One-Party Dominance in African Democracies 9781626372658

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One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies edited by

Renske Doorenspleet Lia Nijzink

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2013 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com

and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU

© 2013 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data One-party dominance in African democracies / Renske Doorenspleet and Lia Nijzink, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58826-869-3 (alk. paper) 1. Political parties—Africa, Sub-Saharan. 2. Democracy—Africa, Sub-Saharan. 3. Africa, Sub-Saharan—Politics and government. I. Doorenspleet, Renske, 1973– II. Nijzink, Lia. JQ1879.A795O64 2013 324.26—dc23 2013001382 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

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Contents

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Acknowledgments

1 One-Party Dominance in African Democracies: A Framework for Analysis Renske Doorenspleet and Lia Nijzink 2 An Overview of African Party Systems Gero Erdmann and Matthias Basedau PART 1

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ENDURING ONE-PARTY DOMINANCE

3 Namibia: Cultivating the Liberation Gospel Henning Melber

4 South Africa: Racialized Discourse in the Context of Deteriorating Performance Thiven Reddy 5 Tanzania: Nurturing Legacies of the Past Mohammed Bakari and Richard Whitehead

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PART 2

Contents

ONE-PARTY DOMINANCE DISCONTINUED

6 Zambia: Manufactured One-Party Dominance and Its Collapse Neo Simutanyi 7 Mali: From Dominant Party to Platform of Unity Martin van Vliet 8 Senegal: The Rise and Fall of a One-Party-Dominant System Christof Hartmann PART 3

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CONCLUSION

9 Why One-Party Dominance Endures in Some Democracies but Not Others Lia Nijzink and Renske Doorenspleet

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List of Acronyms Bibliography The Contributors Index About the Book

209 219 241 245 257

Acknowledgments

nection, and an idea and a plan of action unfolds. That’s what happened in 2008. We met during a workshop on Comparative Methodology in Law and Politics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. We shared ideas about teaching and the use of African material in courses on political studies and constitutional law. We discovered that we share a passion for comparative politics. We had each identified similar gaps in existing research on politics in Africa, so we discussed possible avenues for collaboration. Most prominent in our discussions was the question of why many African democracies are characterized by one dominant party that keeps winning elections. And, like true comparativists, we felt that this question could only be answered by simultaneously addressing the question of why some dominant parties failed to persist over time. Answering these two questions together would help us improve our understanding of an important phenomenon confronting emerging democracies on the African continent. Thus, the idea for this book was born. Sometimes things just happen, but that doesn’t mean that implementing our idea was without obstacles. Many people assisted us in overcoming these obstacles and made our plan a reality. We would like to express our gratitude to all of them. First, we wish to thank the Development Partnerships in Higher Education (DelPHE) Programme of the British Council and the Department for International Development, UK. They funded the Accountable SOMETIMES THINGS JUST HAPPEN. YOU MEET, THERE IS A CON-

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Government in Africa Project, a South-North partnership of the University of Cape Town’s Department of Public Law with the Universities of Warwick and Dar es Salaam. This partnership project (2007–2010) was not only the reason we first met, it also provided financial assistance for us to organize an international conference that brought together many of the contributors to this book. Additional assistance for the conference came from the School of Law, the Institute for Advanced Studies, and the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. We are grateful for their support. Second, we wish to thank everyone who made our conference a success. Held in September 2010 and hosted by the Centre for Studies in Democratisation and the School of Law, University of Warwick, it formed the final event of our South-North partnership project. Conference participants explored the rise and persistence of one-partydominant regimes in sub-Saharan Africa and discussed the interaction among one-party dominance, the rule of law, and other governance related themes. Presentations by experts in the fields of law and politics addressed conceptual and theoretical aspects of one-party dominance as well as specific country cases, including South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mali. Participants from the three partner institutions (the University of Warwick, the University of Dar es Salaam, and the University of Cape Town) were joined by participants from Zambia, Norway, Nigeria, and Germany. We would like to express our appreciation for the enthusiasm with which everyone participated in the conference proceedings. We also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Juan Carlos Gomez during conference preparations. Juan attended to the many logistical details with a warm smile and down-to-earth approach. To us, the conference was an inspiration. Third, we wish to thank everyone who contributed to this book. We are grateful to the chapter authors, who supported us in our aim to develop a theoretical framework that would bring the case studies together. They patiently attended to all queries and requests during the editing process. The high quality of their contributions has made this a rewarding project. Our special thanks go to Peter Burnell (Warwick University), Christina Murray (University of Cape Town), and Lise Rakner (University of Bergen), who served as discussants during the conference and gave further feedback at various stages of the project. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their critical as well as encouraging comments, and to everyone at Lynne Rienner Publishers for their professional assistance during the publication process.

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Finally, our heartfelt thanks go to our families for their support and understanding when we had to work on this book during holidays and weekends. One of the best solutions to these pressures was to spend two holidays together near Cape Town, which made everyone happy and created wonderful memories. Sometimes things just happen. —the Editors

1 One-Party Dominance in African Democracies: A Framework for Analysis Renske Doorenspleet and Lia Nijzink

in African democracies. We use a comparative research design and rich case material to enhance our understanding of one of the key issues confronting democracies on the African continent. Although we focus on African democracies, we present a framework for comparative analysis that can be used to study one-party dominance in all regions of the world. Our analysis transcends the traditional case study bias of contemporary studies on one-party dominance by analyzing party system trajectories and their underlying mechanisms in six African countries: Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Mali, and Senegal. Since the beginning of the 1990s, waves of democratization have reached large parts of Africa. Because of deep ethnic divisions on the continent, experts worried that the adoption of multiparty democracy would lead to highly fragmented party systems (Widner 1997; Van de Walle 2003). However, this fracturing did not happen. To the contrary, systems with one dominant party emerged, and in some African democracies such systems have since prevailed. Compared to established democracies, where one-party-dominant systems are rare, the relatively high number in Africa is remarkable, and scholars have now started to identify a “worrying trend of one-party dominance” on the continent (Bogaards 2004: 192; see also Van de Walle and Butler 1999; Doorenspleet 2003). Surprisingly, research on this trend has been scarce. Only a few studies have been devoted to the concepts, measurements, and expla-

THIS BOOK IS ONE OF THE FIRST STUDIES OF ONE-PARTY DOMINANCE

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One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

nations of party systems with one dominant party, and none of them was based on systematic comparative research of one-party dominance in the African context.1 We aim to fill this gap with this book by bringing together the work of leading experts who have studied the phenomenon of one-party dominance in the context of Africa’s young democracies. One-party-dominant systems do not follow the “normal” or “expected” pattern of party competition in a democracy. In the few existing studies on one-party dominance, the phenomenon is essentially regarded as anomalous in democratic systems. As T. J. Pempel (1990: 1) puts it: In these countries, despite free electoral competition, relatively open information systems, respect for civil liberties, and the right of free political association, a single party has managed to govern alone or as the primary and on-going partner in coalitions, without interruption, for substantial periods of time.

Pempel (1990: 334) also states that one-party dominance is “exceptionally rare, involving a serendipitous congruence of effort and luck.” This rarity makes the high number of one-party-dominant systems among Africa’s young democracies all the more remarkable. The high concentration of such systems also means that the African continent is a particularly interesting area in which we can study one-party dominance in democracies from a comparative perspective. Rather than emphasizing the exceptionality of one-party dominance in democratic systems, we systematically compare a number of African democracies with one dominant party. Comparison allows us to address the question of the stability of one-party-dominant systems and to investigate why some one-party-dominant systems have endured while others have not. After an overview of current party systems on the continent, which is presented in the next chapter, country case studies follow, focusing on the party system trajectories in six African democracies. The authors of these chapters will seek to identify the underlying mechanisms of enduring one-party dominance as well as those mechanisms that move a party system away from one-party dominance. The aim of this introductory chapter is not only to discuss the concept of one-party dominance but also to explain the methodology and selection of cases in our study. In addition, the chapter presents the main research questions and a road map of the chapters that follow.

A Framework for Analysis

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What Is One-Party Dominance? Our starting point is the definition of one-party dominance as presented by G. Sartori (1976) in his seminal work on parties and party systems: one-party-dominant systems are those party systems in which the same party wins an absolute majority in at least three consecutive elections. One must note that this conceptualization of one-party dominance is not static. By definition, a one-party-dominant system includes a time dimension because it extends over at least three elections. In order to capture this important element, we often use the term party system trajectory in our analysis. This term denotes party systems that meet the criteria of Sartori’s definition as well as those in which the governing party showed initial signs of dominance but failed to win three consecutive elections or lost its dominant position. In Chapter 2, Gero Erdmann and Matthias Basedau present a classification of African party systems, which gives us an interesting overview of party system variation on the continent. It also assists us by identifying those party systems in Africa that are dominated by one political party. The authors start their contribution by comparing seven definitions of one-party dominance using three criteria: the threshold for dominance, the time span taken into account, and the area of application. They observe that little consensus can be found about the concept of one-party dominance. Proposed thresholds for dominance vary from 70 percent to 40 percent of parliamentary seats or, in the case of Pempel’s (1990) work, a simple plurality of seats and votes. Some definitions are limited to a single election outcome, while others suggest that dominance requires a particular party to be in power for a certain period of time. Only Sartori’s definition of dominance includes a precise period of three consecutive elections in which the same party has to win at least 50 percent of parliamentary seats. Consequently, Erdmann and Basedau propose to use a definition of one-party dominance that is based on Sartori’s work. They state that Sartori’s party system typology is still “the most useful for arriving at an accurate classification of party systems and their dynamics in general and of dominant party systems in particular” (p. 30 in this volume). In other words, because Sartori’s definition of one-party dominance is part of a comprehensive typology of party systems, it is the best starting point for a study of this phenomenon. Another important reason to favor Sartori’s definition is that it enables comparisons between party systems in Africa and elsewhere. Erdmann and Basedau convincingly argue that one needs to refrain from

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One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

using definitions and criteria that can only be applied to party systems on the continent. They also emphasize the importance of using a definition of one-party dominance that allows for comparisons of one-party-dominant systems with other types of party systems. They proceed by using Sartori’s typology as a whole—not just his concept of one-party dominance—to classify current party systems on the African continent. Sartori’s typology makes two distinctions that are important for our study of one-party dominance. One is the distinction between dominant party systems on the one hand and dominant-authoritarian party systems on the other. When party system developments in Africa are analyzed, this distinction between one-party dominance in an authoritarian context and one-party dominance in a democratic context is crucial. As discussed in the next section, some of the existing comparative work on one-party dominance includes analyses of one-party-dominant systems in both democracies and authoritarian regimes. We believe comparing one-party dominance in these different contexts is not very useful. Especially if we want to understand why some one-party-dominant systems endure and others do not, we need to adhere to a rigorous comparative design and analyze democracies separately from authoritarian regimes. Thus, Sartori’s distinction between dominant and dominant-authoritarian party systems is an important one. As M. Bogaards (2004: 179) explains, the distinction “encourages the identification of the nature of dominance and a distinction between different kinds of one-party dominance.” The second important distinction is the one made by Sartori between party systems in stable political regimes versus those in fluid political systems. In fluid political systems, party systems are unstructured and can, according to Sartori, be divided into four types: dominant-authoritarian, pulverized, nondominant, and dominant. The first operates in a an authoritarian setting, and the other three operate in a multiparty setting. In stable political regimes, party systems are more established, structured, and institutionalized 2 and can be divided into four similar types (see Table 2.2 in this volume). For our study, a party system with one dominant party in a stable system (called a “predominant” party system in Sartori’s terminology) must be distinguished from a party system with one dominant party in a fluid political system (called a “dominant” party system in Sartori’s terminology) (Sartori 1976). This distinction between fluid and stable party systems allows us to distinguish between one-party dominance that is of a provisional nature, on the one hand, and one-party-dominant systems that are more entrenched, on the other hand. In this book, we make a similar but slightly different3 distinction by comparing stable one-party-dominant

