unfolded following the death of Houphouet-Boigny in 1993, was not reassuring for the polity. For example, there were mass arrests of FPI members and revolt by some dissidents within the PDCI. A splinter group, Rassemblement des republicains (RDR), a pro-Ouattara political faction drawn from the PDCI, emerged in opposition to the new president. The RDR was seen as a northern “Muslim” party whose plan was to destabilize the country with its ethno-religious overtone. More importantly, the RDR posed a serious threat to the political wellbeing of the PDCI and President Bedie himself going into the 1995 presidential election. Accordingly, this political “cancer” in the PDCI that could destroy President Bedie had to be treated with a strong antidote. But how was this to be done? The plan was to suffocate and then dislocate the ambitions of his opposition factions in the PDCI, especially

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the goal of Ouattara to become president. Indeed, Crook colorfully explained Bedie’s tactics when he noted thus: Bedie’s strategy was familiar to any student of electoral politics: he stole the opposition’s clothes, and adopted a policy of Ivorian nationalism, under the slogan of the promotion of ‘l’Ivoirite.’ For the first time in the country’s post-independence history, the political elite began to develop [for political expediency] a popular campaign around the theme of Ivoirian national identity—[i.e. relating to who was or is an authentic Ivoirian].17

Probably in order to “kill” Ouattara’s political ambitions, a new electoral law was promulgated, aimed at disenfranchizing Ivoirians purported not to be bona-fide citizens. Under this law a candidate for the presidency must be one who could prove that both of his or her parents were Ivoirians, inter alia. This political ploy was particularly stressed since the citizenship of the former prime minister Alassane Laurent Ouattara was contested quietly at first and vociferously-cum-virulently later.18 He was alleged to be a citizen of Burkina Faso and therefore as an alien could not by virtue of this law present himself as a candidate for the 1995 election. This tactical move, among others, highlights an aspect of the problem of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast. Although Ouattara did not submit himself as a candidate in this election, his incandescent political ambition continued to haunt the system. Adding to this political malaise, the economic climate leading to the 1995 elections was quite ominous. As if the PDCI, now without the powerful doyen of the party, did not have enough intra-party problems, in early 1995, the FPI, the RDR, and the Union des forces democratiques (UDF) formed a coalition with the name Front republicain. A major issue that defined the campaign rhetoric of opposition parties leading to the national ballot was the need for an Independent Electoral Commission to replace the Ministry of Interior—an arm or organ of the government that was responsible for this task. It was also noted that the presence of international observers could add to the election’s legitimacy. In spite of the attempts made to resolve contradictions in the modalities of the electoral process, they were not sufficient to mollify the rigid positions taken by both the ruling party and opposition factions. These antinomies, based on group interests, led to a controversial 1995 17

Crook, “Winning Coalitions and Ethno-Regional Politics,” 227; Toungara, “Ethnicity and Political Crisis in Cote D’Ivoire,” 67. 18 Cutter, Africa 2000, 33.

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presidential election. As a result of the clashing positions, the opposition Front republicain decided to boycott the election. It had hoped that because of the “crisis of disagreement” between it and the ruling party, the elections would be postponed to give the parties more time to iron out their differences. Nevertheless, Parti ivoirien des travaillieurs (PIT) or the Ivoirian Workers’ Party, whose leader was Francis Wodie, which had practically no chance of beating the incumbent Bedie in the national election, challenged the President. In part, Wodie’s weakness issued from the fact that the PIT had only one seat in the National Assembly, thus suggesting that the party did not have strong roots nationally. Nonetheless, he decided to take the bull by the horns. In effect, PIT’s participation gave some credence to the inchoate and wobbly multi-party democracy, even though the outcome was never in doubt; the PDCI was going to crush it. That, notwithstanding the preparation to advance electoral democracy in this climate, with the boycott of the opposition, was not politically salubrious. Little wonder, then, that it was noted with poignancy and gloom thus: Three weeks of the Presidential election campaign, which continued in the face of the opposition boycott, were probably the most violent and politically disturbed of any in the country’s post-independence history. The Front called its action a ‘boycott actif.’ This was a euphemism for a concerted attempt to actively sabotage the elections, that is, physically prevent them from happening. By the eve of 22 October [1995] their action had escalated into what can only be described as an attempt to foment a state of insurrection.19

Against the background of the above political synopsis of violence before the elections, some citizens went to the polls, and the outcome was quite foreboding. The result of this election is presented in Table 8.

19

Crook, “Winning Coalitions and Ethno-Regional Politics,” 233.

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Table 8 1995 Registered voters

Total number 3,756,926

%

Votes cast Invalid votes Annulled votes (constitutional Court) Valid votes Henri Konan Bedie (PDCI) Francis Wodie (PIT)

2,109,490 52,822 143,845 1,912,823 1,837,154 75,669

56.2 2.5 6.8 90.7 96.0 4.0

Sources: Christof Hartman, “Cote D’Ivoire,” in Dieter Nohlen, Michael Krennerich, Bernhard Thibaut (eds.), Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 311; see Richard C. Crook, “Winning Coalitions and Ethno-Regional Politics: The Failure of the Opposition in the 1990 and 1995 Elections in Cote D’Ivoire,” African Affairs, Vol. 96 (1997): 236.

Clearly, the result of the 1995 presidential election was victory for Bedie and the PDCI, as predicted following the opposition’s boycott of the ballot. As presented in Table 8, Bedie polled 1,837,154 votes and 96 percent to Wodie’s 75,669 and 4 percent of the total vote. Unfortunately, the outcome of this election did not solve the political, social, and economic contradictions and quagmire intrinsic in the system. Accordingly, the political atmosphere leading to the next presidential election in 2000 was highly toxic and combustible. The contentious 1995 election, Bedie’s political naiveté, corruption and economic stagnation, poor wages, including those of the military, and political resentment of Bedie’s government created an explosive atmosphere in the country.20 Indeed, the governing class and its aristocracies, insensitive to the plight of ordinary Ivoirians, cared little about the political turmoil in the country. The political atmosphere was murky to say the least. In truth, it would be no exaggeration, even for a student of French history, to say that the political confusion and imbroglio between the controversial 1995 presidential election and that of 2000 were reminiscent of the activities of the nobilities in France leading to the memorable 1789 French Revolution—even though the collapse of the Ivoirian First Republic was smoother than that of France in 1789. It was on Christmas Eve of 1999, following the return of the Ivoirian troops from a United Nations’ mission to Central African Republic (CAR), 20

Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote D’Ivoire.” 70.

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that the warriors mutinied. These soldiers were upset in part because they had not received the bonuses they were promised on their return from CAR. In a nonviolent coup, “retired General Robert Guei, a Yacouba ethnically (which is part of the Southern Mande in the West), assumed power, promising free and fair elections as well as the integration of northerners into the political system...”21 As a consequence of the dilemma of electoral democracy, seldom free and fair in this country, the PDCI and its leader Bedie were successfully overthrown in the republic’s first coup. This military action brought to an end the reign of the well-established and powerful PDCI in the nation-state from 1960 to 1999. Bedie’s administration was superseded by a coalition of military and civilian actors under the leadership of General Guei.22 The hope was that such a civilmilitary government, led by a military strongman, would further the political legitimacy of the administration. Although soldiers are said to be civilians in uniform, it is true that they are well-schooled in neither democratic etiquette nor human rights tenets. Little wonder, then, that they tend to subscribe to the notion that one way to create political stability is to “flog” dissidents and oppositionists into submission to their will, notwithstanding the constitutional and human rights provisions that prohibit such action. The above happenings after the coup provided a backdrop to a constitutionally mandated quinquennial presidential election scheduled to be held in 2000. Unfortunately, the seduction of power after ten months or so as head of state was so intoxicating that General Guei, whose training was that of protecting the territorial integrity of Ivory Coast, suddenly transformed himself into a politician. In short, he threw himself into the political contest for the presidency in the 2000 presidential election despite admonishments from the United States, European Union, and the Organization of African Union not to do so.23 But the allure of power was too tantalizing for him to heed this wise counsel. Nevertheless, if he was to succeed in this difficult and conflictive game of politics, he would have to compete against two formidable candidates who were adept at political gamesmanship and had been national actors in the politics of this country—Laurent Gbagbo as leader of the FPI and Alassane D. Ouattara as former prime minister. One of these candidates would have to be disqualified electorally by any means if Guei was to sail 21 Ibid.; Cyril Daddieh, “Elections and Ethnic Violence in Cote d’Ivoire: The Unfinished Business of Succession and Democratic Transition,” 14, accessed April 16, 2015. http://0-www.jstor.org.wnch.wnch.org/stable/1167104?seq=1#page... 22 Daddieh, “Elections and Ethnic Violence in Cote d’Ivoire,” 14. 23 Toungara, “Ethnicity and Political Crisis in Cote d’Ivoire,” 69.

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smoothly into the executive mansion. But who might one of these candidates be? It was Ouattara, the leader of the RDR. Confronted with the problem of citizenship, Ouattara had been working assiduously to revise the constitution in order to further his political interest. Indeed, Article 35 of the constitution threatened to bar him from becoming a presidential contender by requiring that “any candidate wishing to run for either the presidency or legislature had to be born of parents who were native-born Ivoirians. In addition, it stipulated that the candidate must never have ‘benefited’ from any other nationality [in Ouattara’s case Burkina Faso].”24 Even though Ouattara had refuted this charge, the court upheld the allegation that he was not a bona-fide Ivoirian. Moreover, in order to win in the 2000 ballot, Guei, as head of state, had the effrontery to order the nation’s Supreme Court to ban the presidential flag-bearers of the powerful PDCI and RDR. This political calculation left only the FPI and its leader Laurent Gbagbo as the major candidate to vie against Guei in the October 22, 2000 presidential elections as the other candidates were marginal.25 This gesture once again underscored the predicament of electoral democracy and how its manipulation promoted political angst and crisis in Ivory Coast. General Guei, now turned politician, wanted one of the political parties—specifically the PDCI— to nominate him as its candidate for the presidency but was turned down; he then deluded himself that he could stand as an independent candidate of sorts and win, possibly by fixing the electoral process and result as others before him had done. To Guei’s chagrin, as an incumbent, he was crushed at the polls by Laurent Gbagbo of the FPI, with 60 percent of the votes to Guei’s 37 percent.26 In any case, the political comic opera in the saga of the dilemma of electoral democracy in this polity was yet to come. Indeed, so frustrated was he that he did not win the October 22, 2000 political outing, this military and later civilian dictator declared on October 24 that he was the winner—not Gbagbo—of this presidential poll, thereby creating two rival presidents. Guei’s unilateral declaration of victory (UDV) unleashed three days of political mayhem—a popular uprising that rocked the very foundation of this political system. The casualties from demonstrations against this UDV were numerous. In fact, more than 150 deaths were recorded. In response 24

Ibid.; Daddieh, “Elections and Ethnic Violence in Cote d’Ivoire,” 18. Toungara, “Ethnicity and Political Crisis in Cote d’Ivoire,” 70; Cutter, Africa 2000, 34. 26 Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,” 70; Daddieh, “Elections and Ethnic Violence in Cote d’Ivoire,” 18; Toungara, “Ethnicity and Political Crisis in Cote d’Ivoire,” 69–70. 25

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to this conflict, the political intrigue, and the violence associated with the predicament of electoral democracy, Guei fled Abidjan, the nation’s capital, thus clearing the way for Laurent Gbagbo to accede to power.27 Table 9 below represents a summary of the outcome of the contentious October 22, 2000 presidential election without the participation of the PDCI. Table 9 Registered Voters 5,017,087 Total Votes 2,049,018 (37.4%) Invalid/Blank Votes 254,012 Total Valid Votes 1,795,006 Candidates Votes Laurent Gbagbo (FPI) 1,065,597 Robert Guei 587,267 Francis Wodie (PIT) 102,253 Theodore Mel (UDCI) 26,331 Nicholas Diolou 13,558 FPI: Ivoirian Popular Front PIT: Ivoirian Worker’s Party UDCI: Union of Democrats of Ivory Coast

% 59.4 32.7 5.7 1.5 0.8

Source: “Elections in Cote d’Ivoire,” African Elections Database, accessed June 7, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/ci.html

As noted earlier, the crisis of electoral democracy seems to be compounded with every election in this polity since the process is seldom free and fair, partially because the rewards for being president are enormous. To be sure, Ivory Coast is not an exception. Electoral malfeasance at this juncture in much of Africa, and the issue of national legitimacy that results from it, is of central concern in this volume. As Table 9 shows, Gbagbo won easily with a vote of 1,065,597 to Robert Guei’s 587,267; yet this result was only the tip of the iceberg, as it were, for what was to happen next. The commotion that followed the consequence of this ballot was disastrous in terms of the lives of ordinary compatriots lost. Political violence became the norm and the quest for peaceful coexistence of the nationalities became a will-o-the-wisp. When civil war struck its deadly blow following the death of this country’s 27

Toungara, “Ethnicity and Political Crisis in Cote d’Ivoire,” 70; Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,” 70–71; Daddieh, “Elections and Ethnic Violence in Cote d’Ivoire,” 18.

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political sage—Felix Houphouet-Boigny—in 1993, it was not surprising to close observers of political developments in this republic.

Civil War and Politics As the central concern of this chapter is not the civil war, a brief reference to it will suffice. After all, it was the effect of irregular and manipulated electoral practices that led to political upheaval; this disorder might recur if free and fair elections are ignored. Dissatisfied with the political crisis and, indeed, the marginalization of the North, with its Muslim population, in the politics of Ivory Coast, a band of former Muslim army officers attempted an abortive coup in Abidjan. When their attempt failed, the mutineers decided to set up a rival government in the North, and made Guillaume Soro, a Christian, the head of its government. Such a rival sovereignty within the sovereignty was not going to be tolerated by Abidjan and President Gbagbo himself. Consequently, he had to take the rebels head on. This war is said to have claimed the lives of as many as 10,000 compatriots, and created close to one million internally displaced refugees. Moreover, Guei and his family were killed during this civil war.28 To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, the wartime prime minister of Great Britain, “It’s always easy to start a war but difficult to end one.” Apropos the preceding aphorism, attempts made by the international community, including France and the Economic Community of African States (ECOWAS), to resolve the crisis came to naught. An interlocutor, the South African president Thabo Mbeki, later weighed in to bring the opposing forces together. He suggested a return to electoral democracy on October 25, 2005, as a way of tackling the political quandary. Given the northern affront to his government, President Gbagbo accepted the reality that if peace was to be furthered in the country, Ouattara, a powerful northern politico and former prime minister, would have to be permitted to run as a candidate in the 2005 poll. Even so, it was noted with anxiety that “as the date of the election approached, however, Gbagbo quibbled about the rules for setting up voter rolls and insisted on remaining in power. Unwilling to share the fruits of corruption with political leaders from Houphouet-Boigny’s former ruling party, he abandoned Akan politicians from the southeast who had been his partners in upholding southern privilege. These politicians consequently decided to ally themselves with northerners.”29 In this tactical move, these southeasterners displayed a 28 29

Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,”71–72. Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,” 73.

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popular aphorism in international relations credo: “nation-states don’t have permanent friends, they don’t have permanent enemies; they have permanent interests.” That notwithstanding, the crisis of legitimacy continued to dog the president as the conflict between the north and the south raged on. At one point in this political problem, on October 14, 2005, the UN decided to endorse Gbagbo as president for a year with the proviso that a coalition government would be established under the leadership of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny. Banny was charged with the task of forming an interim government that would supervise a free and fair election. Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of further fighting in early 2006 that sabotaged the UN and African mediators’ attempt to resolve the conflict.30 So, an election that was constitutionally scheduled for every five years did not happen in 2005 partially because of the consequences of civil war. Constitutionally, the republic’s quinquennial election had to be held in 2010. The quagmire of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast between 2000 and 2010 was exacerbated by a number of events, arguably manipulated by President Gbagbo and his associates. This maneuvering of political issues in order to retain power made it impossible for citizens to go to the polls for a free and fair election. For example, following the internal political disarticulations caused in part by the result of contested elections, a number of planned meetings were held to iron out differences on the positions of his regime and those of the opposition parties. These were efforts that failed to yield the desired outcomes that could have united the country: Linas-Marcoussis, France conference that, inter alia, called for the establishment of a government of national reconciliation; Accra, Ghana, meeting held on October 15, 2004 to resolve the northern insurgency war; the Pretoria Agreement calling for the warring parties to stop all violence in the society mediated by President Thabo Mbeki in 2005; African Union’s attempt to further stability in the polity by extending the life of President Gbagbo’s regime by 12 months beyond the scheduled election of October 30, 2005; the Yamoussoukro confab of February 28, 2006 intended to solve the matter of identifying Ivorian nationals; and the Ouagadougou peace conference which, among other things, dealt with the subjects of disarmament of the armed militias and rebel forces, organization of elections, invitation of international forces and composition of a power-sharing government.31

30

Chirot, “The Debacle in Cote d’Ivoire,” 74. Arnim Langer, “Cote d’Ivoire’s Elusive Quest for Peace” (Working Paper No. 11, Center for Development Studies, University of Bath, U.K., 2010), 10–15. 31

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These attempts at promoting peace for the purpose of conducting free and fair elections came to naught due in part to the fact that the system lacked adequate and efficacious institutions and structures. Added to these problems were the strong clashing interests of a tough oppositionist political class hungry, eager, and determined to fight for control of the government and national coffers. In spite of political discrepancies between the positions of the governing party and opposition forces and after more than ten years of national malaise, however, there was a public yearning for a solution to the country’s predicament in order to advance peaceful coexistence amongst the ethno-regional political parties and forces. This dream, it was hoped, could be promoted by an efficiently organized presidential election in 2010. Even so, the system was too fragile to stand the weight of many years of volatility and unsteadiness caused, among other factors, by political crisis after political crisis. It was in the face of these difficulties that a 2010 election was held. Even before voters went to the polls, there were accusations and counter accusations from the party in power and opposition parties regarding the voter registration procedure and its manipulation. The President charged that the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Robert Mambe, inflated the voter list by as many as 429,000 people, who were not Ivoirian citizens. The opposition parties fired back, noting that the President’s charge was hocus-pocus and that he’d simply made up a plan to disenfranchise those he believed would not vote for him.32 All the same, the implications of President’s Gbagbo’s allegation were serious enough to affect the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2010 balloting, which gave rise to further political difficulty; this political dilemma, which has a lot to do with the fruits of controlling power, also brought to light the quandary of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast and much of African politics when political institutions and structures are weak. Expressing his misgivings concerning the international community’s pressure for the 2010 election to be held amidst the topsy-turvy political climate in Ivory Coast, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa chafed that the ideal conditions for an election had not been created and the international community knew it. He opined that Rather, the international community insisted that what Cote d’Ivoire required to end its crisis was to hold democratic elections, even though the conditions did not exist to conduct such elections. Though they knew that this proposition was fundamentally wrong, the Ivoirians could not 32

Langer, “Cote d’Ivoire’s Elusive Quest for Peace,” 17.

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withstand the international pressure to hold the elections. However, the objective reality is that the Ivoirian presidential elections should not have been held when they were held [although there was no election in 2005, as called for in the constitution and it was now time for the 2010 quinquennial election]. It was perfectly foreseeable that [these elections] would further entrench the very conflict [that such elections were] suggested could end.33

It was against the setting of such a premonition that the October 31, 2010 presidential election was conducted. Table 10 below shows the result of the first round of balloting, which featured 14 candidates for the presidency. Table 10 Registered Voters Total Votes Invalid/Blank Votes Total Valid Votes Candidates

5,784,490 4,843,445 (83.7%) 225,624 4,617,821 Parties

Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Ouattara Henri Konan Bedie

Ivorian People’s Front Rally of the Republicans PDCI-African Democratic Rally Union of Democracy and Peace in Cote d’Ivoire Union for Cote d’Ivoire Ivorian Workers Party

Albert Mabri

Votes

%

1,756,504 1,481,091

38.04 32.07

1,165,532

25.24

118,671 2.27 Konan Gnamien 17,171 0.37 Francis Wodie 13,406 0.29 Simeon Konan 12,357 0.27 Jacqueline 12,273 0.27 Pascal Tagoua 11,674 0.25 Innocent Anaky MFF* 10,663 0.23 Adama Dolo 5,972 0.13 N’Douba Enoh Aka 5,311 0.12 Felix Akoto Yao 4,733 0.10 Henri Tohou Socialist Union of the Peopl e 2,423 0.05 Total 4,617,821 100.00 *Movement of the Forces of the Future Sources: CEI accessed June 8, 2015: http://www.ceici.org/elections/ci/actualite.php?id=390,abidjan.net CC: http://www.abidjan.net/elections2010/resultats/2emetour/CC.html.abidjan.net IEC: http://www.abidjan.net/elections2010/Resultats/2emetour 33 Thabo Mbeki, “What the World Got Wrong in Cote D’Ivoire,” Foreign Policy (29 April 2011): 1.

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The October 31, 2010 presidential election was inconclusive because none of the candidates attained the necessary threshold of 50 percent of the total ballots cast. Of the top three candidates, President Gbagbo picked up 38.2 percent, Ouattara 32.07 percent and Bedie 25.24 percent of the ballots.34 Collectively, these three candidates garnered about 95 percent of the votes and the other 11 contenders picked up just 5 percent. Apropos this result, a second round of polling was called for between the first and second contenders. In this case, it was between President Gbagbo and former Prime Minister Ouattara. The second vote for the president of Ivory Coast was held on November 28, 2010. The outcome of that election is presented in Table 11. Table 11 Registered Voters Total Votes Invalid/Blank Votes Total Votes Candidate Laurent Gbagbo

5,780,804 (5,725,721)* 4,689,366 (4,081,765) (81.1%) (71.3%) 99,147 (88,556) 4,590,219 (3,993,209) Party Votes % Ivorian People’s Front 2,054,537 51.45 (CC) 2,107,055 45.59 (IEC) Alassane Ouattara Rally of the Republicans 1,938,672 48.55 (CC) 2,483,164 54.41 (IEC) Laurent Gbagbo 3,993,209 (CC)100.00 Alassane Ouattara 4,590,219 (IEC) * Shows the “official” and “unofficial” figures because of the disputed nature of the election. CC: Constitutional Court IEC: Independent Electoral Commission Sources: CEI accessed June 8, 2015: http://www.ceici.org/elections/ci/actualite.php?id=390abidjan.net CC: http://www.abidjan.net/elections2010/resultats/2emetour/CC.htmlabidjan.net IEC: http://www.abidjan.net/elections2010/Resultats/2emetour “Elections in Cote d’Ivoire” African Election Database. http://africanelection.tripod.com.html

As Table 11 suggests, there were two conflicting results. The Constitutional Court, headed by the President’s appointed personnel, proclaimed President Laurent Gbagbo the winner by 51 percent to Alassane Ouattara’s 49 percent. Accordingly, Gbagbo claimed that he had won the election and was sworn in by the Constitutional Court as the 34

Langer, “Cote d’Ivoire’s Elusive Quest for Peace,” 17.

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president. However, the Independent Electoral Commission, which President Gbagbo had accused of inflating the voter list in favor of the opposition parties, declared Alassane Ouattara the winner of the runoff election with 54 percent of the votes compared to incumbent President Gbagbo’s 46 percent.35 Moreover, the United Nations certified the election as fair and reliable.36 In repudiation of Gbagbo’s coronation, Ouattara was sworn in as the new president, thus establishing a rival reign within the reign. Given these conflicting results, it was obvious that Gbagbo of the Ivorian People’s Front and Ouattara of the Rally of the Republicans were on a collision course. This development furthered the crisis of electoral democracy in Ivory Coast. Little wonder, then, that the violence that erupted after the 2010 presidential election was virulent and the consequences disastrous for ordinary citizens and the society in general. Indeed, in the words of Scott Strauss, The 2010 ELECTIONS IN COTE D’IVOIRE were designed to solidify a fragile peace, but instead triggered a period of intense repression and ultimately military action to unseat Laurent Gbagbo. Thus, in contrast to states such as Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Liberia, where first elections after war were largely peaceful, political violence was a defining feature in Cote d’Ivoire’s electoral process. At the time of Gbagbo’s arrest, the United Nations had documented nearly 1,000 civilian deaths.… 37

Conclusion In advanced and consolidated democracies, elections serve as a vehicle for legitimizing a political leader and his or her party after an electoral victory. The process of solidifying the power of an incoming government is generally enhanced by the opposition party or parties conceding to the victor and pledging to work with the new authority for the efficient governance of the polity. My preceding postulation has not always been the case in many African polities. Frequently, the outcome of an election is 35 Richard Banegas, “Post-election Crisis in Cote d’Ivoire: The Gbonhi War,” 3, accessed April 21, 2015, http://0-afraf.oxjournals.org.wncln.wncln.org/content/110/440/4; Langer, “Cote d’Ivoire Elusive Quest for Peace,” 17. 36 Thomas J. Basset, “Winning Coalition, Sore Loser: Cote D’Ivoire’s 2010 Presidential Elections,” 1, accessed April 21, 2015, http://0-afraf.oxfordjournals.org.wncln.wncln.org/content/early/2011 37 Scott Strauss, “It’s Sheer Horror Here: Patterns of Violence During the First Four Months of Cote D’Ivoire’s Post-Electoral Crisis,” 1, accessed April 21, 2015, http://0-afraf.oxfordjournals.org.wncln.wncln.org/content/early/2011

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contested with violence in part because the penalties that await a loser are enormous in terms of the distribution of the spoils of a political contestation. Frequently, the losing party or parties and their constituencies are punished, just to teach them a lesson.38 In this case, their ethnic groups or regional strongholds are denied development schemes and ministerial or cabinet appointments. This is possible because the character of politics is based on a zero-sum-game. As long ago as 1960, when he dominated the politics of Ivory Coast with the powerful Democratic Party of Ivory Coast in a single-party system, President Felix Houphouet-Boigny instituted an effective patronage system with which he manipulated the electoral process. Additionally, he cleverly created an enduring ethno-regional alliance between the southeast and the north, to the chagrin of politicos in the southwest. As the only presidential candidate in this schema, the issue of electoral democracy in the society was less overtly conflictive. Even so, it would be wrong to assume that internal political murmuring against the monopoly on power within the PDCI by President Houphouet-Boigny never existed, especially among those who were not of his ethnic stock or collective. After all, “blood is thicker than water” is a popular cliché when pleading for family and ethnic solidarity advantage in competition against other families and ethnic groupings. This dictum was not lost when the president crowned his kinsman Henri Konan Bedie as his successor in 1993, leaving his prime minister, Alassane Ouattara, from an ethnic outgroup, in political limbo. Arguably, it was following the death of Felix Houphouet-Boigny that the issue of electoral democracy took on a highly conflictive nature. Henri K. Bedie, Robert Guei, and Laurent Gbagbo were adept at manipulating the politics of ethnicity to further their insular interests, with catastrophic consequences for the polity. Peace agreement after peace agreement, reached during attempts to resolve the combustible results stemming from electoral malpractices, came to naught in a country in which control of political power was equal to control of the national treasury. Electoral riggings were and are meant to help an incumbent extend its leadership beyond the constitutionally mandated quinquennial elections. Exclusionary political tactics by leaders that marginalized real or imagined opposing ethnic groups or factions in their governance techniques exacerbated the political violence and mayhem from the 1993 to post-2010 elections. This was so because the hands of excluded groups were 38

E. Ike Udogu, “The Allurement of Ethnonationalism in Nigerian Politics: The Contemporary Debate,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. XXIX, No. 3-4 (1994): 65.

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figuratively amputated from exploiting the national coffers for the development of their ethnic groups, constituencies, and regions. To sum up, the issue of governance caused by electoral malfeasances that gathered momentum after 1993 following “the military insurgency that started in September 2002 is therefore in many ways the result of the failure of the country’s political elites to agree on a new set of formal and informal procedural and distributional rules aimed at containing the elite competition for political power.”39 In part, this conflictive political scenario is made more severe by the crisis of electoral democracy in which elections are neither free nor fair. This political quagmire could be solved with the establishment of effective institutions and structures supported by altruistic leaders determined to function within the rule of law, transparency, and accountability.

39

Langer, “Cote d’Ivoire Elusive Quest for Peace,” 21.

CHAPTER FIVE ZAMBIA AND THE CRISIS OF ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY

Introduction: A Short History As long ago as the first century AD, the earliest humans to inhabit the area now known as Zambia were Khoisans. They were hunters and gatherers. Their life style was nomadic; thus they moved from one location to another in search of fertile land to grow their crops. In about the 4th century AD, Bantu-speaking groups migrated from the north southwards until they came in contact with the Khoisans. These new arrivals were successful farmers and warriors who were also advanced in the use of iron instruments and weapons, with which they hunted and conquered the indigenous Khoisans. They were also pastoralists and flourished by raising cows and goats.1 Other ethnic groupings arrived in modern Zambia later, but four major kingdoms became prominent between the 16th and 19th centuries. These were the Kazembe-Lunda in the north, the Bemba in the northeast, the Chewa in the east, and the Lozi in the west.2 Historically, amongst these kingdoms and ethnic collectivities inter-ethnic conflicts erupted from time to time. Indeed, such was the case between “the Bantu-speakers and the indigenous Khoisan speakers; between Bemba and Mambwe and Bemba and Bisa people; and between the Ngoni and the Bemba from after 1835, when the movement of peoples led to territorial incursions and conflict.”3 1

Scott D. Taylor, Culture and Customs of Zambia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), 10; Tim Lambert, “A Short History of Zambia,” 1, accessed April 30, 2015, http://www.localhistories.org/zambia.html; Charles H. Cutter, Africa 2002 (Harper Ferry, WV: Stryker-Post Publication, 2002), 163. 2 Richard Hall, Zambia (New York: Frederica A. Praeger Inc., Publishers, 1965), 1–33; Lambert, “A Short History of Zambia,” 1; see Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group: Zambia General Elections (Commonwealth Secretariat, 20 September 2011), 3. 3 Taylor, Culture and Customs of Zambia, 11.

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Nevertheless, they cleverly sought ways of ameliorating their sometimes antagonistic interests. Such was the case in Zambia and other parts of Africa where the people interacted in trade and war before the European conquistadors arrived in Africa to deconstruct the politico-social character of the societies and reconstitute them for administrative convenience.

European Arrival The histories of these groups also intersected with those of the European explorers when they arrived in the area of modern Zambia. The Portuguese arrived in East Africa on their way to India for trade in spice and other commodities, and only became especially active in the early 16th century; they did not penetrate or show major interest outside the eastern coast that is today Mozambique, for example. It was not until the middle of the 19th century, following the arrival of the legendary David Livingston, a Scottish missionary in Zambia, that British interest in the region picked up steam. British curiosity followed his glowing reports in London of his observations and experiences.4 It was, however, not until after the Berlin Conference of 1884–5, in which much of Africa was carved up among the colonial powers of Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and Spain mainly, that a substantial number of Europeans, chiefly of British stock, migrated to the country to continue with their missionary and commercial activities. In fact, Rhode’s British South Africa Company (BSAC), chartered by the British Crown, came to play a significant role in the colonization of Zambia. Remarkably, in about 1891, there were as many as 700,000 British settlers in the state.5 Moreover, Cecil Rhodes, a British South Africa-based business tycoon, extended his commercial and political interests by expanding his influence beyond South Africa in 1888. He ventured north, where he signed treaties with natives including the Tabwa, Lungu, and the Mambe. Indeed, when the Bemba and Ngoni snubbed him and refused to enter into negotiations, he ordered a small British troop to crush them into submission.6 Due to his financial and political power, the territory that included modern Zimbabwe and Zambia was named Rhodesia after Cecil Rhodes—with Zimbabwe as

4 See William G. Robertson, “Kasembe and Bemba (Awemba) Nation,” Journal of the Royal African Society, 3, 10 (January 1904): 183–93; Hall, Zambia, 35–40. 5 Taylor, Culture and Customs of Zambia, 6 & 11–12; Lambert, “A Short History of Zambia,” 2–3. 6 Lambert, “A History of Zambia,” 2–3; Hall, Zambia, 87–102.

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Southern Rhodesia and Zambia as Northern Rhodesia.7 In 1923, London decided to discontinue its relationship with BSAC and thus did not renew its charter with it. As a consequence of this divorce with BSAC, Britain moved to grant Southern Rhodesia self-government in 1923. Following negotiations with the authorities of Northern Rhodesia, it too was transferred to the British Colonial Office in 1924 as a Crown protectorate.8 Incidentally, the governance technique instituted by London marginalized the natives, who did not participate in the legislative structure in 1925. Even after Britain recommended the inclusion of blacks in the governance system in 1929, the counsel was ignored by the powerful minority whites who governed Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). As in British Kenya and Nigeria, there were relatively few schooled citizens in Western education during the colonial period and immediately following the departure of the colonial overseers. This situation probably delayed the process of agitation for home rule until after the British and Allied Forces’ victory in World War Two (WWII) from 1939–1945. It was at this point that African nationalists insisted, and rightly so, that just as Britain did not want the Germans to dominate the world, the Africans too did not want Great Britain to dominate Africans in her colonies. Accordingly, nationalists demanded self-rule from London.