A Framework for Analysis

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systems with cases in which one-party dominance did not endure. Our cases of enduring one-party dominance are those in which the dominant party is firmly entrenched in its position during a period that spans more than three consecutive elections. In contrast, we also investigate cases in which one party initially showed signs of dominance but failed to win three consecutive elections or lost its dominant position. As you will see, Erdmann and Basedau’s classification of party systems in Africa (presented in Chapter 2) includes only those countries that, by the end of 2010, had held at least three consecutive multiparty elections. They come up with the following results: eighteen party systems in Africa are considered fluid; one of these fluid systems is a dominant party system; and four are dominant-authoritarian party systems.4 Twenty party systems in Africa can be considered stable party systems. Of these, eleven operate in a nondemocratic context and therefore need to be classified as hegemonic party systems (i.e., Sartori’s terminology for dominant-authoritarian systems in structured circumstances). Of the remaining nine, five systems are considered predominant party systems: Botswana, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, and Tanzania.5 As the authors point out, while not everyone may agree with how individual countries are classified, this tally does indicate both the variety of party system types on the continent and a continuing prevalence of one-party dominance in Africa. We have taken the universe of cases as presented by Erdmann and Basedau as a starting point to select the countries that are included in this study. Our methodology and case selection will be further discussed below. Our Methodology and Case Selection In much of the political science literature, one-party-dominant systems in democracies are implicitly or explicitly regarded as “uncommon,” or “deviant” or as “outliers” (e.g., Pempel 1990; Giliomee and Simkins 1999). As a consequence, the goal of many existing studies is to explain the exceptionality of one-party-dominant systems. Various case studies of dominant parties in specific countries do exactly that. They discuss the specific circumstances under which one party dominates a particular party system (see, for example, Aronoff 1990; Esping-Andersen 1990; Cheng and Haggard 1990; Mattes, Gouws, and Kotze 1995; Horgan 2000; Diaw and Diouf 1998; Greene 2007). Although these studies give insightful information about the specific situation in a given country,

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One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

they provide little information about general patterns of one-party dominance. In order to identify such patterns and contribute to theory development, systematic cross-national comparisons are needed. However, in political science, only a few comparative studies are devoted to the phenomenon of one-party dominance (e.g., Arian and Barnes 1974; Pempel 1990; Giliomee and Simkins 1999; Wong and Friedman 2008; Spiess 2009; Bogaards and Boucek 2010).6 These comparative studies make important contributions to our theoretical and empirical knowledge of one-party dominance. Many of them discuss the stability of one-party-dominant regimes in one way or another. However, they fail to answer the question of why one-partydominant systems endure in some countries but not in others. Many possible explanations are mentioned, but they are not investigated in a comparative and systematic way. The case selection is either unclear or not convincingly justified.7 In order to investigate the question of endurance, one needs to include not only the cases in which one-party dominance lasted but also cases in which one-party dominance has not persisted over time. Not all previous studies have done so. Moreover, most of them have not clearly distinguished one-party dominance in democracies on the one hand from one-party dominance in authoritarian regimes on the other hand. Wong and Friedman (2008), for example, not only include democratic states such as India and South Africa but also include authoritarian countries such as Singapore and China in their analysis. In our view, recognizing that the very nature of dominance is different in authoritarian regimes, due to their oppressive aspects, is crucial to improving our understanding of the phenomenon of one-party dominance. Thus, in our analysis, we try to overcome the shortcomings of the previous studies by focusing only on democracies and only on African countries, in other words truly comparable cases. This approach results in a more systematic exploration of the different trajectories of and mechanisms behind one-party dominance. In order to adhere to Sartori’s important distinction between dominance in an authoritarian versus democratic context, our next task is to exclude African authoritarian regimes from the analysis.8 To distinguish between different regime types, Freedom House collects data on both political rights and civil liberties across the world and classifies countries as free, partly free, or not free. In 2011, seventeen African countries, according to Freedom House, were not free; political rights in these countries were not guaranteed and civil liberties not safeguarded. Thus, these countries are excluded from our analysis. The remainder of the countries on the continent can be divided into two groups: one group of nine coun-

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A Framework for Analysis

tries that has been classified as free, with high levels of political rights and civil liberties, and another group of twenty-two countries that has been classified as partly free with generally lower levels of political rights and civil liberties (see Table 1.1). Because we do not want to equate the Freedom House classification of “free” with democracy and because we do not want to limit our analysis to the top performers in Africa, countries from each group are included in our analysis: Namibia, South Africa, and Mali (from the group of countries classified as “free” in 2011) and Senegal, Zambia, and Tanzania (from the top half of the group listed as “partly free,” meaning that these countries still have relatively high levels of political rights and civil liberties).9 We selected these six countries because they display or have displayed characteristics of one-party dominance.10 Because we wished to investigate the various mechanisms behind one-party dominance and seek to understand why some one-party-dominant systems endure and others do not, we needed to compare case studies of countries in which a oneparty-dominant system is firmly entrenched—South Africa, Namibia, and Table 1.1 Free

Freedom House Status of Sub-Saharan African Countries, Showing Political Rights Scores and Civil Liberties Scores, 2011

Cape Verde 1,1 Ghana 1,2 Mauritius 1,2 Benin 2,2 Namibia 2,2 São Tomé and Principe 2,2 South Africa 2,2 Mali 2,3 Botswana 3,2

Partly Free

Lesotho 3,3 Senegal 3,3 Seychelles 3,3 Sierra Leone 3,3 Tanzania 3,3 Comoros 3,4 Liberia 3,4 Malawi 3,4 Zambia 3,4 Mozambique 4,3 Kenya 4,3 Guinea-Bissau 4,4 Nigeria 4,4 Burkina Faso 5,3 Niger 5,4 Togo 5,4 Uganda 5,4 Burundi 5,5 Cenral African Republic 5,5 The Gambia 5,5 Guinea 5,5 Madagascar 6,4

Not Free

Angola 6,5 Congo-Brazzaville 6,5 Djibouti 6,5 Gabon 6,5 Mauritania 6,5 Rwanda 6,5 Cameroon 6,6 Democratic Republic of Congo 6,6 Ethiopia 6,6 Zimbabwe 6,6 Swaziland 7,5 Côte d’Ivoire 7,6 Chad 7,6 Equatorial Guinea 7,7 Eritrea 7,7 Somalia 7,7 Sudan 7,7

Source: Freedom House (2012). Note: Bold indicates the six countries used as case studies in this book.

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Tanzania—with those in which an initial pattern of one-party dominance did not persist—Mali, Senegal, and Zambia. Only by comparing enduring with nonenduring one-party dominance can we discover what lies behind the endurance of some one-party-dominant systems. Table 1.2 shows that Namibia, Tanzania, and South Africa fall squarely in the category of one-party-dominant systems as defined by Sartori. Interestingly, the dominant parties in these three countries not only Table 1.2

Country

Namibia

Tanzania South Africa Senegal

Zambia

Mali

Results of Parliamentary and Presidential Elections in Six Selected Countries Since a Transition to Democracy

Year

1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 1995 2000 2005 2010 1994 1999 2004 2009 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 2000/2001 2007 2012 1991 1996 2001 2006 2008 2011 1992 1997 2002 2007

Winning Party

SWAPO SWAPO SWAPO SWAPO SWAPO CCM CCM CCM CCM ANC ANC ANC ANC PS PS PS PS PS Sopi Coalition Sopi Coalition BBY MMD MMD MMD MMD MMD PF ADEMA ADEMA Espoir 2002 ADP

Vote Share Winner, Presidential Elections — 76.3 76.8 76.4 76.4 61.8 71.7 80.3 62.8 — — — — 82.0 83.5 73.2 58.4 — 31.0a 55.9 26.6a 75.8 72.6 29.2 43.0 40.6 42.9 44.9 a 95.9 28.7 a 71.2

Seat Share Winner, Parliamentary Elections 56.9 73.6 76.4 76.4 75.0 79.6 87.5 85.1 74.0 63.0 66.5 69.8 66.0 83.0 92.5 85.8 70.0 66.4 74.2 87.3 79.3 83.3 87.3 46.0 48.0 — 40.0 65.5 87.1 44.9 76.9

Seat Share Runner-Up, Parliamentary Elections 29.2 20.8 9.7 6.9 11.1 10.4 7.5 9.6 13.7 20.5 9.5 12.5 16.8 17.0 6.7 14.2 22.5 16.4 9.2 2.0 8.0 16.7 3.3 32.7 29.3 — 36.7 7.8 5.4 34.7 20.2

Sources: African Elections Database; Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) Election Archive. Notes: a. Vote share winner second round: Senegal 2000/2001 presidential elections, 58.5 percent; Senegal 2012, 65.8 percent; Mali 1992 presidential elections, 69 percent; Mali 2002 presidential elections, 64.4 percent. — indicates countries in which only parliamentary elections or only presidential elections were held in that year.

A Framework for Analysis

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meet the criteria of Sartori’s definition but far exceed them. Since their transitions to democracy, our three country cases with enduring one-partydominant systems have all held four or, in the case of Namibia, five multiparty elections in which the same political party gained more than 50 percent of the parliamentary seats. In Namibia, the seat share of the SWAPO party (formerly the South West Africa People’s Organisation) has consistently been around 75 percent with only the transitional elections in 1989, when SWAPO gained 56.9 percent of the seats, being an exception. In Tanzania, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) shows repeated seat shares above 75 percent, winning a high of 87.5 percent of parliamentary seats in 2000. In South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) has an equally consistent but slightly lower seat share of around two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly. Thus, the dominant parties that have emerged in these three African democracies seem to outperform dominant parties in other parts of the world. With seat shares consistently reaching a two-thirds threshold, they seem well entrenched. In this book we seek to understand the mechanisms behind this trajectory of endurance. In order to strengthen our comparative framework, we have included three other cases in our analysis in which initial patterns of one-party dominance did not persist: Senegal, Zambia, and Mali. Senegal is an interesting case in which the party system trajectory shows not only the end of the Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste [PS]), as a dominant party, but also the end of Senegal’s one-party-dominant system. After consistently winning more than two-thirds of the parliamentary seats for twenty years (from 1978 to 1998) the PS eventually lost power to the Sopi Coalition (sopi meaning “change” in Wolof). Initially, elements of the one-party-dominant system were still in place when Abdoulaye Wade’s Sopi Coalition took over power from the PS in 2000. However, Wade’s defeat in the 2012 presidential race not only was a triumph for leadership turnover but also signified Senegal’s final move away from one-party dominance. Zambia shows a different party system trajectory. The move to multiparty politics in 1991 was the basis for the dominant position that the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) enjoyed during its time in office from 1991 to 2011. Interestingly, during half of this period the MMD, while controlling government and the presidency, did not have a majority of the seats in parliament, forcing the party to somehow manufacture its continued dominance. In the 2011 elections, Michael Sata won the presidential race, and his party, the Patriotic Front (PF), replaced MMD as the largest party in parliament, thus bringing Zambia’s period of manufactured one-party dominance to an end.

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Finally, in Mali, the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (Alliance pour la Démocratie en Mali [ADEMA]) convincingly won the first multiparty elections in 1992 and 1997 and looked set to entrench this initial position of dominance in 2002. Instead, its seat share plunged from 87.1 percent to 30.6 percent. However, this move away from one-party dominance did not signify a move toward more competitive, pluralistic politics. On the contrary, all major political actors including ADEMA rallied around President Amadou Toumani Touré, thus creating a platform of unity in which consensus rather than competition was highly valued. By comparing three countries with a trajectory of enduring one-party dominance and three countries in which an initial pattern of one-party dominance did not persist, we are applying a so-called most similar systems design. This research design is based on John Stuart Mill’s (1843) method of difference, which seeks to identify the key features that are different among similar countries in an effort to account for a different outcome (see also Przeworski and Teune 1970; Lijphart 1971; Landman 2008). Analyses using this design compare similar cases (in this book, African democracies) that differ with regard to the outcome (in this book, the difference between trajectories of enduring and nonenduring dominance). This approach is, in our opinion, the best way to investigate the stability of one-party-dominant systems, detect crucial similarities and differences, and answer the question of why some one-party-dominant systems have endured while others have not. Party System Trajectories and Their Underlying Mechanisms Several possible mechanisms that could lie behind the endurance of one-party-dominant systems have already been identified in the political science literature on party systems and the few comparative studies on one-party dominance. First, the endurance of one-party-dominant systems seems to be related to the history of the dominant parties and party systems in question (see, for example, Huntington 1968; Giliomee and Simkins 1999; Salih 2003: 13–18; 2007). Many African countries that are currently enjoying democracy suffered a traumatic past characterized by colonization, civil war, or severe repression during authoritarian and military regimes or some combination of the three. Many of the current ruling parties evolved either from nationalist movements that mobilized citizens to fight for independence or from prodemocracy movements

A Framework for Analysis

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that gained momentum in the early 1990s (Rakner 2010; cf. Giliomee 1998). The question we seek to investigate in our book is how this relates to their subsequent trajectories as dominant parties in a democratic context. Almost six decades ago, M. Duverger (1954: 308) argued that “a dominant party is dominant because people believe it is so. . . . The party is associated with an epoch.” S. P. Huntington (1968: 426) similarly found the historical background of party systems to be of great importance and observed that the strength of a party “derives from its struggle for power.” He also noted that “the longer a nationalist party fought for independence, the longer it was able to enjoy the power that came with independence” (426), while in contrast, “many of the nationalist parties which came into power only a few years before independence and which won independence easily had a less secure grasp on power after independence” (426). In other words, “the stability of the system thus depends upon its inheritance from the past. The more intense and prolonged the struggle for power and the deeper its ideological commitment, the greater the political stability of the one-party system which is subsequently created” (Huntington 1968: 424–425). Although Huntington made these observations in the 1960s in relation to the stability of the single-party regimes that emerged in many African countries soon after independence, they are equally relevant in relation to the dominant parties we are studying in this book. Thus, a political party’s achievements during the struggle for independence or democracy are likely to influence the party’s strength as a dominant party under multiparty democracy. Some of the current dominant parties were the first parties to politically mobilize major population groups prior to independence. The principal nationalist or liberation movements usually had a broad membership, often cutting across class and ethnic lines, with majority rule as the common goal. As such, they could monopolize the political loyalties of the citizens in the newly independent state. In some instances, this early appeal seems to have had a lasting effect and, at least partly, determines their strength as dominant parties in the current democratic context (Salih 2003). In these cases, the “person of the president and the liberation struggle are constant reminders for voters to stay the course” (Salih 2003: 18). In other words, the liberation movement has successfully transformed itself into a political party that continues to be the embodiment of nationalist politics. As H. Giliomee and C. Simkins (1999: 350) point out, even in the context of multiparty elections, “loyalty to the party is equated with loyalty to the nation or with patriotism, and criti-

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One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

cism of especially the party leader is associated with disloyalty towards nation and state.”11 In contrast to the older liberation movements, the prodemocracy movements that gained power in the early 1990s did not have a distinct nation-building agenda. They explicitly campaigned for multiparty democracy. Thus, these movements faced a far more competitive context in which to establish themselves as ruling parties and gain a position of dominance. As L. Rakner (2010: 3–4) argues, the prodemocracy movements were “broad coalitions of representative forces from civil society such as churches, trade unions, academia, law associations and business associations” but “could not build party institutions in a monopoly situation” and “faced exceptionally strong challenges of institutionalizing.” M. Bratton and N. Van de Walle (1997) convincingly show that successful transitions to democracy depend critically on the way power was exercised by the rulers of previous regimes. A similar logic seems to apply to the effect of a party’s history on its later strength as a party in power. Therefore, whether dominant parties have their roots in the struggle for independence or in the more recent prodemocracy movements seems to be highly relevant to the question of the endurance of one-party-dominant systems. A second mechanism that potentially lies behind the different trajectories of one-party dominance in African democracies is the ability of a party to transcend social cleavages (i.e., economic, ethnic, religious, and linguistic divisions in society). Various scholars have shown that cleavages in society influence political parties and party systems. S. M. Lipset and S. Rokkan (1967) famously argued that most modern party families and party systems originate from socioeconomic and cultural cleavages. Where different cleavages—economic, linguistic, ethnic, territorial, or religious— overlap or cut across each other, multiparty systems are likely to occur, especially in heterogeneous countries with proportional electoral systems. The reverse relationship has also been demonstrated: political parties have an effect on social cleavages. Huntington (1968: 425–426), for example, observed that in a competitive party system, “strong incentives exist for each party to appeal to a particular group, ethnic and religious animosities are fanned by the mobilization of the masses, and the competition of the parties deepens and reinforces pre-existing social cleavages.”12 The relation between social cleavages and one-party-dominant systems in democracies seems fundamentally different (see also Van de Walle 2003; Erdmann 2004). In order to gain a dominant position in a democratic context, a party’s ability to mobilize different societal groups, transcend multiple cleavages, and integrate various groups into the party

A Framework for Analysis

13

is of crucial importance. For example, Giliomee and Simkins (1999) have already shown that the dominant parties in South Africa, Mexico, Taiwan, and Malaysia have all successfully transcended class divisions. Indices for ethnic, linguistic, and religious fractionalization show that, despite small variations, most countries in Africa are heterogeneous (e.g., Alesina et al. 2003; Fearon 2003; Posner 2004). Thus, a political party needs to successfully transcend multiple social cleavages and attract voters from different social groups in order to win elections, stay in power, and establish a dominant position. Parties subsequently need to exercise a high degree of control over the mobilization of different societal groups and continue to appeal to those groups in order to sustain their dominant position. Once a ruling party has established its dominant position, the party seems to benefit from that position and in turn reinforce it by strengthening its links with society. As noted above, the African nationalist parties and liberation movements of the 1960s were usually broad multiethnic or multiclass coalitions, or both, and often included labor unions, student unions, and women and religious organizations.13 Most of the current dominant parties (whether rooted in a nationalist movement or with a different historical legacy) also have a broad multiethnic and multiclass character. Once entrenched in their dominant position, they seem to have closer relations with social groups than the opposition or any new political parties. Moreover, smaller political parties are often co-opted, thus reinforcing the dominant party’s image as a broad umbrella body. As S. Friedman (1999) shows in his work on the ANC in South Africa, social groups seeking to articulate their interests only succeed if they manage to link up with factions within the dominant party. The broad multiclass and multiethnic character of the dominant party also has an effect on opposition parties, as “the opposition, almost against its will, is compelled to exaggerate exclusive cultural characteristics, which play into the hands of the dominant party’s attempt to delegitimise it” (Giliomee and Simkins 1999: 12–13). In sum, based on the studies discussed above, we expect dominant parties in enduring one-party-dominant systems to be more successful in transcending cleavages, attracting broad support, and co-opting different groups than the formerly dominant parties in cases in which oneparty dominance did not persist. A third potential mechanism behind the difference between enduring and nonenduring one-party dominance is the specific institutional architecture in the countries in question. The electoral system and the

14

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

institutional arrangements for executive-legislative relations make up the institutional architecture for a system’s political competition. Traditional theories of parties and party systems emphasize the important influence of electoral institutions.14 They show that electoral systems have mechanical as well as psychological effects (Duverger 1954; Lijphart 1994). Electoral systems based on proportional representation allow small parties to win parliamentary seats and therefore lead to party system fragmentation, while majoritarian first-past-thepost systems tend to exclude small parties from parliament, resulting in lower levels of party system fragmentation. Particularly in electoral systems in which only the larger parties have a chance to win parliamentary seats, voters tend to vote strategically, and do not necessarily follow their first party preference. In electoral systems with proportional representation (PR), voters can freely vote for the party of their first choice because no votes are “wasted.” Similarly, political parties make strategic choices based on the mechanical effects of a particular electoral system. In majoritarian systems small parties have an incentive to merge with other parties in order to increase their chances of passing the threshold and getting seats in parliament. In PR systems, parties can more easily get seats in parliament and thus survive on their own. In sum, we know that electoral systems shape party systems. An important question that remains unresolved is whether party systems “choose” the electoral systems that suit them (Gallagher 2011). We already know that in the African context the relationship between electoral systems and types of party systems is less straightforward than traditional theories suggest (see, for example, Mozaffar, Scarritt, and Galaich 2003; however see also Lindberg 2007: 219–221). In addition, knowledge is lacking about the impact of political institutions such as electoral systems on one-party dominance, and, confusingly, the scarce studies on this topic contradict each other. Some scholars have argued that electoral systems based on PR are more conducive to one-party dominance. G. Cox (1997: 249), for example, states that “differences in the ability of political forces to coordinate often contribute to the maintenance of dominant-party systems.” The rules of PR are a problem for opposition parties, which tend to be fragmented and “must rely on their own innate organizational wherewithal” (Cox 1997: 249), while dominant parties have more experience and resources to solve coordination problems. In other words, the dominant party can better deal with intra- and interparty competition (e.g., by nominating the optimal number of candidates for each constituency and

A Framework for Analysis

15

by mobilizing voters and convincing them to follow the party’s voting instructions). In sum, the coordination in one-party-dominant systems tends to be asymmetric, and this asymmetry is exacerbated by an electoral system based on PR. Other scholars take the opposite view and argue that PR makes the dominant party’s position more difficult to maintain. Defection from the dominant party and a strong role for top-down opposition party building is more likely in parliamentary systems with proportional representation electoral systems. . . . These rules allow small parties to win more easily and produce dominant parties with a lower percentage of the vote. (Greene 2007: 62)

These contradictory conclusions suggest that the influence of electoral systems on one-party dominance requires further investigation. At first glance, however, the institutional architecture seems to have little influence on the trajectory of one-party dominance in African democracies. As the case studies of the six countries show, one-party-dominant systems exist not only in countries that run elections according to a firstpast-the-post constituency system but also in those using a system of proportional representation based on party lists. Similarly, one-party dominance occurs in parliamentary, presidential, and semipresidential systems. The institutional arrangements of parliamentary versus presidential or semipresidential systems seem to have as little influence as the type of electoral system. However, the power of the head of government does seem to matter for one-party dominance. The political science literature suggests that powerful presidents are an obstacle to democratization because power concentrated in the hands of one person is difficult to hold in check. Powerful presidents easily become dominant executives and render legislatures weak and toothless (see, for example, Van Cranenburgh 2003: 193; Nijzink, Azevedo, and Mozaffar 2006; Nijzink 2009). Writing about African party systems, Van de Walle (2003: 310–311) has called the concentration of powers in the hands of the president highly problematic because he or she “is literally above the law, controls in many cases a large proportion of state finance with little accountability, and delegates remarkably little of his authority on important matters. . . . Legislative elections and party competition have to be understood in the context of this broader drama.” We need to understand the trajectories of one-party dominance in Africa in the same way: in the context of the existence of powerful pres-

16

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

idents. Regardless of the type of system in which they operate (parliamentary, presidential, or semipresidential), powerful presidents who are secure in their positions seem to be an important feature of one-party dominance, at least in Africa (Svåsand and Randall 2002b). Where presidents have reached their term limits or have managed their succession badly, dominant parties seem to be under pressure and party splits occur. In contrast, the dominant position of the party is anchored and augmented when the president is secure in his or her position, or when leadership changes are successfully managed within the party. Political culture is a fourth mechanism that potentially lies behind the different trajectories of party systems in African democracies (see, for example, Schaffer 1998; Cruise O’Brien 1999; Schlemmer 2006). The term political culture has been used widely yet inconsistently in the academic literature. For example, G. A. Almond and S. Verba (1965: 13) define political culture “as the particular distribution of patterns of orientation toward political objects among the members of a nation,” while R. Inglehart (1990; see also Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Welzel and Inglehart 2011) includes specific individual attitudes and values such as life satisfaction, interpersonal trust, and disdain for revolutionary change. L. Diamond (1999: 163) believes political culture should be understood as “people’s predominant beliefs, attitudes, values, ideals, sentiments, and evaluations about the political system of their country and the role of the self in that system.” S. Ersson and J.-E. Lane (2008: 421) argue that political culture is more encompassing and includes not only free associations of civic virtues, but also “the politics of all kinds of communities, ethnic, religious, and sex-based ones.” In our view, political culture consists of widely shared, fundamental beliefs that have political consequences. Thus, we use a definition of culture that focuses on the way people define their own role and understand each other in the context of organized groups such as political parties (see, for example, Diamond 1999; Hyden 2010). Understood in this way, political culture is a not separate from institutions like political parties. Rather institutions like dominant political parties are infused with cultural norms that are constantly being reinvented and redefined. In other words, cultural patterns could reinforce the position of dominant parties through the lived experiences of their leaders, members, and voters. Although a democratic political culture is not easy to define, its main characteristic is that it sets ethical norms and standards of behavior for governments, organizations, and individuals. In this context, the insightful and innovative study of F. C. Schaffer (1998) deserves atten-