Nationalism and Independence The struggle for independence followed the same pattern and logic as those in other parts of Africa. Historically, in World War One (WWI), from 1914–1918, Northern Rhodesia sent troops to fight the Germans in the German colony of Tanganyika (now Tanzania). It also supported the British war effort in WWII. Prior to the 1950s, Britain had attempted, for administrative expediency, to amalgamate Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland (now Malawi) into a Central African federation in 1953. By way of comparison, this was a British policy similar to that in Nigeria in 1914, in which the northern and southern protectorates were amalgamated into what is today called Nigeria. Irreconcilable economic and political differences between the administrative office in London, white settlers, and natives in this partnership led to the dissolution of the federation in 1963. The impetus for self-rule also gathered momentum 7

See Robert I. Rotberg, The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); Paul Maylam, The Cult of Rhodes: Remembering an Imperialist in Africa (London: Paul Elek Publishers, 1972). 8 Taylor, Culture and Customs of Zambia, 12, see “Rhodes on Mobil Masterpiece Theater,” South Carolina ETV on PBS (January 4, 5 & 6, 1998).

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after WWII in the British colonies of Ghana in West Africa and Kenya in East Africa. Indeed, it was noted as the clamor for freedom in Zambia reached its climax that In 1961 the British Secretary of State of colonies proposed a constitution for Zambia, which would guarantee African control. The white settlers pressured him into altering it to give them control. Kaunda threatened to “paralyze” the government unless the new constitution was changed back. He called for peaceful protests but these were violent uprising and sabotage. This upheaval was called the cha-cha-cha. The British government eventually gave in. The constitution was amended to give the Africans a small majority in the parliament. In 1962 elections were held and the African National Congress (ANC) and United National Independence Party (UNIP) formed a coalition in a transitional government while the colony prepared for independence.…9

It was as a consequence of agitations by Africans in Zambia for autonomy and political dynamics in London that Britain granted sovereignty to Northern Rhodesia in 1964.10 Northern Rhodesia officially adopted the name Zambia from the famous Zambezi River. It opted for a republican form of government and its first president was Kenneth Kaunda, the leader of the United Independence Party (UNIP). Strikingly, from 1964–1969, ten seats were reserved for white voters.11 Also, from 1964 to 1972, Zambia officially had a multi-party system of government yet its politics were dominated by the UNIP.12 It is against the background of the foregoing concise political history of Zambia that I shall examine the crisis of electoral democracy and its impact on this republic following home rule. For the purpose of analytic convenience, I shall look at three periods viz. the first republic from 1964 to 1968, when the country had a multi-party system; the second republic, with its one-party system from 1972–1988; and the third republic when Zambia reverted to a multi-party system from 1991 to 2015. My analysis will center on presidential elections—the real locus of power—with occasional reference to legislative elections if and when necessary.

9

Lambert, “A Short History of Zambia,” 6–7; Taylor, Culture and Customs of Zambia, 12–13. 10 Richard Hall, Zambia 1890-1964: The Colonial Period (London: Longman Group Limited, 1976), 138–89; Hall, Zambia, 191–244. 11 Cutter, Africa 200, 163. 12 Taylor, Culture and Customs of Zambia, 14.

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The First Republic: Multi-party Elections 1964-1968 Elections that were held in 1964 and 1968 happened against the backdrop of the drive for independence from Britain. The election of 1964, however, was conducted as a precursor or first step before the official handover of power to Zambians. The spirit of nationalism was at its highest, and the key political actors basked in their triumph of freedom. As noted earlier, the influence of white Zambians in Northern Rhodesia was immense. In fact, in spite of their minority status in the territory, they had brought pressure to bear on the Colonial Office to grant self-rule to the country, with them in charge of the government. However, Kenneth Kaunda, leader of the UNIP, and other political groupings fought against such a move. But the importance of white Zambians both politically and economically could not be taken for granted. Accordingly, the new political dispensation to include the minorities, including Indians and other immigrants, into the political system was propitious. There was little wonder, then, that minorities were assigned ten seats in the Legislature—at least until 1969.13 The character of the January 1964 election was such that the political parties were determined to set aside their basic differences and work together collaboratively before the official declaration of independence on October 24, 1964.14 Such an esprit de corps was critical in order for the newly won freedom and for the nascent democratic system to work efficiently for the advancement of the legitimacy of the state among Zambians—especially black Zambians. Tables 1a and 1b illustrate the outcome of the 1964 and 1968 elections, respectively. The crises of electoral democracy in Zambia’s post-1964 elections were peculiar. UNIP, applying its electoral machine, dominated the electoral process, as shown in Table 1a and especially in Table 1b, in which the ANC won 30.50% and 18.2%, respectively. A problem for the ANC issued from the fact that it was a strong regionally based opposition party that, unlike the UNIP, lacked the capability to manipulate the electoral process outside its region of influence. Moreover, the political system and parties were characterized by factionalism and fragmentation, and based on personality and not a sustaining ideology. Although UNIP espoused an ideology dubbed “humanism”—a philosophy that was analogous to egalitarianism— in 1967, this viewpoint rang hollow to the

13

Cutter, Africa 2002, 163. Michael Krennerich, “Zambia,” in Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook, ed. Dieter Nohlen, et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 939; Lambert, “A Short History of Zambia,” 7. 14

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majority of the poor, who suffered hardship because the fruits of the economy did not trickle down to them.15 Table 1a: January 20-21, 1964 Legislative Council Elections*/**

Registered Voters Total Voters (Voter Turnout) Invalid/Blank Votes

Main Roll 876,212 830,415 (94.8%) 4,178

Reserved Roll 23,981 17,758 (74.1%) 224

Parties Votes

Main Roll Reserved Roll Total % of votes Seats Votes % of votes Seats Seats 65 10 75 UNIP 570,612 69.06 55 6,177 35.23 55 ANC 251,963 30.50 10 165 0.94 10 NPP 11,157 63.63 10 10 IND 3,662 0.44 35 0.20 ____________________________________________________________ UNIP: United National Independent Party ANC: African National Congress NPP: National Progressive Party IND: Independents

*There were two rolls in the election, the “main roll” for Africans and the “reserved roll” for Europeans (whites). Members of other ethnicities were given the option of choosing the roll on which they would be registered. **Following the election, Kenneth Kaunda of the UNIP was named Prime Minister of Northern Rhodesia. He remained in that office from January to October 24, 1964, when he became the first President of Zambia. Source: African Election Database: Elections in Zambia, accessed May 4, 2015. http://africanelections.tripod.com/zm.html

15

Krennerich, “Zambia,” 940–41.

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Table 1b: Presidential Election 1968 1968 Registered Voters Votes Cast Invalid Voters Valid Votes Kenneth Kaunda (UNIP) Harry Nkumbula (ANC)

Total Number 1,587,966 1,383,477 63,490 1,319,987 1,079,970* 240,017

% 87.1 4.6 95.4 81.8 18.2

* Figure slightly corrected on the basis of results at the constituency level (official figure 1,079,972) Source: Michael Krennerich, “Zambia” in Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook, edited by Dieter Nohlen, Michael Krennerich and Bernhard Thibaut. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 953.

The victory of UNIP in the electoral process, as the party that fought and won independence for Zambia, was quite alluring. In fact, the euphoria emanating from President Kenneth Kaunda’s success at the polls, notwithstanding sectionalism and regionalism in the voting patterns, seduced and emboldened the president to opt for a one-party system. To be sure, the argument among some post-independence leaders in Africa was that the politics of ethnicity could render the state asunder because of their centrifugal nature. A single party, it was argued, had the propensity to unite the various ethnic factions for the purpose of successful governing and nation-building. This sounded attractive initially, but a touchy question that remained was: who would be the leader of a single-party system from this country’s ethnic mosaic? In other words, which ethnic group, from a collection of ethnic groupings, would produce the leader to wear the golden crown as head of state? Is it possible, some politicos contended, that the idea of a single party was only a ploy by the reigning political monarch to retain power until the king died and power transferred to or was handed over to his heir? Be that as it may, President Kaunda and his party, UNIP, came to see the faction and its activities as the only game in town between 1964 and 1972.16 The belief, despite opposition to a single-party system, was that UNIP was Zambia and Zambia was UNIP. Indeed, any group or individual opposed to UNIP was seen as a political traitor, unpatriotic, a political anti-Christ. It was in such a political milieu, in which party stalwarts 16 Michael Bratton, “Zambia Starts Over,” Journal of Democracy, 3, 2 (April 1992): 82–84.

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demonized fellow Zambians not in support of UNIP and the one-party system, that in 1972 President Kaunda by way of a “diktat,” since there was no referendum conducted to ascertain the wishes of compatriots abolished the opposition. He claimed that his act was done for the purpose of national unity.17 In short, conflictive electoral democracy in a multiparty state was a nuisance not only to the president and UNIP but also to the national interests.

The Second Republic: Single-Party Elections 1972 to 1991 The move to a one-party rule was officially ascribed to a need for unity and a very strong desire to concentrate on a development agenda; so it was suggested that this policy was not intended to address the clashing nature of multi-party politics in which one ethnic group or region could be pitted against the other. In truth, however, it has been argued that the rationales for inventing a single-party system were the supremacy of UNIP in Zambian politics and the party’s apprehension of being replaced by other parties,18 which could result in a loss of power, perks, and prestige. A striking and appropriate political synopsis of the character of the single-party saga and discourse in Zambia was captured by Michael Krennerich, who noted that The “one-party participatory democracy,” officially envisioned by the President, also remained unfulfilled since decisions were made at the top and not at the bottom. In fact, the overconcentration of power in the hands of the President increasingly restricted the openness of intra-party participation and severely limited the policy capacity of party and state organs other than the President and his State House. Finally, related to the principle of party supremacy over the state, a huge inefficient party bureaucracy emerged, accompanied by increasing abuse of office by paid party functionaries.19

The process of imposing a single-party system in an attempt to combat the problem of electoral democracy was neither easy nor cheap. To be sure, top members of UNIP were nervous about losing power because of their privileged position in both the party and society. Many top cadres of the party had become inordinately rich because of their easy access to 17 Neo Simutanyi, “Zambia: Manufactured One-party Dominance and Its Collapse,” in One-Party Dominance in African Democracies, ed. Renske Doorenspleet et al. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013), 125. 18 Simutanyi, “Zambia,” 125. 19 Krennerich, “Zambia,” 941.

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robust government contracts and other resources. Other individuals and factions saw the greed and eyed the activities of supporters of UNIP with envy; they also wanted a piece of the pie. For example, the ANC, which drew its support from the Southern Province, Western Province, and some areas of the Eastern Province, suffered from political angst because of its marginalization and its inability to exploit the national coffers. As a consequence, members of the ANC felt political depressed in the system. Such a stance only served to increase the problem of the state’s legitimacy. In order to fix this fissure in the single-party electoral democracy, UNIP adopted a political maxim: “if you can’t destroy your enemies, co-opt them. In this way, they will become guilty by association.” UNIP and ANC worked out a deal in which ANC was brought into the single-party democracy; they shook hands over this arrangement to concretize it in the so-called Choma Declaration. This “absorption of the ANC into UNIP paved the way for the formal introduction of a one-party state by legislation in December 1972 and the start of almost two decades of single-party rule”20 as noted previously. Tables 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, and 2e are presented below for the purpose of illustrating the “problematic” character of electoral democracy in a oneparty system that denied voters an alternative presidential choice. Table 2a 1973 Registered Voters Votes Cast Invalid Votes Valid Votes Kenneth Kaunda (UNIP) Yes No

20

Simutanyi, “Zambia,” 125.

Total number 1,746,107 688,686 34,326 654,360

% 39.4 5.0 95.0

581,245 73,115

88.8 11.2

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Table 2b 1978 Registered Voters Votes Cast Invalid Votes Valid Votes Kenneth Kaunda (UNIP) Yes No

Total number 1,971,881 1,315,609 44,763 1,270,846

% 66.7 3.4 96.6

1,026,127 244,719

80.7 9.3

Table 2c 1983 % Registered Voters Votes Cast Invalid votes Valid Votes Kenneth Kaunda (UNIP) Yes No

Total number 2,377,610 1,558,063* 34,679 1,523,384

65.5 2.2 97.8

1,453,029 70,355

94.4 4.6

*Mathematical error of the official figure (1,558,551)

Table 2d 1988 Registered Voters Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Kenneth Kaunda (UNIP) Yes No

Total number* 2,600,000 1,529,000 48.000 1,481,000

% 58.8 3.1 96.9

1,414,000 67,000

95.5 4.5

*Approximations Sources: Michael Krennerich, “Zambia” in Dieter Nohlen, Michael Krennerich and Bernhard Thibaut eds. Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 953–54; see also, African Elections Database: Elections in Zambia, 2, accessed May 5, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/zm.html

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A single-party election dominated by the UNIP was a difficult one to manage in such a unique multi-ethnic society, and in which the economy was weak. Moreover, the voting pattern in which the only presidential candidate garnered an average 90 percent of the votes in all four elections was suspicious, particularly to members of the informed public. Arguably, if the outcome of balloting is a foregone conclusion, the incentive to go to the polls becomes less attractive. Accordingly, citizens, especially civil servants who rely on the government for their salary, were coerced to go to vote for the president otherwise they would lose their job. In this scenario, too, electoral malfeasance is overtly and covertly encouraged, thus highlighting the problem of electoral democracy in my contemplation and argumentations. Furthermore, this monopoly on political power by one man, a president who wielded great clout, was eyed by ambitious party members and others who, selfishly, did not fancy or think much about this one-party arrangement. Very much like a communist party, the operation of UNIP was such that it presented itself as a party in which only the top party elites enjoyed the country’s natural endowments, to the disappointment of the rest of society. Central to my preceding analysis, and critical to the character of the referendums on Kenneth Kaunda in Tables 2a through 2d, is a theory that this single-party political development made the issue of electoral democracy in a single-party system contentious in Zambia. In this regard, Lise Rakner and Lars Svasand contended, and rightly so, that: “The assumption is that if the electorate has a choice between parties [as in a multi-party system] that are competing for, and alternating in, control of the government, the party in power is forced to listen to the needs of the electorate, and a more responsive democratic system [sensitive to national interests and not to party interests] is likely to emerge.”21 That notwithstanding, the political climate in Zambia, after the UNIP had enjoyed its political honeymoon and political-cum-economic capital in the 1970s became, to a certain extent, flammable in the 1980s. This was so because the electorate had become apathetic to UNIP-organized elections, thus suggesting a lack of enthusiasm for a single-party system in which the outcome of elections was predictable. In short, there was an erosion of public interest in it. Moreover, the country’s economy was hemorrhaging, limping; it needed crutches but the government lacked the wherewithal to provide efficient support. The “insensitivity” of the ruling party to the effects of the economic quagmire on the poor in particular had created a 21 Lise Rakner and Lars Svasand, “From Dominant to Competitive Party System: The Zambian Experience 1991-2001,” Party Politics, 10, 1 (2004): 50.

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boiling point. Civil society groups were up in arms against government policies that could not deal with the nation’s economic woes and downturn.22 It was now obvious to political and economic entrepreneurs that the existing political system, UNIP, and President Kaunda himself were to blame for the country’s misfortune. As is the case in many authoritarian societies, the response of the government was political repression and harassment of political opponents who critiqued the government and its policies. The outcome of these oppressive actions exacerbated the national malaise. The question posed by civil society at this moment of conflict and discomfiture with the operation of a single-party system was: What is to be done? It would be correct to say, also, that the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, implosion of the former Soviet Empire in 1989, and triumphalism of democratic dogma over communist doctrine rippled across much of the developing world—not least in Africa, where some leaders rejected the multi-party system.23 Further, the euphoria for multiparty politics in African democracy picked up steam following the rapprochement between Moscow and Washington and the end of the Cold War. This détente between the superpowers mitigated the rivalry that often played itself out in Africa, where they supported opposing political factions, as for instance, in Angola. Arguably, it was against the background of both internal political and economic disarticulations and international political and economic pressures that Zambia opened up its political space to a multi-party system in 1991. It is safe to contend that the introduction of the ideas of what the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev termed “glasnost and perestroika” into Zambia brought about what is referred to as the Third Republic in this polity. .

The Third Republic: Multi-party Elections 1991 to 2015 It should be noted again that germane to my discourses in this chapter is an examination of the crisis of electoral democracy in Zambia—with emphasis on the instability that it fosters in this nation-state and Africa in general. Apropos my study, too, is the extent to which leaders contribute to, and are culpable for, this dilemma of electoral democracy, and what is to be done about it. 22

Julius O. Ihonvbere, Economic Crisis, Civil Society, and Democratization: The Case of Zambia (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1997), 37–49. 23 Daniel Branch, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 196.

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Overall, an unwillingness of political chiefs to open up the political space to a multi-party system was not unique to Zambia in postindependence politics in Africa. Frequently, such resistance has disastrous consequences for the dominant party in a single-party system. For example, Simutanyi notes that this was the case with respect to “the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), in Malawi, the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) in Kenya, and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) in Zambia.”24 The collapse of these single-parties in the above countries was such that they barely survived the political coma suffered at the polls following their defeat. Undeniably, the problem that these parties confronted related partly to the fact that their strengths flowed from the personality of the leader rather than from a firm ideological foundation. And, this is not to mention the desire by those privileged in society to exploit the political system for as long as Kaunda retained power. They simply followed because Kaunda was wearing the political crown, and were prepared to abscond from him and party as soon as he was dethroned from power. In any case, the process of moving from a single-party system to a multi-party scheme was topsy-turvy, as expected, because President Kaunda and UNIP had enjoyed the prestige, perks, and privileges that flowed from having been in power for so long they were reluctant to relinquish power; indeed, he and his party were not going to give up their privileged position without a fight—a real struggle, as expatiated in the theory of privilege.25 A salient query posed by scholars and observers of Zambian politics on the eve of attempts to transit to a multi-party system in the Third Republic was “can free and fair elections be held during fragile political transitions following a prolonged period of monopolistic rule?”26 Self-interest is the engine of government, as noted by Thomas Jefferson. So, how did President Kaunda and UNIP attempt to influence the transition to a multi-party system and the electoral process to suit their interests? Toward the late 1980s, the clamor for a referendum of sorts to 24

Simutanyi, “Zambia,” 119. Pita O. Agbese and E. Ike Udogu, “Taming of the Shrew: Civil-Military Politics in the Fourth Republic,” in Nigeria in the Twenty-First Century: Strategies for Political Stability and Peaceful Coexistence, ed. E. Ike Udogu (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 25–26. 26 Eric Bjornlund, Michael Bratton and Clark Gibson, “Observing Multi-party Elections in Africa: Lessons from Zambia,” African Affairs, 91 (1992): 406; see Michael Bratton, “Zambia Starts Over,” Journal of Democracy, 3, 2 (April 1992): 82. 25

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determine the wishes of Zambians for a multi-party system to supersede a single-party scheme reached its acme in 1990. Hitherto, the administration sought to delay a plebiscite, as if to buy some time to regroup and tune up its political machine. Unfortunately, this maneuvering did not work as opposition parties were poised for a major battle of the titans. It was a “war” between UNIP and Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD), an amalgam of pro-multi-party democracy groupings headed by Frederick Chiluba, the leader of the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). Given the very hot political temperature of the country, a decision was made to bypass a costly referendum that could “not be rigged” in a country that was in an economic quagmire. Another issue, among others, confronting the complex transition process was the constitution, and the need to amend it to reflect the new political dispensation. The architecture of the existing constitution was meant for a single-party system. For MMD, in their challenge of the character of the constitution, a major issue was that the commissioners charged with reviewing and amending the constitution were stooges of the ruling party; therefore, they would be inclined to favor the regime. MMD objected to the fact that too much power was reposed on the president. An additional matter worrying the opposition was an emergency provision of the law that granted the police the power to issue permission for a rally of five or more citizens. Members of the opposition contended that “[this] requirement prevented a free election campaign because the police did not require the ruling party to obtain such permits but regularly restricted the opposition access to them.”27 A major conflict arose, too, over the publication of the voter registration list. Further, UNIP shrewdly failed to announce the date of polling until just eight weeks before the election in 1991. MMD contended that the last registration of voters happened in 1987, many years before the introduction of a multi-party system. In short, because of the character of the one-party system and the lack of enthusiasm to support the party again and again, many Zambian failed to register—not to mention the fact that there were newly eligible voters that had just turned 18, who could be disenfranchised if a new electoral list was not generated.28 Problematically, the process of registering voters was frequently manipulated by political parties, such that the authenticity of the voter list is presumed to be inadequate and consequently contested. All the same, after resolving some of the thorny issues in the constitution and other issues, the modalities for 27

Bjornlund, Bratton and Gibson, “Observing Multi-party Elections in Africa: Lessons from Zambia,” 413. 28 Bratton, “Zambia Starts Over,” 88.

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campaigning were highlighted; the two major political forces—UNIP and MMD—were set free for a revolutionary political battle on October 31, 1991 that would usher in the Third Republic.

Pre-election Campaign Theatrics Politics, defined as the struggle for power, authoritative allocation of values, and who gets what, when and how, is frequently conflictive. In the politics of much of the developing world, politicos are adept at Niccolo Machiavelli’s dictum: “The end justifies the means.” The October 1991 election, for all intents and purposes, was a special one. For UNIP, this election was intended to retain President Kaunda and the party that had governed since independence in 1964. For MMD, its struggle was for change, and the installment of its leader, Chiluba, as the president of the Third Republic. Indisputably, in this political duel, UNIP had much at stake so the political ball was in its court; and it was determined to play it in such a way as to be able to trounce its opponent—MMD. What, then, were some of UNIP’s strategies? It was noted that [strategies] in the electoral campaign for victory were deployment of the chiefs, salaried officials [who] are dependent on the government. [Also], the UNIP had co-opted paramount chiefs, like the Litunga of Barotseland and Chitimukulu of the Bemba unto the Central Committee [as a reward for their support]. Chiefs from Lundazi, a UNIP stronghold, assured Kaunda of their support, but stressed their neutrality in political conflicts as they were above the parties… 29

Chiluba struck back by warning the chiefs that they would forfeit their position in a possible MMD government if they failed to maintain their neutrality in the electoral competition. Nonetheless, because of the inclusive nature and broad character of MMD, it came to see itself as a successor to UNIP. Moreover, MMD demonized those citizens who failed to acknowledge the party’s new, albeit, tenuous strength because it was simply based on a platform of change and little else.30 Whereas the war of negative campaigning and playing the ethnic card or sentiment is not

29

Jan Kees van Donge, “Zambia: Kaunda and Chiluba,” in Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. John W. Wiseman (London: Routledge, 1995), 203. 30 Simutanyi, “Zambia,” 126; Bratton, “Zambia Starts Over,” 91.

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uncommon in African politics,31 particularly when parties are devoid of attractive political manifestos and issues, the use of government machinery to gain advantage aggravates the problem of electoral democracy. Other issues raised concerning the “irregularities” of the October 31, 1991 poll are chronicled elsewhere.32 Because it appeared that party members of UNIP believed in its suzerainty over Zambian politics, the party used state resources to its advantage. The media, for example, was effectively used to promote the President and his party, to the exasperation of the opposition. Electoral officials were not conversant with the procedures involved in successfully managing a multi-party democracy because they were more familiar with the methods of conducting singleparty elections. The Electoral Commission even lacked adequate stationery and transportation vehicles.33 The preceding narratives highlight some of the problems confronting the process of advancing efficient electoral democracy in this polity in the October 1991 political contestation. The outcome of this important election is illustrated in Table 3 below. Table 3 1991 Registered voters Votes cast Invalid votes Valid votes Frederick Chiluba (MMD) Kenneth Kaunda (UNIP)

Total number 2,917,338 1,325,155 41,641 1,283,514 972, 212 310,761

% 45.4 3.1 96.9 75.8 24.2

Sources: Dieter Nohlen, Michael Krennerich and Bernhard Thibaut eds. Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 954; Lise Rakner and Lars Svasand. “From Dominant to Competitive Party System: The Zambian Experience 1991-2001,” Party Politics, 10, 1 (2004): 52

The victory of MMD over UNIP was resounding and impressive. Chiluba won 75.8% over Kaunda, who won 24.2% of the votes cast. But 31

E. Ike Udogu, “General Introduction,” in The Issue of Ethnic Politics in Africa, ed. E. Ike Udogu (Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2001), 7. 32 Bjornlund, Bratton and Gibson, “Observing Multi-party Elections in Africa,” 405–31. 33 Bjornlund, Bratton and Gibson, “Observing Multi-party Elections in Africa,”418–21.

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there was a problem characteristic of African politics and electoral democracy in which victory for a party implies that the proverbial elephant—a metaphor for the state—has been slaughtered and a feast on this behemoth by the ruling class should commence. This was the case here too notwithstanding MMD’s campaign declaration to tackle Zambian socio-economic problems for the advancement of the country and interests of all citizens. Little wonder, then, that Bratton splendidly summarized Chiluba and MMD’s dilemma following the party’s electoral victory thus: Less encouraging are signs that, among political leaders, the commitment to values of pluralism and democracy may be little more that skin-deep. As a labor leader, Chiluba displayed an autocratic bent. Several of his cabinet ministers [who left the UNIP to join the MMD] received their political education and rose to prominence within the UNIP single-party regime. A predilection for arbitrariness is already evident: in MMD’s election campaign, for example, top party leaders awarded themselves safe parliamentary seats, sometimes against the wishes of local supporters. [Indeed, truly] troubling are indications of a lack of deep popular attachment to democratic values…34

As noted and summarized in the preceding quotation, it was obvious that a preponderance of members of the new leadership of the MMD and Zambia itself were schooled in the political culture of the single-party system, and their socialization and governance techniques did not change much in a multi-party system. So, the more things changed in this polity, the more they seemed to have remained the same. This exercise in political pluralism brought to the fore once more the crisis of electoral democracy that manifested in the quinquennial presidential elections following that of 1991; the nature of these elections retarded the process of democratic consolidation in this polity.

The 1996 Presidential Election Victory in an election is one thing and governing effectively is another. MMD acceded to power without a clear template on how it intended to govern, short of the party’s political preachment for change. To be sure, political power can be tremendously seductive in African politics, in which a leader believes he or she is an emperor or empress with total control of the national coffers, civil servants, traditional chiefs, and fellow citizens. 34

Bratton, “Zambia Starts Over,” 92.

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Following the impressive victory of MMD over UNIP in both presidential and parliamentary elections, President Chiluba was now free to govern at will. He was not alone on this score in African politics. Paul Biya of Cameroon, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and others, exemplify this political attitude of political invincibility, authoritarianism, and regal character in their governance methods. The outcome of the October 31, 1991 electoral democracy in Zambia was not only a victory for Frederick Chiluba, the leader of MMD, but also the knockout blow of the UNIP in the parliamentary election. MMD won 125 of the 150 seats in the National Assembly, leaving only 25 seats for the United National Independence Party.35 A major step taken between 1991 and 1996 in the Third Republic was to tinker with the constitution in order to further MMD’s political interest and fortune. For example, the 1991 constitution states that a presidential candidate must garner an absolute majority of more than 50% of the valid electoral votes cast to be elected president. If no candidate met such a threshold, the power of electing the president would shift to Parliament.36 In 1996, a smart constitutional reform project was undertaken by MMD, given its solid majority in Parliament (of 125 to 25). An amendment to the constitution was made that changed the absolute majority formula of the 1991 constitution to a simple plurality vote. Parliamentary elections with a unicameral legislature of 150 members would be held at the same time as that of the president.37 The implications of this constitutional engineering in relation to the issue of electoral democracy will be explored later— especially in the 2001 presidential election. As is the wont in African politics, opposition parties have a knack for accusing the party in power of attempts to fix an election by hook or by crook. The 1996 election in Zambia was no exception. A number of matters relating to the manipulation of that electoral process came to the fore. These were the question of the authenticity of the registered roster of voters or voters’ list, constitutional changes, and the issue of citizenship, similar to the problem in Ivory Coast with respect to President Ouattara (who was alleged to be a citizen of Burkina Faso and not Ivory Coast), inter alia. As for the issue of the list of registered voters for the 1996 elections, UNIP and others expressed misgivings regarding the number of registered 35 African Elections Database: Elections in Zambia, 3, accessed May 13, 2015, .http://africanelections.tripod.com/zm.html 36 Krennerich, “Zambia,” 943. 37 Rakner and Svasand, “From Dominant to Competitive Party System: The Zambian Experience 1991-2001,” 51–52.

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voters, which in their judgment was grossly understated, probably by as much as 50 percent.38 An electoral roll of approximately 2.3 million people in a population of about 8 million was considered dubious. As a result of the alleged doubtfulness of this list, UNIP called for a return to the voter roster of 1991 elections. Despite complaints launched by the media, stakeholders, and some non-governmental organizations regarding the anomaly of the list of registered voters, the regime refused to return to the 1991 list. Possibly, the incumbent party, MMD, with its power of the purse, had registered more Zambians sympathetic to the party between 1991 and 1996 in preparation for this election and wanted to capitalize on its efforts; thus, it rejected the 1991 register of voters. On this matter, it was clear that UNIP and MMD—the two major parties—were on a collision course. Another important issue dogging the 1996 poll and ruffling the political system, and particularly political actors, was the constitutional change that called for a maximum two terms for the president, like the United States system. Additionally, the issue of citizenship came to the forefront in the determination of who should run as president of the republic. Provisions of the constitutional change stated that the president and the parents of the country’s political leaders must be Zambian nationals. By virtue of such a tenet, Kaunda, who was said to have a Malawian origin, and Chiluba, of Zairian (now Democratic Republic of Congo) roots, would not have qualified to serve as presidents of Zambia. It was amidst the foregoing political discourses and controversies that Zambians went to the polls in November 1996. The result of the presidential election is illustrated in Table 4.

38 Peter Burnell, “Whither Zambia? The Zambian Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of November 1996,” Electoral Studies, 16, 3 (September 1997), 408.

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Table 4* 1996 Total number % Registered voters 2,267,383 Votes cast 1,325,053 58.4 Invalid votes 66,248 5.0 Valid votes 1,258,805 95.0 Frederick Chiluba (MMD) 913,770 72.6 Dean Mung’omba (ZDC) 160,439 12.7 Humphrey Mulemba (NP) 83,875 6.7 Akashambatwa MbikusitaLewanika (AZ) 59,250 4.7 Chama Chakomboka (MDP) 41.471 3.3 MMD: Movement for Multi-party Democracy ZDC: Zambia Democratic Congress NP: National Party AZ: Agenda for Zambia MDP: Movement for Democratic Process *UNIP: United National Independent Party boycotted the election, in part because changes in the constitution prevented Kenneth Kaunda from contesting the presidency. Sources: Krennerich. “Zambia,” in Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook, edited by Dieter Nohlen, Michael Krennerich and Bernhard Thibaut, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 954; African Elections Database: Elections in Zambia, 3, accessed May 13, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/zm.html

Clearly, the above results, which gave a ringing victory to Chiluba of MMD with 72.6% and 12.7% for ZDC, 6.7% for NP, 4.7% for AZ, and 3.3% for MDP, were controversial. The absence of a major opposition party, UNIP, did not help matters either. Paradoxically, as was the case under the leadership of UNIP, MMD capitalized on its incumbency by using government vehicles for its campaign. Also, it dominated the media, which it applied efficiently to marginalize the other parties.39 The problem was that the election was not free and fair—a situation that was intensified by the fact that the major opposition party UNIP boycotted the elections, as noted earlier. In such a political milieu, the legitimacy of the regime in the eyes of many Zambians came into question. In other words, it was difficult for UNIP members to support a government that they felt acceded 39

Burnell, “Whither Zambia?” 409–410.

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to power by massaging figures in the roster of voters to suit its electoral interest and advantage. The character of inchoate democracies in which strong opposition parties are capable of peacefully unseating the dominant party in political competition is still to develop in much of Africa.40 This truism explains in part the wobbly nature of electoral democracy in Zambian politics. The preceding issues in the electoral process mitigated the deepening and consolidation of democracy in Zambia. Even President Frederick Chiluba noted caustically that the political roller-coaster in Zambia, very much like that of other countries in the developing world, teaches that democratization is a slow and fragile enterprise that can easily be undermined and even reversed if the process is not handled with delicacy.41 Such was the case with respect to two great contemporary democracies—Britain and France—historically. For example, Martin Klein avowed retrospectively that Nowhere in the world was there a tradition of democracy in the 18th century. France had no democratic traditions when it began its revolution. It created a revolutionary democratic tradition in 5 years and fought about it for the next 160. It took Britain two centuries to create the parliamentary democracy it later tried to bequeath to its former colonies… [In short, it took several years for democracy to morph into its current level of sophistication and consolidation in both countries]. 42

What these two countries experienced could be summed up in the late Obafemi Awolowo’s view, in the Nigerian case, when he noted adroitly that “no one nation ever attains a worthwhile goal designed for the benefit of the entire people in one fell swoop without courting irreparable or prolonged disaster for the people concerned.…”43 Even so, Klein’s observation was spot on. The process of democratic consolidation, and the

40

Larry Diamond, “Is the Third Wave Over?” Journal of Democracy, 7 (1996): 25. Burnell, “Whither Zambia?” 414. 42 Martin A. Klein, “Back to Democracy: Presidential Address to the 1991 Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association,” African Studies Review,” 35, 3 (December, 1992): 6–7; E. Ike Udogu, “Incomplete Metamorphic Democracy as a Conceptual Framework in the Analysis of African Politics: An Exploratory Investigation,” in Democracy an Democratization in Africa: Toward the 21st Century, ed. E. Ike Udogu (Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill Publishers, 1997): 5–20. 43 Cited in Toyin Falola and Julius Ihonvbere, The Rise & Fall of the Second Republic: 1979-84 (London: Zed Books, 1985), 57. 41

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dilemma of electoral democracy, in Zambia as in the rest of Africa, is likely to take some time, as demonstrated in the 2001 elections.