A Framework for Analysis

17

tion. Schaffer investigates what democracy means in different contexts, including the meaning of demokaraasi among Wolof speakers in Senegal. Schaffer finds that while democracy refers to competition and choice, demokaraasi refers to mutuality that requires consensus (agreement),15 solidarity (reciprocity and shared responsibility),16 and evenhandedness (fair treatment of people “under the care” of leaders). 17 Schaffer’s study shows that many Senegalese see voting as an act that reinforces community ties and social harmony instead of simply a matter of choosing leaders. Thus, the Senegalese understanding of democracy has an important influence on voting behavior. Senegalese political culture seems to encourage people to vote for the dominant party (Schaffer 1998). We must note that this effect of political culture on voting behavior is not limited to Senegal but can be seen in other African countries as well (for relevant examples of different studies, see Cruise O’Brien 1999). Moreover, neopatrimonialism and big-man politics have characterized the political regimes on the African continent prior to the democratization wave of the 1990s (Bratton and Van de Walle 1997) and have had a lingering influence on the political culture of many African countries. Despite the existence of written constitutions and formal institutions, political leaders dominate the political landscape, in the sense that the person often seems more important than the policies. Relationships of loyalty between so-called patrons (political leaders) and clients (specific groups of followers) create dependency and a focus on personal wealth and status. This culture of personalized politics and patronage networks seems not only to limit the state’s capacity to enhance development but also to place loyalty and unity above tolerance toward opposition and dissenting views. These cultural patterns seem to manifest themselves in African society at large and in political parties and to play an important role in the endurance of one-party dominance. A fifth potential mechanism is government performance. The dominance of the ruling party in democracies with one-party-dominant systems clearly has its origin at the ballot box. Voters continue to vote for the party in power. Therefore, the question of how government performance relates to one-party dominance is essentially a question about why voters vote. Voting for the dominant party could be a matter of emotional ties (I want to belong to the majority) or beliefs (I don’t believe in the value of competitive politics) or a lack of information (I don’t know any better because my information is incomplete or manipulated). However, M. Bratton, R. Mattes, and E. Gyimah-Boadi (2005) show that in many African countries voters are rational actors who

18

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

make informed choices based on self-interest. In other words, voters do evaluate government performance and act accordingly. Nevertheless, these actions might not be reflected in the election results. In South Africa, for example, dissatisfaction with government performance is more likely to lead to protest and social unrest than to a change in electoral results that could threaten the dominant ANC, at least not in national elections. Deteriorating government performance might have more direct electoral consequences at regional or local levels but at the national level, voters who are dissatisfied prefer to stay away or continue to vote for the ruling party because the opposition fails to present itself as a viable alternative to the ANC (Piombo and Nijzink 2005). Moreover, the relationship between government performance (e.g., the ruling party’s achievements in relation to economic development, poverty alleviation, health care, or education) and voting behavior might be more complex. Huntington (1968: 324) convincingly argues that some political parties encourage “a politics of aspiration,” meaning that the delivery of current benefits is less important than the hope of future gains. In other words, political parties can buy time to deliver on their promises. Thus, not only current performance but also past and expected performance could be important for the endurance of dominant parties. A related question is how to define performance and how to identify what type of performance is most relevant to the issue of the endurance of one-party dominance. Is economic growth as such (see, for example, Magoloni 2006) crucial to the persistence of one-partydominant systems, or could the increasing size of the public sector and state bureaucracy (see, for example, Greene 2006, 2007) play the main role in consolidating one-party dominance? State-party relations form a sixth potential mechanism that lies behind the different trajectories of enduring and nonenduring one-party dominance (cf. Greene 2006, 2007; Magoloni 2006; Gyimah-Boadi 2007). Ruling parties typically have better access to state resources than the opposition, and they tend to use this advantage to entrench their position. Thus, at first glance, state-party relations are strongly related to the endurance of one-party dominance. A so-called cycle of dominance seems to be taking place: long-term victory allows a dominant party better access to state resources, thus increasing the opportunity for further electoral successes. In the words of E. Gyimah-Boadi (2007: 29), Elections in Africa continue to significantly reflect the overwhelming advantage incumbent parties enjoy over patronage resources—which then enable them to manipulate electoral institutions, electoral rules and

A Framework for Analysis

19

procedures; to siphon off state resources and deploy them into partisan use in elections; to commission development projects, many of them off-budget, especially in an election year; to extort donations from private business people and rentseekers; and to invest in businessmen who can be counted upon to decant resources back into the party coffers. It also allows the ruling party to use subtle and crude means to disorganize and destroy opposition parties; to deny the opposition the oxygen of media coverage; to deploy state security agencies and sometimes the courts to harass the opposition; and to block private sector sources of funding for the opposition by destroying businesses of those not aligned with the ruling party or suspected to be sympathetic to the opposition.

K. F. Greene (2006, 2007) has developed a detailed and insightful theory on incumbency advantages based on an analysis of the rise and downfall of the dominant party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional [PRI]), in Mexico. Greene shows how a party’s exploitation of state resources leads to one-party dominance. He argues that the competitiveness of a challenger party is primarily determined by two types of advantages: the incumbent’s resources and the dominant party’s ability to raise the costs of political participation for the opposition. “Resource advantages in dominant party systems are so much larger that they should be thought of as hyperincumbency advantages” (Greene 2006: 8). These dramatic resource advantages allow the dominant party to outspend on campaigns, deploy legions of canvassers, and, most importantly, supplement policy appeals with patronage goods that bias voters in their favor. The resource advantages are greater when the state’s involvement in the economy is large and when the public bureaucracy is politically controlled. According to Greene (2007: 27), the dominant party must “create a large public sector and politicize the public bureaucracy” to sustain the “dominant party equilibrium.” If the state shrinks, dominance ends. B. Magoloni (2006), who also studied the “hegemonic-party survival” of the PRI in Mexico, thinks along the same lines. One-party dominance can be maintained by using the party’s patronage machine to buy voters and buy off potential opposition and by exacerbating the coordination failure among the opposition. Magoloni argues that most voters will not risk supporting an unknown challenger when times are good and when they have access to an incumbent’s patronage. If times are bad, the “punishment regime” of the dominant party is less effective, and hence supporting an opposition party is less risky. Thus, Magoloni emphasizes economic growth as the main basis for the ruling party to strengthen its patronage-based dominance.

20

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

The final mechanism that could potentially influence the endurance of one-party-dominant systems is the impact of international actors. The literature examining the endurance of one-party dominance in democracies is still in its infancy, and the impact of the international context on oneparty-dominant systems has not featured prominently in previous studies. Research has focused mainly on the influence of international actors on democracy and democratization, and shows that international influences can take many different forms: the actions of different international actors (e.g., foreign states, international governmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations), the effects of international structural conditions (such as power asymmetries or global economic conditions), the role of international norms, and the influences of diffusion and globalization (see, for example, L. Whitehead 1996; Elkins and Simmons 2005). Convincing evidence exists that these international influences matter for the process of democratization, but whether they also influence the endurance of one-party dominance is less clear. At first glance, the influence of individual donor countries or international financial organizations on party system trajectories seems fairly limited. International development cooperation is still overwhelmingly interested in promoting political stability rather than political competition. In the field of democracy assistance, political parties have long been neglected and are only recently receiving more attention. Scholarly literature on party assistance is growing (Carothers 2006; Burnell and Gerrits 2011), and some international donor organizations have argued that political party support must become a higher priority (see, for example, Power and Coleman 2011). However, little evidence has been found of increased donor activity perhaps because assistance to political parties is not only complicated but also politically sensitive. Similarly, little indication has surfaced that international cooperation between dominant parties affects their trajectories of dominance. We know that strong ties exist between some of the former liberation movements–cum–dominant parties (see, for example, Salih 2003) but these relations are not likely to have a strong influence on the party system trajectories in question. Whether international diffusion effects can explain why one-party dominance endures in some countries but not in others is an open question as well, which deserves to be explored. Outline of the Book In this introductory chapter, we have identified seven mechanisms that potentially influence a party system’s trajectory of one-party domi-

A Framework for Analysis

21

nance. We have already mentioned that the authors of Chapter 2, Gero Erdmann and Matthias Basedau, give an overview of party systems in Africa. The authors of the six subsequent chapters describe the party system trajectories in six African democracies and try to identify the mechanisms behind them. In Part 1, the authors address enduring party dominance. In Chapter 3, Henning Melber describes how Namibia’s enduring one-partydominant system is characterized by increased intolerance toward opposition and dissent. Melber also shows how the narrative of the liberation struggle remains an effective way to legitimize the position of the dominant party. In Chapter 4, Thiven Reddy paints a similar picture of persisting one-party dominance in South Africa, where the dominant ANC increasingly relies on a racialized discourse to defend its deteriorating performance as a ruling party. Chapter 5 is focused on the entrenched position of Tanzania’s dominant party, which is, according to Mohammed Bakari and Richard Whitehead, the product of its historical legacy as well as its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. In Part 2, the authors look at one-party dominance that did not last. In Chapter 6, Neo Simutanyi shows how the dominant party in Zambia lost its majority, and one-party dominance was subsequently manufactured. Simutanyi also describes how this manufactured one-partydominant system came to an end. In Chapter 7, Martin van Vliet discusses the party system trajectory of Mali, which showed initial signs of one-party dominance, that did not persist mainly because Malian political culture values unity above competition. In Chapter 8, Christof Hartmann describes how Senegal’s one-party-dominant system came to an end. Hartmann also highlights the way in which presidential elections were crucial in moving the party system trajectory away from one-party dominance. In the final chapter, the editors compare the case studies of the six selected countries in order to test and refine the theoretical ideas about one-party dominance in African democracies presented in this introduction. Looking at the mechanisms that lie behind the six party-system trajectories, we address the question of why some one-party dominant systems endure and others do not. Notes 1. Examples of existing comparative research on one-party dominance are A. Arian and S. Barnes (1974), T. J. Pempel (1990), H. Giliomee and C. Simkins (1999), J. Wong and E. Friedman (2008), C. Spiess (2009), and M. Bogaards and

22

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

F. Boucek (2010). While making important contributions, the authors of most of these works did not adhere to a rigorous comparative research design and none of them explicitly focused on the phenomenon of one-party dominance in Africa. 2. For an insightful discussion on the difference between party institutionalization and party system institutionalization, see L. Svåsand and V. Randall (2002a). Interestingly, in this article, they specifically investigate the relationship between institutionalization of individual parties and that of competitive party systems. 3. While Sartori makes a distinction between one-party dominance in a stable versus fluid context, we make a distinction between stable one-partydominant systems on the one hand and systems in which one-party dominance did not endure on the other. 4. As will be explained in the next section of this chapter, the case selection excludes one-party dominance in authoritarian regimes. It also excludes the fluid dominant system of Lesotho because the aim is not to compare stable oneparty-dominant systems with fluid one-party dominance. We want to investigate why some one-party-dominant systems endure while others do not. Therefore, we compare cases of stable (i.e., enduring) one-party dominance with party system trajectories that have moved away from one-party dominance. 5. These predominant party systems—to use Sartori’s terminology—are the cases we would describe as enduring one-party-dominant systems. Of the five identified by Erdmann and Basedau we have selected Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania for inclusion in our study. We have excluded the Seychelles because of its particular nature as an island state, and we excluded Botswana because it has a much longer history as a multiparty democracy, thus making it less comparable. Botswana would be an interesting case to include in a work on the consequences of one-party dominance particularly to get insights into the long-term effects on democracy (see, for example, R. Doorenspleet and L. Nijzink, forthcoming). 6. We do not mention the book edited by M. Rimanelli (2000) here, as this book is focused mainly on democratic transitions rather than dominant parties. 7. The study by C. Spiess (2009) gives a clear justification of its case selection and is therefore an important exception in this regard. 8. Many researchers have focused on the concepts and measurements of minimal, electoral, and liberal democracy and discussed them in depth. For more information, see for example R. A. Dahl (1971), F. Zakaria (1997), A. Przeworski and colleagues (2000), R. Doorenspleet (2000, 2005), and J. Møller (2007). 9. This means that we have selected only countries that have been classified by Freedom House as electoral democracies. 10. As the chapter by Erdmann and Basedau shows, Botswana, Seychelles, and Lesotho also fall in the free and (top end of the) partly free categories and are also displaying characteristics of one-party dominance. As mentioned earlier, we have decided not to include these because they are either small states (Lesotho and Seychelles) or have a much longer history of democracy (Botswana) and are therefore less comparable. 11. This conflation of party loyalty with patriotism may have a negative effect on the future of democracy in a country (see also Doorenspleet and

A Framework for Analysis

23

Nijzink, forthcoming). M. A. M. Salih (2003: 13), for example, has cautioned that the privileged place some liberation movements have in people’s loyalty may cause “complacency on the part of revolutionary leaders who may find it difficult to adjust their political ambitions to the accountability and transparency democratic rule entails.” 12. Cleavages in society can similarly be reinforced by the process of democratization. In this way democratization may even lead to civil war (see, for example, Mansfield and Snyder 1995, 2005; Ward and Gleditsch 1998). 13. Salih (2003: 18) puts his finger on the negative consequences of the broad multiethnic character of the former liberation movements: “The denial of ethnicity as a common principle of political organisation took away from African ethnic groups the possibility of developing local accountable and democratic governance.” Again, in this way, one-party-dominant systems may have a negative impact on a country’s democratic system (see Doorenspleet and Nijzink, forthcoming). 14. For studies on the impact of electoral systems on types of party systems, see M. Duverger (1954), S. Lindberg (2006), T. J. Pempel (1990), A. Lijphart (1994), and M. Bogaards (2000). For studies on the impact of parliamentary and presidential systems, see A. Lijphart (1994), A. Siaroff (2003), and R. Elgie and S. Moestrup (2007). 15. Consensus is seen as essential, as is reflected in the words of a teenager in Dakar: “Demokaraasi is to agree, to form ‘one’. Even if you are many, to be able to form a bloc and work together. Even if agreement is difficult, you need to do all you can to reach a consensus” (Schaffer 1998: 58). 16. Solidarity is another core element of a Senegalese understanding of democracy. According to one farmer, “our demokaraasi is everyone being unified. We do our work together” (Schaffer 1998: 60). 17. Evenhandedness is similarly understood as an important element of democracy in the Senegalese culture: “If you have two bowls for two people, if you intend to put food in one, you need to divide it up equally. One should not get more than the other. That shows that demokaraasi prevails” (Schaffer 1998: 63).

2 An Overview of African Party Systems Gero Erdmann and Matthias Basedau

the African continent in the early 1990s, experts expressed fears about the emergence of highly fragmented party systems (Widner 1997; Van de Walle 2003). Their misgivings were in line with a tradition in political party research that states that polyethnic societies tend to have highly fragmented party systems. (Sartori 1976). Yet these fears have proven to be unwarranted and a different perception of one-party domination gained ground among scholars of African party politics (Cruise O’Brien 1999; Erdmann 1999; Giliomee and Simkins 1999; Van de Walle and Butler 1999; Svåsand and Randall 2002b; Van de Walle 2003). M. Bogaards (2004: 192) identifies a “worrying trend to one-party dominance” in Africa that has been confirmed by others who also point out that, in fact, a variety of different party systems have emerged on the continent, and that half of the party systems that operate in a democratic context can be considered to be dominant or predominant. Compared to party systems in established democracies, where one-party-dominant systems are very rare, the high number in Africa is striking. Given the preponderance of one-party-dominant systems on the continent, they are an underresearched topic, especially as regards the causes of their endurance or their effects on the quality of democracy in Africa. However, before tackling these research issues, a clear understanding of what a one-party-dominant system is and what it is not, is required. The literature on one-party dominance includes frequent laments about vague definitions, contradictory terms, and the problem of conFOLLOWING THE REINTRODUCTION OF MULTIPARTY POLITICS ACROSS

25

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One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

ceptualizing dominance (Spiess 2009) or, as T. J. Pempel (1990: 5) describes it, “the puzzle of dominance.” Some authors dealing with the subject even seem to refrain from giving clear definitions. Instead, they suggest what could be termed overly complex descriptions (Rimanelli 2000; Scheiner 2006). First, in this chapter, we will provide a short overview of the various definitions of a one-party-dominant system and analyze their suitability for the African context. Second, we will explain why G. Sartori’s definition of one-party dominance, albeit slightly modified, is still the most suitable for identifying one-party-dominant systems in Africa. In the final section, we will apply Sartori’s modified definition to party systems in Africa for the period 1989 to 2010. Definitions of One-Party Dominance Definitions of one-party dominance, dominant parties, or one-partydominant systems vary considerably. One must understand clearly from the outset that a party system with one dominant party must not be confused with a single-party system. Dominant parties operate within a legal framework of multiparty politics. This understanding seems to have become generally accepted (Blondel 1968; Sartori 1976; Pempel 1990; Ware 1996; Van de Walle 2003; Erdmann and Basedau 2008; Spiess 2009). For most authors, a one-party-dominant system operates within a democratic regime, although some have linked such systems to nondemocratic, hybrid, and authoritarian regimes (Giliomee and Simkins 1999). Confining the discussion of dominant party systems to a democratic context, as has been done in this volume, makes sense. We need to distinguish between dominance as a result of free and fair elections and dominance as a result of electoral manipulation and oppression. The first is democratically legitimized; the second lacks this qualification and is therefore a party system within an authoritarian context. Bogaards (2004) observed that most authors used four criteria to define one-party dominance: the threshold for dominance, the duration or time span of the dominance, the inclusion or exclusion of the opposition, and the existence of divided governments. For our overview of definitions in Table 2.1, we used the first two criteria1 and included the concept’s area of application. Looking at this overview, one major difference between the definitions is the variation of the threshold for dominance. J. S. Coleman, R. H. McDonald, and N. Van de Walle and K. S. Butler bring in a high threshold of 60 or even 70 percent of seats in parliament, while others are sat-

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An Overview of African Party Systems Table 2.1 Author

Definitions of One-Party Dominance Area

Threshold

Duration

Coleman

Africa

70 percent of seats

Single election

Pempel

Universal

Plurality of seats and votes

Sartoria

Universal

50 percent of seats

“Substantial period”

Van de Walle and Butler

Africa

60 percent of seats

Industrialized countries

50 percent of seats

“Regularly”

60 percent of seats

—c

Blondel

Wareb

McDonald

Europe

Latin America

40–50 percent of votes and twice as many votes as the second party

Analysis over a twenty-year period

Three consecutive elections Single election

Source: Bogaards (2004). Notes: There are a number of works that apply some of these definitions, sometimes in a slightly modified way: Giliomee and Simkins (1999) rely on Pempel; Reynolds (1999) on Blondel (1968); and Rakner and Svåsand (2004) on Sartori using his institutionalized party system without applying the duration criteria. a. Sartori makes a distinction between dominant and predominant parties. b. Ware defines predominant parties. c. McDonald applies the definition to “controlled democracies” and “competitive” authoritarian regimes, which does not include duration as one of the criteria.

isfied with less (see Table 2.1). Why these four authors apply such high thresholds is not explained, and we cannot think of a reason to introduce a threshold that very few political parties can attain in free elections. The consequence would be that only a few cases could be classified as dominant, particularly if the 70 percent cutoff is applied. A high threshold would certainly be a major problem for research on party systems in the established democracies of the industrialized world. In the African context, a threshold of 60 percent might not be considered unrealistically high. A number of one-party-dominant systems on the continent easily surpass this threshold (see the appendix to this chapter). However, if we want to systematically compare party systems across regions or continents, creating specific criteria for each region of the world is unwise. As Bogaards (2004) has pointed out, the distinction between plurality and majority dominance is more pertinent. Only T. J. Pempel is satisfied with a plurality of votes and seats, while J. Blondel is satisfied with 40 to 50 percent of the vote and twice as many votes as the sec-

28

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

ond party (see Table 2.1). The implication of Pempel’s definition is that more than one party is in control of the government. This is different from a situation in which one party commands an absolute majority of parliamentary seats and therefore has sole control over government. In Pempel’s case, the second party is clearly of much more relevance than in the case of majority dominance. Hence, a threshold of 50 percent of parliamentary seats seems to be reasonable. It allows the party in government to implement its programs and policies without compromising with any other political party. Whether a party commands more than 50 percent or more than 60 percent of a parliament makes no difference to the ability of that party to control the government.2 Next, we address the question of duration: How long does the same party hold an absolute majority of parliamentary seats and thus the sole control over government? Coleman and Van de Walle and Butler limit their time span to a single election, while other authors seem to include a duration criterion in their definition that extends beyond the outcome of a single election. Clearly, if the party in control of the government rotates after each election, party competition is not lacking, and consequently, one party does not dominate the system. Only if one party holds a firm grip on power over a number of consecutive elections, oneparty dominance occurs. Therefore, defining a one-party-dominant system does not make sense without taking the issue of turnover into account (i.e., how many times a particular party is reelected as the ruling party). Unfortunately, most of the definitions that require more than one election for dominance do not specify the required duration (see Table 2.1). Only G. Sartori suggests a precise period to define dominance: three consecutive elections (won with a share of 50 percent of the seats in parliament). With regard to the different concepts’ geographical areas of application, some definitions are explicitly confined to particular areas, while others claim universality or do not make a statement about which area they apply to. Coleman’s (1960) and Van de Walle and Butler’s (1999) definitions are created for party systems in Africa, and both form part of a rather simple party system typology. In the case of Van de Walle and Butler (1999), the typology only distinguishes between dominant and fragmented party systems. This ad hoc approach of inventing “new” party system typologies while more sophisticated ones are already available is not very helpful. McDonald’s (1971) definition deals with Latin American cases only. Blondel’s (1968) concept applies to some European countries, while A. Ware’s (1996) definition covers European countries and some industrialized North American and Asian countries along with Australia and New Zealand. Again, only Sartori’s definition is universal.

An Overview of African Party Systems

29

He distinguishes between party systems in “structured polities,” such as the consolidated democracies of Western Europe, and party systems in “fluid polities,” which have not yet developed their own historical identity (for example, African states after independence). A party system with one dominant party in a structured polity would be a predominant party system, while the same in a fluid polity would be a dominant party system (Sartori 1976). Because of this distinction Sartori’s typology can be applied to party systems in both established and emerging democracies. Sartori explained that his typology, like most other party system typologies, is based on the experience of Western Europe with its established nation-states and consolidated democracies. To apply it to relatively new states and still fluid polities would be “typological mishandling” (Sartori 1976: 246). Therefore, an additional category of a provisional nature is required in order to classify emerging party systems in new polities and young democracies. For the purpose of this chapter, Sartori’s distinction allows us to indicate whether a particular party system, labeled “predominant,” has become institutionalized and is therefore more likely to endure, or whether it is a dominant party system (i.e., in an early stage of its development) and therefore more likely to change its character at the next elections. Two final issues need to be mentioned before turning to a further discussion of the key concepts of dominant and predominant parties. First, some researchers include their definitions of one-party-dominant systems in a comprehensive typology of different party systems, while others present their definitions as part of a simple dichotomy or focus solely on the issue of one-party dominance. If we want to identify the effects of one-party-dominant systems or understand the problems associated with one-party dominance, we must compare them to other types of party systems. For this more comprehensive research purpose, a comprehensive typology of party systems such as Sartori’s is required. Our purpose in this book is more modest in that we seek to understand why some one-party-dominant systems endure and others do not. Nevertheless using a definition of one-party dominance that allows for broader comparisons at a later stage is prudent. Second, Bogaards (2004) points out that most of the definitions of one-party dominance were developed for parliamentary systems and ignore the possibility of divided governments in presidential and semipresidential systems (i.e., a situation in which the president does not belong to the dominant party that holds a 50 percent majority in parliament). Such a divided government (with a strong president) would mean the absence of dominance, since the majority party cannot implement its policy program without the consent of the president. This situation is less