The 2001 Presidential Election To paraphrase an often referenced aphorism by Lord Acton of Great Britain, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As noted earlier, a series of rules or constitutional manipulations that worsened the issue of electoral democracy in this polity were, ironically, undertaken by MMD. For instance, it changed the rules so that a president could be elected to power by a simple majority or plurality vote of contesting political parties.44 In the period leading up to the 2001 elections, President Chiluba sought to amend the party (MMD) and national constitutions so that he could run for a third term. This political hunger to clutch onto power for years on end, characteristic of some African leaders, is destabilizing, as was the case in Nigeria, Egypt, Burkina Faso, and Burundi, for example. It is this sort of political narcissism in African politics that in part prompted Claude Ake to note harshly that …a willingness to violate the legitimate method of contestation [is applied by politicos], if necessary, to achieve the goal of power. The breakdown of constitutional norms, in the context of a high premium on power, in turn generates a high level of political anxiety… [Moreover], a desperate struggle to win control of state power [often] ensues since the control means for all practical purposes being all powerful and owning everything. Politics becomes warfare [to which the winner is entitled to the spoils of the political battle]…45

Indeed, national resistance by civil society organizations and the public in general to Chiluba’s machination to amend the national constitution so that he could run for a third term, instead of the two-term tenure enshrined in the constitution, led to political uneasiness and discomfort in society and in his party, too. Between February and May, boisterous public demonstrations against such a constitutional amendment and a referendum on this matter killed the idea of a third-term bid. Moreover, the notion that 44

P. Burnell, “The Tripartite Elections in Zambia, December 2001,” Electoral Studies, 22, 2 (June 2003): 388. 45 Claude Ake, “Explaining Political Instability in New States,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 11, 3 (1973): 347–59; E. Ike Udogu, “In Search of Political Stability and Survival: Toward Nigeria’s Third Republic,” Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternatives, XI, 2 & 3 (September-December, 1992): 11.

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Chiluba would stay in power beyond ten years was displeasing to the leading members of MMD eyeing the post of president in the aftermath of Chiluba’s reign.46 The outcomes of this national rebuff and rancor to a third term for the president were fragmentation of MMD and a proliferation of political parties. Added to the allure for the formation of more parties was the constitutional provision that made it possible for a candidate to win the presidency merely by garnering a plurality of votes. There is little wonder, then, that 11 presidential candidates submitted themselves for the December 27, 2001 election. The result of this election is presented in Table 5 below. Table 5 Registered Voters Total Votes (voter turnout) Invalid/Blank Votes Total Valid Votes

2,604,761 1,766,356 (67.8%) 28,408 1,737,948

Candidate (Party)

No. of Votes

%

Levy Mwanawasa (MMD) Anderson Mazoka (UPND) Christon Tembo (FDD) Tilyenji Kaunda (UNIP) Godfrey Miyanda (HP) Benjamin Mwila (ZRP) Michael Sata (PF) Nevers Mumba (NCC) Gwendoline Konie (SDP) Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika (AZ) Yobert Shamapande (NLD)

506,694 472,697 228,861 175.898 40.678 85,472 59,172 38,860 10,253 9,882 9,481

29.15 27.20 13.17 10.12 8.09 4.92 3.40 2.24 0.59 0.57 0.55

MMD: Movement for Multi-party Democracy UPND: United Party for National Development FDD: Forum for Democracy and Development UNIP: United National Independent Party HP: Heritage Party ZRP: Zambian Republican Party PF: Patriotic Front 46

Rakner and Svasand, “From Dominant to Competitive Party System,” 53.

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NCC: National Christian Coalition SDP: Social Democratic Party AZ: Agenda for Zambia NLD: National Leadership for Development Sources: P. Burnell. “The Tripartite Elections in Zambia, December 2001.” Electoral Studies, 22, 2 (June 2003): 388; African Elections Database: Elections in Zambia, 3, accessed May 13, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/zm.html

The problem of electoral democracy in this polity is illustrated in the 2001 polling. In the past, Presidents Kaunda and Chiluba nearly always won with an absolute majority. This was not the case in the December 27, 2001 election. Indeed, as Rakner and Svasand have noted: “The 2001 election resulted in a more even electoral outcome, for the presidency as well as for parliament, but the MMD presidential candidate [following the exit of Chiluba] won a (disputed) electoral victory with a weak mandate, 29.2 percent of the votes, just 2 percent more than his closest challenger, Anderson Mazoka of UPND.”47 In short, slightly over 70 percent of the electorate did not vote for the president. This result brings to the limelight the dilemma of electoral democracy and legitimacy in a system in which voters generally voted on personality, patronage, and ethno-regional basis.

The 2006 Presidential Election Incumbents in African politics are infrequently defeated in an election. Witness the cases of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Paul Biya in Cameroon, for example. A president or prime minister serving in office will, together with his or her associates, do whatever it takes to retain power. For illustration, the inspector-general of the Police and other leaders of law enforcement agencies are appointed by the president. Also, s/he appoints the officer commanding the armed forces as well as members of the judiciary and heads of departments. Generally, the leader makes sure that these actors are loyal and, more importantly faithful and protective of vital interests. As a quid pro quo of sorts, these associates are hardly ever prosecuted for looting the national treasury or for corruption. Consequently, the preachment to loyal supporters is, “If I am out of power, you, too, are likely to lose your privileged position because you will be sacked by an incoming leader. It would, therefore, behoove you to 47

Rakner and Svasand, “From Dominant to Competitive Party System,” 55; see Simutanyi, “Zambia: Manufactured One-party Dominance and Its Collapse,”131– 33.

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do the ‘right’ thing [use patronage, bribe, rig elections, etc.] in order to retain me in power and enjoy your position of privilege.”48 In truth, the preceding philosophy and its enshrinement in the political culture of African societies is so strong that subordinates are often inclined to ignore the inept policies, old age and infirmity, eccentricity, and so on of their political captains in order to satisfy their insular objective of accumulation of wealth.49 African political chiefs would habitually stay in power for life. They would only step down if overthrown in a military coup or abdicate their power if the clamor of the public and demonstrations against their regimes were so overwhelming that they feared for their safety, as in Tunisia and Egypt, for example. Others only resign if they find it difficult to control the crowd and society with their state security service (SSS)— the leadership of which they appointed. In explaining an aspect of Zambian political culture, and this is true of much of Africa today, Simutanyi noted precisely that [An aspect of the] political culture that is relevant to the trajectory of Zambia’s party system is the acceptance of state patronage as a normal part of politics. While public complaints are voiced about deficient government performance and poor service delivery, people seem to regard the clientelistic linkages that politicians maintain as acceptable. During Frederick Chiluba’s tenure as president, a general belief existed that Bemba-speaking people received a large share of government appointments, including directorships of state-owned companies and diplomatic posting. [President] Levy Mwanawasa was similarly accused of nepotism, as he was said to favor members of his Lenje and Lamba [ethnic groups] as well as his own close friends and relatives.…50

As I have argued elsewhere, the quagmire of electoral democracy in Africa is exacerbated by the attitude of a president who would punish groups, especially minority ethnic collectivities, who did not vote for him and his party. Commonly, development projects and appointments as cabinet ministers, judges, and heads of corporations are denied these groups just to teach them a lesson for backing the wrong political horse.51 48

Agbese and Udogu, “Taming of the Shrew: Civil-Military Relations in the Fourth Republic,” 25. 49 J-F Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (London: Longman Publishers, 2009). 50 Simutanyi, “Zambia,” 135. 51 E. Ike Udogu, “The Allurement of Ethnonationalism in Nigerian Politics: The Contemporary Debate,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, XXIX, 3-4 (1994): 165.

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Such punitive policies in societies seeking to advance political atomism and democratic consolidation can be problematic in that those groups denied resources are likely to withhold their support for the regime and even seek autonomy from a government that subjugates and marginalizes them. In a way, the problem of electoral democracy in Zambia and the 2006 polling in particular may be visualized within the context of some of the foregoing postulations. It was an election that saw the emergence of five political parties, some of which were alliances formed not necessarily to further “the good political life” for all Zambians or for successful governing per se but to be the group controlling the state coffers and feeding heartily on the proverbial elephant—the state. These parties and alliances were Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD); Patriotic Front (PF); United Democratic Alliance (UDA), an amalgam of three opposition parties namely, the United Party for National Development (UPND), the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), and the United National Independence Party (UNIP); Heritage Party (HP); and All People’s Congress (APC). The result of the Zambian October 28, 2006 presidential election is presented below in Table 6. Table 6 Register Voters Votes Cast Voter Turnout Valid Votes Invalid Votes Invalid Votes

3,941,229 2,789,114 70.77% 2,740,178 48,936 1.75%

Candidates Levy Mwanawasa (MMD) Michael MC Sata (PF) Hakainde Hichilema (UDA) Godfrey K. Miyanda (HP) Winright Ngondo (APC) Total

No of Votes 1,177,846 804,748 693,772 42,891 20,921 2,740,178

% 42.98 29.37 25.32 1.57 0.76 100.00

Sources: African Elections Database: Elections in Zambia, accessed May 13, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/zm.html . Electoral Commission of Zambia 2006b, “General Elections 2006: Presidential-National Result by Candidate,” accessed May 13, 2015 http://www.elections.org.zm/new_elections_data/totalsummary.pdf

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It is particularly striking that in this election, the former president Chiluba supported Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front and not the candidate of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy that catapulted him to the presidency in 1991 and kept him in office in 1996. There might have been ethnic and regional reasons for Chiluba’s support for Sata as they share these powerful political factors. Moreover, Mwanawasa was not in good health, but his supporters who gained from his presidency would not dump him in the 2006 election; they had invested so much in him, and vice versa. As for the former president, Kenneth Kaunda, he backed the United Democratic Alliance since his pre-independence and post-independence party UNIP appeared to have lost its relevance; this followed its defeat by MMD in 1991. Irrefutably, his party needed—and still needs—a firm life jacket to survive the rough political waters of Zambian politics. To gain power in politics for the purpose of exploiting the system, political realignment is sometimes called for. By way of illustration, the preceding metaphor was played out in Nigeria’s 2015 political elections in which disparate and even “antagonistic” political parties formed the All Progressives Congress (APC)—a party that was headed by General Buhari for the sole purpose of defeating an unpopular and dominant party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of President Goodluck Jonathan. In Zambia, however, President Mwanawasa died in office in August 2008, two years into his second and final term in office. This development, constitutionally, called for a by-election within 90 days. Provision is not made in the constitution for a vice-president to immediately succeed the president as in the Nigerian and American constitutions. Accordingly, an election would have to be held in 2008 for Mwanawasa’s successor.

The 2008 Presidential Election The sudden death of the president in office threw MMD off in its effort to find a candidate with clout to represent the party in the October 30, 2008 presidential election. Even so, parties seldom matter as much as the personality of a candidate. Thus, this development opened up the political space for leading actors of other parties to compete effectively against MMD. In order to maintain party cohesion, it nominated the vicepresident, Rupiah Banda, to be the flag-bearer. Michael Sata was nominated to represent the Patriotic Front (PF), Hakainde Hichilema was the candidate of the United Party for National Development (UPND), and Godfrey Miyanda of the Heritage Party (HP) was nominated to lock political horns with the other candidates. The United National Independent

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Party (UNIP) did not field a candidate. The result of the polling of October 30, 2008 is illustrated in Table 7 below. Table 7 Registered Voters Total Votes (Voter Turnout) Invalid/Blank Votes Total Valid Votes

3,944,135 1,791,806 (45.4%) 23,596 1,768,210

Candidate and Party Rupiah Banda (MMD) Michael Sata (PF) Hakainde Hichilema (UPND) Godfrey Miyanda (HP)

Number of Votes 718,359 683,150 353,018 13,683

% 40.63 38.64 19.96 0.77

Sources: Electoral Commission of Zambia 2008, “2008 Presidential Election: National Results Total for 150 Constituencies,” accessed May 15, 2015 http://www.elections.org.zm/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_downloa d&gid=11571temid=78; African Elections Database: Elections in Zambia, 4, accessed May 15, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/zm.html; Electoral Institute of Sustainable Democracy in Africa, accessed May 15, 2015 http://www.content.eisa.org.za/old-page/zambia-2008-presidential-election-result

It has been argued that in this rare circumstance of a by-election, Banda was able to use his position as Acting President during Mwanawasa’s lengthy illness, along with the support of his wealthy backers, to construct a patronage network in preparation for the inevitable succession battle. At the same time, he had a clear advantage over his competitors because, as acting leader, he enjoyed a monopoly over the main media sources. Traditional chiefs, provincial MMD committees and leaders of opposition parties were paraded on government-owned television and newspapers, talking up Banda’s virtues and suggesting that, as he was the natural successor to Mwanawasa, the presidential by-election was superfluous.…52

Banda’s victory of 48.63% to Sata’s 38.64% was suspect in terms of the authenticity of the official results. This situation was aggravated in part by the factors noted above. Further, opinion polls, however unreliable, had 52

Nic Cheeseman and Marja Hinfelaar, “Parties, Platforms, and Political Mobilization: The Zambian Presidential Election of 2008,” African Affairs, 109, 434 (2009 Online), 6.

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predicted that Sata would win the 2008 presidential election by a landslide (especially as MMD had been in power for about two decades). Indeed, representatives of foreign governments who observed this balloting acknowledged in private that they had seen evidence of vote buying on all sides, and that the accuracy and legitimacy of the results were dubious.53 Many political and business entrepreneurs had invested heavily in a candidate and this development created a crisis of electoral democracy as the party in government had attempted to fix the outcomes of the election to suit its financial backers and political interests. The next presidential election was scheduled for September, 2011; this year marked two decades of MMD’s dominance in Zambia’s political affairs. The election saw a plethora of parties and candidates vie for leadership in Zambian politics.

The 2011 Presidential Election It has been implied that President Banda did not win MMD’s nomination in 2008 because of his charisma, wealth, and ethnicity. He won it in part because of the support of his party and the power of incumbency.54 This hypothesis was put to the test in 2011, at least so it seemed, as Banda had to fight once again against his nemesis in the 2008 by-election, Michael Sata, whom he narrowly defeated. In all, there were ten candidates that qualified to compete in this election. They were: Rupiah B. Banda Elias C. Chipimo Hakainde S. Hichilema Tilyenji C. Kaunda Ng’andu P. Magande Charles L. Milupi Godfrey K. Miyanda Fredrick Mutesa Edith Z. Nawakwi Michael C. Sata

Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) National Restoration Party (NRP) United Party for National Development (UPND) United National Independence Party (UNIP) National Movement for Progress (NMP) Alliance for Development and Democracy (ADD) Heritage Party (HP) Zambia for Empowerment and Development (ZED) Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) Patriotic Front (PF)55

Notionally, a chief thrust of this chapter and the book itself is that the crisis of electoral democracy in African politics today is likely to delay the process leading to democratic consolidation. Some of the main causes of 53

Cheeseman and Hinfelaar, “Parties, Platforms, and Political Mobilization,” 12. Cheeseman and Hinfelaar, “Parties, Platforms, and Political Mobilization,” 15. 55 “Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group: Zambia General Elections (London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 20 September, 2011), 10. 54

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the problem of electoral democracy are chronicled in the Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group submitted to Lusaka following the 2011 presidential and legislative elections. A synopsis of some of the issues raised in this testimony will suffice for the purpose of illustration. This report noted that under the provisions of the national constitution, the appointment of the chair and members of the Electoral Commission was done by the president, who might be a candidate in an impending electoral contestation. My thesis flowing from this concern is that these members were likely to be partial in the supervision of an election in which their boss was a contestant. Thus, it was not surprising that presidential candidates and stakeholders of the opposition parties saw such an arrangement as inadequate; some contenders impugned the outcome of the balloting. More gravely, the above political situation reduced the legitimacy of the regime.56 Weak support for the state by Zambians might have been the case in the 2008 presidential election in which Banda’s margin of victory was small and contestable. Moreover, the discourse on the question of citizenship in Zambia found expression in the constitution when it was alleged that President Kaunda was not a bona-fide Zambian, and therefore was disqualified in the 1996 presidential election as the UNIP presidential candidate. In that case, it was MMD that spearheaded that charge. This time, probably to dislocate President Banda’s campaign, Michael Sata, the presidential candidate of PF, brought a case before the High Court, urging it to issue an injunction that, because Banda was and is not a Zambian, ipso facto he could not qualify as a presidential candidate in the 2011 election.57 In as much as such ploys are not uncommon in the heat of a political campaign, this act represents another aspect of the problem of electoral democracy that has to be thrashed out in this republic in order to further stability and advance democratic consolidation. An Electoral Commission is mandated to conduct free and fair elections in Zambia. A strategy to further this objective was to empower the Commission to conduct civic education and dispatch this corps of trained educators to communities—especially pastoral communities—to inform electorates on how to conduct themselves efficiently in the attempt to boost public support for the outcome of elections. In politics, the cliché or dictum “everyone has a price” came to the fore when these cadres were accused of campaigning for MMD,58 perhaps because they were well paid to do so. 56

Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 12. Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 12. 58 Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 13. 57

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As was the case in previous elections, the Electoral Code of Conduct 2011 carefully crafted for this election was never respected as political actors sought ways to beat the system with little or no repercussions. The illegal use of government functionaries, as, for example, civil servants, the media, and vehicles by the incumbent with impunity in this election smacked of an unfair political practice.59 It was against the background of my foregoing synopsis of the political climate, which highlighted the predicament of electoral democracy in Zambia, that presidential and legislative elections were held in 2011. The result of the September 20, 2011 polling is presented below in Table 8. Table 8 Registered Voters Total Votes (Voter Turnout) Invalid/Blank Votes Total Valid Votes

5,167,154 2,789,340 (54%) 56,678 2,732,662

Candidate/Party Michael C. Sata (PF) Rupiah B. Banda (MMD) Hakainde Hichilema UPND) Elias C. Chipimo (NAREP) Tilyenji C. Kaunda (UNIP) Edith Nawakwi (FDD) Ng’andu P. Magande NMP) Godfrey K. Miyanda (HP) Fredrick Mutesa (ZED)

Number of Votes 1,170,966 987,866 506,763 10,672 9,950 6,833 6,344 4,730 2,268

% 42.24 35.63 18.28 0.38 0.36 0.25 0.23 0.17 0.08

Sources: Electoral Commission of Zambia 2011 “2011 Presidential Elections: National Results Total for 150 Constituencies,” accessed May 16, 2015, http://www.elections.org.zm/media/28092011_public_notice__2011_presidential_election_results.pdf; African Elections Database: Elections in Zambia, 4, accessed May 16, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/zm.html

Arguably, Michael C. Sata and the Patriotic Front’s victory of 42.24% to Banda’s 35.63% in the 2011 presidential election may have reflected an opinion held by many Zambians that the 2008 election was fixed and irregular, and, therefore, the outcome inconclusive. In a way, Sata’s success in the 2011 polling was a recompense for the outcome of the 2008 election. Furthermore, MMD had 20 years to develop the country 59

Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 13–15.

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substantially. Unfortunately, it did not have sufficient and striking development projects around the country to show for the period of its stewardship. The political attitude, for the above reasons, was that the leadership of the republic should be passed on to another leader and party that might give development schemes a fresh approach. This may have been the case particularly after Sata had moderated his views on the role of foreign investors—not least, China—in Zambia during the campaign. Regrettably, his tenure as president came to a sudden end when he died in office on October 29, 2014.60 Constitutionally, a by-election for a new president must be conducted within 90 days (60 days in the 2014 constitution) after the incapacitation or death of the president. In the meantime Sata’s vice-president, Mr. Guy Scott, a Scottish-Zambian, acted as president until the January 20, 2016 election. The Zambian constitution disqualified Mr. Scott from representing PF as a presidential candidate. The following candidates representing different parties submitted themselves for the January 20, 2015 by-election for president of the republic: Eric M. Chanda 4R: (4th Revolution) Elias C. M. Chipimo (NAREP): National Restoration Party Tilyenji C. Kaunda (UNIP): United National Independence Party Edgar C. Lungu (PF): Patriotic Front Godfrey K. Miyanda (HP): Heritage Party Nevers S. Mumba (MMD): Movement of Multi-party Democracy Edith Z. Nawakwi (FDD): Forum for Democracy and Development Daniel M. Pule (CDP): Citizens Democratic Party Peter C. Sinkamba (GP or GREENS): Green Party Ludwig S. Sondashi (FDA): Forum for Democratic Alternatives Hakainde S. Hichilema (UPND): United Party for National Development The result of the by-election is shown in Table 9 below.

60

“IFES Election Guide-Elections: Zambia President,” 2 accessed May 18, 2015, http://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/2814/ ; “Defence Minister Lungu Wins Presidential Election—BBC News,” 2, accessed May 18, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30970952

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Table 9 Registered Voters: Cast Votes Invalid Votes:

5,166,084 1,671,662 17,313

Candidate/Party Number of Votes Edgar C. Lungu (PF) 807,925 Hakainde S. Hichilema (UPND) 780,168 Edith C. Nawakwi (FDD) 15,321 Nevers S. Mumba (MMD) 14,609 Tilyenji C. Kaunda (UNIP) 9,737 Eric M. Chanda (4R) 8,054 Elias C. M. Chipimo (NAREP) 6,002 Godfrey K. Miyanda (HP) 5,757 Daniel M. Pule (CDP) 3,293 Ludwig S. Sondashi (FDA) 2,073 Peter C. Sinkamba (GP or GREENS) 1,410

% 48.33 46.67 0.92 0.87 0.58 0.48 0.36 0.34 0.20 0.12 0.08

Sources: Electoral Commission of Zambia 2015: 2015 Presidential Election, January 20, 2015, 1, accessed May 18, 2015 http://www.elections.org.zm/results/2015_presidential_election; IFES Election Guide-Elections: Zambia President, 1–2, accessed May 18, 2015 http://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/2814/; Zambian Presidential Election, 2015 – Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, 5, accessed May 18, 2015, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambia_presidential_election,_2015

Following the outcome of the January 20, 2015 presidential byelection, Edgar C. Lungu (PF) won by 48.33% of the votes, and Hakainde S. Hichilema of UPND garnered 46.67% of the votes. Possibly due to the closeness of the votes between these candidates, Hichilema charged that “the election [was] stolen, accusing the electoral commission of manipulating the results to favor Mr. Lungu, a former lawyer [Defence and Justice Minister].”61 Notwithstanding the claimed manipulation of this by-election by Hichilema, it is safe to contend that, overall, such elections suggest a deepening of democracy in Zambia when compared with or to elections in Egypt, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, and other countries in Africa where a dominant leader and party have dominated the presidency and political landscape ad-infinitum.

61

“Defence Minister Lungu Wins Presidential Elections – BBC News,” 2, accessed May 18, 2015 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30970952

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Although the dilemma of electoral democracy still persists in Zambia, it has had three different political parties, viz. United National Independence Party, Movement for Multi-party Democracy, and Patriotic Front, rise to power uninterrupted and without military coups. Difficult as it is to suggest unequivocally that the Zambian political system has attained a consolidated democracy, it is refreshing to state that her democratic trajectory is so far superior to those of many countries in the continent at this juncture.

CHAPTER SIX UGANDA AND THE CRISIS OF ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY

Brief History Uganda, sometimes referred to as the Pearl of Africa, enjoys an archeological recognition, as do Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia, as the birthplace of humans. It is nestled in the Great Rift Valley and plains of East Africa. As with other regions of the continent, it was inhabited by different distinct ethnic groupings that had migrated to and from the area in search of commerce, arable agricultural land, and grazing fields. The area came to be settled by a number of kingdoms: Buganda, Bunyoro, Busogo, Ankole, and Toro.1 Within the general inter-group rivalry for supremacy and power, the kingdom of Buganda, ruled by the Kabaka (king), came to play a dominant role amongst these kingdoms. It was during the 1800s, the time of the European powers’ continued voyages of exploration and drive for wealth, glory, and the spread of Christianity to Africa and elsewhere, that Europeans came into contact with the various kingdoms. However, “English Protestants and French Catholic missionaries came at the request of Kabaka Mutesa I.”2 It was in 1888 that the powerful British Imperial East African Company established, with the permission of the king, its foothold in Buganda. Six years later, Buganda was declared a British protectorate—along with other kingdoms and chieftaincies3—probably as a strategy to fend off France’s possible claim of the territory during the European scramble for Africa. In 1

Charles H. Cutter, Africa 2002 (Harper Ferry, WV: Stryker-Post Publication, 2002), 214–15; See The Commonwealth, “Uganda: History,” 1, accessed February 27, 2015 http://thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries/uganda/history 2 S. R. Karugire, A Political History of Uganda (London: Heinemann Books, 1980); The Commonwealth, “Uganda: History,” 1. 3 Uganda High Commission in Canada, “Brief Political History of Uganda,” 1, accessed February 27, 2015, http://www.ugandahighcommission.com/uganda-infocenter/political...

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pursuance of its colonization aim, Britain also moved to take control of the kingdoms of Bunyoro, Ankole, Toro, and Bugosa.4 London further imposed Buganda’s administrative system on these societies. In 1905, full control of the country was passed on to the British Colonial Office.5 The slow process of handing over administrative authority to indigenous Ugandans happened in 1921 when an executive and a legislative assembly were created. It took another 34 years (1955) for half of the members of a legislative council to be African, probably because it was necessary to educate local legislators on how a parliamentary system worked. Moreover, a political party system was promoted and, later, an executive council-cum-ministerial system was enacted. With these structures in place, Uganda was granted self-government in 1958, and in the 1961 general election, Benedicto Kiwanuka of the Democratic Party was elected prime minister. Uganda was granted full independence on October 9, 1962 under the leadership of Milton Obote; it became a republic in 1963.6

Pre-Independence Elections in Uganda: A Brief Overview In attempts to introduce the country to the Western democratic genre against the traditional method of kings and chiefs governing their kingdoms, the British gradually encouraged the principle of elections of citizens as a way to choose those who would govern society. In order to test the political waters, as it were, there was a need for the formation of organizations or groups that could coalesce and possibly craft political and economic ideologies for the polity. In 1947, for example, the influential Ugandan African Farmers Union was formed. It was later banned, perhaps because the Colonial Office in London was unhappy with the possible challenge it could pose to British interests in Uganda. In any case, Ignatius K. Musazi’s Uganda National Congress superseded the African Farmers Union in 1952. This group, however, never morphed into a political party.7 As the political tempo for independence in East Africa, as well as in West Africa and continentally, started heating up in the late 1950s, Britain 4

East Africa Living Encyclopedia, African Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3, accessed February 28, 2015 http://www.africa.upenn.edu/NEH/uhistory.htm 5 The Commonwealth, “Uganda: History,” 1. 6 Cutter, Africa 2002, 215; Uganda High Commission in Canada, 1; Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group: Uganda Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, Commonwealth Secretariat (18 February 2011), 3. 7 East Africa Living Encyclopedia, 6.

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commenced plans to grant self-rule to Uganda. This process was championed by an enthusiastic and passionate activist governor, Sir Andrew Cohen, whose erstwhile job was undersecretary for African Affairs in the Colonial Office. He reorganized the economic system, revamped Uganda’s Legislative Council, and brought in Ugandan representatives, chosen from districts all over the country. This arrangement provided the modality and character of a post-colonial parliament in Uganda.8 The news that the British government was about to grant Uganda home rule led to a frenzy of political activities that culminated in the formation of numerous political parties, as, for example, the Uganda People’s Congress, Democratic Party, Uganda National Congress, Independents, and others. And because power in an independent Uganda would shift away from the privileged and reactionary chiefs within the various kingdoms and chieftaincies to a new center—Kampala—much angst was created amongst conservative leaders who felt that this novel political dispensation could whittle away at their power. Even so, the country was abuzz with political activities in preparation for the “mother of all elections” to free the country from the British colonial yoke. Indeed, the excitement of Ugandans for independence, and the right to govern their country, was rousing for the contending factions, regardless of the possible outcomes of the poll. The Colonial Office announced that the preliminary polling for what it termed “a responsible government” would take place in March 1961 as a forerunner to official autonomy. This electoral rehearsal would provide successful candidates with the invaluable experience they needed as actors for a responsible governance scheme in an independent society. As is the nature of such contrivances, some groups, concerned by what the outcome of the polls might lead to, became extremely uneasy about the process— not least of these groups was the Buganda ethnic group. Because of the uniqueness and dominance of the Buganda kingdom among the mosaic of kingdoms and chieftaincies, its peoples believed that it should be granted autonomy outside that of the “federation.”9 It was against a backdrop of political maneuvering by political activists of the various political groupings that the 1961 poll was held. Indeed, the leaders of Buganda beckoned members of its group not to participate in this important

8

East Africa Living Encyclopedia, 6. See “The Kabaka’s Government, The Lukiiko Memorandum,” in The Mind of Buganda: Documents of the Modern History of an African Kingdom, ed. D. A. Low (London: Heinemann Educational, 1971), 201,204 & 209. 9

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election.10 But when it was clear that Buganda could be marginalized politically if it did not participate in the balloting, a compromise that acknowledged the group’s interest in the polity was struck that enabled Buganda to become part of the Legislative Council or National Assembly.11 Table 1 illustrates the outcome of the 1961 election. Table 1: Results of the Ugandan General Election of 1961 Party Votes % Seats ____________________________________________________________ Uganda People’s Congress 495,909 49.2 35 Democratic Party 436,420 41.3 43 Independents 45,473 4.5 2 Uganda National Congress 40,134 4.0 1 Other Parties 9,115 0.9 0 Invalid/Blank ____________________________________________________________ Total 1,227,524 100 82 ____________________________________________________________ Source: D. Nohlen, M. Krennerich and B. Thibaut eds. Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 934.

The result of this election was victory for the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) under the leadership of Milton Obote, with 49.2% of the votes. Despite this success, Obote wanted to bring the Buganda kingdom fully into the political system in order to further political stability in the country. For that reason and to mollify this group’s opposition to the outcome of the election, a party was invented called Kabaka Yekka (KY), which means the King Only. An alliance between UPC and KY was formed, aimed at fending off possible challenges from the powerful Democratic Party, which won 41.3% of the votes in the 1961 election. Moreover, in a clever move to strengthen and give zest to this coalition, the Kabaka [king] was promised a largely ceremonial position of Uganda’s head of state, which the Baganda considered of great symbolic importance. This marriage of convenience between the UPC and the KY made 10

Ali A. Mazrui, “Privilege and Protest as Integrative Factors: The Case of Buganda’s Status in Uganda,” in Protest and Black Power in Africa, ed. Robert I. Rotberg et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 1083. 11 East Africa Living Encyclopedia, 7; Yoga Adhola, “UPC and the Elections of 1961 and 1962,” 9–10, accessed February 28, 2015 http://www.upcparty.net/history/election_61and 62.htm

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inevitable the defeat of the DP interim administration. In the aftermath of the April 1962 election leading up to independence, Uganda’s national parliament consisted of forty-three UPC delegates, twenty-four KY delegates, and twenty-four DP delegates. The new UPC-KY coalition led Uganda into Independence in October 1962, with Obote as prime minister and the Kabaka as head of state.12

However, this marriage of political expediency between Kabaka Mutesa II of Buganda and Prime Minister Obote dissolved in November 1963. This political alliance was short-lived because both Obote and Mutesa and their followers had differing agendas in the politics of Uganda.13

Obote and the 1962 Elections By way of introduction, the purpose of my following discussions, as in previous chapters, is to bring to the fore the problem of electoral democracy in Uganda and, in a broader context, African politics. Indeed, whereas the transition to democratic rule had taken place in the continent following self-rule, the problem was that the process toward the consolidation of democracy had stalled, partially because of the crisis in the electoral systems. Additionally, the assumption and hope that participatory electoral democracy would bring about peace and stability became a farce, mainly because leaders manipulated the process so that they could remain in power without limitations. Elections were based on a winner-take-all or zero-sum-game principle, and political parties locked horns with great ferocity in order to win and control the national treasury and all the other privileges flowing from control of the national government. A president’s or prime minister’s power included, but was not limited to, ministerial appointments and assigning personnel to head lucrative government corporations, inter alia. There is little wonder, then, that the philosophy of some of the elected leaders of states in independent Africa was and is that only “God” can dethrone them from power. Although this contention might seem hyperbolic, the late president of Malawi, Dr. Kamuzu Banda, for example, displayed this arrogance in his country—declaring himself President for Life—with great relish and exuberance. Hiding in the shadows, as it were, of this leviathan is the military cabal, built up by political leaders for the 12

East Africa Living Encyclopedia, 7; see also Philip Briggs, Guide to Uganda (Old Saybrook, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 1996), 13–20. 13 Ugandan High Commission in Canada, 1.