30

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

likely to occur when presidential and parliamentary elections are held simultaneously, as is the case in many African countries. In sum, most definitions of one-party dominance show some shortcomings, and even the more sophisticated ones suffer from incompleteness. Both definitions that are confined to Africa (Coleman and Van de Walle and Butler) which is a problem in itself, include high thresholds without giving any reason why, do not consider the duration issue, and are part of party system typologies that are too simplistic. As mentioned above, a threshold of 60 percent might not be considered unrealistically high in the African context. However, if we want to compare party systems systematically, we do not want to create specific criteria for each region of the world. Thus, we need to identify a “realistic” threshold that is meaningful in other contexts as well. Since a party’s control over government is the main issue, a threshold of 50 percent of parliamentary seats seems reasonable. Pempel’s definition provides a low threshold (plurality), no specification of duration, and no party system typology at all. Ware’s concept of one-party dominance also lacks a specification of duration, and beyond that, his classification of party systems, based on the number of parties only, is much simpler than Sartori’s sophisticated typology. While Blondel provides an interesting typology of party systems, his concept of dominance has a low threshold and no specification of duration. Our conclusion is that Sartori’s (1976) definitions of dominant and predominant party systems, his “counting rules”3 and his comprehensive typology of party systems are still the most useful for arriving “at an accurate classification of party systems and their dynamics in general, and of dominant party systems in particular” (Bogaards 2004: 174). The advantages of Sartori’s typology will become evident in the next section. Before moving on, we need to address the issue of a coalition of political parties that is formed before elections and subsequently wins a dominant position. For example, some elections in Mali and Mauritius have produced such winning coalitions. Since our definition of dominance revolves around one party having control over government, we treat winning coalitions not as dominant but regard them as we would as any other coalition government formed after elections. Dominance in Sartori’s Party System Typology Sartori’s concepts of dominant and predominant party systems refer to dominant political parties in fluid party systems versus those in institu-

31

An Overview of African Party Systems

tionalized or “structured” party systems. In both cases, the party would require a 50 percent plus one majority in parliament. Sartori only considers those parties that are relevant in a particular party system. In other words, in parliamentary systems he only counts the parties in parliament that are relevant for party competition and government formation (i.e., the parties with coalition or obstruction potential). In presidential systems only parties that make a difference in terms of helping (or blocking) the president’s election and determining his support in the legislature are counted (Sartori 1976, 1994; for the typology, see Table 2.2). Bogaards (2004) compared Sartori’s counting rules with those of other scholars, especially with the most frequently applied “effective number of parties” devised by M. Laakso and R. Taagepera (1979) and its revision by Taagepera (1999). Bogaards came to the conclusion that mathematical indexes fail to identify different party systems adequately—a general problem that he illustrated for Africa as well. In fact, the “effective number of parties” can be very misleading: (1) identical values can hide very different party systems, and (2) the value itself does not necessarily indicate the actual number of represented parties and their relative strength in parliament (Bogaards 2004). Bogaards points to five advantages of Sartori’s framework (as set forth in Table 2.2). First, it provides one typology of party systems for both fluid polities (with inchoate party systems such as we can expect in Africa’s emerging democracies) and structured polities (with institutionalized party systems as can be found not only in the established democracies of Europe but in a few African states as well). Second, for both types of party systems—inchoate and institutionalized—a further distinction can be made between the authoritarian or democratic regimes in which they Table 2.2

Initial stage (fluidity)

Structured stage

Sartori’s Typology of Party Systems Monopartyism (authoritarian)

Dominant authoritarian

One-party/ hegemonic

Dominant nonauthoritarian

Predominant

Source: Sartori (1976: 125, 260).

Multipartyism (electoral/democratic) Nondominant

Two-partism/ multipartyism

Limited/moderate pluralism

Extreme/polarized pluralism

Pulverized

Atomized

32

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

occur. This crucial distinction enables us to identify the nature of domination: a particular one-party-dominant system can be brought about by authoritarian manipulation or by popular consent at the ballot box. Third, Sartori’s typology of party systems includes the concept of one-party dominance, which is absent from continuous measurements of the number of parties (such as Laakso and Taagepera’s [1979] measure) and their resultant party system typologies. Fourth, Sartori’s counting rules are not based on the relative size of political parties, but on whether parties are relevant actors in party competition and government formation. And fifth, Sartori’s counting rules and his definitions of party systems provide an analytical framework that is sensitive to context and time. In order to classify Africa’s party systems, we apply a two-level approach. First, we use Sartori’s counting rules and terminology to identify which elections have produced a dominant party. Then, we slightly modify Sartori’s concept of fluid and structured party systems to identify the dominant and predominant party systems in Africa. Elections and the Resulting Party Constellations In the first stage of our classification, we tabulated the results of all elections on the continent between 1989 and 2010, regardless of their authoritarian or democratic context, and determined whether they resulted in a dominant, nondominant, or pulverized party constellation.4 At this stage, a party is considered dominant if it has won an absolute majority of seats in parliament (Sartori 1976). A constellation of parties without a dominant party is identified as nondominant if up to five parties are represented in parliament and pulverized if more than five parties have representation (Sartori 1976). However, the difference between nondominant and pulverized is not just numerical. Similar to Sartori, we have included a qualitative criterion that refers to the issue of power relations. Starting with the party that has the most parliamentary seats, we count the number of parties that are necessary to form a parliamentary majority in support of the government or the number of parties that de facto form the government or both. If the winning party is in fact a joint list, that is, a coalition of two or more parties, and three or more other parties are necessary to obtain an absolute majority in parliament, the election outcome is classified as pulverized. Several elections in Benin are cases in point. Out of the 194 African elections included in our analysis almost three-quarters (143, or 74 percent) produced a dominant party (for details see the appendix to this chapter). At the same time, only eleven elections resulted in a constellation that can be classified as pulverized;

An Overview of African Party Systems

33

another forty elections produced a nondominant party constellation. Thus, we can draw the following provisional conclusion: multiparty elections in Africa rarely result in a high fragmentation of the party system; instead we see the emergence of dominant political parties. If we look at the context of the elections included in our analysis and the extent to which a particular electoral contest is considered free and fair, we can see that around 60 percent of the dominant party constellations occur in an authoritarian environment. To determine the quality of elections, we used S. Lindberg’s (2006) assessment, which includes the following categories: entirely free and fair, somewhat free and fair, irregularities affected outcome, and not at all free and fair. For all elections after 2003, which were not covered by Lindberg, we used our own assessment, based on national and international election observation reports (see the appendix at the end of this chapter). To determine the nature of the political environment in which elections occurred, we used the Freedom House index. All cases with a mean value below three, and therefore classified by Freedom House as free, we considered to be a democratic context, while all other cases represent a nondemocratic context. In a number of cases, the Freedom House score indicates a democratic context, but the environment is in fact authoritarian. If according to Freedom House a regime is free but irregularities affected the election outcome, such as in The Gambia in 1982, we considered the context of the election to be nondemocratic (see the appendix at the end of the chapter). Of the 143 elections that produced a dominant party, 87 have to be classified as dominant authoritarian because they were conducted in a nondemocratic context. Almost 40 percent of the dominant party constellations were the result of elections held in a democratic context. Thus, it appears that the party constellation is to some degree dependent on the type of regime. Interestingly, a previous statistical analysis based on data of elections up to 2004 brought out a similar result and indicated that the dominant party outcome is partly related to regime type. In an analysis that included 125 elections, an election outcome with a dominant party was more likely in an authoritarian environment.5 Almost two-thirds of the nonauthoritarian elections resulted in a dominant party constellation (Erdmann and Basedau 2008). Institutionalized and Fluid Dominant Systems In the next stage of our classification, we exclude from our analysis a number of countries that we consider not to have proper party systems yet. Since a party system describes the patterned interaction of relevant

34

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

parties over a certain period, we decided to include in our analysis only those countries that, by the end of 2010, held at least three consecutive multiparty elections. Although even after two elections a pattern of interaction may have emerged, we decided to err on the side of caution. Thus, the following countries are excluded from the next step in our analysis: Angola, Chad, Guinea, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sudan (only two multiparty elections held); Democratic Republic of Congo (only one multiparty election held); and Eritrea, Somalia, and Swaziland (no multiparty elections at all). For the final step in our classification of party systems in Africa, we distinguish between unstructured or fluid party systems on the one hand and structured or institutionalized party systems on the other. Usually, party systems in new democracies are regarded as fluid because the whole political regime is new. However, most of the party systems in Africa were created fifteen to twenty years ago, with a few much older. Determining the number of years or elections that need to pass before a new and therefore fluid party system would become structured or institutionalized is difficult. Sartori’s (1976: 244) distinction between fluid and structured party systems does not include a time frame but is instead based on the existence of a “solidly entrenched mass party.” According to Sartori (1968), the appearance of a mass party coincides with the structuring of the party system. However, this fixation on the mass party tends to be misleading (Erdmann 2004). Therefore, we decided to apply a concept of party system institutionalization (Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Bendel 1996) that comprises the following dimensions: (1) the legitimacy of political parties and elections, (2) the stability of patterns of interparty competition, (3) the degree of party organization, and (4) party roots in society. Compared to Sartori’s concept of fluid and structured party systems, our concept allows us to identify different degrees of party system institutionalization. For us to classify a party system as institutionalized it has to display a minimum degree of institutionalization according to the following indicators: (1) at least three consecutive elections must have taken place; (2) no period of undemocratic rule, military coups, serious civil unrest, or civil war has occurred; (3) the volatility of the party system as measured by M. Pedersen (1979) is not higher than a value of 40;6 and (4) the (average) party age must be at least fifteen years or nearly as high as the number of years that have passed since the founding elections, if founding elections were held after 1990. The results are given in Table 2.3. We find that twenty party systems can be classified as institutionalized, thirteen of which underwent institu-

35 Table 2.3 Countries

Classification of Party Systems According to Institutionalization and Regime Type

Burundi Benina Central African Republic Comorosb Congo-Brazzavilleb Cotê d’Ivoireb Guinea-Bissaub Kenyab Lesothob Mauritaniab Madagascarb Malawi Malib Nigerb Nigeriab Senegalb Sierra Leone Zambia

Burkina Faso Cameroon Djibouti Equatorial Guinea Ethiopia Gabon Gambia, The Mozambique Seychelles (electoral democracy) Tanzania (electoral democracy) Togo Uganda Zimbabwe

Botswana Cape Verde Ghana Mauritius Namibia São Tomé South Africa

N / N dominant (%) N / N democratic context (%) N democratic context / N dominant (%)

Fluid

Institutionalized

Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian

Hegemonic Hegemonic Hegemonic Hegemonic Hegemonic Hegemonic Hegemonic Hegemonic Hegemonic (predominant)

Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian

Hegemonic Hegemonic Hegemonic

Dominant authoritarian Pulverized Nondominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Nondominant authoritarian Nondominant authoritarian Nondominant authoritarian Dominant Nondominant authoritarian Nondominant authoritarian Nondominant authoritarian Nondominant Nondominant authoritarian Dominant authoritarian Nondominant Nondominant authoritarian Nondominant authoritarian

Dominant authoritarian

Dominant Nondominant Nondominant Nondominant Dominant Nondominant Dominant

38 / 21 (55%) 38 / 11 (29%)

11 / 4 (36%)

Hegemonic (predominant)

Predominant Two-party Two-party Moderate pluralism Predominant Moderate pluralism Predominant

20 / 16 (80%) 20 / 7 (35%)

7 / 3 (43%)

(continues)

36 Table 2.3 Countries

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies continued

N electoral democracy 2010 / N predominant (%)

Fluid

Institutionalized 17 / 5 (29%)

Sources: For dominance and volatility, Nohlen, Krennerich, and Thibaut (1999), supplemented by the African Elections Database; for regime type, Freedom House (various years); for party age, Sagar (2009); also see the appendix at the end of the chapter. Notes: Sartori’s counting rules: Three consecutive elections with the same party gaining an absolute majority of seats makes the system dominant; regime change requires starting the count over; the regime type of the last election determines the regime attribute (authoritarian or not) of the party system. Ten countries are excluded because they held less than the required three multiparty elections between 1990 to the end of 2010. a. Fluid system because of low institutionalization of party system: party age per seat lower than time span since founding elections or high volatility on Pedersen index (40 and more) in last election. b. Fluid system because of either (1) violent regime change after last elections or (2) civil unrest or coup before last or second-to-last election.

tionalization under noncompetitive conditions and are therefore hegemonic. Of the remaining seven party systems,7 which are considered to be institutionalized in a democratic context, three are predominant (Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa), two are characterized by moderate pluralism (Mauritius and São Tomé), and two are regarded as having a two-party system (Ghana and Cape Verde). The only pulverized party system, Benin, cannot be classified as institutionalized because of its high volatility8 and the low party age.9 Conclusion The conclusion is clear that dominant and predominant party systems are prevalent in Africa, even among institutionalized party systems that operate under democratic conditions, while, contrary to many expectations, highly fragmented party systems are rare. Although party systems in Africa are more varied than is often portrayed, the prevalence of predominant or dominant party systems calls for an explanation, especially when this phenomenon is compared to the Western world or to young democracies in Eastern Europe where predominant and dominant party systems are quite unusual. As indicated above, authoritarianism can only explain some cases of one-party dominance, but not the predominant party systems of South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana (Basedau 2005). If we take

Appendix Countrya Angola Benin

Botswana

Burkina Faso Burundi

Results of Multiparty Parliamentary Elections in African Countries, to 2010 Year

1992 2008 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 1965 1969 1974 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 1992 1997 2002 2007 1993 2005 2010

Vote Share Winner 53.7 81.6 18.9 15.4 22.7 n.a. n.a. 80.4 68.3 76.6 75.2 68.0 64.8 54.7 57.0 51.7 53.7 48.5 68.6 49.5 n.a. 72.6 58.6 n.a.

Winning Party

MPLA MPLA UTRD RB RB UBF FCBE BDP BDP BDP BDP BDP BDP BDP BDP BDP BDP ODP-MT CDP CDP CDP FRODEBU CNDD-FDD CNDD-FDD

Seat Share Winner 58.6 86.8 18.8 25.3 32.5 37.4 42.2 90.3 77.4 84.4 90.6 82.4 91.2 67.5 82.5 77.2 78.9 72.9 91.0 51.3 65.8 80.2 59.0 76.4

Seat Share Runner-Up 31.8 7.3 14.1 22.9 12.5 18.1 24.1 9.7 9.7 6.3 6.3 14.7 8.8 32.5 15.0 21.1 10.5 11.2 5.4 15.3 12.6 19.8 25.0 16.0

Free and Fair Electionb 1 n.a. 1 1 1 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 n.a. n.a. 2 2 1 n.a. 1 n.a. n.a.

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Dom Dom-auth Pulver Pulver Pulver Pulver Pulver Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth

6 5.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2 n.a. n.a. 2 2.5 2 1.5 2.5 2.0 2 2 5 4.5 4 4 7 5 4.5

37

(continues)

38

Appendix

continued

Countrya

Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic

Year

1992 1997 2002 2007 1991 1995 2001 2006 1993

1998 2005 Chad 1997 2002 Comoros 1992 1993 1996 2004 Congo-Brazzaville 1992 1993 2002 2007 Côte d’Ivoire 1990 1995 2000

Vote Share Winner

Winning Party

Seat Share Winner

Seat Share Runner-Up

Free and Fair Electionb

n.a. n.a. 34.4 n.a. 10.3 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 71.7 64.9 n.a.

MLPC KNK MPS MPS UDD RDR RND CdÎA UPADS UPADS PCT PCT PDCI PDCI FPI

43.1 40.0 50.4 70.6 16.7 66.7 90.7 66.7 31.2 37.6 34.2 64.2 93.1 85.1 42.7

18.3 10.4 23.2 7.7 7.1 9.5 7.0 33.3 23.2 22.4 19.6 33.6 5.1 7.4 41.8

1 n.a. 2 2 2 2 2 n.a. 1 2 (2) n.a. 2 2 2

45.5 48.0 n.a. n.a 66.4 61.3 49.9 52.3 n.a.

RDPC RDPC RDPC RDPC MDP MDP PAICV PAICV MLPC

48.9 60.6 82.8 85.0 70.9 69.4 55.5 56.9 40.0

37.8 23.9 12.2 8.9 29.1 29.2 41.7 40.3 15.3

2 2 n.a. n.a. 1 1 1 n.a. 1

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Dom Dom Dom Nondom

Nondom Nondom Dom-auth Dom-auth Pulver Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Pulver Nondom-auth Nondom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Nondom-auth

5.5 6 6 6 2.5 1.5 1.5 1 3.5

3.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 3 4 4 4.5 3 4 5 5.5 5 5.5 5

(continues)

Appendix Countrya Djibouti

DRC Equatorial Guinea Ethiopia Gabon Gambia, The

continued Year

1992 1997 2003 2008 2006 1993 1999 2004 2008 1995 2000 2005 2010 1990 1996 2001 2006 1966 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992

Vote Share Winner 74.6 78.6 62.7 100.0 n.a. 69.8 85.5 47.5 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 65.3 63.1 69.4 61.7 56.0 58.1

Winning Party

RPP RPP-FRUD UMP UMP PPRD PDGE PDGE PDGE PDGE EPRDF EPRDF EPRDF EPRDF PDG PDG PDG PDG PPP PPP PPP PPP PPP PPP

Seat Share Winner 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 22.2 85.0 93.7 68.0 99.0 86.1 85.0 59.8 91.2 52.5 70.0 70.8 82.5 75.0 87.5 79.4 77.3 86.1 69.4

Seat Share Runner-Up 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12.8 7.5 5.0 30.0 1.0 3.1 6.0 19.9 4.4 16.7 8.3 5.0 6.6 25.0 11.4 14.7 8.6 13.9 16.6

Free and Fair Electionb 2 1 (2) n.a. n.a. 3 2 n.a. n.a. 2 2 n.a. n.a. 2 2 2 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 2 2 1

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Nondom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Dom Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom

6 5.5 4.5 5 6 7 7 6.5 6.5 4.5 5 5 5 4.5 4.5 4.5 5 n.a. 2 2 2.5 3 1.5

(continues)

39

Countrya

40

Appendix

continued Year

1996/1997 2002 2007 Ghana 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 Guinea 1995 2002 Guinea-Bissau 1995 1999 2004 2008 Kenya 1992 1997 2002 2007 Lesotho 1993 1998 2002 2007 Liberia 1997 2005

Vote Share Winner 52.2 n.a. n.a. 77.5 53.0 45.0 n.a. n.a. 53.5 61.6 46.4 n.a. n.a. 49.5 24.5 n.a. n.a. n.a. 74.8 60.6 54.9 n.a. 75.3 n.a.

Winning Party

APRC APRC APRC NDC NDC NPP NPP NDC PUP PUP PAIGC PRS PAIGC PAIGC KANU KANU NARC (coalition) ODM (in a coalition) BCP LCD LCD LCD NPP COTOL

Seat Share Winner 77.3 84.9 87.5 94.5 66.5 49.7 55.7 49.7 62.2 74.6 62.0 37.3 40.9 67 52.5 51.4 58.9 48.6 100.0 97.5 65.2 50.8 76.6 12.5

Seat Share Runner-Up 15.5 9.4 8.3 4.0 30.5 46.2 40.9 46.5 16.6 17.5 19.0 27.5 31.8 28 15.8 18.6 30.4 37.1 0.0 1.3 17.8 17.5 9.6 6.3

Free and Fair Electionb 2 2 n.a. (2) 1 1 n.a. n.a. 1 n.a. 1 1 n.a. n.a. 2 2 (1) (1) (2) (2) 1 (1) 1 n.a.

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Nondom Dom Nondom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Nondom Nondom Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Nondom Nondom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Dom Dom Pulver

6.5 4.5 4.5 5 3.5 2.5 2 1.5 5.5 5.5 3.5 4 4 4 4.5 6 4 3 3.5 4 2.5 2.5 4.5 4.5

(continues)

Appendix Countrya

Madagascar

Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius

continued Year

1960 1965 1970 1977 1983 1989 1993 1998 2002 2007 1994 1999 2004 2009 1992 1997 2002 2007 1992 1996 2001 2006 1976 1982

Vote Share Winner 61.6 93.6 92.8 n.a. 65.2 66.9 n.a. 24.7 n.a. n.a. 46.4 47.3 24.6 n.a. 48.4 75.3 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 40.9 63

Winning Party

PSD PSD PSD AREMA AREMA AREMA Cartel HVR ARES TIM TIM UDF UDF MCP DPP ADEMA ADEMA Espoir 2002 ADP (coalition) PRDS PRDS PRDS RFD MMM MMM/PSM

Seat Share Winner 59.8 97.2 97.2 81.8 85.5 86.8 34.1 42 64.4 82.7 48.0 48.4 31.4 58.5 65.5 87.1 41.3 76.9 84.8 88.6 79.0 15.8 48.6 90.9

Seat Share Runner-Up 7.1 2.8 2.8 4.7 5.9 2.9 10.9 10.7 30.4 0.8 31.6 34.3 26.1 13.3 7.8 5.4 31.9 10.2 1.3 1.3 4.9 8.4 40.0 3.0

Free and Fair Electionb n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 2 2 1 1 (2) (2) 1 1 (1) (1) 1 2 n.a. n.a. 2 2 1 (1) 2 1

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Pulver Nondom Dom-auth Dom-auth Nondom Nondom Pulver Dom Dom Dom-auth Pulver Nondom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Nondom Nondom-auth Nondom

n.a. n.a. n.a. 5 5.5 4.5 3 3 3.5 5 4 2.5 3 4 2.5 3 4 2.5 6.5 6 5 5 2.5 2

41

(continues)

Countrya

Mozambique Namibia

Niger

42

Appendix

continued Year

1983 1987 1991 1995 2000 2005 2010 1994 1999 2004 2009 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 1993 1995 1996 1999 2004 2009

Vote Share Winner 45.6 47.3 55.4 65.2 51.7 n.a. 49.7 44.3 48.5 62 74.7 57.3 73.9 76.2 76.1 75.3 n.a. n.a. 56.7 n.a. 37.2 n.a.

Winning Party

MSM/PT/ PMSD MSM/PT/ PMSD MSM PT/MMM MSM/MMM AS (coalition) MSM/PT/ PMSD FRELIMO FRELIMO FRELIMO FRELIMO SWAPO SWAPO SWAPO SWAPO SWAPO MNSD MNSD UNIRD MNSD MNSD MNSD

Seat Share Winner 65.7 62.9 45.5 90.9 81.4 61.3 66.1 51.6 53.2 64.0 76.4 56.9 73.6 76.4 76.4 75.0 34.9 34.9 71.1 45.7 41.6 67.3

Seat Share Runner-Up 31.4 34.3 40.9 3.0 11.4 35.4 33.0 44.8 46.8 36.0 20.4 29.2 20.8 10.0 9.1 11.1 26.5 28.9 9.6 20.5 22.1 13.3

Free and Fair Electionb 1 1 1 1 1 (1) (1) (2) (2) (2) (2) 2 1 1 (1) (1) 1 1 2 1 n.a. n.a.

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Nondom Nondom Nondom Nondom Nondom Nondom Nondom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Nondom Nondom Dom-auth Nondom Nondom Dom-auth

2 2 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 4 3.5 3.5 3 3.5 2.5 2.5 2 2 3.5 4 6 5 4 3.5

(continues)

Appendix Countrya Nigeria

Rwanda

São Tomé and Principe

Senegal

Seychelles

continued Year

1992 1999 2003 2007 2003 2008 1991 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 2001 2007 1993 1998 2002 2007

Vote Share Winner 49.4 57.1 54.5 n.a. 73.8 n.a. 54.4 42.5 50.6 39.6 37.1 43.13 81.7 80.0 71.4 56.5 50.2 49.6 69.2 56.6 61.7 54.3 56.2

Winning Party

SDP PDP PDP PDP FPR FPR PCD-GR MLSTP MLSTP MLSTP MDFM-PCD ADI PS PS PS PS PS Sopi Coalition Sopi Coalition SPPF SPPF SPPF SPFF

Seat Share Winner 53.3 60.1 75.5 73.1 75.4 79.2 60.0 49.0 56.4 43.6 41.8 52.0 83.0 92.5 85.8 70.0 66.4 74.2 87.3 81.8 88.2 67.6 67.6

Seat Share Runner-Up 36.4 26.4 13.2 17.5 13.2 13.2 38.2 25.5 29.1 41.8 36.3 42.0 17.0 6.7 14.2 22.5 16.4 9.2 2 15.2 8.8 32.3 32.3

Free and Fair Electionb 2 1 2 n.a. n.a. n.a. 1 1 1 1 n.a. n.a. n.a. 2 2 1 1 1 n.a. 1 1 (1) (1)

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Dom-auth Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Nondom Dom Nondom Nondom Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Dom Nondom Nondom Dom Dom Dom Dom

4.5 3.5 4 4 6 5.5 2.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 2 2 3.5 4 3.5 4.5 4 3.5 2.5 3.5 3 3 3

(continues)

43

Countrya

Sierra Leone

South Africa Tanzania Togo Ugandac Sudan

Zambia

44

Appendix

continued Year

1996 2002 2007 1994 1999 2004 2009 1995 2000 2005 2010 1994 1999 2002 2007 1996 2001 2006 2000 2010 1991 1996 2001 2006

Vote Share Winner 36.1 69.9 n.a. 62.7 66.4 69.7 65.9 59.2 65.2 70.0 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 61.7 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. 74.3 61.0 28.0 n.a.