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purpose of national defense but eyeing their wealthy, powerful, and privileged bosses with envy. They have in some cases taken advantage of the crisis of electoral democracy to overthrow their commander-in-chief and government. Put another way, in countries in which military coups d’état happened, they were carried out because of the electoral malpractice caused by greedy leaders who manipulated, rigged, and through violence attempted to extend their stay in power beyond the constitutionally mandated term of service. It is in this regard that I have made allusions to the issue of electoral democracy, arguing that it is a bane that impedes the process of democratic consolidation and a priori furthers violence, political instability, and the problem of political legitimacy. It is on the grounds of my preceding postulations that my following discourses on the political developments in Uganda should be understood and appreciated. As noted in my earlier prologue on the political activities that took place as part of the development toward autonomy before the official granting of self-rule to Ugandans by Britain, an election—a sort of electoral dress rehearsal—was held in 1961. This polling shuffled the political cards amongst the political parties intending to step into the shoes of the departing colonial overseers; it gave UPC a privileged position that it was not going to relinquish in later competitions without a real fight. All the same, it was the general election that was held on April 25, 1962, in preparation for full self-government on October 9, 1962, that mattered to the parties and leaders. In 1962, the autonomist Kingdom of Buganda and its Kabaka Yekka (KY) party did not participate in the election. Nevertheless, the Ugandan parliament nominated some members from the KY to the national legislature or assembly. The result of this election is illustrated in Table 2. In the parliamentary system that Britain bequeathed to her colonial dominions, political parties contested in an election, and the leader of a party with the majority votes became the prime minister. Accordingly, as shown in Table 2, the Uganda People’s Congress picked up 37 seats, the Democratic Party 24, and Kabaka Yekka was allotted 21 seats (as a compromise to keep the kingdom in the union). By this result, Milton A. Obote was the leader of UPC and constitutionally became the prime minister.

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Table 2 Party Votes % Seats ____________________________________________________________ Ugandan People’s Congress 545,324 51.8 37 Democratic Party 484,324 46.1 24 Independents 17,308 1.6 0 Uganda National Congress 2,565 0.2 0 Bataga Party of Busoga 2,375 0.2 0 Uganda National Union 39 0.0 0 Kabaka -21 ____________________________________________________________ Total 1,052,544 100 82 ____________________________________________________________ Source: D. Nohlen M. Krennerich, B. Thibaut eds. Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 934

Election is a critical feature in a democracy and democratic theory. Even so, it is one thing to conduct free and fair elections and win; it is quite another thing to govern a polity successfully if centrifugal tendencies and interests abound in the system. This is especially the case if conflicting and unbridgeable interests have strong ethnic overtones typical in multi-lingual and multi-cultural nation-states. The dilemma of electoral democracy in such a nation-state, then, is furthered by the difficulty in reconciling the numerous clashing interests that precepts of democracy could unleash in an inchoate democratic system. It would, arguably, take an unusually strong, adroit, patriotic, and pragmatic leader to accomplish the task of promoting political and social stability in a political milieu characterized by strong oppositional tendencies. Having won the 1962 election, the problem for UPC and its leader Milton Obote was how to merge the interests of the various political factions so that the country could be governed efficiently. To begin with, the UPC did not have strong taproots in metropolitan Uganda, where a large number of politically well-informed activists were domiciled. Moreover, UPC had not developed a sound unifying ideology. The major common interest at this time was how to attain home rule from London so that Ugandans could govern themselves. So it was not unusual that UPC was made up of activists to the left and to the right of the ideological continuum. The question was how the prime minister was to reconcile the interests of radical and reactionary forces in his party. Additionally, the prime minister was confronted with the task of uniting not only the country but also its powerful and fiercely independent

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partner—the Kabaka Yekka. Although adept at the game of politics, his actions were limited by the political character of Uganda. For instance, he granted Buganda some measure of legislative autonomy or “special treatment” to the chagrin of other kingdoms and other collectivities that sought a similar recognition. Such pressure from ethnic groups for their right to self-determination in what would have amounted to a system that would be federal in character did not sit well with Obote.14 It was necessary for the prime minister to take the bull by the horns in this situation since the quasi-federal nature of his government was difficult to operate after two years in power. In order to survive politically, he shrewdly used patronage and promised lucrative rewards to members of the ruling coalition. In short, he “bribed,” or more euphemistically “settled,” some members of KY and DP that he urged to cross the floor—in British political lingo—to UPC. This electoral ploy gave UPC a substantial majority of seats in parliament. Bolstered by his success, Obote moved swiftly to dissolve his party’s alliance with KY and establish a dominant one-party state.15 He saw his action as a masterstroke in political engineering as he was now able to marginalize Buganda in the nation’s politics.16 As if to teach this autonomist kingdom a lesson, such so-called “lost counties,” that were made up of Bunyoro, Buyaga, and Bugangazzi, were excised from the Kingdom of Buganda through a referendum, thus denying Buganda control over these districts; such a “punitive” act was legitimate constitutionally17 but politically risky in a multi-ethnic state seeking unity. This development created tension in the polity as it was clear that Buganda was not going to take this political slap in the face lightly; consequently, Buganda’s interests and those of Prime Minister Obote were on a collision course. The political confrontation between these forces 14 Garth Glentworth and Ian Hancock, “Obote and Amin: Change and Continuity in Modern Uganda Politics,” African Affairs, 72 (1973), 240; T. V. Sathyamurthy, Political Development in Uganda: 1900-1986 (Aldershot, UK: Gower Publishers, 1986), 470; Andy Lancaster, The Divisive Nature of Ethnicity in Ugandan Politics, Before and After Independence (E-International Relations Publishing, 2012), 7, accessed March 1, 2015 http://www.e-ir.info/2012/05/the-divisive-nature-ofethnicity-in-... 15 Amii Omara-Otunnu, Politics and the Military in Uganda, 1890-1985 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan Press, 1987), 68. 16 Kenneth Ingham, Obote: A Political Biography (London: Routledge, 1994), 95. 17 Omara-Otunnu, Politics and the Military in Uganda, 1890-1985, 69; see Ingham, Obote: A Political Biography, 97; Nelson Kasfir, The Shrinking Political Arena: Participation and Ethnicity in African Politics with a Case Study of Uganda (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976), 138–39.

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came to a climax in 1966. Indeed, before this date, the cross-carpeting of Members of Parliament (MPs) to UPC placed the ratio of representation in the Legislative Assembly as follows: UPC 74, DP 9, KY 9, and Independents 1. Indeed, there were concerns expressed about the politics of ethnicity and sectarianism in the permutation and movement of MPs to UPC—a not uncommon phenomenon in African politics. There were allegations that northern oligarchs who supported the prime minister dominated the government to the point that the propaganda pitted the north against other regions of the society in the battle for political power and control of the polity. In effect, it appeared that the political crisis was between the Kingdom of Buganda and the north.18 The battle of these titans did not augur well for this nascent democracy and brought to the fore the problem of electoral democracy in this society. In order to wield more power, Obote abrogated the 1962 constitution without sufficient consultation with the citizens and transformed his position from prime minister to that of president in the new constitution.19 Following the passage of the constitution, opposition to the government became so loud that in May 1966 a demand was made that the regime of Uganda be removed from Buganda’s land. This injunction in effect called for a secession of the kingdom.20 The antagonism between the prime minister and the king over the locus of authority in Buganda reached its peak when the president ordered King Mutesa of Buganda to be deposed on May 24, 1966 by the military under the command of Colonel Idi Amin, setting the stage for a series of political miscalculations that undermined the democratic process in this country.21 The politics of post-colonial Africa was very difficult for its newly elected leaders, and Obote was not an exception. Because of the politics of ethnicity in the various nation-states in Africa, it was necessary to unite 18 Phares Mutibwa, Uganda Since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hopes (London, Hurst Publishers, 1992), 40; Yoweri Museveni, Sowing the Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda (London: Macmillan Press, 1997), 59; Lancaster, “The Divisive Nature of Ethnicity in Ugandan Politics, Before and After Independence,” 8–10. 19 Ingham, Obote, 110. 20 Lancaster, “The Divisive Nature of Ethnicity in Uganda Politics, Before and After Independence,” 9. 21 Jan J. Jorgensen, Uganda: A Modern History (London; Croom Helm Publishers, 1981), 230; Mutibwa, Uganda Since Independence, 38; I. R. Handcock, “Patriotism and Neo-Traditionalism in Buganda: The Kabaka Yekka (‘The King Alone’) Movement, 1961-1962,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 40 (2002): 434; Ralph Tanner, “Rumour and the Buganda Emergency, 1966,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, 16 (1978): 337; Ingham, Obote, 111.

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this mosaic of diverse ethnic groupings. Before independence, they conveniently worked together to get rid of the colonial powers but this “glue theory” that united Ugandans against a common foe started to dissipate as soon as the colonial power—Britain—left. The question as to who should “wear the golden crown” either as prime minister or president came to the forefront. Applications of the politics of ethnicity by ethnic jingoists as a rallying cry in electoral democracy in order to accede to power resulted in conflicts amongst hitherto “invented” nationalists. The pressure from Buganda and its leaders on Obote was fierce, and so were those from Ankole, Bunyoro, and others. The use of constitutional amendments and invocations of new and possibly bonding or uniting ideologies, such as the “Common Man Charter” and “move to the left,” were some of the experiments that President Obote enunciated in order to tame the centrifugal nature of ethnic politics, mollify political angst, and attenuate unsteadiness in the society.22 Paradoxically, in order to solidify his grip on power, Obote started cozying up to the military that he once used problematically to silence opposition from Buganda. Soldiers from his own ethnic group were recruited as he attempted to neutralize some of the real and putative oppositional elements within the armed forces. Bringing the army too close to the governance structure at a time when political angst was brewing in the polity was dangerous. The development that followed between the military and government was similar to the allegory of the benevolent shepherd who gave North African camel shelter on a stormy and rainy day only to be kicked out of his tent by it. The relationship between President Obote and Amin, whom he rapidly promoted to general in the armed forces, became unpredictable in the 22

Mutibwa, Uganda Since Independence, 61; Akiiki B. Mujaju, “The Role of UPC as a Party of Government in Uganda,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 10, 3 (1976): 443–67; Ali A. Mazrui, Soldiers and Kinsmen in Uganda: The Making of a Military Ethnocracy (London: Sage Publication, 1975), 192; Holger B. Hansen, Ethnicity and Military Rule in Uganda (Uppsala, Sweden: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1997), 70–73; Glentworth and Handcock, “Obote and Amin: Continuity and Change in Modern Uganda Politics,” 246; T. V. Sathyamurthy, “Ugandan Politics: Convoluted Movement from Tribe to Nation,” Economic and Political Weekly, 42 (1972), 2301–04 ; Milton Obote, The Common Man’s Charter, accessed March 2, 2015 http://www.radiorhino.org/htm_material/achiv/text/press/monito/The%20common %man%chater%20ByDrAMO.htm; John S. Saul, “The Unsteady State: Uganda, Obote and General Amin,” Review of African Political Economy, 5 (1976): 30; T. V. Sathyamurthy, “The Social Base of Uganda People’s Congress 1958-1970,” African Affairs, 74, 297 (1975): 442–60.

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wake of the political turmoil in Uganda. An ambitious Amin concluded, like some of his counterparts in West Africa, that he would grab power with the claim that he could fix the political mess and economic malaise that were aggravated by the crisis of electoral democracy. This was so because his allegiance was more to the state of Uganda than to President Milton Obote—his boss.23 Consequently, he staged a coup on January 25, 1971 while Obote was away at a Commonwealth conference in Singapore.24 Besides the internal politics within the armed forces and society itself, a lesson to be learned from this development in African politics is one that I articulated elsewhere with respect to General Babangida, who arrogated to himself the title of president in Nigerian politics. I noted that “the fire of power that catapults an ambitious actor to the zenith of power could also consume a leader if he or she cannot control the embers responsible for his or her success.”25 Such was the fate of President Obote. All the same, the centrality of my discourses in this chapter and the book itself is on leadership and the problem of electoral democracy in Africa. To this end, my discussions that follow will skip an analysis of the authoritarian regime of General Idi Amin (whose peculiar sobriquet was the conqueror of the British Empire) to that of the second coming of Milton Obote in 1980 and the political elections that followed. Following the overthrow of the Idi Amin administration by the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLF), with the assistance of the Tanzania People’s Defense Force (TPDF), the UNLF established a provisional government under the leadership of Yusuf Lule that lasted for approximately two months (68 days to be precise). His regime was followed concurrently by those of Godfrey Binaisa and Paulo Muwanga, who subsequently organized an election in 1980.26 In this election, the following major political parties vied for leadership of the republic: the Democratic Party, Uganda People’s Congress, Uganda Patriotic Movement, and Conservative Party. Below is the breakdown of the polling outcome in Table 3.

23

Jorgensen, Uganda, 256; Mutibwa, Uganda since Independence, 73. Lofchie Michael, “The Uganda Coup: Class Action by the Military,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 10, 1 (1972): 19–35; Omara-Otunnu, Politics and the Military in Uganda, 1890-1985, 90. 25 E. Ike Udogu, [Book Review], Ibrahim Babangida: The Military, Politics and Power in Nigeria, Africa Today, 61, 2 (Winter 2014): 130. 26 Uganda High Commission in Canada, 1; see Ralph Uwechue (ed.), Africa Today, Third Edition (London: Africa Books Limited, 1996), 1554–57. 24

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Table 3: Obote and Ugandan General Election, 1980 Party Votes % Seat ____________________________________________________________ Democratic Party 1,966,244 47.1 50 Uganda People’s Congress 1,963,679 47.1 75 Uganda Patriotic Movement 171,785 4.1 1 Conservative Party 70,181 1.6 0 Invalid/Blank Votes 2,419 ____________________________________________________________ Total 4,174,328 100 126 ____________________________________________________________ Source: D. Nohlen, M. Krennerich & B. Thibaut eds. Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 933.

The result of the general election was a highly contested victory for the Ugandan People’s Congress (UPC), with total seats of 75, followed by the Democratic Party with 50 seats and the Uganda Patriotic Movement, which won 1 seat. The outcome of this election, which led to Milton Obote’s political resurrection, it was alleged, was fraught with fraud, coercion, and violence.27 In fact, “UPC was declared winner of [the] elections though they were marred by multiple irregularities and generally considered rigged…. [Controversially], for a second time, Obote became President of Uganda.”28 Paul K. Ssemogerere, leader of the Democratic Party (DP), disputed the result, insisting that he had won the election.29 Yoweri Museveni, the flag-bearer of the Uganda Patriotic Movement (UPM), did not accept the result of the poll either and opted to seek redress in guerrilla warfare, starting from Luwero.30 The techniques applied by the UPC in this election are outlined by John Kabaireho. According to him, the methods included, but are not limited to, “control of the electoral committee, monopoly of government 27

Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group: Uganda Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, 3. 28 Uganda High Commission in Canada, 1. 29 Nelson Kasfir, “No-party Democracy” in Uganda, Journal of Democracy, 9, 2 (1998): 49; see Sabiti Makara, “Deepening Democracy Through Multi-Partyism: The Bumpy Road to Uganda’s 2011 Elections,” Election Processes, Liberation Movements and Democratic Change in Africa Conference (Maputo, Mozambique, 8-11 April 2010), 1–26. 30 John Kabaireho, “How UPC ‘Rigged’ the 1980 Elections,” The Observer (10 December 2008), 1, accessed March 6, 2015 http://www.observer.ug/component/content/article?id=1855:how-upc...

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mass media, offering of government jobs to those who voted for UPC and harassment of the opposition.”31 These unfair practices, by a leader and his party in fixing an election, highlighted the quagmire of electoral democracy in this polity that slowed down considerably the process toward democratic consolidation in Uganda. The political tactics applied by Obote were disputed; this resistance led to civil war and the death of about half a million Ugandans in five years as President Obote battled to keep his job.32 The dogma “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” played itself out when the combatants ignored the loss of lives of fellow citizens in their quest for power. In the midst of the struggle to stay in power as president, in addition to the military putsch activities of the National Resistance Army (NRA) led by Yoweri Museveni, a coup by Obote’s Ugandan National Liberation Army overthrew his government because of the crisis of electoral democracy in the balloting of 1980. This coup happened in July 1985 under the command of General Tito Lutwa Okello. General Okello was in power through January 1986, when Museveni, the leader of the NRA, toppled him and took over the leadership of Uganda. Such was the political saga that was worsened by electoral malfeasance in Uganda.33 This development brings to the forefront the thrust of this volume and a need to seek out ways for curbing electoral malpractices in Africa. Resistance to Museveni’s autocratic leadership continued after his accession to power, thus elongating the period of national political and social uneasiness in Uganda. A civil war of sorts continued from 1987 until 1991. Museveni claimed that the society needed some time to rejuvenate after the years of dictatorship, combat, and conflict before a rebirth of democracy in the polity could take place.34 In order to mitigate ethnic politics and its conflictive character in Uganda, in 1993 the NRA moved toward the process of inventing a system whereby political parties would be banned in favor of what it termed “movement democracy” alias

31

Kabaireho, “How UPC ‘rigged’ the 1980 Elections, 1–9. Ugandan High Commission in Canada, 1. 33 Southall Aidan, “Social Disorganization in Uganda: Before, During and After Amin,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 18, 4 (1986): 627–56; Omara-Otunu Amii, “The Struggle for Democracy in Uganda,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 30, 3 (1993): 443–63. 34 Mahmood Mamdani, “Uganda in Transition: Two Years of NRA/NRM,” Third World Quarterly, 10, 3 (1988), 1155–81; Robert M. Maxon (ed.), East Africa: An Introductory History (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 1994), 262–67. 32

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“No party Democracy.”35 In this new system, the activities of political parties were curtailed while constitutional reforms were debated. A lively discussion on the efficacy of a no-party democracy for the society continued until after the 1996 election; in theory, political groupings existed but were not allowed to hold public meetings or campaign as parties. In the 1996 polling, however, Museveni won about 74 percent36 of the votes while his challenger, the veteran Paul Ssemogerere, the leader of a coalition group of DA and UPC, was second with approximately 24 percent of votes. This no-party experiment concretized Museveni’s vision of a system in which individuals ran for a political office based on personal recognizance or character rather than on the banner of “centrifugal political parties.” The result of the 1996 election is shown in Table 4. Table 4: May 9, 1996 Presidential Election Registered Votes Total Votes (Voter Turnout) Invalid/Blank Votes Total Valid Votes

8,492,231 6,193,816 (72.9%) 196,190 5,997,626

Results Candidate No. of Votes % of votes ____________________________________________________________ Yoweri Kaguta Museveni 4,458,195 74.33 Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere 1,416,140 23.61 Muhammad Kibirige Mayanja 123,291 2.06 ____________________________________________________________ Source: African Elections Database: Elections in Uganda, accessed March 2, 2015, http://africanelections.tripod.com/ug.html

35

Kasfir, “No-party Democracy in Uganda,” 50–63; Ronald Kassimir, “Reading Museveni: Structure, Agency and Pedagogy in Uganda Politics,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 33, 2/3 (1999): 649–73; see S. Makara, G. Tukahebwa and F. Byarugaba, Politics, Constitutionalism and Electioneering in Uganda (Kampala, Uganda: Makerere University Press, 1996); Giovanni Carbone, NoParty Democracy? Ugandan Politics in Comparative Perspective (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008). 36 Uwechue (ed.), Africa Today, 1562–65.

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In his critique of a no-party democracy, Kasfir notes: “Without institutions, without an ideology, and, finally, without a rationale that can justify its no-party democracy, it no longer has any existence apart from its leaders.”37 Contextually and analytically, it is against the background of the preceding conjectures that I shall make brief references to three elections dominated by President Yoweri Museveni viz. 2001, 2006 and 2011, for the purpose of illustrating the crisis of electoral democracy in Uganda. In order to elaborate on my hypothesis that leadership behavior tends to further the problem of electoral democracy in Africa and its concomitant political instability, I shall accentuate the 2006 and 2011 multi-party elections that followed Museveni’s political epiphany after a series of elections conducted under the rules of a no-party democracy or movement democracy that became unpopular.38

2001, 2006 and 2011 Elections 2001 Elections The election of 2001 was the last poll held on the basis of a no-party democracy. My reference to it is intended to provide some sort of sequence in the political developments leading to the multi-party democracy that superseded it. As in other political contests under this schema, candidates in the 2001 election ran as independents. The result of this election is shown in Table 5 below.

37

Kasfir, “No-party Democracy in Uganda,” 61. S. Makara, L. Rakner and L. Svasand, “Turnaround: the National Resistance Movement and the Re-introduction of a Multi-party System in Uganda,” International Political Science Review, 30, 2 (2009): 185–204. 38

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Table 5: Presidential Election 2001 Registered Voters 10,775,836 Total Votes (Voter Turnout) 7,576,144 Invalid/Blank Votes 186,453 Total Valid Votes 7,389,691 Results Candidates Votes % of Votes ____________________________________________________________ Yoweri Museveni 5,123,360 69.33 Kizza Besigye 2, 055,795 27.82 Aggrey Awori 103,915 1.41 Kibirige Mayanja 73,790 1.00 Francis Bwengye 22,751 0.31 Karuhanga Chapaa 10,080 0.14 Invalid/Blank Votes 186,453 ____________________________________________________________ Total 7,576,144 100 ____________________________________________________________ Source: Elections in Uganda, African Elections Database, accessed March 6, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/ug.html

As had been the tradition, Museveni won easily in the 2001 no-party ballot with 69.33% of the votes; Besigye came second with 27.82% of the votes. Others had less than 2% of the votes. A number of reasons contributed to the government’s decision to revert to a multi-party democracy given the fact that Museveni’s power was never threatened in the no-party electoral schema. This change happened even after President Museveni had noted in the past that the banes—violence and the crisis of electoral democracy— in the Ugandan political system were due in part to political competitions defined by centrifugal ethnic politics. The vexing impact of incessant clashes between the prominent Kingdom of Buganda and the government itself did not help matters either. From the 1980s to the 2000s, much political water flowed under the bridge, not only in Ugandan politics but also in global affairs. As noted previously, the collapse of communism in the USSR and the triumphalism of democracy globally offered a fresh and exciting moment for “political new thinking.” Authoritarian leaders and regimes saw the need to open up the political spaces in the developing world where autocratic leaders governed with an iron fist and faced little, if any, overt political resistance. It was against the preceding background and internal developments in Uganda that the experiment of a “no-party democracy” died after 20 years

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or so. The 2006 and 2011 elections, as noted earlier, form the basis of my discussions on the issue of electoral democracy in Uganda.

2006 Elections My analysis of the 2006 elections is mined from the refreshing work and testimony based on a collaborative work between the Departments of Political Science and Public Administration, Public and Comparative Law at Makerere University, Kampala and the Chr. Michelson Institute in Bergen, Norway.39 I drew my analytic sap and strength from other sources, too.40 In general, I distilled this impressive and elaborate report emphasizing, in the main, the role of leadership and the crisis of electoral democracy in Uganda. In particular, I make major allusions to the presidential and not parliamentary elections. Apropos my study, the report declared that The project analyses the development of democratic processes in Uganda by focusing on institutions aimed at securing democratic accountability. To ensure that elected political leaders “play by the rules” and act in accordance with their mandate without violating citizens’ rights is a key challenge for new democracies in sub-Saharan Africa, and elections and succession “test” the strength of political institutions to check against executive dominance. In many cases incumbents find ways [frequently unlawful and unconstitutional ways] to win electoral mandates without opening for genuine political competition, and we ask to what extent the institutions established to guard against executive dominance in Uganda were able to exercise their functions in the context of the 2006 elections…. The quality and impartiality of the electoral administration is central for whether an election is seen as a legitimate process for delegation of authority from citizens to representatives. In new democracies the organization of the electoral process is often characterized by ambiguous rules and problems associated with enforcement of the rules [with judges

39

S. Gloppen, C. Atoo, E. Kasimbazi, A. Kibandama, J. Kiiza, S. Makara, G. Okiror, L. Rakner, S. Rwengabo, L. Svasand, R. Tabaro, A. Tostensen, “Uganda’s 2006 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections,” CMI Reports (Bergen, Norway: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2006), 1; S. Makara, “Uganda’s 2006 Multi-party Elections: Consolidating Democracy and Building Peace? East African Journal of Peace & Human Rights, 13, 1 (2007): 54–80. 40 Julius Kiiza, et al. Electoral Democracy in Uganda: Understanding the Institutional Processes and the Outcomes of the 2006 Multi-Party Elections (Kampala, Uganda: Fountain Publishers, 2008).

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Chapter Six often siding with the incumbent leader, who appointed them to judgeship, if they wish to keep their jobs]. 41

In truth, the entire edifice of my arguments in this chapter and text rests partially on the preceding postulations and how the leaders of Africa need to tackle these issues in the twenty-first century. An efficient administration of the electoral procedure has been a source of contention in this polity as in much of Africa but the integrity of the electoral organization in any election is critically important in order to further the legitimacy of electoral outcomes. Arguably, when the president appoints members of the electoral commission and has the power to sack them as well, it creates a situation where it might be difficult for members of an electoral board to rule against their boss in an election regardless of their claims of impartiality. My preceding thesis makes more severe the issue of electoral democracy in Uganda. This is so because the result of an election declared by an electoral board that is appointed by the president in favor of the president may be contested given the constancy of electoral malpractices in this polity. Opposition parties have found this arrangement in Uganda not only problematic but also unacceptable in spite of constitutional guarantees that demand that members of the commission must be independent and impartial.42 Indeed, tenets in the 1995 constitution as amended in 2005 that established and outlined the character of this important electoral body are enshrined in Articles 60 and 61. Article 60: Electoral Commission. (1) There shall be an Electoral Commission which shall consist of a chairperson, a deputy chairperson and five other members appointed by the President with the approval of Parliament. (2) Members of the commission shall be persons of high moral character, proven integrity and who possess considerable experience and demonstrated competence in the conduct of public affairs. (3) The members of the commission shall hold office for seven years, and their appointment may be renewed for one more term only. (4) If the appointment of a member of the commission is being renewed, the renewal shall be done at least three months before the expiry of the first term.

41 42

Gloppen, et al. “Uganda’s 2006 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections,” 1. Gloppen, et al. “Uganda’s 2006 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections,” 2.

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(5) A person holding any of the following offices shall relinquish his or her position in that office on appointment as a member of the commission— (a) a member of Parliament; (b) a member of a local government council; (c) a member of the executive of a political party or political organisation; or (d) a public officer. (6) Members of the commission shall be paid such emoluments as Parliament may determine. (7) If a member of the commission is absent or dies, the President shall, with the approval of Parliament, appoint a person qualified in terms of this article to act in his or her place until that person is able again to resume his or her duties or, as the case may be, until a new person is appointed to fill the vacancy. (8) A member of the commission may be removed from office by the President only for— (a) inability to perform the functions of his or her office arising out of physical or mental incapacity; (b) misbehaviour or misconduct; or (c) incompetence. Article 61: Functions of the Electoral Commission. (1) The Electoral Commission shall have the following functions— (a) to ensure that regular, free and fair elections are held; (b) to organize, conduct and supervise elections and referenda in accordance with this constitution; (c) to demarcate constituencies in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution; (d) to ascertain, publish and declare in writing under its seal the results of the elections and referenda; (e) to compile, maintain, revise and update the voters register; (f) to hear and determine election complaints arising before and during polling; (g) to formulate and implement voter educational programmes relating to elections; and (h) to perform such other functions as may be prescribed by Parliament by law. (2) The Electoral Commission shall hold presidential, general parliamentary and local government council elections within the first

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thirty days of the last ninety days before the expiration of the term of the President. (3) Except where it is impracticable to do so, the Electoral Commission shall hold presidential, general parliamentary and local government council elections on the same day. (4) Subject to this Constitution, the Electoral Commission shall, in accordance with the law, determine the dates for holding the elections referred to in clause (2).43 The contents of Articles 60 and 61 of the constitution are striking in terms of the composition and functions of an Electoral Commission. What is troubling, however, is that no matter how well-crafted a constitution might be, it is the judicious implementation of its canons that have troubled political observers, analysts, and scholars. For example, Article 60 (1) states that “There shall be an Electoral Commission which shall consist of a chairperson, a deputy chairperson and five other members appointed by the President with the approval of Parliament;” and Article 61 (1a) avers that “One of the functions of the Commission will be to ensure that regular, free and fair elections are held.” As argued earlier, the appointment of members of the commission by the President and consequent approval by Parliament dominated by the President’s party is problematic and not reassuring. This is particularly so since in this case, President Museveni, who was given the power constitutionally to appoint these personnel, has been in power since the 1980s. He was likely to appoint those who are ideologically in sync with him or at least show favor towards his party in part because they are paid from the coffers controlled by the leader or presidency. Indeed, the maxim “he who pays the piper names the tune” approximates my view on this matter in this genre of politics. Let’s examine, for example, the outcomes of the 2006 presidential election that pitted the incumbent president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of the powerful National Resistance Movement Organization (NRM-O) against the following candidates: Kizza Besigye, Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), John Ssebaana Kizito, Democratic Party (DP), Abed Bwanika, Independent, and Miria Obote, Ugandan People’s Congress (UPC), mainly. The result of this election is presented in Table 6.

43

See Constitution of the Republic of Uganda Amended by the Constitution (Amendment) Act 11/2005 and the Constitution (Amendment) (No. 2) Act. 21/2005, accessed March 10, 2015, www.opm.ug/assets/media/resources/6/Constitution.pdf

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Table 6: February 23, 2006 Presidential Election Registered Voters 10,450,788 Total Votes (Vote Turnout) 7,230,456 (69%) Invalid/Blank Votes 295,526 Total Valid Votes 6,934,931 ____________________________________________________________ Candidate (Party) Number of Votes % ____________________________________________________________ Yoweri K. Museveni (NRM) 4,109,449 59.26 Kizza Besigye (FDC) 2,592,954 37.39 John Ssebaana Kizito (DP) 109,583 1.58 Abed Bwanika (Independent) 65,874 0.95 Miria Obote (UPC) 57,071 0.82 ____________________________________________________________ Sources: African Elections Database: Elections in Uganda, accessed March 10, 2015, http://africanelections.tripod.com/ug.html; S. Gloppen et al. Uganda’s 2006 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections. Bergen, Norway: CMI CHR. Michelsen Institute, 2006, 4.

The result of the 2006 election was a resounding victory for the incumbent president, who garnered 59 percent of the votes compared to his closest rival and former protégé, Kizza Besigye, who got 37 percent. Denis Campbell, reporting on the outcome of the poll and reactions to the election after, stated that Uganda is in turmoil after its opposition leader refused to accept the result of the country’s general election which returned autocratic President Yoweri Museveni to power, claiming that fraud and intimidation hindered the poll. Kizza Besigye, leader of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change, rejected the official results of the poll giving him 37 percent of votes cast to Museveni’s 59 percent, as violence flared between his supporters and security forces in the capital Kampala. European Union and independent Ugandan observers said the campaign and ballot had been blighted by government interference, spurious criminal charges laid against Besigye and problems with Voter Registration, and could not be described as a fair and free contest [contrary to the tenet of Article 61 (1a) of the constitution].44

44

Denis Campbell, “Uganda Hit by Violence as Opposition Claims Election Fraud,” accessed March 10, 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/26/uganda.deniscampbell

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But how did this election come to be such a farce? Indeed, President Museveni was quite confident, and determined that he was going to rule Uganda come hell or high water. He even asserted with a sense of entitlement and proverbially that, “It’s me who hunted [an elephant] and after killing the animal, they want me to go. Where should I go?”45 Even so, this development in Uganda and much of African politics could be explained within the context of privilege theory. This theory contends that “those who enjoy a position of privilege would do whatever it takes (e.g., rig elections) to maintain their position of advantage.”46 Museveni had been in power since 1986 and had acted as the midwife to the democratic trajectory in Uganda. He had done so to suit his interests and those of his associates, and very much like the character in a privilege clique, he continued to manipulate the system to suit his interests and those of his close subordinates. For instance, when he acceded to power in 1986, he suspended political activities. He did so on the basis that the system needed some time to rehabilitate following the many years of political instability and rigged elections in the wake of Milton Obote’s political resurrection in 1980 and the five years of civil war. Later, he instituted what he dubbed a Movement System alias No-Party Democracy, based on the argument that multi-party democracy with its ethnic undertones was too divisive. In all of these changes to the political system, he continued to dominate the political landscape. And the coup de grace was the abandonment of the two-term limit on presidential office. This change meant that Museveni could stand for presidential elections that he was sure to win indefinitely. Having been in office for about two decades, he was not only adept at the country’s politics but also used his effective political contraptions to retain power to the frustration of opposition groups, thus intensifying the crisis of electoral democracy in this polity. Such was the case when Museveni accused his staunchest political opponent of all sorts of trumped-up anti-regime and society crimes; he did so by applying, as it were, Niccolo Machiavelli’s dictum “the end justifies the means.” To teach Besigye a lesson, he was accused of fraud, rape, treason, etc., and 45

Cited in Aili Mari Trip, Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010), 1. 46 Sambuddha Ghatak and E. Ike Udogu, Human Rights Issues of Minorities in Contemporary India: A Concise Analysis,” Journal of Third World Studies, 29, 1 (Spring 2012): 206; Pita O. Agbese and E. Ike Udogu, “Taming of the Shrew: Civil-Military Politics in the Fourth Republic,” in Nigeria in the Twenty-First Century: Strategies for Political Stability and Peaceful Coexistence, ed. E. Ike Udogu (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 23–25.

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locked up in detention such that he spent more time defending himself in court than campaigning for the 2006 presidential election. Moreover, it was alleged that in “personal interviews with the EC (Electoral Commission), officials suggested that the EC [appointed by the President as authorized in Article 60 (1)] was under pressure from state house officials and that President Museveni had met with the EC Chairman and asked him not to accept Besigye’s nomination. The sources suggested that the AG (Attorney-General) was acting on the advice [and behest] of the President to issue the controversial advice.”47 Besigye, the leader of the main opposition party (FDC), rejected the outcome of the 2006 polling due in part to irregularities. The Supreme Court, in a judgment passed on April 6, 2006, weighed into the matter of electoral malfeasance and criticized the EC for its ineffectiveness in implementing key aspects of the electoral law. Accordingly, in a petition on the presidential election filed by the opposition party, the Supreme Court noted, inter alia We find that there was non-compliance with the provisions of the Constitution, Presidential Elections Act and the Electoral Commission Act, in the conduct of the 2006 Presidential Elections, by the 1st Respondent [Electoral Commission] in the following instances: x In disenfranchisement of voters by deleting their names from the voters’ register or denying them the right to vote. x In the counting and tallying of results.

The Court further noted that We find that there was non-compliance with the principles laid down in the Constitution, the Presidential Elections Act, and the Electoral Commission Act in the following areas: x The principle of free and fair elections was compromised by bribery and intimidation or violence in some areas of the country. x The principles of equal suffrage, transparency of the vote, and secrecy of the ballot were undermined by multiple voting, and vote stuffing in some areas.48

In truth, the preceding manipulations of the electoral system, as noted by the Court, in Uganda underscore the problematic role of leadership and the dilemma of electoral democracy in Uganda that is a central concern of 47

Gloppen, et al. Uganda’s 2006 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, 14– 15. 48 Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 5.

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this volume. It is safe to suggest that the wise would learn from past mistakes with a view to fixing them. In Africa, however, this supposition seldom works in politics because political control is where leaders and their supporters acquire so much wealth and prestige. Even President Museveni once proclaimed that “the problems of Africa, and Uganda in particular, are caused by leaders who overstay in power.”49 Ironically, he became an apostate because of the attraction of power. The above behavioral patterns are commonplace among African political leaders since absolute power, to quote Lord Acton, tends to corrupt absolutely. Little wonder, then, that despite the troublesome presidential election of 2006, suggestions as to how elections in this country could be improved fell on deaf ears.50 In fact, such was the case with respect to the 2011 presidential election, which led Sabiti Makara to pose a knotty and yet salient query: “Does electioneering [at this juncture of African politics] necessarily produce democratic governance [if leaders are unwilling to govern within the rule of law]?”51

2011 Presidential Election Suffice it to say that my succeeding discourses are drawn from the comprehensive report on this election chronicled by the Commonwealth Secretariat. The British Commonwealth is made up of Britain and an amalgam or collection of her former colonies, of which Uganda is a member. Consequently, its report is arguably authentic and authoritative. My reference to this source, and others, is aimed at bringing to the forefront the extent to which some political leaders in Africa have increased the crisis of electoral democracy and impeded the trajectory toward democratic consolidation in the process. The second multi-party presidential election in Uganda was held on February 18, 2011. The major candidates were Kizza Besigye of InterParty Cooperation (IPC)—a party composed of a group of opposition parties that included the Justice Forum, Conservative Party (CP), and 49

Josh Kron, “President of Uganda Coasts into a Fourth Term,” The New Times (February 20, 2011), 1, accessed March 11 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/world/africa/21uganda.html?_r=0; Richard M. Kavuma, “Uganda’s Presidential Elections Are in Danger of Being a Political Ritual,” The Guardian (Wednesday 26 January 2011), 1, accessed March 11, 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2... 50 Makara, “Deepening Democracy Through Multi-Partyism,” 1–26. 51 Makara, “Deepening Democracy Through Multi-Partyism,” 1.

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Social Democratic Party (SDP)—that later fragmented before the election; Abed Bwanika, People’s Development Party (PDP); Beti Olive Kamya, Uganda Federal Alliance (UFA); Samuel Lubega, Independent; Norbet Mao, Democratic Party (DP); Bidandi Ssali, People’s Progress Party (PPP); and Yoweri Museveni, National Resistance Movement (NRM).52 In this election, as in previous ones, Museveni won easily. The result is presented in Table 7. Table 7: February 18, 2011 Presidential Election Registered Votes Total Votes (Voter Turnout) Invalid/Blank Votes Total Valid Votes

13,954,129 8,272,760 (59.3%) 334,548 7,936,212

Results Candidate No. of Votes % of Votes ____________________________________________________________ Yoweri K. Museveni (NRM) 5,428,369 68.38 Kizza Besigye (IPC) 2,064,963 26.01 Norbert Mao (DP) 917 1.86 Olara Otunnu (UPC) 125,059 1.58 Beti Olive Kamya (UFA) 52,782 0.66 Abed Bwanika (PDP) 51,708 0.65 Jaberi Bidandi Ssali (PPP) 34,688 0.44 Samuel Lubega (Independent) 32,726 0.41 ____________________________________________________________ Sources: Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group: Uganda Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, Commonwealth Secretariat (18 February 2011), 36; African Elections Database: Elections in Uganda, accessed March 9, 2015 http://africanelections.tripod.com/ug.html

Analyzing the problem of electoral democracy in the 2001 and 2006 elections and reflecting on the 2001 election in particular, Kavuma noted the following: If anyone thought that, after the embarrassment of a court case, the ruling party would not try to rig elections again, they are in for a [rude] surprise. Last August’s [2011] NRM primaries for parliamentary and local elections were so fraught with allegations of rigging that 500 contestants petitioned the party’s electoral committee and one tabloid cheekily declared: ‘NRM 52

Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 20–21.

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rigs own polls.’ If they can rig internal elections, it is hard to imagine they will play by the rules against opponents from other parties.53

To be sure, President Museveni also accused the opposition parties of rigging the polls.54 In any case, the NRM would be politically foolish to be out-rigged by its opponents in a contest in which politicians had spent so much cash buying votes. Indeed, they had to replenish their coffers or at least recoup some of their investment while in office by way of corruption and other vices. It could be argued that since President Museveni did not publicly and stoutly censure this malfeasance in the electoral process, he was an accomplice in the advancement of political instability in this polity. Such a leader’s acquiescence to electoral malpractice in Uganda negates the process of deepening democracy and democratic consolidation. The report of the Commonwealth Observer Group on the irregularities of the 2011 poll was so reflective of the character and problem of electoral democracy in Uganda and much of Africa today, it is worth reproducing verbatim: Use of Money The NRM, the ruling party in Uganda, is by far the largest and bestresourced and, after many years in power, elements of the state structure are synonymous with the party. Reports of “commercialization of politics” through the distribution of vast amounts of money and gifts were most disturbing. Numerous allegations were made that, during campaigns, many candidates distributed cash and other direct benefits to voters (such as refreshments and food, cooking oil, salt, sugar, soap and blankets).55 According to a study by DEMGroup [Democracy Monitoring Group], the use of money in elections has become a culture in Uganda and voters have become accustomed to receiving bribes for their support. However, section 64 of the Presidential Elections Act and section 68 of the Parliamentary Act [on paper] prohibit a candidate from giving or providing any money, gift or any other consideration to a voter. Violation constitutes the offence of bribery and the accused on conviction is liable to a fine not exceeding seventy-two currency points (1,440,000 Ugandan shillings— UGX) or imprisonment not exceeding three years or both. Abuse of Incumbency 53

Kavuma, “Uganda’s Presidential Elections Are in Danger of Being a Political Ritual,” 1. 54 Ibid. 55 Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz and Carolyne Logan, “Museveni and the 2011 Uganda Elections: Did the Money Matter?” Journal of Modern African Studies, 50, 4 (December 2012), 625–55.

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With significant larger resources at its command, the NRM was dominant in all aspects of campaigning, taking maximum advantage of government resources and patronage, vehicles and personnel. Indeed, the “money factor” and widespread allegations of bribery and other more subtle forms of buying allegiance were key features of the political campaign. NRM also received massive coverage on state television and radio.56

The foregoing synopsis of the manner in which electoral democracy was and is manipulated in Uganda is also similar to the practice in many African countries. What exacerbates the problem of electoral democracy in this continent are the disdain for the rule of law, and weak political institutions and structures. Oftentimes provisions of the constitution relating to free and fair elections are flouted with the support of the President and, oddly, judges of the courts, who generally serve at the behest of the President. Indeed, judges do attempt to protect their boss with whom they sometimes have much in common—i.e., members of the same church/religion, secret organizations, and ethnic groups, just to list a few. Moreover, these political chiefs control the apparatus of violence, such as the law enforcement agencies, which they regularly use with reckless abandon to oppress their opponents. Additionally, Patience Akumu provides an illuminating summary of the conditions in Uganda, and some African countries today, that epitomizes the condition that makes it possible for political leaders to manipulate a polity and for ordinary citizens to sell their votes to the highest bidder when she notes, “The reality is that Ugandans have been beaten into docility by hunger, disease, poverty and sheer need. The unprecedented rise in the cost of living and the deplorable state of hospitals have put the people in the exact position that Museveni and his cronies want them to be—a place where many are too worried about their next meal to care about abstract political ideas and rights.”57 She could very well have been describing the conditions that led to the problem and crisis of electoral democracy in Liberia, Burundi, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Cameroon, Nigeria, Gabon, and so on. These are some of the societies where the lack of adequate education leaves the poor in perpetual penury and susceptible to vote-selling and violence during and after electoral contestations. Commotions in these polities have frequently resulted in political malaise. 56

Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 19 & 23. Akumu, “Uganda: Rigged Elections and Mysterious Killings…It’s the Mugabe Script with a Different Cast,” The Guardian, 3, accessed March 12, 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/uganda-yoweri-mu... 57

CHAPTER SEVEN ANGOLA AND THE CRISIS OF ELECTORAL DEMOCRACY

Brief History The first group to settle the modern territory called Angola was the socalled Bushmen; they were small in stature. However, at the commencement of the 6th century, this collective was displaced by an advanced Bantu group with sophisticated iron-smelting technology and agricultural knowhow.1 A settlement of the Bantu in this area took many centuries; they eventually mixed with other settlements so much so that the polity became an amalgam of groupings that interacted freely with each other in trade and commerce. This mosaic of different ethnic collectivities later developed mini kingdoms in attempts to manage their affairs. The most significant of these kingdoms, however, was the kingdom of Kongo, which developed in the 13th and 14th centuries, and stretched from modern Gabon to the Kwanza River in the south and from the Atlantic in the west to Cuango River to the east. Monarchs of this great kingdom established smaller provinces, instituted currencies with which it traded, and collected taxes for the administration of this “quasi-federal” system. The Kongo kingdom grew so rapidly that it had become one of the strongest in the west coast of Africa by mid-15th century.2 1 Mike Stead and Sean Rorison, Angola (Guilford, CT: The Global Pequot Press, Inc., 2012), 4; Charles H. Cutter, The World Today Series: Africa 2000 (Harpers, Ferry, WV: Stryker-Post Publication, 2003), 85; The Embassy of the Republic of Angola—History, 1–2, accessed March 21, 2015 http://www.angola.org/index.php?page=history 2 Stead and Rorison, Angola, 4; The Embassy of the Republic of Angola—History, 1; see Thomas Cullelo, ed., Angola: A Country Study (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, 1991), 5–17; David M. Abshire and Michael Samuels eds. Portuguese Africa: A Handbook (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969); Basil Davidson, In the Eye of the Storm, Angola’s People (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1974); James Duffy, Portugal in Africa (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962); F. Egerton and C. Clement, Angola in Perspective:

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It was in 1482 that the Portuguese explorer Diego Cao arrived in modern Congo with his caravels. Indeed, other explorers arrived in this area in their mission to promote profitable trade with the kingdom while some engaged in the spread of Christianity. In the process of developing a relationship with the kingdom, Portuguese commercialists exchanged or bartered firearms with the king for slaves, ivory, and minerals. Ironically, in as much as the Portuguese had fancied the newly discovered gold as a source of wealth, they were not disappointed in the financial success scored in an even more lucrative business—the trade in African slaves. It has been noted that in the quest for resources and wealth, Luanda [the modern capital] was settled in the mid-16th century by the Portuguese explorer Paulo Dias de Novais. De Novais was the grandson of the renowned Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias… In 1571, the King Dom Sebastiao of Portugal dispatched him to Angola appointing him Conqueror and Governor of the Kingdom of Angola and granting him and his descendants the rights to 35 leagues of land south of the Kwanza River and whatever he could grab in the interior… He arrived with a hundred families of colonists and four hundred soldiers.3

The news of the vast prosperity that these Portuguese enjoyed in Angola was so tantalizing that it whetted the commercial appetite of the Dutch, Spanish, and French, who were determined not to be left out in this beneficial and gainful adventure. Nevertheless, it was the Dutch who seized the moment in 1641 when Admiral Pedro Houtbeen, who traveled to the Portuguese establishment with his convoy of 18 boats, sacked Luanda with his retinue. In panic, the Governor of Luanda fled north. From 1641 to 1648, the Dutch occupied the city. Partially because of the lost prestige and revenue, the King of Portugal sent an expedition to rout the Dutch under the command of Salvador Correa de Sa e Benevides from Brazil, thus making Angola a Portuguese and Brazilian colony in a peculiar history of foreign domination of Africa.4

Endeavour and Achievement in Portuguese West Africa (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Publisher, 1957); U.S. Department of the Army, Area Handbook for Angola (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979). 3 Stead and Rorison, Angola, 4; The Embassy of the Republic of Angola, 1; Thomas Okuma, Angola in Ferment: Background and Prospects of Angolan Nationalism (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1962), 5–18. 4 Stead and Rorison, Angola, 4; Fernando Andresen Guimaraes, The Origins of the Angolan Civil War: Foreign Intervention and Domestic Political Conflict (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 3.

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The preceding victory galvanized Portugal into action and she conquered more territories inland and extended her suzerainty over the Kongo and Ndongo territories, for example. Even before the abolition of the slave trade in 1836, Portugal had started an intensive commercial business in the area as a substitute. It was, however, only after the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, when European powers met to carve up the continent into their spheres of influence in order to mitigate wars amongst themselves, that Angola fully became a Portuguese colony. It followed, too, that “the territory of Cabinda, to the north of river Zaire, was also ceded to Portugal on a legal basis of the Treaty of Simulambuco Protectorate, concluded between the Portuguese Crown and the princes of Cabinda in 1885.”5 However, it was not until 1930 that the complete “conquest” of the territory by Portugal was fully realized. It was from here on that Portugal’s aim was to integrate Angola economically, socially and politically with the motherland to the point where even traditional Angolan names of towns were changed to Portuguese names. After WWII, more than a quarter of a million Portuguese [immigrated] to Angola where they took ownership of the plantations and dominated not only the economy but also the administration. In 1951, the colony was given the [title] overseas province and was also known as Portuguese West Africa.6

All the same, following World War Two (WWII), African nationalists began to agitate loudly for home rule from colonial overseers. In Anglophone Africa, the campaigning was quite loud and even violent, as in Kenya and elsewhere. But in Francophone and Lusophone Africa, the struggle for self-rule by African nationalists was somewhat knotty because of the Portuguese and French colonial policy of assimilation. Their colonies in Africa were overseas provinces—an extension of France and Portugal. In short, Africans in these provinces, though domiciled in Africa, were, notionally, French and Portuguese. Possibly the clamor for independence from Francophone and Lusophone nationalists would have been less vociferous if Anglophone nationalists in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, for instance, had been less voluble. But again there might have been an assumption on the part of Paris and Lisbon that African membership in the French and Portuguese societies was enticing enough that it would be foolish for African French and Portuguese citizens to seek 5

The Embassy of the Republic of Angola—History, 1. Stead and Rorison, Angola, 6; see The Embassy of the Republic of Angola, 1; Antonio De Figueiredo, “The Case Against Portugal,” in Angola: A Symposium View of a Revolt (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 48. 6

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independence and political divorce. Even so, nationalists in Angola thought otherwise—as sovereignty was their goal. In a colonial setting and arrangement of this kind, especially one that was lucrative to the colonizer—Portugal in this instance—relinquishing its territories was not going to be easy; the flames for the right to self-determination could be difficult to extinguish. Accordingly, starting in the early 1960s, Angolan nationalists began to organize for what would later become protracted guerrilla warfare for independence from Portugal.7 The Party of the United Struggle for Africans in Angola was the earliest nationalist faction to call for independence. It was founded in 1953. The Angola Communist Party was inaugurated in 1955. Other dominant parties were as follows: x x

x

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) led by Agostinho Neto, with a base among Kimbundu and the mixed-race intelligentsia of Luanda, and links to the communist parties in Portugal and the East bloc. The National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto, with an ethnic base in the Bakongo region of the north and links to the United States and the Mobutu regime in Kinshasa (Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo). The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), led by Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, with an ethnic and regional base in the Ovimbundu heartland in the center of the country and links to the People’s Republic of China and apartheid South Africa.8

These political groupings were determined to seek their right to national self-determination, each in its own way based on the anticipated rewards that awaited the group that captured power from Portugal. Be that as it may, it has been suggested that a number of highly inflammable issues galvanized Angolans into the action against Portugal that eventually led to the war of liberation. These factors included, but are not limited to, 7

Thomas Okuma, Angola in Ferment: The Background and Prospects of Angolan Nationalism, 95–102; Adebayo O. Oyebade, Culture and Customs of Angola (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 24–26; R. H. Chilcote, ed. Protest and Resistance in Angola and Brazil (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972); A. J. Klinghoffer, The Angolan War: A Study in Soviet Policy in the Third World (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1980); J. A. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution: Volume II, Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare, 1962-1976 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978); John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1978). 8 “A Brief History of Angola—Part 1,” 2, accessed March 21, 2015, http://africanhistory.about.com/od/angola/p/AngolaHist1.htm; Cutter, The World Today Series, 85.

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the uprising of cotton workers in Malanje in January 1961 as a result of the following: inadequate conditions of labor; a concerted effort to free political prisoners incarcerated in Luanda in early 1961; and the repression and then atrocious and merciless massacre by the Portuguese of citizens in the Baixa de Cassange region of the northeast, where several thousands were killed and others died of starvation.9 These cruel actions were intended to teach agitators a lesson, and to warn Angolans that Lisbon would not brook any opposition from trouble makers. But it was difficult for Portugal to extinguish the incandescence or fire in the struggle for selfgovernment from the 1960s to the 1970s. The war to emancipate Angola from Portugal was a long one. Complicating the situation for Lisbon was the fact that she was involved in wars in her other colonies (Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau) that equally sought independence from Portugal. The dictator, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, had issued his doctrine of 1926 in which any discussion relating to the colonial issue was banned. Moreover, it was noted that the constitution averred that “all Portuguese possessions are Provinces of a single nation, and the mere suggestion of secession is therefore treasonable.”10 The war of liberation drained Portugal of its financial resources and the moral strength of its soldiers, who were fighting a protracted war that was difficult to win. Accordingly, the military sought a way out of the quagmire, which turned out to be a coup in Portugal on April 25, 1974.11 General Antonio de Spinola, who replaced Prime Minister Caetano, moved swiftly to grant independence to Portuguese colonies in Africa in November 1975 in order to end the war. Meanwhile, power was transferred to the three major factions that had fought strenuously to free Angola from the yoke of colonialism—the MPLA, UNITA, and FLNA— as the final details of the plans for the official transfer of power were being worked out. Problematically, as soon as Lisbon de facto gave up Angola, the MPLA, whose stronghold was in Luanda at this propitious moment, proclaimed the birth of the People’s Republic of Angola. Not to be outstaged, as it were, UNITA and the FNLA collaboratively announced the formation of their own republic—the Democratic People’s Republic of

9

J. A. Marcum, The Angolan Revolution, Volume 1: Anatomy of an Explosion 1950-1962 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969), 124–54. 10 De Figueiredo, “The Case against Portugal,” in Angola, 48. 11 Cutter, The World Today, 85; Stead and Rorison, Angola, 7; Guimaraes, The Origins of the Angolan Civil War, xiv.

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Angola.12 By these declarations, these competing parties—the MPLA, UNITA and the FNLA—succeeded in setting up rival regimes. This scenario led to political and military confrontations between these factions as to which group/s would govern the polity. The political confusion led to discussions about how to thrash out their differences before the de jure handover of government to Angolans in a meeting held in Kenya. On paper, they agreed to work collaboratively for the good of the country. On January 10, 1975, the three major combatant groups met in Portugal to sign the Alvor Agreement, after 14 years of bitter armed struggle against Portuguese rule. The terms of the agreement included a provision to “grant independence to Angola on 11 November 1975 after elections in October 1975.”13 Unfortunately, this accord was only good in theory since the groups eyed each other with mutual suspicion. Indeed, it appeared that after the long war against a mutual protagonist and with the death of many compatriots in the war, each of the factions wanted a substantial reward for their hard-fought battle. Also, partially because of the support given to these groups by foreign powers, the clash of interests between these political factions was so exacerbated it led to several years of internal civil war, which eventually ended in a victory for the MPLA over its rivals UNITA and the FNLA.14 This chapter is not about the history of Angola’s colonization, struggle for independence, and civil war after Lisbon’s granting of home rule per se. It is about the role of leadership and the crisis of electoral democracy in this country following self-government. Thus, the preceding brief history is only intended to provide background information that is helpful to understanding the complexities of elections in a country with clashing regional, ideological, and ethnic undertones. It is the fixing of elections in order to achieve the desired result by leaders and parties, mainly, that have, in part, resulted in political unrest and even civil war, with the death of so many citizens, that is central to this chapter. In the following discourses, I shall examine some of the major elections held in the country. Also, I will highlight how the character of elections in Angola has impeded the advancement toward democratic 12

Paula Christina Roque, “Angola’s Façade Democracy,” Journal of Democracy, 2, 4 (October 2009): 138. 13 Stead and Rorison, Angola, 7. 14 Guimaraes, The Origins of the Angolan Civil War, 93–113; Cutter, The World Today, 85–89; Stead and Rorison, Angola, 8–13; Oyebade, Culture and Customs of Angola, 26–29; Ana Catarina Clemente-Kersten, “Angola,” in Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook, edited by Dieter Nohlen, Bernard Thibaut and Michael Krennerich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 65.

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consolidation and how the quest to control power by its leader and subordinates has made electoral dilemma more severe in this society. An outcome of these electoral quagmires is an obstacle to the desire for peaceful coexistence amongst its ethnic cleavages.

Elections in Angola Following the granting of independence to Angola and the civil war that ensued after the granting of home rule, the modality for the governance of Angola was crafted. Having played the dominant role in the liberation process and having defeated UNITA and the FNLA in a civil war, the MPLA moved swiftly to control power. Two elections were conducted in 1980 and 1986 under the rules of a single-party system, a la the Marxist-Leninist communist party model.15 Consequently, government functionaries were mainly party members of the MPLA-PT (i.e., MPLAworkers party). In this way, the strategy was to consolidate its hold on power and society. As a vanguard party, its right to rule, it was argued, cannot in essence be legitimately questioned. In view of my preceding conjectures, I shall present a cursory analysis of a Marxist single-party system. This is so since my emphasis is on the issue of elections in a multi-party state, and the crisis that often emerged before and followed after electoral contestations. Furthermore, my discussions will expose the role of the leadership and problems of electoral democracy in this polity in 1992 after Angola’s adoption of a multi-party democracy. My hypothesis relates to the notion that it is the lack of fair and free elections generally orchestrated by leaders of political parties, but mainly the party in government, at this stage of democratic development that impedes democratic consolidation. In particular, my discussions will center on the 1992, 2008, and 2012 multi-party presidential elections. In the main, in African political competition today, whoever wins the trophy as president or prime minister also controls the national treasury, and this is one reason why the battle between political parties can be virulent, violent, and disruptive, as was the case in Ivory Coast, South Sudan, and Burundi, for example.

1992 Presidental Election: Implications for the Society As noted earlier, the 1992 election was the first multi-party contest in a country that had been racked first by a war of liberation and later by a civil 15

Ana Catarina Clemente-Kersten, “Angola,” 65.

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war caused partly by the collapse of the glue theory that had hitherto united the major ethnic groupings in their fight against the colonial power—Portugal—in the war of independence. In order to commence the process of promoting a democratic polity, an inspiring constitution was crafted in 1991. For instance, Article 2 (1 & 2) affirmed two important tenets of democratic governance in Angola. Article 2(1) states that the Republic of Angola shall be a democratic state based on the rule of law and on the sovereignty of the people, the primacy of the constitution, and law; and Article 2 (2) asserts that the Republic of Angola shall promote and defend the basic human rights and freedom of individuals and members of organized social groups.16 These provisions are sound on paper. Nevertheless, in most democracies in Africa, it is one thing to pen a great constitution and quite another for legislators to live up to the principles enshrined in such a legal document, let alone ordinary compatriots who don’t fully understand its contents. In addition to Article 17’s impressive provisions for the formation of political parties and how these factions should operate in the competition for power, Article 113 (1 & 2) outlined the important character and terms of service for the president of the republic. Article 113 (1): The term of office of the president of the Republic shall last for five years, beginning with their inauguration and ending with the inauguration of the new President elect. Article 113 (2): Each citizen may serve up to two terms of office as President of the Republic.17

Interestingly, as reported by observers, the 1992 elections were free and fair—a vital attribute of an electoral democracy that has a propensity for promoting political legitimacy; even so, the reactions to its outcome from opposition parties did not synchronize with the above observation on the day the elections were held. The reaction from opposition leaders probably reflected the many years of war and the anticipation that they would win and take home the coveted political trophy—the presidency. Political defeat in such a scenario could lead to political disorientation, especially when party stalwarts had put all their energy and resources into their constituencies and still not come home with the political gold medal to show for their hard work and electoral shenanigans. The product of such 16

The 1991 Constitution of the Republic of Angola, accessed March 24, 2015, www.wipoint/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/ao001en.pdf 17 The 1991 Constitution of the Republic of Angola.

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frustration and disappointment is frequently political violence against the victorious party and its supporters for having outwitted the losers in the political competition. They may also threaten to withhold their support for the government and state. My above analytic assumptions aside, below in Table I is the result of the 1992 presidential election. Table 1 1992 Total Number % Registered Votes 4,828,486 Votes Cast 4.401,339 91.2 Invalid Votes 460,455 10.5 Valid Votes 3,940,884 89.5 Candidates Party Votes % ____________________________________________________________ Jose Eduardo dos Santos MPLA 1,953,335 49.6 Jonas Savimbi UNITA 1,579,298 40.1 Antonio Alberto Neto Angolan Dem. Party 85,294 2.2 Holden Roberto FNLA 83,135 2.1 Honorato N’Lando LDPA 75,789 1.9 Luis dos Passos DRP 58,121 1.5 Pedro Joao Bengui Social Democratic Party 38,243 1.0 Simao Cacete AD-Coligacao 26,385 0.7 Daniel J. Chipenda PNDA 20,646 0.5 Analia de Victoria Pereira Liberal Dem. Party 11,475 0.3 Rui de Victoria Pereira PRA 9,208 0.2 Total 4,401,339 100 LDPA: Liberal Democratic Party of Angola DRP: Democratic Renewal Party PNDA: Angolan Democratic Party PRA: Angolan Reform Party Source: Dieter Nohlen, Michael Krennerich, and Bernhard Thibaut, eds. Elections in Africa: Data Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, 74

In the 1992 parliamentary elections, the MPLA/Party of Labor overpowered the contending parties by winning 129 seats to UNITA’s 70 seats. Collectively, the other 16 opposition parties garnered 21 seats.18 18

African Elections Database: Elections in Angola, accessed April 1, 2015, http://africanelections.tripod.com/ao.html

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However, in the presidential election, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the leader of the MPLA, who had been in office since home rule in 1975, squeaked by his political nemesis Jonas Savimbi of UNITA with a total vote of 1,953,335 to 1,579,298, a difference of 374,037 votes. In this election, dos Santos picked up 49.6 percent to 40.1 percent of the total votes cast. The other parties did not come close to these two former military opponents and now political rivals. Fortunately, as adjudged by the United Nations and other observers, this election was free and fair, in part because neither dos Santos (MPLA) nor Savimbi (UNITA) gained an absolute majority. Ordinarily, it would have been expected that the defeated parties would accept the political verdict; they did not and instead called for another round of balloting. But this was not to happen since the appeal for a second round of voting was rebuffed by UNITA and the MPLA, which had won. Additionally, the result of the parliamentary election of 1992, which the MPLA won, was a rout, as noted previously.19 To UNITA, the result of this close election was unacceptable. Possibly, UNITA’s refusal to accept the plea for a re-run may have been informed by the fact that it was a fait accompli; that no matter how hard UNITA campaigned in a runoff election, it was not going to win, given the solid majority of the MPLA in the Legislature. Also, it was likely that a bandwagon effect in favor of the MPLA in a repeat presidential election was a given. Therefore, Savimbi and UNITA did not fancy the idea of a second round of electoral competition because it would have been like flogging a dead horse; they were never going to prevail. Consequently, under the leadership of Savimbi, UNITA went back to the battlefields in what has been dubbed the “oil and diamond nuanced war” in a quest to protect the group’s political and economic interests.20 It is sufficient to say that this development brings to the forefront a primary focus of this volume: leadership and the problem of electoral democracy in Africa. In other words, elections that are intended to promote political stability and legitimacy because citizens would be making rational choices about who would be governing them have frequently degenerated into riots, mayhem, and deaths. Accordingly, my thesis is that leaders who have tasted power, and the benefits and prestige that issue from it, are for the most part culpable for the electoral crisis in African politics. Since they do not wish to give up power, they connive with subordinates in electoral

19

Clemente-Kersten, “Angola,” 73; Sylvia Croese, “Angola: Chronicle of an Unfulfilled Promise: A Hundred Days after the Elections,” International Policy Analysis (January 2013): 3. 20 Croese, “Angola,” 2.

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misconduct that keep them in power endlessly. Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe is a good case in point. In 1994, a ceasefire agreement was reached in Lusaka, Zambia, named the Lusaka Protocol, between the two major protagonists—dos Santos (MPLA) and Savimbi (UNITA)—that outlined a power-sharing formula between the leaders and their associates. The irony, at least for some observers, in this agreement is that the ordinary citizens who frequently fought in the wars were ignored. In the end, it was the politicos who shared among themselves the spoils of war. Indeed, Clemente-Kersten noted poignantly in an analysis following the Lusaka Protocol that It comprehended a Government of National Unity and Reconciliation (GURN) with the inclusion of UNITA nominees in the Cabinet and a special status for Savimbi. But the key issues such as the extension of state administration throughout the country, freedom of movement, future policies of the GURN and the control of the diamond region delayed the peace process. After having categorically rejected the office of VicePresident offered by the MPLA in August 1996, Savimbi later demanded the position of principal adviser to the President along with supervisory power over several ministries …21

Politics, defined operationally as the struggle for power, has a knack for making “sensible or rational” political decisions untenable due to conflicting interests. Little wonder, then, that the inability to resolve some of the major and knotty executive, administrative, economic, and military issues between these central characters—dos Santos and Savimbi—led to war in 1998. The war to determine whether dos Santos or Savimbi would lead the country continued until the death of Savimbi in 2002.22 This initiation of war, after the introduction of a multi-party electoral system in Angola, did not augur well for good governance in the country. Moreover, there were serious debates on the merits and demerits on the separation of the electoral process whereby there would be one election for the president and another for the legislative branch of government, as in the US and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In the end, a decision was reached that, as a result of the delayed 2008 legislative election—due to the protracted civil war—a separate presidential election would be held in 2009; this did not happen because a new constitution that was in the works and later passed eliminated the direct election for the executive president. This post-war constitution adopted the British model of sorts. It states that the leader of the majority party in Parliament would automatically become 21 22

Clemente-Kersten, “Angola,” 66–67; Croese, “Angola,” 2–3. Clemente-Kersten, “Angola,” 67; Croese, “Angola,” 3.

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the president. Writing on the rationale, force, and interest that influenced this decision, Celia W. Dugger said: “The decisive win for the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, known as the MPLA, in last week’s legislative elections will give it the two-thirds majority in Parliament needed to change the Constitution and further entrench its dominance of Angolan politics….”23 In short, attempts by UNITA to modify the electoral process were “vetoed” by a majority of MPLA legislators in Parliament. To be sure, the acceptance of defeat by UNITA and its marginalization, despite electoral irregularities, weakened the group substantially in parliamentary debates and in the pursuit of its interests. Overall, UNITA was severely beaten into submission, first in the civil war and second in parliamentary affairs. As a consequence of the preceding political developments in this polity, I shall focus my subsequent discourse on the problem of electoral democracy in two important National Assembly elections. These will be the 2008 and 2012 national elections, respectively. My basis for shining light on the political duels in these cases is not only to bring to the fore the crisis of electoral democracy but also to highlight the fact that it was an important period in the democracy and democratization project in Angola.

2008 National Assembly Election The result of the 2008 legislative election is outlined in Table 2.

23

Celia W. Dugger, “Governing Party in Angola Wins Election in a Landslide, Official Results Show,” International New York Times (September 9, 2008), accessed March 28, 2015 www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/world/africa/10angola.html?_r=0

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Table 2 Registered Voters Voter Turnout Individual/Blank Votes Total Valid Votes

8,256,584 7,213,281 (87.4%) 762,874 6,450,407

Party/Coalition Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) Social Renewal Party (PRS) New Democracy Electoral Union (ND) National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) Democratic Party for Progress-Angolan National Alliance (PDP-ANA) Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) Democratic Angola-Coalition [AD-Coligacao] Party for the Democratic Support and Progress of Angola (PADEPA) Front for Democracy (FpD) Party of the Alliance of Youth, Workers, and Peasants (PAJOCA) Democratic Renewal Party (PRD) Electoral Political Platform (PPE) Angolan Fraternal Forum Coalition (FOFAC) Total

% of Votes No. of Seats 81.64

191

10.39 3.17 1.20

16 8 3

1.11

2

0.51 0.33

-

0.29

-

0.27 0.26

-

0.24 0.22 0.19

-

0.17 100.00

220

Source: African Elections Database: Election in Angola, accessed March 29, 2015, www.Africanelections.tripod.com/ao.html

The MPLA’s spectacular win of 191 seats to just 29 for the opposition parties in a 220 Legislative Assembly was confounding to many, who wondered how this lopsided victory was possible in a democratic polity. This was particularly striking in a country with strong ethnic and regional interests. Indeed, it seemed as though the country was returning to a Marxist single-party system. The walloping outcome of the 2008 electoral poll was suspect and may have been fixed. In short, if it had not been

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rigged, some have noted, the MPLA must have invented an ingenious technique for winning elections worthy of emulation by other political entrepreneurs in the continent. In any case, my above postulations aside, it could also be contended that, sensing that the MPLA would win and coming to grips with the reality of rewards that awaited successful legislators, many UNITA and other politicians “crossed the carpet” to the MPLA. This hypothesis supports what has come to be referred to in East African political parlance as “the politics of the belly.”24 Put another way, even political activists have to take care of their immediate family needs, and those of their extended family system, so identifying with a political party that does not provide adequate remuneration or does not have a propensity for doing so is pointless. Thus, what was at play here was the “commercialization of politics” in a continent in which many live on less than $2 a day. Theories have been propounded that suggest a need for political fair play in elections as a panacea for electoral malpractice in politics. Nevertheless, given the depth and criticality of free and fair elections in advancing political stability and tranquility in Angola and Africa, I am compelled to cite verbatim the candid concerns detailed in a splendid 2008 report produced by the prestigious Chatham House in London. I do so against the backdrop of the outcome of Angola’s 2008 National Assembly election. This report not only chronicled the problems in this election but also made references to the “challenges facing free and fair elections”25 that, if tackled efficiently, could mitigate electoral conflicts in this country and also in much of Africa. Convergence of state and ruling party [MPLA] According to some observers, the credibility of the [electoral] process could [have been] undermined. The perceived homogeneity between the state and the MPLA, [that gave] the incumbent regime an unfair advantage over other political parties, is one such issue. Several provincial governors are also MPLA first provincial secretaries, making it sometimes difficult to distinguish their party and state activities. It is also common to see senior party members inaugurating public infrastructure financed with public money. A recent report by the Angolan Political and Social Observatory (OPSA) condemns the abuse of state and parastatal resources by the ruling party for partisan purposes. By law the election campaign is restricted to 30 days prior to the set election date. The MPLA, however, with its access 24

See Jean-Francois Bayart, The State of Africa: The Politics of the Belly (London: Polity Press, 2009). 25 Indira Campos, “Angola’s Elections: A Democratic Oil Giant?” (London: Chatham House, Africa Programme Paper 09/01, September 2008), 9.

Angola and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy to state resources, has been campaigning for over six months through large public parades and festivals as well as numerous radio and television publicity. This is not possible for opposition parties, which face many obstacles when it comes to getting access to broadcast time and funding. Access to the Media The playing field for the political contest is particularly unequal in access to media. Although the private media in Angola is largely independent of party politics and is often critical of government, the state very much dominates the only daily national newspaper, Jornal de Angola, and the only non-satellite Angolan Public Television (TPA). Opposition parties often complain that they experience censorship when trying to access the state media, through manipulated reporting and editorial alignment. According to the aforementioned OPSA report, in 91 issues of the Jornal de Angola between April and June, the MPLA is featured on the cover 22 times, as opposed to UNITA only three times, and FNLA once. Radio broadcasting, which is the medium accessible to most of the population, remains government-controlled throughout most of the country. The Catholic Church’s broadcaster, Radio Ecclesia, is currently the most accessible source of independent news in the capital. For years the Church has tried to get permission to broadcast nationally; however, in 2006 it was barred from doing so by a new media law that dictates that only stateowned media can broadcast nationally… Party Financing For most political parties represented in parliament, the main source of party funding comes from the state. These funds are assigned to the various parties based on the proportion of their representation in parliament; hence parties with higher representation receive more money. UNITA receives around US$14 million a year and the MPLA around US$23 million. Other sources of financing permitted by law include members’ fees, profits from their assets and activities, domestic bank loans and donations by national entities. However, for most parties, income from membership and donations is very low or simply non-existent because of the difficult financial conditions facing members who are often peasants or unemployed. This situation is even more difficult for those parties with no representation in parliament. In the face of such financial restrictions, political parties find it extremely difficult to expand their activities outside the provincial capitals.26 Impartiality of the Electoral Bodies A major criticism by many observers is that the electoral process is being managed and supervised by two different commissions, CNE and CIPE, both of which are controlled by the government. In March 2007, a 26

Roque, “Angola’s Façade Democracy,” 142.

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Chapter Seven delegation of the Parliament Forum of SADC found that the composition of and division of responsibility between electoral bodies at both national and local levels raised the question of impartiality…27

Moreover, a number of measures were taken by MPLA stalwarts that highlighted the issue of electoral democracy in this society—activities that diminished the system’s legitimacy. Indeed, concerns about the anomaly of the problem of electoral democracy in Angola were echoed by some civil society organizations such as independent journalists and, strikingly, some elements of the clergy. They were irritated at the manner in which the ruling party applied clever methods to attain rural votes. In this schema, government functionaries used the threat of conflict to intimidate pastoral dwellers, who suffered inordinately during the civil war, to demand their ballot. In other words, villagers were warned that if they failed to support the party, there would be a return to battle, with disastrous consequences for them and the nation-state itself. Further, the MPLA bribed the Sobas, who are traditional leaders in rural Angola, and who also had the clout to deliver their villages’ and clans’ votes to the party. The network that implemented these illegal electoral plans and shenanigans distributed cars, computers, motor-bikes, bicycles, et cetera. On polling day, MPLA aficionados stood by to cash in on the outcome of their electoral malpractices and corruption.28 Political blackmailing and electoral malfeasance were further directed at civil servants and some private-sector workers who received contracts for government projects. To civilians, the admonition was that they could lose their jobs; and to service providers, their deals with the government could be in jeopardy if they failed to vote for then MPLA. Members of the military and national police were also pressured to cast their votes for the ruling party as an indication of their patriotism and unflinching loyalty.29 The icing on the cake for the MPLA was the extent to which the once cohesive UNITA was weakened, infiltrated, and marginalized by a smart strategy of absorbing its greedy—some might say pragmatic—members into MPLA ranks.30 UNITA’s mantra at this political juncture was “If you can’t beat them, join them.” These political maneuvers, in part, shone light on the issue of electoral democracy in Angola and worked against the 27

Campos, “Angola’s Elections: A Democratic Oil Giant?” 9–11; see A. Vines, N. Shaxson and L. Rimli, Angola: Drivers of Change (London: Chatham House Report, May 2005); Roque, “Angola’s Façade Democracy,” 141. 28 Roque, Angola’s Façade Democracy,” 143–144. 29 Roque, “Angola’s Façade Democracy,” 144. 30 Roque, “Angola’s Façade Democracy,”145.

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spirit of free and fair elections, central to the deepening of democracy in this society, Africa, and much of the developing world. When elections are perceived to have been inadequately conducted, they not only create national angst but also calls for reforms immediately following them. Commonly, however, the party in government would argue that agitations to reform the system are the result of frustrations emanating from losers who are unable to put up a good fight. Opposition parties, on the other hand, would always maintain that they lost because the incumbent government rigged the election by applying dishonest practices in their political repertoire in order to maintain power and marginalize the opposition. The 2008 legislative election in which the MPLA crushed its rivals bears out my preceding hypothesis. My thesis also exposes the irregularities that have made electoral democracy at this stage in Angolan political history problematic. In fact, these peculiar developments may lead observers to suggest that what was happening in this society electorally provides only a veneer of democracy and little else; thus, democracy and democratization need to be deepened by free and fair elections in order to advance democratic consolidation in this millennium.31 In sum, the 2008 election in Angola did not demonstrate a movement toward genuine democracy; it was designed by the leaders and party to maintain power in order to exploit the national treasury. There is little wonder, then, that the 2012 election mimicked the previous elections. It was organized and manipulated by party activists for the benefit of the leader and party; it was not for the advancement of an efficacious democracy in the country as suggested earlier.

August 31, 2012 National Assembly Election As was the case with past contested elections, “the 2012 election was held in an opaque environment riddled with irregularities, missed deadlines, unresponsiveness by oversight institutions to the legitimate claims and grievances of the opposition, civil society and the youth, and a lack of concern over the rise in repression and control.”32 In fact, a paradox about this election was that the regime exposed itself to the risk of 31

E. Ike Udogu, “Incomplete Metamorphic Democracy as a Conceptual Framework in the Analysis of African Politics: An Exploratory Investigation,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, XXXI, 1–2 (June 1996), 5–20. 32 See “Angola’s Second Post-War Elections: The Alchemy of Change,” Institute for Security Studies: Situation Report (Pretoria, Addis Ababa, Dakar and Nairobi, May 2013), 1.

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democratic dilemma that did not win the government national legitimacy, let alone the hearts and minds of ordinary Angolans. In a real sense, though, the leader and his subordinates thought very little about the angst and lack of support for the electoral process as long as they controlled power, benefits, and the accoutrements that came with being in a position of authority. Even so, it could be contended that under a situation of free and fair election given the dominance of the MPLA in the political landscape of the country, this party would have won and consequently reduced popular anxiety and dissatisfaction with the outcome of this election. Be that as it may, stakeholders with vital interests in the electoral process and success of the party itself felt it was too risky not to “fix” the election as they were intent on recouping their investments from the party. There is a constant fear in African politics, on the part of incumbent leaders and political parties, that their position of privilege could be greatly threatened if an election is not rigged in their favor. After all, the stakes are just too high. Party loyalists are frequently rewarded very handsomely depending on how impressively they engineer elections. Such compensations could be the party chairmanship of a local government or a ministerial appointment. This thesis, by way of comparison, is true in Cameroon, where President Paul Biya is the only leader the country has known since President Ahmadou Ahidjo exited power in that republic. The same narrative is spot on in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. These leaders have been kept in power by well compensated party stalwarts by hook or by crook. This philosophy of manipulating elections as a strategy for gaining power, or ascending to the political “peacock” throne, is partially what exacerbates the crisis of electoral democracy in Africa. The results of the 2012 polling in Angola are in Table 3. The outcome of the 2012 polling showed that the MPLA received 4,135,503 votes and won 175 seats while UNITA garnered 1,074,565 votes and picked up 32 seats. CASA-CE, PRS, and FNLA collectively bagged 508,985 votes and got 13 seats. The other parties did not measure up to the performance of the above parties. Although the total seats MPLA won in the 2012 election fell short of the 2008 gains in which the party controlled 191 out of 220 seats, this result is quite salient, particularly when the difference between the MPLA and UNITA is 143 seats. The fact remains, however, that the outcome of this election exposed the problem of electoral democracy in Angola, especially as the party in power did not provide a level playing field to its political rivals. The manner in which the MPLA denied other political parties equal access to campaign accoutrements in this struggle for power will be examined and analyzed in the following pages.

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Table 3 Registered Voters Total Votes (Voter Turnout) Invalid/Blank Votes Total Valid Votes Party (Coalition) MPLA UNITA CASA-CE* PRS (Social Renewal Party) FNLA ND (New Democracy Electoral Union) PAPOD (People’s Party for Development) FUMA (United Front for Change of Angola) CPO (Political Council of the Opposition)

9,757,671 6,124,669 (62.8%) 368,665 5,756,004 No. of Votes % of Votes 4,135,503 71.85 1,074,565 18.67 345,589 6.00 98,233 1.71 65,163 1.13

Seats 175 32 8 3 2

13,337

0.23

-

8,710

0.15

-

8,260

0.14

-

6,644

0.12 100.0 220 *Convergence for the Salvation of Angola-Electoral Coalition Source: African Elections Database: Elections in Angola, accessed April 3, 2015, http://africanelections.tripod.com/ao.html

The flag-bearers of the nine registered parties in the 2012 balloting were: UNITA: MPLA: FNLA: PRS: ND: FUMA: CPO: PAPOD: CASA-CE:

ISAIAS SAMAKUVA JOSE EDUARGO DOS SANTOS LUCAS NGONDA EDUARDO KUANGANA QUINTINO MOREIRA ANTONIO JOAO MUACHICUNGO ANASTACIO JOAO FINDA ARTUR QUIXONA PINDA ABEL CHIVUKUVUKU33

By way of comparison, in the 2008 election, each political party and coalition that participated in that election were given $1.2 million since the 33

Miguel de Brito, Report on the General Elections of 31 August 2012 in the Republic of Angola (Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (September 9, 2012), 13.

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state finances political parties in national elections. In 2012, however, parties were given only $97,000, even though there were just nine parties in 2012 as against fourteen in 2008. To be sure, 18 parties, including such parties as Bloco Democratico (BD) and Partido Popular among others, were disqualified for technical reasons. In order to demonstrate where the locus of power was, as it were, the MPLA gave itself US$75 million for this election.34 It was this anomaly that probably prompted observers of the 2012 election to opine that The August 2012 elections were a procedural exercise in democracy aimed at imbuing the dos Santos government with legitimacy. In reality it had none of the attributes of a credible election. The principles of equality, fairness, inclusion, freedom of choice, transparency and integrity were not present, while the independent body mandated to safeguard the process failed to do so, counter to Southern African Development Community (SADC) electoral protocols.35

Indeed, such a scenario brought to the fore the problem of electoral democracy that retarded the progression toward democratic consolidation in Angola. In addition to the number of international observers, such as the European Union and the Pan-African Parliament that had, in the 2008 election, highlighted a number of irregularities and suggested areas that needed improvement, were conspicuously absent in 2012; they were “trouble makers.” In short, for probing too deep into the country’s electoral malfeasance and being too nosy in Angolan political affairs, these bodies were declared personae non gratae. The wrath of MPLA functionaries was further extended to members of the diplomatic corps who reported political facts that were repugnant to the leadership, party, and government. Also, for those granted permission to observe the election, they were handed a list of regulations which forbade them, among other things, from making public statements on the election and from visiting restricted and reserved areas in particular. Metaphorically, it would be vexing that in a contest in which one of the contenders, say in a soccer match, also produces the referee, sets the rules of the game, and decrees the character of spectators who can show up. Indeed, such a plan would be problematic to observers and opponents, to be sure. Apropos my above allegory, it was no wonder that leading up to the 2012 National Assembly election, opposition parties registered their 34

“Angola: Four More MPLA Years,” Africa Confidential, 53, 18 (7 September 2012); see also “Angola’s Second Post-War Elections,” 4. 35 “Angola’s Second Post-War Elections,” 6.

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concerns about the regulations instituted by the ruling party—the MPLA. Before the polls, a number of civil society organizations and political parties such as UNITA, the Social Renewal Party (PRS), and the Convergence for the Salvation of Angola-Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE) provided a litany of abnormalities in the structural design of the election that were heard but dismissed as irrelevant. In fact, “their complaints concerned the management of contracts by companies involved in the [electoral] process, the manipulation of electoral list, lack of transparency and obstruction when it came to vetting the voting and counting processes by the opposition parties.”36 Also, an element of the problem of electoral democracy in this society involved tampering with electoral rolls as a strategy for rigging elections. This tactic is not uncommon, especially for certain demographic groups whose participation could be detrimental to a party that wishes to score victory in that constituency. Whereas in the past, the percentage of voters disenfranchised as a result of such electoral shenanigans was about 13 percent, the percentage of electorate disqualified in 2012 was 37 percent. This stratagem of massaging the electoral roll resulted in an average abstention of over 2.3 million; in other words, 24 percent of the electorates were “mysteriously” expunged from the list of voters. Ironically, the total sum of 3.6 million disenfranchised in the 2012 election was equivalent to the number that voted for the ruling party. Additionally, it was reported that the results of the election were tampered with during the process of transmitting ballot boxes to the national centers for counting and tabulation.37 Such manipulation of an electoral roll for the purpose of gaining an upper hand in an electoral contest highlights the crisis of electoral democracy in Angola and much of Africa. Ominously, this modus operandi of rigging elections only serves to delay, if not derail, the process of deepening and consolidating democracy in this society. The same concerns could be expressed about other African countries in their electoral malpractices, which often result in violence and the loss of lives. It is only when sufficient attempts are made to modify these practices that conflicts can be reduced and political stability greatly furthered. A comparative summary of the trajectory of election outcomes in Angola from 1992 to 2012 is quite instructive, as represented in Table 4 below.

36 37

“Angola’s Second Post-War Elections,” 7. “Angola’s Second Post-War Elections,” 8.

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Conclusion and Recommendations It would be foolhardy to expect that the problem of electoral democracy in Angola could be resolved in one fell swoop. The desire and pressure to win in an electoral competition in Africa are so high partially because of the benefits that await the winner and the misery and melancholy that greet the losers. Accordingly, elections become, for all intent and purposes, a “civil war” in which violence often pits fellow compatriots against each other. The need to find solutions to this phenomenon of polling irregularities in quadrennial elections in some countries, and quinquennial presidential elections in others, is urgent, and serves as the central purpose of this volume. I shall make references to and reproduce a striking template for resolving the problem of electoral democracy in Angola and Africa word for word because of its saliency. Table 4 Party

1992 2008 2012 % votes Seats % votes Seats % votes Seats ____________________________________________________________ MPLA 53.7 129 81.64 191 71.84 175 UNITA 34.10 70 10.39 16 18.66 32 CASA* 6.00 8 FNLA 2.4 5 1.11 3 1.13 2 PRS 2.27 6 3.17 8 .7 3 ND 1.20 2 Others 7.49 10 2.49 0 0.63 0 __________________________________________________________________ Total 100 220 100 220 100 220 __________________________________________________________________ *CASA-CE Source: Constructed from Tripod African Elections Database, accessed April 4, 2015 http://www.Africanelections.tripod.com/ao.html

Indeed, following the abnormalities and problems of electoral democracy in Angola, the 2012 election in particular, the following recommendations were issued by the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa for cleaning up the character of its practice and deepening democracy in order to further the peaceful coexistence amongst political factions and nationalities in this society. These instructive proposals were as follows:

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The Pre-Election Phase Voter Registration and Voters’ roll: The process of verification and updating of the voters’ roll by the voters needs to be improved in order to reduce the number of cases where voters are not aware of the location of their polling stations. The roll needs to be properly audited in order to eliminate deceased voters and deflate the number of registered voters, in order to increase confidence in the Roll and provide a more accurate turnout rate. Furthermore, the national voters’ roll needs to be made public within the deadlines established by law in order to ensure the transparency and credibility of the process. Stakeholder Dialog Institutional mechanisms for stakeholder dialog, especially between the National Electoral Commission (CNE) and opposition parties, should be established to reduce levels of electoral conflict, increase stakeholder confidence, and strengthen the credibility and legitimacy of the electoral process. The CNE needs to be more forthcoming and expedited in responding to queries and complaints from stakeholders. Media Strong mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that the public media comply with the legal requirements and the electoral code of conduct in relation to objectivity and impartiality in reporting, especially during the electoral campaign period. Accreditation of International Observers The process of accreditation of international observers needs to comply with international norms and standards, subscribed by the Angolan authorities and follow international best practices. It should be conducted in a timely and non-discriminatory manner in order to allow the observer missions to conduct their work without hindrances or delay. Accreditation of Party Agents Given the pivotal role that party agents play in the transparency, credibility, and legitimacy of the electoral process, their accreditation

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should be conducted in a timely and swift manner in order to avoid perceptions of political bias on the part of the election management bodies. Campaign Materials A regulation should be passed to oblige political parties and coalitions to remove campaign materials within 250m of political stations on the day before the election.

Election Day Materials The National Electoral Commission (CNE) needs to ensure the timely distribution of the voters’ roll to all polling stations in order to avoid delays in their opening and the beginning of voting operations. Procedures The National Electoral Commission (CNE) must ensure that the closing procedures, especially the time of closing, are strictly adhered to and followed by all polling stations [Added to this provision, the CNE must maintain its neutrality in politics].38 The criticality of these recommendations for furthering free and fair elections and, indeed, for promoting the legitimacy of elections in this society cannot be overestimated; yet, political actors are frequently reluctant to implement such a well-crafted template if by doing so they end up losing. This is partially where the problem of the crisis of electoral democracy lies in this republic. Nevertheless, this is also where civil society organizations—particularly those committed to the deepening of democracy—could play a major role. They can do so with possible assistance from the international community, and especially foreign donor countries, to advance the philosophy of free and fair elections and democratic consolidation in Angola and Africa.

38 De Brito, “Report on the General Elections of 31 August 2012 in the Republic of Angola,” 19.

CHAPTER EIGHT CONCLUSION: APPLYING COLIN POWELL’S AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S THEORIES ON LEADERSHIP TO AFRICAN POLITICS —SOME POINTERS FOR AFRICAN LEADERS

Introduction This volume relates to how political leaders and their subordinates, applying the instrumentalities of political parties, render problematic electoral democracy in Africa by not adhering to the principles of free and fair elections. Put another way, a concern at this propitious juncture of Africa’s democratic renaissance centers on how political leaders manipulate and fix the electoral process. First, these leaders engineer elections as a strategy to propel them into power and, second, as a tactic to retain that authority indefinitely with little or no respect for constitutional constraints and the rule of law. As a result of my preceding suppositions, electoral results are often contested. Such a development leaves the legitimacy of the government in doubt amongst the citizens in these societies. To make matters worse, leaders and their law enforcement agencies apply authoritarian methods to silence those opposed to the government and its wicked or offensive policies. Further, the basis of my argument, as noted previously in this volume, is that some of these leaders were less enthusiastic about implementing fully the attributes of “liberal democracy” if by doing so they would be on the losing end politically. Effectively enforcing the tenets of liberal democracy in their governance techniques, however, could advance democratic consolidation in the continent. Qualities of liberal democracy include, but are not limited to, the following: x x

Free and fair elections Rule of law

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186 x x x x x x x x x

Protection of minority rights Protection of basic human rights Separation of powers Due process of law Existence of more than one political party Existence of a constitutional document or documents Government accountability Freedom of the press Independent judiciary1

Commonly, African leaders simply organized elections every four or five years only for the purpose of giving the appearance that citizens went to the polls, and to satisfy Western donors’ conditionality for receiving economic aid. The character of leaders, the genre of governorship, and the relationship between associates and those populations over whom they preside are seldom taken seriously. Put another way, my argument is that it is not good enough to hold an election just for the sake of it. It is critical to train patriotic leaders and subordinates who are committed to governing altruistically. Accordingly, it is hoped that such leaders would legislate within constitutional limitations and within the doctrine of “liberal democracy” after an electoral process. In sum, my preceding theories are aimed at suggesting some suppositions that leaders are to be mindful of, and imbued with, in order to govern efficiently. In this way, African leaders might be able to advance democratic consolidation and a priori peaceful coexistence. My following discussions are mined from two seminal works: The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell,2 and Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times.3 A summary of the contents of these inspiring volumes on leadership articulated by a notable military chiefcum-secretary of state and a famous president provide me with a general 1

R. Fatton, “Liberal Democracy in Africa,” Political Science Quarterly, 105, 3 (Autumn, 1990):455–73; F. Fukuyama, “Liberal Democracy as a Global Phenomenon,” Political Science and Politics,” 24, 4 (December, 1991): 659–64; see also Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo, Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa: Political Dysfunction and the Struggle for Progress (London: Zed Books Ltd., 2005); Patrick Dunleavy, Theories of the State: The Politics of Liberal Democracy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987); C. B. Macpherson, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). 2 Oren Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powel (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002). 3 Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times (New York: Warner Books, 1992).

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guide for my subsequent theoretical postulations. I shall highlight some of the major dogmas, dictums, and principles in these volumes for the purpose of expatiating on their values for leaders in general and Africa’s political bosses in particular. Let it suffice to say that in undertaking this approach to my analysis, I bore in mind the Chinese doctrine of “walking on two legs”—i.e., encouraging constructive (African) traditional values as the first leg and borrowing from other regions of the world those positive, effective, politico-economic techniques and strategies that have worked for them and could be carefully applied to Africa as the second leg.4 Indeed, to paraphrase the late British poet and parliamentarian, John Donne, “No man [nation] is an island, entire of itself; every man [state] is a piece of the continent [global village].” And Africa is a significant part of this global village.

Colin Powell’s Theories on Leadership In the following discussions and analyses, I shall make references to Powell’s opinion on some fundamentals or rudiments of leadership that a good and conscientious leader in most settings—especially politics— should appreciate, attempt to cultivate, and imbibe in order to be an effective leader. In short, the theoretical dialogs that follow highlight some lessons to be learned about leadership qualities that are helpful in guiding political, social, and entrepreneurial actors in African polities. For the purpose of this chapter, however, my views and suggestions center on the exposition of issues that may serve as “guiding lights” to help inform and sharpen the skills of those who are already leaders and who may be seeking political captainship in Africa’s context so that they could govern efficiently.

Success Often Breeds Failure Critical to this assumption and admonition is the concept that leaders who become successful in their endeavors tend to rest on their laurels; they may also become complacent and contented, believing that they earned their position and therefore must enjoy it to the hilt.5 A rationale for this 4

Gary Bertsch, Robert Clark and David Wood, Comparative Political Systems: Power and Policy in Three World (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), 199; E. Ike Udogu, “In Search of Political Stability and Survival: Toward Nigeria’s Third Republic,” Scandinavian Journal of Development Alternative, XI, 2 & 3 (September-December, 1992): 4. 5 Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 81.

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behavioral pattern of political leaders may arise in part from subordinates flattering them and even exaggerating their regime’s successes in the polity so much so that they delude themselves that they are indispensable political messiahs. Moreover, because the chiefs are told what they want to hear, they fail to understand and see future challenges that they might have to tackle. To be sure, the position of the leaders’ associates, who are in unique relations with their bosses, is to safeguard their positions as leaders’ advisers and exploit the privileges that flow from those positions. So, subordinates feed their chiefs with what they want to hear, even when the leaders are senile and incompetent; subordinates do so in order to stand in good stead with their political bosses. For example, after a leader and his or her subordinates have attained spectacular success, say in boosting the national economy, they might assume that the situation will always remain that way and so will not plan for a possible economic downturn. Indeed, such was the case in the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the leadership of General Yakubu Gowon, when the country was awash with cash and wealth from oil proceeds. Before the economic boom and the subsequent economic quagmire that befell the country, Gowon had cleverly and successfully waged a civil war that pitted Eastern Nigeria, which called itself the Republic of Biafra, against the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The outcome of the war earned Gowon high marks nationally and internationally for reuniting the country. In fact, his sobriquet following the reunification of Nigeria was “Lincoln of Nigeria.” This reference was intended to suggest that Gowon achieved what the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, did when he reunited the North and South after America’s civil war of the 1860s.6 In truth, Gowon was riding high following the end of war, and the oil boom was a bonanza that added another feather to his hat. Arguably, the General succeeded spectacularly as a warrior and economic manager of the country. Even so, he met his political Waterloo when he failed to continually manage the economy efficiently, and when the seduction of power led him to procrastinate and prevaricate as to when he would relinquish power to a civilian ruler. Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton’s narration of how the oil economy developed is instructive. They noted that, “Government revenues from petroleum were a mere N200 [thousand] in 1958, the first year of commercial production. Revenues in 1970 were N166 million, but they rose exponentially from that time. In 1974, revenues from petroleum were 6

Udogu, “In Search of Political Stability and Survival”, 11.

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N3.7 billion and in 1976 they were over N5.3 billion.”7 Instead of investing cleverly and substantially in the country’s infrastructure and Research and Development (R&D) in order to boost the country’s overall growth project, the regime went on a spending spree on “conspicuous consumption” that did not add much value to the overall wellbeing of this society.8 In short, the regime at that time deluded itself and the country that this fortune in crude oil would last forever. Sadly, this hope of eternal bliss was dashed. In fact, the outcome of the failure was so disastrous that Africans from the neighboring countries who had migrated to Nigeria to partake in the oil boom, bonanza, fortune, and feast were unceremoniously chased out of the country.9 Possibly an approach to tackling complacency on the part of a leader is to look beyond the façade of what appears to be a temporary success, to seek candid advice from subordinates, and to identify possible weaknesses and tackle them.10 In Powell’s view and recommendation, a leader should be alert and visionary. Accordingly, a chief should wage war on smugness and arrogance, … [must] not accept things at face value …[must] not fall prey to the alluring descriptions of the Peacock Throne, [must] remember that success can breed failure, and that complacency is the enemy…[must] dig, dig, and dig some more … it is the leader’s responsibility to constantly and proactively probe below the surface.11

The above counsel is ideal for African politics. For example, caution should be taken by a leader in assessing the advice given by subordinates. It is not always true that associates are working to promote the interests of their boss. A wise leader, therefore, should look out for sycophants who 7

Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, A History of Nigeria (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 182; “IMF, International Financial Statistics, Various Years: Central Bank of Nigeria,” Annual Report (1986), 86, 101; Kelechi Kalu, Economic Development and Nigerian Foreign Policy (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2000), 91. 8 Falola and Heaton, A History of Nigeria, 183; Nwafejoku O. Uwadibie, “Oil and Macroeconomic Policies in the Twenty-First Century,” in Nigeria in the TwentyFirst Century: Strategies for Political Stability and Peaceful Coexistence, ed. E. Ike Udogu (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 76. 9 See “Ghanaians, Expelled by Nigeria, Return Home to Start Over,” New York Times, accessed February 1, 2015 http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/12/world/ghanaians-expelled-by-nigeria-returnhome-to-start-over.html 10 Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 82. 11 Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 92.

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follow the leader only because the chief is wearing a political golden crown. My analysis of politics in chapter 5, “Zambia and the Crisis of Electoral Democracy,” is edifying as it relates to the success that Kenneth Kaunda scored in negotiating the terms for home rule for his country in 1964. Following his political success, Kaunda and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) assumed that they were the political alpha and omega in the country. In order to demonstrate his suzerainty in Zambian politics, he opted for a single-party system in which he and the party dominated the political landscape until 1991, when he and UNIP were smashed at the poll by the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD). Following his crushing defeat by Frederick Chiluba, the leader of the MMD in the 1991 election, Kaunda failed miserably to rehabilitate himself in the national politics of Zambia. So, here is a case in which astounding pre- and post- independence successes ended tragically. This was so partially because of the seduction of power. Kaunda did not know when to quit because his privileged subordinates were reluctant to audaciously advise him about his “popularity-deficit” in a system in which Zambians were sick and tired of electoral malpractices and the longevity of his presidency. Moreover, Kaunda’s associates wanted to maintain their position of privilege within UNIP and society as well. This was possible only if the president remained in power regardless of his political unpopularity.

The Need to Challenge Professionals and Experts The suggestion that a leader should challenge experts and professionals’ opinions on recommended policy strategies is spot on because they have interests that they might wish to protect in the course of providing their counsel. So, it would be wise for a leader and his or her subordinates to be amenable to constructive—even acerbic—critiques of inefficient policies intended for a polity. Thus, it is suggested figuratively that “every organization should tolerate rebels who tell the emperor he has no clothes on.”12 Arguably, as observed earlier, the need for the chief of an administrative organization or polity to remain cautious as to the sort of counsel provided by experts flows from the possibility that as members of a privileged group, those experts are likely to promote policies that further the group’s interests and not necessarily those of the leader and nationstate. In such a milieu, it is not uncommon for poorly crafted policies to 12

Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 93.

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fail when implemented. This is so simply because the chief failed to see the problem of such policies for the broader society. Additionally, subordinates may refuse to critique policies provided by “experts.” In short, vital to my preceding suppositions is the need for a leader to pay attention to other opinions (no matter how repugnant they might seem to the advantage of the leader) beyond those of experts before finally implementing a policy intended to advance the interests of the country. Further, a leader should not visualize his or her policy as sacrosanct; s/he should be open to revisions and readjustments of strategies aimed at solving societal problems. In the African context, though, this wise pointer has been known to be problematic from a cultural standpoint. Wisdom J. Tettey has argued that in some African countries, elders and leaders tend to resist attempts to interrogate their wisdom and decisions made as a result of their strong belief that they are the custodians of knowledge and therefore their decisions must not be questioned.13 Consequently, guardians of the state are reluctant to accommodate opposing views and subject their policies to public examination.14 But this should not be the case in thriving democracies. Little wonder, then, that it has been suggested that leaders must be flexible in their formulation of policies and not over-rely on the advice of experts on decision making no matter how well-intended such advisers might be, especially in culturally diverse societies. In this regard, it might be useful to reference the sound opinion of former Brazilian president, Fernando H. Cardoso, who asserted that Some may argue that there is no need for accommodation or compromise; politicians should simply abide by an ethic of responsibility and follow what they believe to be the most sensible and rewarding course, regardless of any technical consideration. I am afraid that today’s world does not allow for such a facile situation. Be it in the developed or in the developing world, politicians, once in office, are supposed to respond to an increasingly wide range of social interests [that very often clash particular in multi-lingual and multi-ethnic polities].15

13

Wisdom J. Tettey, “Human Agency and Democratic Challenges in Africa,” Africa Quarterly, 40, 2 (2000): 25. 14 E. Ike Udogu, “Reviving Democracy and Good Governance in Nigeria’s Current Politics: A Concise Analysis,” Africa Quarterly, 44, 2 (August 2004): 82. 15 Address by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso at the Inter-American Dialogue Conference on “Democracy and Leadership Challenges in Latin America” Washington, DC (December 18, 2003), 1, accessed March 3, 2015 http://www.thedialogue.org/publications/programs/policy/politics; E. Ike Udogu,

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People Make Victories Possible In the words of Colin Powell, “Leadership will always require people who have a vision of where they wish to take ‘the led.’ Leadership will always require people who are able to organize the effort of other [members of the community] to accomplish the objectives that flow from the vision.”16 An essential argument here rests on the hypothesis that leaders cannot be leaders without followers, and that for the chief to govern effectively in a democratic system requires a robust symbiotic relationship between the ruler and followers. Such mutual respect should be displayed within the rule of law and democratic theory in which the ruler is a servant of the people and not their master. But what is followership? Notionally, I have argued elsewhere that followership implies or relates to citizens of a society who support or withhold their backing for a political system. Accordingly, good governance and politico-social stability may depend on the nature of interaction between the leader and follower.17 James MacGregor Burns, however, maintains that “leadership is an aspect of power, but it is also a separate and vital process in itself… leadership over human beings is exercised when persons with certain motives and purpose mobilize, in competition or conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological, and other resources so as to arouse, engage and satisfy the motives of followers. This is done in order to realize goals mutually held by both leaders and followers.”18 Powell insists, and rightly so, that “leaders are nothing without ‘relatively happy’ followers…. [Unfortunately], lots of leaders call themselves ‘servants’ [without demonstrating it in their governance techniques].”19 Contextually, if leaders believed that they are servants and not masters, they would be open to conducting free and fair elections and gracefully abdicating their political throne when they lose. For now, at least, the belief that once elected as president or prime minister such a politico is a master not servant reigns supreme in much of African politics—a behavior that calls for a change within the context of Powell’s theory and my general arguments in this volume in order to further “The Issue of Political Leadership in the Third World: What is to be Done? Journal of Third World Studies, XXV, 1 (Spring 2008): 14. 16 Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 126. 17 E. Ike Udogu, Nigeria and the Politics of Survival as a Nation-State (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 178. 18 James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 18. 19 Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 138.

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political stability and peaceful coexistence in Africa’s multi-ethnic societies.

Recruiting and Promoting Subordinates Apropos this aspect of leadership and its quality in the efficient governorship of a country, Powell’s philosophy and theory call upon a leader to look for intelligence and [good] judgment and, most critically, a capacity [of subordinates] to anticipate, to see around corners. Also [a leader should] look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego and the drive to get things done [for the good of the group but more importantly for the betterment of society being governed].20

The significance of this postulation as it relates to hiring and strengthening leadership efficiency cannot be over-exaggerated in much of the developing world, in which appointments to top positions in government, in large measure, tend to be based on nepotism, the patronclient system, and party affiliation, with not enough attention paid to competency. This strategy is founded on the assumption that family members and clients, for an example, will always cover up the weaknesses of the leader and even take a fall for him or her in an attempt to protect the political interests of their chief. Also, in African politics today, the void of patriotism and the allure of ethnonationalism tend to limit the space from which the leader can choose his or her subordinates. Added to this problem is that politics is often based on a zero-sum-game. This belief frequently means opposition parties and their leaders do not support sensible and efficacious policies crafted for the good governance of a nation-state by the party in government. In short, as opposition parties, they have a knack for rubbishing good policies of the government in power so that they might make the dominant party look weak and position themselves to capture power at the next election. Commonly, too, the opposition party or parties would argue that the policies of the party in government are dangerous for the country, and often marginalized the citizens of their ethnic blocs. In multi-national, multi-lingual and multi-racial societies, co-opting qualified members with intelligence, loyalty to the leader and country, integrity, and drive irrespective of party affiliation or ethnicity is a prudent way of bringing highly skilled men and women into government. Such a 20

Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 168; 178–80.

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policy, after the outcome of an election, could promote political atomism, imbue a spirit of nationalism in citizens, and promote national legitimacy.

The Trust Factor The lack of trust in politicians, who allegorically promise a society that is heaven on earth if elected but end up delivering purgatory, has been one of the reasons Africa has problems producing leaders with national support. For example, some political leaders in Africa have repeatedly promised citizens an adequate supply of electric power, critical for economic growth, but have failed to do so year after year. Such a failure erodes confidence in a leader. In any case, trust is necessary to boost a leader’s integrity. How, then, can the trust factor be fostered, in a political system by a political chief, in order to govern successfully? It is essential for a leader to cultivate qualities and personal characteristics that are worthy of emulation since such positive attributes could lead citizens to show confidence in, and demonstrate allegiance to, him or her. In this regard, a leader’s acquisition of political, social, and economic knowhow, coupled with experience in his or her job, is very important. Accordingly, Powell noted “leaders with character stand for something—a value, an ideal, a cause, a mission. Moreover, leaders with character don’t just talk about these things. They exhibit a coherent pattern of behaviors that demonstrates [positive leadership for subordinates and society] what they stand for [and commit themselves to meeting their goals].”21 Germane to the preceding theories is that a leader must develop adequate courage to promulgate the sound policies that have been promised, even in the face of strong opposition from interest groups who might find such policies repugnant to their interest/s. It is, arguably, the courage of a leader to take the bull by the horns by implementing positive regimes for a nation-state against the wishes of the few oligarchs in society that would lead an observer to say that the leader has character. As noted previously, it would be courageous for a leader to vigorously implement a policy of providing the energy essential for national economic growth against the interests of importers of generators. These are powerful entrepreneurs who would prefer citizens lack adequate electricity in order to sell their generators and make substantial profits at the expense of national development. In short, a leader’s trust factor could be catapulted

21

Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 204.

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to greater heights if s/he does what is absolutely right for the country and not what is advantageous to the leader and his or her lackeys. It has been argued that “leaders who talk a good game but do not lead by example will not be respected. [Accordingly], leaders must live by the traits they espouse. ..[for] anytime there is a gap between what a leader says and what that leader does, the credibility of that individual will suffer, and [oftentimes] the cost will be too much for the leader [and society] to bear.”22 Such is often the case when leaders promise a free and fair election that could lead to the consolidation of democracy but fail to do so because they could be ousted from power. So, they create a crisis of electoral democracy by rigging elections. This attitude troubles political observers of the politics of many African countries. One notable example of a politician who rose up against this fad was President Nelson Mandela of South Africa. In sum, although the power and prestige that flow from a political leadership position are so seductive, corruptive, and rewarding to leaders in Africa, it is vital that they abdicate their throne when they can’t perform efficiently or when the national support for them wanes. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa gave up power for the interests of his party, the African National Congress, and country, without a revolt. Indeed, I argued elsewhere that President Mbeki exited the presidency of South Africa with elegance and panache, unlike many African leaders.23 Also, President Goodluck Jonathan, in Nigeria’s 2015 presidential election, accepted defeat with grace and without political carnage. This placing of the interests of the country above individual and party interests is worthy of emulation as it could create political solidity and further democratic consolidation. As I noted in my introduction to this chapter, it was and is my aim to explore templates for leadership in Africa with special emphasis on those suggested by Powell and Lincoln. In the foregoing discourses, I examined Powell’s model for good leadership and related it to ways that African leaders could apply some of them in order, among other things, to avoid the crisis of electoral democracy in Africa. In the following discussions, I shall examine Abraham Lincoln’s theories for effective leaders.

22

Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, 213. Ike Udogu, “President Thabo Mbeki is my Hero” USA Africa Dialogue (February 3, 2010) accessed March 30, 2015, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/usaafricadialogue/xg_a6FUrK04 23

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Abraham Lincoln’s Theories on Leadership Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, was president of the United States from 1861 to 1865. He led the civil war that not only united the country but also freed the slaves. My discussions that follow highlight some of his theories on what should be the character of an effective leader. His theories on leadership are superlative and useful globally—not least for Africa’s current and future political chiefs. As noted previously, my template for the following discourses are borrowed from a fascinating volume, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, by Donald T. Phillips. President Lincoln alluded to a number of challenging principles, dogmas, dictums, and theories intended to undergird and illuminate the character of a good leader. An effective leader is one that strives to promote the interests of an entire society and not just those of a privileged few or an ethnic group, as is often the case in much of Africa. I argue that an approach to leadership within the context of some of Lincoln’s postulations could advance what is sometimes referred to as the “good political life” for all.24 Central to his theories is the need for a leader to promote symbiotic relations with his or her subordinates; in this way, they, as a cohesive group, are able to govern effectively as a team. Notionally, it is safe to argue that what Lincoln emphasized contextually was the imperative of “collective leadership.” This view suggests that a first-class leader cannot govern alone. S/he needs a reliable team of associates or subordinates with whom to execute policies. Some of his stimulating ideas are explored and discussed below with a view to relating them to African circumstances and the problem of electoral democracy.

Get Out of the Office and Circulate Among the Troops Central to this counsel for a leader is to connect with subordinates outside an official setting. Such a strategy opens up a refreshing conversational space that allows the leader to better understand his or her cabinet members as well as the other top serving civil servants needed to

24

E. Ike Udogu, Confronting the Challenges and Prospects in the Creation of a Union of African States in the 21st Century (Newcastle-upon -Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 97–102; Larry Diamond, “Beyond Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism: Strategies for Democratization,” The Washing-ton Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 1 (1989): 142–43.

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successfully implement crafted policies.25 This arrangement also helps subordinates recognize and appreciate a leader’s strengths and weaknesses so that they might be able to assist in filling possible gaps in their boss’s leadership talent. This approach, anecdotally, is analogous to that of golf buddies who discuss critical business or political issues during a round of golf. In this milieu, they could exchange important concepts for successfully tackling issues such as economic or political dilemmas in society. It’s also invaluable for a leader to have a good disposition that can absorb some of the poignant and cruel political blows that might be delivered by critics verbally and in the media in order to govern efficiently, especially in Africa’s (multi-ethnic) polities. On this opinion, perhaps President Barack Obama’s temperament comes to mind. By way of illustration, he exhibited extraordinary character following political attacks on him, his race, and qualifications as a serious African American contender for the presidency of the United States of America in the 2008 campaign. And, because of the conduct of a free and fair election, within the rule of law in America, he was able to compete as the leader of the Democratic Party against the Republican Party and win that election in this consolidated democracy. Moreover, a political chief must be studious and well-informed on political matters in the polity. In Africa, a leader with proper counsel by subordinates should, through a deep understanding and appreciation of the political “mood of the country,” conduct free and fair elections that can promote national support for the system. When such was not the case in Ivory Coast—as in chapter 4—the crisis of electoral democracy became so combustible that it created a real political malaise in this republic. More importantly, a leader working mutually with associates must stay in touch with reliable and contemporary information in both global politics and the international political economy. His or her extensive knowledge on these crucial matters can help in formulating and crafting adequate policies vital for the sustainment of an effective economic system and democracy. In sum, the acquirement of such general information could enable a leader to engage advisers in meaningful conversations significant for preparing policies that are pertinent to the successful governance of a society.

25

Donald T. Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times (New York: Warner Books, 1992), 26.

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Build Strong Alliances The essentiality of the above injunction is explained instructively thus: Contemporary executives should also realize that successful alliances, whether with subordinates or other organizations, put the leader in a position of strength and power. And, conversely, divisiveness breeds weakness. Herein [lays] the wisdom of Lincoln’s famous statement: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” That is one reason these words have lived on through the years, continually regarded as one of Lincoln’s most important messages.26

An ability to construct effective alliances with groups across ethnic blocs in the African circumstance is imperative because of its ethnic mosaic. A successful coalition is conducive to a leader’s governance method and it could be furthered if subordinates are made to be aware of the resoluteness and commitment of the chief to his or her job of governing the society efficiently and without prejudice. The politics of ethnicity has been one of the causes—if not the major cause—of the crisis of electoral democracy in Africa. When a political leader asserts that his or her ethnic group is now in power, therefore it is their turn to feast on the national coffers, such a leader has failed to build adequate alliances across ethnic groups; and, such a divided polity will probably become unstable. More importantly, instability caused by inter-ethnic clashes would suggest that the chief and associates had failed to promote the strong coalition and nationalism amongst the various nationalities in the society critical for strengthening a leader’s effectiveness.

Persuade Rather Than Coerce It is argued that a good leader should avoid the application of coercive force as a strategy for obtaining an objective. Accordingly, if a leader attempts to dictate to his associates and followers, he or she is invariably giving up leadership and employing dictatorship. But in African democracy, at this juncture, the crisis of electoral democracy is frequently furthered by greedy associates who wish to retain their position of privilege, oftentimes with the connivance of the party leader. It is essential for an effective leader to be able to persuade associates and followers by way of logical arguments that a free and fair election, for example, is important for the legitimacy of the government; therefore, their unflinching 26

Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, 36–37.

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support and collaboration on policies to promote uncorrupted elections are necessary. In short, subordinates should further be convinced through positive persuasion that the team’s input will be duly recognized by the leader and society if they operated within the rule of law. Such a process could be promoted by way of regular consultations with cabinet heads, managers of government departments, and party bosses.27

Honesty and Integrity are the Best Policies Phillips’ summary on Lincoln’s entreaty as it relates to the nature of the relationship between a leader and subordinates/followers for successful governance of a society is revealing and also instructive. He outlined some of the elements and the criticality of honesty and integrity in political relations between the chief and associates as follows: x x x

[A leader should give his or her] subordinates a fair chance with equal freedom and opportunity for successes…[so that they don’t seek illegitimate and confrontational ways of doing so]. It is [a leader’s] duty to advance the aims of the organization and also to help those who serve it [in order to make the relationship highly reliable]. If [a leader forfeits] the confidence of fellow citizens, [such a leader] can never regain [compatriots’] respect and esteem.28

Whereas the principles stated in the first and second bullets above are pursued by some African leaders, the principle affirmed in the third leaves much to be desired in African politics (for example, Mubarak of Egypt, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Biya of Cameroon, Obasanjo of Nigeria, etc.). This is so in part because political captains and party stalwarts tend to spend a lot of cash bribing voters, promising the moon if elected, and fixing the outcome of an election by hook or by crook. Ironically, when in power, they totally fail to live up to their promises. Such political equivocations create national angst because of citizens’ lack of confidence in their leader and party. This has been the case in Nigeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and so on. Even so, a clever and unselfish leader would deconstruct his or her insular political strategies and superimpose them with societyoriented stratagems that could further the system’s political solidity. A good leader could do so by assembling honest men and women with integrity (across ethnicities and parties) who will work sincerely and

27 28

Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, 48. Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, 57.

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collaboratively with the president or prime minister to advance democratic robustness and consolidation.

Lead by Being Led Lincoln’s theories on the above principles and appeal to leaders are summed up splendidly below—some of which will be discussed and amplified in my following discussions: 1. If you are a good leader, when your work is done, your aim fulfilled, your people will say, “We did [these tasks] ourselves.” 2. Try not to feel insecure or threatened by your followers. 3. Always let your subordinates know that the honor will be all theirs if they succeed and the blame will be yours if they fail. 4. Write letters to your subordinates making the personal acknowledgment that they were right and you were wrong. 5. When your subordinates come up with good ideas, let them go ahead and try [them]. But monitor their progress. 6. Never forget that your organization does not depend on the life of any one individual. 7. The greatest credit should be given to those in your organization who render the hardest work.29

In Africa, it is important for a leader to acknowledge the fact that s/he was once a follower before “ascending to the political throne” as a president or prime minister and that s/he would eventually return to the community as a follower after his or her tenure in office is over.30 It is recommended that the captain of the team should not assume a position of “superiority” over the subordinates but see them as teammates of sorts. In this way, working collaboratively within the team, the troupe is likely to succeed in producing strategies of governance with efficacy in a polity (for example, conducting free and fair elections that could further peace and democratic consolidation). In the end, when policies produce the desired result, the group will claim victory. Such success will then serve as a model for tackling other societal projects aimed at furthering “a good political life” for everyone. If the relationship between the chief and associates is sincere and the leader is magnanimous in his activities with his or her subordinates, such a leader may not feel insecure. Moreover, it is vital for a leader to invest 29

Phillips, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, 107. E. Ike Udogu, Nigeria and the Politics of Survival as a Nation-state (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), 178–81. 30

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some time in fully understanding the character of members of his or her team. This knowledge of the personality of members of the “group of leadership” should help the president address the shortcomings of any member of the team. In this sense, I am referring to ambition—that vaulting political ambition—of a member of the team who might desire to succeed the boss even if it means sabotaging his leader’s aspirations by way of leaking secret and “harmful” information about the group’s plans to oppositionist forces in the system, for example. It is equally important to remind subordinates of the primacy of the nation-state vis-à-vis their interests. For example, it is essential for the leader to explain to associates that without their dedicated and unwavering support, it would be difficult to conduct corrupt-free elections significant for curbing the problem of electoral democracy and keeping the society united. Consequently, it would be in the interest of every member of the team to work toward the success of an electoral process. In short, associates should have the audacity to advise the president about a danger to the system if an election is fixed. When such counsel on free and fair election attains its desired result, appreciation and gratitude should be extended to subordinates for their wise recommendation. Even so, in almost all human contrivance, well-crafted policies may fail and when such is the case, a leader should take the fall for it and spare the group any blame. This shrewd approach to leadership is likely to strengthen the bond of “collegiality” between the leader and his subordinates, which is helpful for the successful governing of a state. In other to win support and admiration from subordinates, a president should avoid a philosopher-king approach in debates on issues before the leader and his or her cabinet. Thus, when heated discussions happen—as they frequently do—an impressive argument made by a member of the governing class should be acknowledged by the boss. Also, a chief should not hesitate at the conclusion of discussions to drop a note to an individual or a group of individuals congratulating them for their superior and brilliant idea/s. Such an action on the part of the leader is likely to further solidarity and respect for the president among members of the ruling class; it could also project the strength and sturdiness of the team; such a display of harmony and unity could spill over into the society being governed by such an organization, especially if their activities are conducted transparently. Put another way, my hypothesis is the political character of a successful governing clique functioning within the rule of law could impact positively those being governed, and it could serve as a model for future leaders to follow.

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Also significant in a leadership calculus is that the operation of an organization, i.e., activities and policies of a leader and his or her cabinet, should not and must not rest on the shoulders of one associate. This is so partly because individuals, as members of the governing elite, are transient and mortal. Thus, an effective template that reflects the above principles and collective wisdom of the whole is what should be constructed. In this way, when members of a ruling class or, for that matter, the entire organization are out of power following a free and fair democratic election, their successful governance model and technique could be followed by those who step into the shoes of the departing governing class. What the preceding assumptions suggest is that all parties whether in government or opposition should be in sync in their support of excellent policies that promote good governance and democratic consolidation.

Set Goals and Be Result-Oriented Strategies for accomplishing the above principles essential for the effective governance of a society by a leader are underscored below. At best, they represent Lincoln’s abridged versions, which are adequate for the purpose of illustration and as pointers to assist African leaders in their methods for governing African societies. x x x x

Set specific short-term goals that can be focused on with intent and immediacy by subordinates. Leave nothing for tomorrow that can be done today. Your task will neither be done nor attempted unless you watch it every day and hour, and force it. Remember that half-finished work generally proves to be labor lost.31

When political leaders campaign for political office, they make many pledges. For example, leaders promise to deliver free and fair elections, fight corruption, provide jobs, build a superb national healthcare system, and supply ample energy for the country and nation’s industries, among others, if they are elected. Sadly, these well-crafted declarations are seldom implemented. In cases in which they are executed, such projects are often done haphazardly, partly because of corruption. Moreover, in order to receive votes, political actors have a knack for promising every constituency and every voter something attractive, which they may not deliver. In the end, citizens are disillusioned not only with the president but also with the political system, and hence the issue of national 31

Philips, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, 113.

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legitimacy of the state comes to the fore; any lack of support for the system invariably delays democratic consolidation and political solidity. In order to increase support for the system, therefore, it would be important for the chief and subordinates to set short-term objectives—such as provisions for constant electricity and pipe-borne water for the population—and invest time and money in meeting these goals with precision and finesse. In this way, leaders could conceivably tout the provision of adequate energy and clean water to the entire nation as their legacy after their mandate in the service of the country is over. It would be foolhardy for a president and his or her team of policy makers to procrastinate on the implementation of adequate policies for a society’s wellbeing and expect to claim success in a rudimentary provision of the contraptions for the above services—electricity and clean water. Sadly, in the African case, when confronted with their dismal failure, leaders often claim that some unforeseen factors interfered with their plans. For example, the government ran out of cash and “could not find adequate experts to complete the project made it impossible … to complete promised projects.” Ironically, presidents then ask for an extension of his or her term in office in order to implement the failed but important national projects. Such was the case during President Obasanjo’s administration in Nigeria. He had promised the country that his administration would provide the republic with adequate electric power before the expiration of his tenure in office. But, alas, he failed woefully and yet sought a third term in violation of the constitution. The hope was that he would solve his Achilles heel of providing this country with sufficient energy for industries and national development if given a third chance. His failure to implement the scheme has continued to dog him since he left office. Indeed, his wellintended but futile plan of supplying regular energy to the polity continued to be labor lost. Accordingly, to be an effective leader requires that a chief meticulously monitors the projects intended for the welfare of society until they are brought to completion. By way of example, it is not uncommon to see the carcasses of well-intended ventures (e.g., steel factories, railway constructions, highways, etc.) started in many African countries only to be abandoned because of the poor planning, inadequate subsidies, corruption, and lack of drive by leaders to complete these projects. The foregoing cases support the saliency of Lincoln’s theory and adage: Half-finished work generally proves to be labor lost. In contrast to the above illustrations, or by way of comparison, in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Goodluck E. Jonathan, the leader of

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the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), under political pressure, promised a “free and fair” presidential election in 2015 and delivered it. In so doing, he was able to fight the problem of electoral democracy that has been the bane of this country and other African countries since Nigeria’s independence in 1960. In fact, he was defeated in an election in which he was the incumbent president. As already noted in this volume, he made a gracious concession to the victor of the election, Retired General Muhammadu Buhari, the leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in what some political observers believe was one of Nigeria’s finest political moments and possibly a major step toward democratic consolidation in this “giant of Africa.” In fact, in a splendid inaugural speech to the nation, President Buhari, the 5th executive president of the republic, made an appropriate reference to the change of leadership from PDP to APC thus: I would like to thank President Goodluck Jonathan for his display of statesmanship in setting a precedent for us that has now made our people proud to be Nigerians wherever they are. With the support and cooperation he has given to the transition process, he has made it possible for us to show the world that despite the perceived tension in the land we can be a united people capable of doing what is right for our nation. Together we cooperated to surprise the world that had come to expect only the worst from Nigeria. I hope this act of graciously accepting defeat by the outgoing President will become the standard of political conduct in the country.32

Clearly, in keeping with Lincoln’s principle and theory of leadership, President Jonathan did not leave for tomorrow what could be done today—and some might say reflectively of what could have been done yesterday. By advancing a free and fair presidential election in 2015 and conceding defeat in its wake, some keen observers of Nigerian politics have argued that a new day has dawned, politically, in this polity in which an incumbent president was electorally trounced, and he accepted it with humility.

32

See the Inaugural Speech Delivered by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, on May 29, 2015 in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria, accessed June 3, 2015, http://www.channelstv.com/2015/05/29/full-text-president-muhammadubuharis-innaugural-speech

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Encourage Innovation With respect to Lincoln’s injunction to leaders who aim to be effective in their governance methods, the following selected principles are instructive: 1. Don’t lose confidence in your people when they fail. 2. Let your subordinates know that you are always glad to have their suggestions. 3. Except in matters of broad policy, encourage subordinates to take action on their own initiative without [them] waiting for orders. 4. Remember that the best leaders never stop learning. 5. Surround yourself with people who really know their business, and avoid “yes” men [and women].33

In my contemplation of the elements relating to the matter of encouragement of innovation, it is essential for a leader to be aware that “failure is natural” and that what matters is how a president and his or her subordinates handle failure. First and foremost, it is significant for the leader and team of advisers to admit failures when they happen, and accept them rather than blame someone else or simply say “it wasn’t our fault.” When the causes of a failed policy, for example, are carefully examined and honestly articulated, it could win the leader and his subordinates sympathy—even admiration—from followers and critics in society, who themselves are frequently confronted with failure. It is possible that failures in any political system or organization could be avoided or mitigated if a leader is prepared to accept constructive suggestions from subordinates regarding major policy issues. The provision of diverse views at meetings of a leader and cabinet and outside formal settings (e.g., editorial comments in newspapers) could enhance the quality of the decision to be made by the team and president. Even so, it is important, as a leader, to delegate authority to subordinates on key local matters that are not of significant national and international concerns. Such delegation of authority to associates suggests that the leader has confidence in them—one that flows from the belief that the leader chose them as subordinates because of their expertise and not merely on political-cum-social grounds and family connections. In leadership discourse, the learning process is a continuous one since leaders are continually confronted with different national and international issues and conflicts that have to be tackled. In short, a leader whose 33

Philip, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, 142.

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academic background may be in law could be confronted with an issue related to medicine or public health. Even though a subordinate may have knowledge in medicine, a leader’s basic knowledge, acquired through reading voraciously, is likely to help him or her pose relevant questions relating to national healthcare policies. The same model applies to other areas of public policy. In regard to my preceding suppositions, the principle that a leader should “surround [himself/herself] with people who really know their business, and avoid ‘yes’ men [and women]” resonates very well for an effective leader—especially when subordinates are specialists or experts in the respective areas of their political portfolio.

Master the Art of Public Speaking Lincoln’s theories on public speaking, vital to an efficient leader, call for the following inspiring characteristics: x x x x x x

Be your organization’s best stump-speaker, with droll ways and dry jokes. Extemporaneous speaking is your avenue to the public. Use a variety of body language when you speak. Prepare yourself thoroughly for your public speaking engagements. Remember that there will be times when you should simply not speak. Say to your listeners: “Kindly let me be silent.” Try not to make mistakes when you speak publicly. Everything you say is intently heard. If you make a mistake, it doesn’t merely affect you but the organization as well.34

Undeniably, when the merits of an issue are debated organizationally and policies crafted to address the matter, it will take effective speeches to convince and motivate citizens to support an electoral process that should be free and fair. In fact, it is not always the content of the blueprint that fires citizens up to support such a national project; it is commonly due to the president’s manner and style of communication, laced with humor, in the speech to the nation. In this regard, I have contended elsewhere that in order to advance efficient policies that galvanize a society into action, a leader has to be able to articulate eloquently with “Churchillian, Reaganesque and Castroan” oratorical skill.35 Accordingly, a thorough preparation and rehearsal may be called for to sharpen a speech calling for free and fair elections, for instance, as a way 34

Philip, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, 154. E. Ike Udogu, “The Issue of Political Leadership in the Third World: What is to be Done?” Journal of Third World Studies, 25, 1 (Spring 2008): 1. 35

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of solving the problem of electoral democracy in Africa in order to attract national and international support. Effective communication might require an excellent speechwriter and coach if the leader does not have a gift or is not endowed with the art of public speaking. The bottom line is that a lesson to be learned from my preceding conjectures is that leaders tend to be negatively remembered for a bad speech rather than for the “saliency and efficacy” of its content.

Preach a Vision and Continually Reaffirm It Lincoln’s articulations of the above theory for an effective leader are expatiated within the context of the following principles: 1. Provide a clear, concise statement of the direction of your organization, and justify the action you take. 2. Everywhere you go, at every conceivable opportunity, reaffirm, reassert, and remind everyone of the basic principles upon which your organization was founded. 3. Effective visions can’t be forced on the masses. Rather, you must set them in motion by means of persuasion. 4. When you preach your vision, don’t shoot too high. Aim lower and the common people will understand you. They are the ones you want to reach—at least they are the ones you ought to reach. 5. When effecting renewal, call on the past, relate it to the present, and then use them both to provide a link to the future.36

Irrefutably, when a leader seeks power in a democratic system for the purpose of self-aggrandizement, the pursuit of positive visions for that society as a whole may suffer. Within the overall examination of the foregoing principles, a president’s vision must be clear and inspiring to a population. Even so, it is crucial for a leader to continually reiterate his/her vision and sermonize consistently on the values of such vision to a polity both for the immediate and future development of the nation-state. By way of illustration, such a vision could be that of providing free universal primary education (UPE), as in Nigeria. The literacy rate is relatively low in Africa. In Ethiopia and Somalia in 2005, the illiteracy rates were 64.1% and 77%, respectively.37 UPE policy is likely to hit a 36

Phillip, Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times, 162–69. J. Bajjalieh, P. Nardulli, and B. Peyton, Gauging Cross-National Differences in Education Attainment: A Sixty-Year Look at Global Educational Trends: Cline Center for Democracy (Urbana-Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 57.

37

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home run (in baseball jargon) for much of the continent, especially Ethiopia and Somalia, in spite of the fact that some Muslim fringe groups might, for theological reasons, resist it, as has been the case with Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria. UPE, as a vision, is useful as evidence suggests that the more educated the citizens are in a society, the more they are likely to exculpate themselves and family from poverty. The choice of providing free primary school education as against secondary and tertiary education is analogous to Lincoln’s theory and preachment of not shooting too high at the initial stage. Moreover, this vision and hypothesis that primary school education can provide better standards of living should be sold to the populace by the leader and associates, with data to support such a claim. Also, an a priori argument could be made that those pupils who received primary school education were more likely to advance to secondary schools and later tertiary institutions, with the possibility of reaping the positive benefits that flow from these experiences. Additionally, an African leader working with associates could promote the virtues of education by referencing the spectacular development in the Occident as a product of excellent education. It goes without saying that with good education, African countries could develop enough manpower —i.e., the human capital—necessary for increasing growth in Africa. My foregoing discourse is “apolitical” and less conflictive in terms of persuading a public to go along with a leader’s vision. However, in terms of the centrality of this book, how might a leader preach a vision of free and fair elections in order to mitigate the combustible problem of electoral democracy that is rendering many African societies asunder and creating refugee crises as Africans flee en masse to Europe and elsewhere, sometimes with disastrous consequences? Since the granting of selfgovernment to African countries by European colonial powers (in Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone Africa), electoral malfeasance in the struggle for power has, in part, been the source of civil wars and underdevelopment. Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Uganda, Angola, and Zambia are some nation-states in which the crisis of electoral democracy has been ignitable. These are countries that illustrate how the suffocation of democracy and the lack of free and fair elections have frequently led to political chaos that stultifies national development and peaceful coexistence amongst the various nationalities. Therefore, a vision to be preached continually by a patriotic president in Africa is that free and fair elections are conducive to unity, stability, economic growth, and a good political life for all. More importantly, a leader and associates must not

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only preach this creed for free and fair elections but also lead by example by practicing it, and encouraging others to do so for the advancement of democratic consolidation. It is instructive that a leader who is able to provide an inspiring vision to fellow compatriots—the kind that inspires ordinary citizens—will not only promote the system’s legitimacy but also establish a template critical for nation-building. Such a vision, as already noted, was displayed in Nigeria, a bellwether in Africa, by President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 presidential election following his defeat in that democratic electoral contest.38 What is particularly sanguine, with advancing positive vision for the state, is that it could be replicated in many areas of governance, such as improving national security, transparency and accountability, and the respect of human rights, for example. These are important visions that African leaders should follow because they are vital for furthering political stability and peaceful coexistence. In sum, I contend that leaders who cultivate the theoretical templates carefully articulated by Secretary of State General Colin Powell and President Abraham Lincoln on good leadership discussed in this chapter are likely to govern efficiently and organize the free and fair elections essential for solving the problem of electoral democracy in Africa. My rationale for this thesis rests on the notion that a patriotic president who governs with fairness and probity may not be troubled by the idea that he might not be reelected in an electoral contest; therefore, he or she would have no need to manipulate, cheat, and fix an election. Put another way, a record of effective governance, such as the conduct of a free and fair election, could obviate the problem of electoral democracy and promote the democratic consolidation vital for creating stability and advancing development projects essential for Africa’s renaissance in this millennium.

38

The Inaugural Speech Delivered by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, on May 29, 2015 in Abuja, Federal Capital City, Nigeria, accessed June 12, 2015 www.nigeriaembassyprague.org/embassy/index.php/en/news-events/151president-buha

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INDEX

Abacha, Sani, 21, 23 Abiola, Moshood, 23 Africa colonial impact, 3, 16–17, 26 corruption, 29–30 economic ideologies, 18–19 electoral authoritarianism, 61 governance techniques, 4 independence struggle, 101–102 leadership models, 27 leadership strategies, 185, 186 leadership techniques, 16. See also leadership theories leadership theories Lincoln’s, 196–201, 207, 209 Powell’s, 186, 187–195, 209 low literacy rates, 207 political culture, 122–124, 137–138, 142 political development, 1–2 pre-colonial leadership, 16 rise of nationalism 18 second scramble, 19 sustainable democracy reforms,182–184 African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, 10 African National Congress (ANC) founded, 102 1964/1968 election, 103–105 in single-party system, 107 African Union African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance , 10 malfeasance curbs, 4 African Union Convention on

Preventing and Combating Corruption, Articles 2–16, 30–39 violations of, 45–46 Afrique Occidentale Francaise, 72 Agbese, Pita O., 22 Agenda for Zambia (AZ) 1996 elections, 118 2001 election, 121–122 Ahidjo, Ahmadou, 20 Aka, N’Douba Enoh, 93 Akan ethnic group, 72, 73 Akan invasion, 71–72 Akan speakers, 72 Ake, Claude on Chiluba, 120 on post-colonial governance, 43 on privatization, 26 Akumn, Patience, 159 al-Bashir, Omar Hasan Ahmad, 45 Al-Gama’a al Islamiyya, 58–59 Al-Qaddafi, Muammar, 25 Ali, Muhammad, 47–48 All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), 7-8 All People’s Congress (APC-Zambia), 124 All People’s Party (APP), 6–7 All Progressives Congress (Nigeria), 8, 125 All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), 7–8 Alliance for Democracy (AD), 6–7 Alliance for Development and Democracy (ADD),127 alliances, leadership theories, 198 Alvor Agreement, 166 Al Takfir Wal Hijra, 58

238 Amin, Idi deposed Mutesa II, 141 military coup, 143 promotion to general, 142–143 Anaky, Innocent, 93 Angola civil war, 166, 167, 171 democratic constitution, 168 early history, 161–164 electoral democracy crisis, 5, 167, 170–171 independence struggle, 163–165 rival regimes, 165–166 sustainable reforms, 182–184 Angola Communist Party, 164 Angolan Democratic Party (PNDA), 169 Angolan Fraternal Forum Coalition (FOFAC), 173 Angolan Public Television (TPA), 175 Ankole kingdom, 133, 134 Annan, Kofi, 2 Apithy, Sourou Migan, 20 Arab Socialist Union (ASU) corrupt elections, 55 founded, 50, 53 1964 party membership, 54 replaced NU, 53–54 under Sadat, 55 Arab Spring and Mubarak government, 59, 69 in Syria, 62 Armed Forces Ruling Council (Nigeria), 23 Article 2 AU Corruption Convention, 31 AU Corruption Objections, 32 Article 2, ECOWAS Aims and Objectives, 40 Article 3 AU Corruption Principles, 32–33 AU Charter violations, 45–46

Index Article 4, AU Scope of Application, 33–34 Article 5, AU Measures, 35 Article 6, AU Proceeds of Corruption, 36 Article 6, ECOWAS Acts of Corruption, 40–41 Article 7, AU Public Service Corruption, 36–37 Article 10, AU Political Parties Funding, 37 Article 12, AU Civil Society and Media, 37 Article 16, AU Confiscation Procedures, 38–39 Article 60 (Uganda), Electoral Commission, 150–151, 152, 155 Article 61 (Uganda), Electoral Commission Functions, 151–152 Asante Empire, 71 assimilation policy, colonial 163 Auda, Gehad, 65 authoritarianism in Egypt, 47, 48–49 and electoral politics, 61–63 as governance model, 44 autocratic leadership style, 27 autocratic regimes, 60–62 Awolowo, Obafemi, Soviet, 19, 119 Awori, Aggrey, 148 Azikiwe, Benjamin Nnamdi, 20

Babangida, Ibrahim on military’s role, 22 Nigerian military leader, 21, 22, 23 regime of, 3–4 Babby, Charles Konan, 91 Banda, Hastings Kamuzu leadership, 26 president for life, 137 twenty year rule, 44 Banda, Rupiah

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa 2008 election, 125–126, 128 2011 election, 127–129 Bantu people in Angola, 161 in Zambia, 99 Baoule kingdom, 71–72 Barre, Mohamed Siad, 44 Bataga Party of Busoga, 139 Baule ethnic group, 74, 78–79, 83 Bedie, Henri Konan Akan speaker, 72 appointed president, 83, 96 and Ivory Coast politics, 73, 74–75 1995 election, 83–84, 86 overthrow, 87 2010 elections, 93, 94 Belgium’s colonial rule, 16–17 Bembe kingdom, 99 Bembe people, 99, 100 Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, 45 Bengui, Pedro Joao, 169 Berlin Conference Angolan colony, 163 European role, 17 Ivory coast boundaries, 72 Zambian boundaries, 100 Besigye, Kizza accusations against, 154–155 2001 elections, 148 2006 elections, 152–153, 155 2011 elections, 156–157 2016 elections, 59 Bete ethnic group, 72 Bettie kingdom, 71 “Big man” cult, 25 Binaisa, Godfrey, 143 Binder, Leonard on mass parties, 51 on National Union (NU), 52 Bisa people, 99 Bittel, L. R., 15 Biya, Paul and African politics, 178 electoral authoritarianism, 61

239

twenty year rule, 45 Blaydes, Lisa electoral authoritarianism, 61–62, 64 on National Union (NU), 52 on Sadat’s elections, 57–58 Bloco Democratico (BD), 180 Bondoukou kingdom, 71 Bongo, Omar Casablanca group, 20 twenty year rule, 44 “Boycott actif,” 85 bread riots, 56 Britain colonial rule, 16–17 Egyptian protectorate, 47, 48 and Uganda, 133–134 and Zambia, 100, 101–102 British Imperial East Africa Company, 133 British South Africa Company (BSAC), 100, 101 Buganda kingdom early role, 133 territorial loss, 140 Buganda people, 135–136 Buhari, General Muhammadu on democracy, 1 on electoral transition, 204 Nigerian military leader, 21 2003 election, 7, 8–9 2015 election, 8, 125 Bunyoro kingdom, 133, 134 Burkina Faso, 45 Burns, James MacGregor, 15, 192 Burundi constitutional crisis, 5 nation-state, 17 Bushmen, 161 Busogo kingdom, 133, 134 Bwanika, Abed 2006 elections, 152–153 2011 elections, 156–157 Bwengye, Francis, 148

240 Cacete, Simao, 169 Cameroon, 17 campaign materials, 184 Campbell, Denis, 153 Cao, Diego, 161 capitalism, 18–19 Cardoso, Fernando H., 191 Cartwright, John, 15 Casablanca group, 19–20 case studies Angola, 5, 161–184 Egypt, 5, 47–70 Ivory Coast, 5, 71–97 theoretical analysis, 5, 9. See also sustainable reforms Uganda, 5, 133–160 Zambia, 5, 99–132 Central African Federation, 101 Central African Republic (CAR), 86–87 Chanda, Eric M., 130, 131 Chapaa, Karuhanga, 148 Chatham House report, 174 Chewa kingdom, 99 Chiluba, Frederick and democratization process, 119 desire for third term, 120–121 ethnic favoritism, 123 leadership theories, 190 and MMD party, 112 1991 elections, 113–115 1996 elections, 116–118 presidency, 116 2006 elections, 125 China, 19 Chipenda, Daniel J., 169 Chipimo, Elias C. 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 election, 130, 131 Chirot, Daniel, 72–73 Chivukuvuku, Abel, 179 Chiwenga, Constantine, 63 Choma Declaration, 107 Churchill, Sir Winston, 90

Index Citizens Democratic Party (CDP), 130, 131 citizenship, 116, 117, 128 civil servants, 176 Clinton, Hilary R., 1 Code of African Leadership, The, 11 Cohen, Sir Andrew, 135 “collective leadership,” 196 colonial era Angola, 162–163 colonial governance, 3, 16–17 Ivory coast, 71 Uganda, 133–137 Zambia, 100, 101 “commercialism,” 69 “commercialization of politics,” 158 Commonwealth Observation Group report, 157–158 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), 19 Compaore, Blaise military coup, 45, 46 twenty year rule, 25, 45 concessions, political, 8–9 Conservative Party(CP) 1980 election, 143, 144 2011 elections, 156–157 constitution, 42 “Constitution-making from the Middle” (Mutunga), 24, 25 constitutional crisis, 42 constitutionalism and leadership, 41–42, 43, 44 low premium on, 5 contact, leadership theories, 196–197 Convergence for the Salvation of Angola-Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE) political trajectory, 182 2012 election, 178, 179, 181 corruption AU Corruption Convention, 30, 40

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa and leadership crisis, 4 leadership quagmire, 28, 29–30 malfeasance curbs, 4–5 Sadat’s Egypt, 56 Cote D’Ivoire. See Ivory Coast Crook, Richard C., 81, 82, 86 “crossed the carpet,” 174

Deby, Idriss, 45 Decree No. 25, 22 Democracy Monitoring Group, Uganda, 158–159 Democratic Angola Coalition (AD-Coligacao) 1992 election, 169 2008 election, 173 Democratic Party (DP) founded, 135 1961 election, 134, 136, 137 1962 election, 138, 139 1980 elections, 143, 144 2006 elections, 152–153 2011 elections, 156–157 Democratic Party for Progress (Angola), 173 Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) defeat of, 87 dissent in ranks, 83 dominant party, 73 monopoly of power, 96 1960–1985 elections, 75–77, 78, 79 1990 elections, 81–82 1995 elections, 83–84, 86 2000 election, 89 Democratic Renewal Party (PRD) 1992 election, 169 2008 election, 173 De Novais, Paulo Dias, 162 détente, 110 Diolou, Nicholas, 2000 election, 89 Dioula people, 72 disposition, 197

241

Dolo, Adama, 93 Dom Sebastiao, King of Portugal, 162 Donne, John, 187 dos Passos, Luis, 169 dos Santos, Jose Eduardo, Lusaka Protocol, 171 1992 election, 169, 170 2012 election, 179 twenty year rule, 45 Dugger, Celia W., 172 Dyuola people, 71

Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Ivory Coast civil war, 90 malfeasance curbs, 4 Protocol on the Fight against Corruption (Articles 2 and 6), 30–31, 39–41 Egypt brief history, 47–48 electoral authoritarianism, 62–63 electoral democracy crisis, 5 military’s role, 20, 48–49, 62–63 Mubarak’s regime, 25,48, 58-60, 65–67, 69 Nasser’s regime, 48, 49–55 1956 election, 50 Sadat’s regime, 48, 55–60, 69 Egyptian Coptic Church marginalized, 50 and Mubarak’s government, 58 election day, sustainable reforms, 184 Electoral Commissions (Angola), 175–176 Electoral Commission (Uganda), 150–152 electoral democracy as African problem, 2 Angola

242 1992 elections, 167, 168–169 political trajectory, 181, 182 2008 elections, 173, 174–176 2012 elections, 178–179, 181 CMI report, 149–150 Egyptian regimes Nasser’s regime, 50–51, 52, Mubarak’ regime, 59–60, 64–66 Sadat’s, 55, 57 Ivory Coast civil war, 97 1960–1985 elections, 75–77, 78, 79 1990, elections 74–75, 79–80, 81–82 1995 elections, 83–84, 86 2000 election, 87–88, 89 2010 election, 92–93, 94–95 Uganda, 134–137 Zambia First Republic, 102, 103–106 Second Republic, 102, 106–110 Third Republic of Zambia, 102, 110–133 Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy, 182–184 Electoral Political Platform (PPE), 173 el-Ghad (Tomorrow) party, 67, 68 El-Ghobashy, Mona, 53 El-Sisi, Adel Fattah, 69 “emperors,” 4 “Engaging the Leviathan” (Ihonvbere),, 24 Eritrean succession movement, 3 Ethiopia ethnic jingoism, 3 self-determination crisis, 3 socialist ideology, 19

Index ethnic groups, Ivory Coast, 71–73 ethnic jingoism, 3 ethnic nationalism, 18 ethnonationalism, 18 expertise, leadership theories, 190–191 experts, leadership theories, 190–191 Eyadema, Gnassingbe, twenty year rule, 44 Falae, Samuel Olu, 6–7 Falola, Toyin, 188 Farouk, King of Egypt, 48 Federation of French West Africa, 72 Finda, Anastacio Joao, 179 FNLA. See National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) followership, leadership theories, 192–193 Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) 2001 election, 121 2006 election, 124 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 elections, 130, 131 Forum for Democratic Alternatives (FDA), 130, 131 Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), 152–153 4th Revolution Party, 130, 131 FPI. See Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI) France assimilation policy, 163 colonial rule, 16–17 in Ivory Coast, 71, 72 “free and fair” elections, 21 Free Officers Movement, 48, 51, 53 Free Officers Corp,, 69 Front republicain, 84, 85 Front for Democracy (FpD), 173

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa Gardner, John W., 15 Gbagbo, Laurent arrest, 95 and Bedie appointment, 83 Bete ethnicity, 72, 74 governance, 90–92, 96 and Ivory Coast civil war, 90 1990 election, 74–75, 80–82 as a politician, 73 2000 election, 87–88, 89 2010 elections, 92–93, 94–95 Gellner, Ernest, 8 “gerontocratic infallibility,” 26 Ghana independence struggle, 101–102 military’s role, 20 nation-state creation, 17 “giant of Africa,” 3 “glasnost,” 110 Global Awareness Society International (GASI), 11 Gnamien, Konan, 93 goals, leadership theories, 202–203 “godfathers,” 30 “good political life,” 1, 10, 124, 200 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 110 Gowon, General Yakubu leadership theories, 188 Nigerian military leader, 21 Great Rift Valley, 133 Green Party (GP/GREENS), 130, 131 Greenberg, Milton, 42 Guei, Robert death of, 90 Ivory Coast politics, 73, 96 military coup, 87 2000 election, 87–88, 89 Guinea, 20 Gur people, 72, 73

Hartman, Christof, 77, 82, 86 Hassan II, King of Morocco, 19–20 Heaton, Matthew M., 188

243

Heritage Party (HP) 2001 election, 121 2006 election, 124 2008 election, 125–126 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 elections, 130, 131 Hichilema, Hakainde 2006 election, 124 2008 election, 125–126 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 elections, 130, 131 Hobbes, Thomas, 64 Hodgetts, R. M., 15 honesty, leadership theories, 199–200 Houphouet-Boigny, Felix Akan speaker, 72 background, 78–79 Casablanca group, 19–20 challenges to, 73–74 death, 83, 89–90 1960–1985 elections, 75–77, 78, 79 1990 election, 74, 75, 81–82 and PDCI, 73, 77–78, 80–81 twenty year rule, 44, 72, 96 Houtbeen, Admiral Pedro, 162 Hutus, 17 Hyden, Goran, 27

Igue, John O., 19–20 Ihonvbere, Julius O., 24 Independent Party founded, 135 1961 election, 136 1962 election138, 139 2006 election, 152–153 2011 elections, 156–157 Infitah (opening), 56 innovation, leadership theories, 205–206 integrity, leadership theories, 199–200 Inter-Party Cooperation, 156–157

244 international observers, sustainable reforms, 183 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 65 Islamic institutions and Mubarak’s government, 58 and Nasser’s government, 49–50 and Sadat’s government, 55 Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) mass arrests, 83 1990 elections, 74–75, 80–82 2000 election, 89 2010 election, 92–93, 94, 95 Ivorian Workers’ Party (PIT) 1990 elections, 81–82 1995 election, 85, 89 2000 election, 89 2010 elections, 93 Ivory Coast Bedie presidential appointment, 83 brief history, 71–72 civil war, 88-89, 90, 91 collapse of First Republic, 86–87 economic resources, 73 electoral democracy crisis, 5 ethnic groups, 71, 72–73, 74 Guei coup, 9, 87 1960–1985 elections, 75–77, 78, 79 1990 elections, 74, 75, 79–80 1995 election, 83–84, 86 2010 elections, 92–93

Jammeh, Yahya (Gambia), 45 Jefferson, Thomas, 111 Jonathan, Goodluck electoral democracy promise, 203–204 leadership theories, 195 2015 election, 125, 209 Justice Forum, 156–157

Index Kabaireho, John, 144–145 Kabaka (king), 133 Kabaka Mutesa I, 133 Kabaka Mutesa II, 136–137, 141 Kabaka Yekka (KY) Party 1961 election, 136–137 1962 election, 138, 139–140 Kagame, Paul, 45 Kamya, Beti Olive, 2011 elections, 156–157 Kaunda, Kenneth cha-cha-cha, 102 and the “diktat,” 106 leadership theories, 190 multi-party transition, 111–112 1964/1968 election, 103, 104, 105–106 1991 elections, 113–115 presidency, 104, 109 single party elections, 107–108 twenty year rule, 44 2006 election, 125 UNIP leader, 102 Kaunda, Tilyentji 2001 election, 121 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 election, 130, 131 Kazembe-Lundi kingdom, 99 Keita, Modibo Monrovia group, 20 Soviet development model, 19 Kenya independence struggle, 101–102 nation-state creation, 17 Kenyan African National Union (KANU), 111 Khoisan people, 99 “kingmakers,” 30 Kireev, Alex, 7 Kiwanuka, Benedicto, 134 Kizito, John Ssebaana, 152–153 Klein, Martin, 119 knowledge, leadership theories, 197 Konan, Simeon, 93 Kongo Kingdom, 161

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa Konie, Gwendoline, 121–122 Krennerich, Michael, 106 Krindjabo kingdom, 71 Krou ethnic group, 72, 73 Kru speakers, 72 Kuangana, Eduardo, 179

Lamizana, Aboubacar Sangoule, 20 Lane, Jan-Erik, 42 leadership defined, 15 and governance practices, 4–5 Lincoln’s theories, 196–209 Lincoln’s view, 200 Mombasa Declaration, 11 models, 27 Powell’s theories, 187–195 theoretical difficulties, 14–15, 16 Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, The, 186 legitimacy, 3 Lewis, Arthur W., 4 liberal democracies, 185–186 Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) 1992 election, 169 2008 election, 173 Liberation Rally (LR), 51–52 Lincoln, Abraham leadership templates, 10, 11 leadership theories, 196–201, 207, 209 as liberator, 188 Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Touch Times, 186, 196 literacy rates, 207 Livingston, David, 100 Lozi Kingdom, 99 Lubega, Samuel, 156–157 Lule, Yusuf, 143 Lungu, Edgar C., 130, 131 Lungu people, 100 Lusaka Protocol, 171

245

Luxor, mass execution, 59

Mabri, Albert, 93 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 154 Magande, Ng’andu P., 127, 129 “main role,” 104 Makara, Sabiti, 156 Malawi Congress Party (MCP), 111 Malinke ethnic group, 72 Mambe, Robert, 92 Mambwe people, 99, 100 Mande ethnic group, 72 Mandela, Nelson on African leadership, 10 and leadership, 195 Mandinka ethnic group, 71 Mao, Norbert, 156–157 Marxist-Leninist model, 19 mass parties, 51 Mauritania, 20 Mayanja, Kibirige, 148 Mayanja, Muhammad Kibirige, 146 Mazoka, Anderson, 121, 122 Mbasogo, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 44–45 Mbeki, Thabo on Ivory Coast civil war, 90, 91 on Ivory Coast elections, 92 leadership theories, 195 Mbikusita-Lewanika, Inonge, 121–122 media Angolan elections, 175 sustainable reforms, 183 Mel, Theodore, 89 Military as an Obstacle to the Democratization Enterprise, The (Agbese), 22 military coups African view, 137–138 Blaise Compaore, 45 Ivory Coast, 86–87 and military leadership, 20–24 problem of, 3–4, 9, 45

246 militocracy, 22–23 Milupi, Charles L., 127 minority rights, Zambia, 102, 103 Mitterrand, Francoise, 74 Miyanda, Godfrey 2001 election, 121 2006 election, 124 2008 election, 125–126 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 elections, 130, 131 Mohammed V, King of Morocco, 19–20 Moi, Daniel arap, 44 Mombasa Declaration, 11 Monrovia group, 20 “mood of the country,” 197 Moreira, Quintino, 179 “movement democracy,” 145–146, 147 Movement for Democratic Change, 63 Movement for Democratic process, 118 Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) leadership theories, 190 1991 elections, 113–116 1996 election, 117–118 rise of, 112 success of, 132 2001 election, 121, 122 2006 election, 124 2008 election, 125–127 2011 election, 127, 128–129 2015 elections, 130, 131 Movement System, 154 Movement of the Forces of the Future, (MFF), 93 MPLA. See Popular Front for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) Muachicungo, Antonio Joao, 179 Mubarak, Hosni Egyptian leader, 48 governance, 58–60 long regime, 25

Index multiparty elections, 66–69, 70 overthrow, 69 2005 election, 65–67, 68 Mugabe, Robert and African politics, 178 on Africa’s post-colonial dilemma, 27–28 electoral authoritarianism, 61, 62, 63 on his leadership, 26 twenty year rule, 25, 45 Mulemba, Humphrey, 118 multi-ethnic states, 3 Mumba, Nevers, 2001 election, 121–122 Mumba, Nevers S., 2015 elections, 130, 131 Mung’omba, Dean, 118 Musazi, Ignatius K., 134 Museveni, Yoweri accession to power, 145–146 guerrilla warfare, 144, 145 long regime, 25 1980 election, 144 1996 election, 146 on overstaying leadership, 156 2001 elections, 147–148 2006 elections, 147, 152, 153, 154–155 2011 elections, 147, 156–157, 158 2016 elections, 59 Muslim Brotherhood (MB) attempted Nasser assassination, 49 2005 election, 67, 68 Muslim Socialist Republic (Egypt), 49 Mutesa, Fredrick, 127, 129 Mutunga, Willy, 24, 25 Muwanga, Paulo, 143 Mwanawasa, Levy death, 125 ethnic favoritism. 123 2001 election, 121

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa Mwila, Benjamin, 121

Nasser, Gamal Abdel on Egyptian rule, 47 governance, 48, 49–55, 69 overthrow of king, 48 National Alliance (PDP-ANA), 173 National Christian Coalition (NCC), 121–122 National Democratic Party (NPD) and electoral competition, 64–65 evaluation of, 69-70 and multiparty elections, 66–67 in Sadat’s Egypt, 60 2005 election, 67–68 National Election Commission presidential selection, 9 sustainable reforms, 183, 184 National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Angola, 165–166 founded, 164 1992 elections, 169 political trajectory, 182 2008 election, 173 2012 election, 178, 179 National Leadership for Development (NLD), 121–122 National Movement for Progress (NMP), 127, 129 National Party, 118 National Progressive Party, 104 National Resistance Army (NRA), 145 National Resistance Movement (NRM), 156–159 National Restoration Party (NPREP) 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 election, 130, 131 National Union (NU), 50, 52–53

247

National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and Democratic People’s Republic of Angola, 165–166 founded, 164 independence struggle, 164 Lusaka Protocol, 171 1992 elections, 169, 170, 172 2008 elections, 167, 173 2012 elections, 167, 178, 179, 181 nationalism and the African state, 18 and colonial domination, 3 Nawakwi, Edith Z. 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 elections, 130, 131 Neolithic civilization, 71 Neto, Agostinho, 164 Neto, Antonio Alberto, 169 New Democracy Electoral Union (ND) political trajectory, 182 2008 election, 173 2012 election, 179 Newstrom, J. W., 15 Ngonda, Lucas, 179 Ngondo, Winright, 124 Ngoni people, Zambia, 99, 100 Niger, 20 Nigeria Babangida coup/regime, 3–4 corruption, 29 ethnic jingoism, 3 founded, 101 military’s role, 20–21 nation-state, 17 1999 election, 6–7 oil wealth, 188–189 2003 election, 7 2015 elections, 8, 125 Nkrumah, Kwame Monrovia group, 20

248 Soviet development model, 19 Nkumbula, Harry, 105 N’Lando, Honorato, 169 “no party democracy,” 145–146, 148–149, 154 Northern Mande ethnic group, 72, 73 Northern Rhodesia, colonial era, 100–101 World War I & II, 101 Nour, Ayman, 67–68 Nyerere, Julius, 19

Obama, Barack, 197 Obasanjo, Olusegun on African leadership, 2 constitutional crisis, 45 on corruption, 29 electric power promise, 203 Nigerian military leader, 21 1999 election, 6–7 2003 election, 7, 8 Obote, Milton governance, 139–141, 142 military coup, 143 1961 election, 136, 137 1962 election, 138, 139 second presidency, 144–145, 154 and Ugandan independence, 134 UNLF overthrow, 145 Obote, Miria, 152–153 “oil and diamond nuanced war,” 170 Ojukwu, Odumegwu, 7, 8 Okello, General Tito Lutwa, 145 “Oligarchic State,” 26 Ottoman Empire, 47 Otunnu, Olara, 157 Ouagadougou Peace Conference, 91 Ouattara, Alassane D. appointment, 75 and Bedie appointment, 83 Ivory Coast politics, 73, 83

Index 1995 election, 83–84 2000 election, 87–88 2010 elections, 93, 94, 95

Parti ivoirien des travailleurs (PIT) 1990 elections, 81–82 1995 election, 85 2000 election, 89 Parti socialiste ivoirien (PSI), 81–82 party agent accreditation, 183–184 Party for the Democratic Support and Progress of Angola (PADEPA), 173 Party of the Alliance of Youth, Workers, and Peasants (PAJOCA), 173 Patriotic Front (PF) 2001 election, 121 2006 election, 124, 125 2008 election, 125–126 success, 132 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 elections, 130, 131 PDCI. See Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) PDCI-African Democratic Rally, 93 “peacock” throne, 178 Pearl of Africa, 133 People’s Party for Development (PAPOD), 179 People’s Democratic Party(PDP) 1999 election, 6–7 2003 election, 7–8 2015 election, 8, 125 People’s Development Party (PDP), 156–157 People’s Progress Party (PPP), 156–157 Pereira, Analia de Victoria, 169 Pereira, Rui de Victoria (PRA), 169 “perestroika,” 110 persuasion, leadership theories, 198-199

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa Pinda, Arthur Quixona, 179 Plano, Jack C., 42 plutocracy, 4 political corruption, defined, 30 Political Council of the Opposition (CPO), 179 political leadership, African problem, 2–3 political parties Angolan independence struggle, 164 Angola’s multi-party system, 167–172 in Egyptian, 50–54, 57, 60, 64–70 in Ivory Coast, 74, 75–76, 81 national assembly elections, 172–182 in Uganda, 135 Zambia’s First Republic, 103–106 Zambia’s Second Republic, 106–110 Zambia’s Third Republic, 102, 110–133 “politics of the belly,” 174 Popular Front for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) elections, 167 founded, 164 Lusaka Protocol, 171 1992 elections, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172 political trajectory, 182 and Republic of Angola, 165 2008 elections, 167, 172–177 2012 elections, 167, 177–182 “popularity-deficit,” 190 Portugal Angolan independence struggle, 164–165, 166 colonial Angola, 16–17, 162–165 in East Africa, 100 Ivory coast exploration, 71

249

slave trade, 162 Powell, Colin leadership templates, 10, 11 theories on leadership, 186, 187–195, 209 Preamble, AU Corruption Convention, 31–32 Preamble, ECOWAS Corruption Protocol, 39 princes leadership style, 27 professionals, leadership theories, 190–191 prophets leadership style, 27 public speaking, leadership theories, 206–207 Pule, Daniel M., 130, 131

Qutb, Sayyid, 49

Radio Ecclesia, 175 Rakner, Lise, 109, 122 Rally for the Republicans, 93, 94, 95 Rassemblement des republicains (RDR) and PDCI, 83 2000 election, 88 RDR. See Rassemblement des republicains (RDR) Rene, Albert, 44 Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group, 127–128 “reserved role,” 104 Rhodes, Cecil, 100 Rhodesia, 100–101 Roberto, Holden FNLA leader, 164 1992 elections, 169 Rwanda, 3, 17

Sadat, Anwar assassination, 58

250 as Egyptian leader, 48 governance, 55–58, 59–60, 69 Sae Benevides, Salvador Correa de, 162 Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira, 165 Samakuva, Isaias, 179 Sankara, Thomas, 45 Sata, Michael death of, 130 2001 election, 121 2006 election, 124, 125 2008 election, 125–127 2011 election, 127, 128, 129, 130 Savimbi, Jonas Malheiro death of, 171 Lusaka Protocol, 171 1992 election, 169, 170 UNITA leader, 154 Scott, Guy, 130 self-determination, 3 Seligman, Lester, 16 Senghor, Leopold Sedar, 20 Shamapande, Yobert, 121 Sharia law, 55 Simulambuco Protectorate, Treaty of, 163 Simutanyi, Neo, 111, 123 Sinkamba, Peter C., 130, 131 slave trade abolition of, 163 Portugese role, 162, 163 Sobas, 176 Social Democratic Party (SDP) 1992 election, 169 2001 election, 121–122 2011 elections, 156–157 Social Renewal Party (PRS) political trajectory, 182 2008 election, 173 2012 election, 178, 179, 181 socialism, 18–19 Socialist Union of the People, 93, 84 Somalia, 3

Index Sondashi, Ludwig S., 130, 131 Soro, Guillaume, 90 Southern African Development Community (SADC), 180 Southern Mande ethnic group, 72, 73, 87 Southern Rhodesia, 100–101 Soviet Union collapse of, 110. 148 and the post-colonial state, 19 Spinola, General Antonio de, 165 Ssali, Bidandi, 156–157 Ssali, Jaberi Bidandi, 157 Ssemogerere, Paul K. 1980 election, 144 1996 election, 145 Stevens, A., 15 Stogdill, R. M., 15 Strategic Adjustment Program (SAP), 65 Strauss, Scott, 95 subordinates, 189–190, 193–194, 196 success, leadership theories, 187–188 Sudan, 3, 17 Supreme Administrative Court, 60 Sutan Faud, 48 Svasand, Lars, 109, 122 Syria, 62

Tabwa people, 100 Tagammu Party, 67, 68 Tagoua, Jacqueline Pascal, 93 Tahrir Square, 70 Tanganyika (Tanzania), 101 Tanzania, 17 Tanzania People’s Defense Force (TPDF), 143 Taya, Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed, 45 Tembo, Christon, 121 Tettey, Wisdom, 26 Thibaut, Bernhard, 77, 82, 86, 105, 108

Leadership and the Problem of Electoral Democracy in Africa Timberg, Craig, 63 Tofa, Bashir, 23 Tohou, Henri, 93 Tolbert, William Richard, 20 Tombalbaye, Ngarta, 20 Toro kingdom, 133, 134 Toungara, Jeanne Maddox, 72 Toure, Ahmed Sekou Monrovia group, 20 Soviet development model, 19 twenty year rule, 44 Traore, Honore, 45–46 Traore, Moussa, 44 trust, leadership theories, 194 Tsvangirai, Morgan, 63 Tucker, Robert C., 15 Tutsis, 17 tyrants leadership style, 27

Udogu, Emmanuel Ike, 26 Uganda brief history, 133–134 electoral democracy crisis, 5 military’s role, 20 self-rule, 134, 135 Uganda, Electoral Commission, 150–152 Uganda Federal Alliance (UFA), 2011 elections, 156–157 Uganda National Congress (UNC) colonial era, 134 founded, 135 1961 election, 136 1962 election, 138, 139 Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLF), 143, 145 Uganda National Union, 1962 election, 139 Uganda Patriotic Movement, 1980 elections, 143, 144 Ugandan African Farmers Union, 134 Ugandan People’s Congress (UPC) founded, 135

251

1961 election, 136–137 1962 election, 138–139 1980 election, 143, 144–145 2006 elections, 152–153 2011 election, 157 Unilateral declaration of victory (UDV), 88–89 Union des forces democratiques (UDS), 84 Union des sociaux democrates (USD), 81–82 Union for Cote d’Ivoire, 93 United Democratic Alliance (UDA), 124, 125 Union of Democrats of Ivory Coast (UDCI), 89 Union of Democracy and Peace in Cote d’Ivoire, 93 United Front for Change of Angola (FUMA), 179 UNITA. See United Struggle for Africans in Angola (UNITA), National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) United National Independence Party (UNIP) collapse of, 111 founded, 102 leadership theories, 190 1964/1968 election, 103–106 1991 elections, 113–115 1996 elections, 116–117, 118–119 single-party system, 106–109 success of, 132 2001 election, 121 2006 election, 124, 125 2011 election, 127, 129 2015 election, 130, 131 United Party for National Development (UPND) 2001 election, 121, 122 2006 election, 124 2008 election, 125–126

252

Index

2011 election, 127, 129 2015 election, 130, 131 United States, 19 United Nations Convention against Corruption, 30

World War II, 101

Van Wyk, Jo-Ansie, 13 vision, leadership theories, 207–209 Voltaic-speakers, 72 voter registration sustainable reforms, 183 Zambia, 112 voter turnout Egyptian 2005 elections, 66 Egyptian 2010 election, 68–69

Zambezi River, 102 Zambia brief history, 99–101 constitutional struggle, 102 electoral democracy crisis, 5 First Republic, 102, 103–106 independence struggle, 101, 102 leadership theories, 190 Second Republic, 102, 106–110 Third Republic, 102, 110–133 Zambia Democratic Congress (ZDC), 118 Zambia for Empowerment and Development (ZED), 127, 129–130 Zambian Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), 112 Zambian Republican Party (ZRP), 121 Zimbabwe, 63 Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), 62, 63

Wafd-Brotherhood, 60 Wafd Party, 67, 68 “walking on two legs,” 187 “war on corruption,” 30 West African leaders, 4 Wiseman, John A., 82 Wodie, Francis 1995 election, 85, 86 2000 election, 89 2010 elections. 93 World Bank, 65 World War I, 101

Yamoussoukro Confab, 91 Yao, Felix, Akoto, 93