Winning Party SLPP SLPP APC ANC ANC ANC ANC CCM CCM CCM CCM RPT RPT RPT RPT NRM NRM NRM NCP NCP MMD MMD MMD MMD

Seat Share Winner 39.7 74.1 52.6 63.0 66.5 69.7 66.0 79.6 91.0 85.1 77.6 44.4 97.5 88.9 61.7 56.5 n.a. 67.3 98.6 71.8 83.3 87.3 46.0 48.0

Seat Share Runner-Up 25.0 19.6 38.3 20.5 9.5 12.5 16.7 10.4 5.6 9.6 10.3 43.2 1.2 3.7 33.3 43.5 n.a. 13.0 1.4 22.0 16.7 3.3 32.7 29.3

Free and Fair Electionb (2) 1 n.a. 1 1 n.a. n.a. 2 (2) n.a. n.a. 2 2 2 n.a. (2) (2) n.a. 2 n.a. 1 2 2 n.a.

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Nondom-auth Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Nondom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom Dom-auth Nondom-auth Nondom

4.5 4 3 3.5 1.5 1.5 2 5 4 3.5 3.5 5.5 5 5.5 4.5 4 5.5 4.5 7 7 2.5 4.5 4.5 3.5

(continues)

Appendix Countrya

Zimbabwe

continued Year

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Vote Share Winner 63.0 77.2 80.5 81.4 48.6. 59.6

Winning Party

ZANU-PF ZANU-PF ZANU-PF ZANU-PF ZANU-PF ZANU-PF

Seat Share Winner 57.0 64.0 97.5 98.3 51.7 65.0

Seat Share Runner-Up 20.0 15.0 1.7 1.7 47.5 34.1

Free and Fair Electionb 1 1 2 2 3 n.a.

Party System According to Freedom Election Outcome House Score Dom Dom Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth Dom-auth

4 6 5 5 5.5 6.5

Sources: Freedom House; Lindberg (2006); Nohlen, Krennerich, and Thibaut (1999); Sagar (2009); African Election Database; Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) Election Archive. Notes: The data includes only those countries that had held at least three consecutive multiparty elections by the end of 2010. Scores in parentheses refer to our own assessment based on international/national election observation reports; in some cases Lindberg’s (2006) evaluation of free and fair has been changed from 1 to 2 because of an election boycott by major opposition parties, nonacceptance of election results by major parts of the opposition, or unrest during the elections. Abbreviations of party system terms are as follows: Dom (dominant), Dom-auth (dominant-authoritarian), Pulver (pulverized), Nondom (nondominant), and Nondom-auth (nondominant-authoritarian). a. Swaziland and Somalia are omitted because no basic information is available about de jure competitive and participatory elections. b. Refers to the extent to which the elections were free and fair according to Lindberg (2006): 0 = yes, entirely, 1 = yes, somewhat, 2 = no, irregularities affected outcome, 3 = no, not at all. c. Officially, the legislative elections in 1996 and 2001 were nonpartisan.

45

46

One-Party Dominance in African Democracies

the seventeen electoral democracies identified by Freedom House in 2010 as the basis for our classification, we need to add two countries to our list of predominant party systems in Africa, namely Seychelles and Tanzania. Why such systems endure is the main question addressed in this book. Notes We are grateful to our colleague Alexander Stroh who provided data and advice on the complicated dynamics of Benin’s party system and helped to calculate and assess its degree of institutionalization. This chapter is a revised version of the authors’ earlier work, G. Erdmann and M. Basedau. 2008. “Party Systems in Africa: Problems of Categorising and Explaining Party Systems in Africa,” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 26 (3): 241–258. 1. M. Bogaards’s third and fourth criteria are omitted here because he observed them for G. Sartori only. 2. In many countries a parliamentary majority of two-thirds of the seats is crucial for changing the constitution but this requirement is a different issue and implies much more than the power to implement the ruling party’s programs and policies. 3. Counting rules is a term Sartori uses to refer to the rules a party-system typology uses to classify different party systems, for example, identifying the number of relevant parties in a particular party system. 4. A number of African countries held successive multiparty elections prior to 1989: Botswana, The Gambia, Mauritius, Senegal, and Zimbabwe. These elections are also included in our analysis. 5. Pearson’s r = .363, significant at the 0.01 level. 6. Pedersen’s volatility index: Volatility (Vt) = ½ x TNCt (total net change). We set a maximum volatility (TNC) of 40 for institutionalized party systems (Kuenzi and Lambright 2001). A TNC over 40 receives the lowest code for institutionalization and indicates an inchoate party system. 7. This number is clearly higher than that of M. Kuenzi and G. Lambright (2001) who identified the following institutionalized systems: Botswana, The Gambia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa. Their analysis was based on a different operationalization and different counting rules and included a smaller number of elections. 8. From 1991 to 2007, they scored on average 37.7 on the Pedersen index, and from 2003 to 2007, 43.7. 9. On average, parties are 7.2 years old, and founding elections were held in 1991.

3 Namibia: Cultivating the Liberation Gospel Henning Melber

while anticolonial liberation movement, the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO),1 has remained the dominant political force in the country. The party’s control over the political sphere is firmly entrenched within a system that meets the formal criteria of a democracy with regular elections and a variety of political parties. The country’s constitution, adopted at independence by all political parties elected in the founding elections of 1989, is the showpiece of a democratic society. In comparative surveys on good governance in subSaharan Africa, Namibia regularly ends up in the top ranks, together with states such as Mauritius, Botswana, and South Africa. At the same time, the continued political dominance of the SWAPO Party, which has consolidated rather than eroded over time, qualifies Namibia as one of the most prominent examples of a oneparty-dominant system on the African continent. Since 1990, the party has continued to entrench its hegemonic status. In this chapter, we will explore the reasons for this situation. 2 One of the tasks will be to explain—and maybe also call into question—the relative success of democracy in Namibia and assess the trajectory of the party system since the country’s transitional period in 1989–1990. EVER SINCE NAMIBIA GAINED INDEPENDENCE IN 1990, THE ERST-

49

50

Enduring One-Party Dominance

The Trajectory of One-Party Dominance in Namibia After more than a century of colonial minority rule, the general elections for the Constitutional Assembly3 held in November 1989 under the supervision of the United Nations (UN) secured an absolute majority for SWAPO. The erstwhile liberation movement thus achieved at the ballot box the ultimate victory in the struggle for control over a sovereign state. From then onward, parliamentary elections, held concurrently with presidential elections in 1994, 1999, 2004, and 2009, consolidated the party’s political hegemony. The political system that emerged during the first two decades of Namibian independence displayed tendencies of a de facto one-party state. However, the SWAPO Party gained its political dominance at the ballet box by consistently winning around 75 percent of the parliamentary seats in elections that were judged to be fairly legitimate.4 Observers agree that Namibia’s democracy currently bears all the hallmarks of a political hegemony that is firmly in the hands of the SWAPO Party. For G. Bauer and C. Keulder (2010: 222), “Namibia is clearly a dominant party state,” while A. Du Pisani and W. A. Lindeke make reference to an “established dominant-party system” (2009a: 1) and to “a multiparty democracy with a dominant party and a weak, fragmented opposition” (2009b: 30), to which W. Lindeke (2009: 1) adds that Namibia has a “successful one-party dominant state system.” Others are more skeptical, expressing concern that “problems with institutionalising a viable multiparty political system in Namibia are exacerbated by the move towards a one-party dominant state” (Kaapama et al. 2007: 60). Indeed, the political system that emerged since the mid-1990s shows all the characteristics of a one-party-dominant system under increasingly autocratic rule (see Keulder, Nord, and Emminghaus 2000). For P. Du Toit (1996: 59), SWAPO had, with the election results of 1994, secured the position of an “electorally dominant party” and was “well positioned to establish a ‘cycle of dominance.’” No numerically meaningful opposition party has managed to firmly establish itself as a relevant counterweight or a serious challenger to the political hegemony of the former liberation movement. In 1994, SWAPO turned the absolute majority of votes obtained in 1989 into more than a two-thirds majority. This gain was consolidated during the subsequent elections in 1999, 2004, and 2009, while the opposition not only trailed far behind but also showed signs of increasing fragmentation (see Table 3.1). As G. Hopwood (2005: 142) observes,

51

Namibia Table 3.1

SWAPO DTA UDF ACN NPF FCN NNF DCN MAG SWANU COD NUDO RP NDMC RDP APP

Results of Namibia’s Parliamentary Elections, 1989–2009 (percentage of votes and number of seats) 1989

57.3 (41) 28.6 (21) 5.7 (4) 3.5 (3) 1.6 (1) 1.6 (1) 0.8 (1)

1994

73.9 (53) 20.8 (15) 2.7 (2) — — 0.2 (—) — 0.8 (1) 0.8 (1) 0.5 (—)

1999

76.2 (55) 9.5 (7) 2.9 (2) — — 0.1 (—) — 0.3 (—) 0.7 (1) 0.4 (—) 9.9 (7)

2004a

75.8 (55) 5.1 (4) 3.7 (3) — — — — — 0.9 (1) 0.4 (—) 7.3 (5) 4.3 (3) 2.0 (1) 0.5 (—)

2009

75.3 (54) 3.2 (2) 2.4 (2) — — — — — 0.6 (—) 0.6 (1) 0.7 (1) 3.1 (2) 0.8 (1) 0.2 (—) 11.3 (8) 1.4 (1)

Source: African Elections Database. Notes: a. 2004 elections results presented here are the results after the recount ordered by the court. — indicates that the party did not participate in the subsequent elections. (—) indicates that the party participated in the elections but did not gain a seat in parliament. An empty cell indicates that the party did not exist yet.

“while the fragmentation of parties into smaller groups, often with an ethnic pitch to the voters, may have prevented the opposition vote from deteriorating from its 1999 position, it also produces a bits and pieces opposition.” The dismal performance of opposition parties in all elections since 1990 testifies to the weakness of any meaningful political alternatives to the liberation gospel successfully cultivated by the SWAPO Party. The fact that in both the 1999 and the 2009 elections a newly formed political party managed to become the biggest opposition party in parliament shows a lack of unity amongst the opposition. The regular emergence of new one-member parties in parliament further emphasizes not only the enabling character of Namibia’s system of proportional representation but also the inability of the opposition to present a unified force to counter the dominant position of the SWAPO Party. 5 In the words of A. Du Pisani (2010), “apart from the woes that beset most of the opposition parties in Namibia such as their meagre resources, the fact that many if not most of them are pre-eminently ethnic and/or regional par-

52

Enduring One-Party Dominance

ties[,] and their inability to present a credible alternative government, more often than not these parties compete against one-another and draw votes from each other, rather than presenting a meaningful electoral challenge to the SWAPO Party of Namibia.” Both the Congress of Democrats (COD) formed in 1999 and the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) established in 2007 were mainly the result of internal differences within the SWAPO Party. This division among the party faithful meant that for the first time, political alternatives emanated from within the former liberation movement. Having candidates with “liberation struggle credentials” who previously held political office in SWAPO, these opposition parties emerged as new elements in Namibian politics. Depending on their own political convictions, observers either welcomed them as presenting the electorate with more political choice or questioned their creation as an undesirable and unnecessary challenge to a legitimate dominant party. The COD was formed just ahead of the 1999 elections as the first political party established by dissenting former SWAPO activists. The main reasons for the breakaway led by a former deputy minister and high commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ben Ulenga, was his objection to the proposed third term of President Sam Nujoma and to the government’s decision to come to the rescue of the besieged regime of Laurent-Désiré Kabila and enter the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While the COD managed to become the largest opposition party in both the 1999 and 2004 elections (with 9.9 and 7.3 percent of the votes, respectively), it never made inroads among SWAPO supporters. In 2008, the COD imploded amid internal differences, power struggles, and fights over resources. The formation of the RDP almost coincided with the implosion of the COD and was welcomed by those who felt uneasy about the enduring dominance of the SWAPO Party. However, the main architects of the new party came from the inner circle of SWAPO and included two former ministers, who since the 1960s had been an integral part of the party leadership in exile. They represented a meaningful faction within the SWAPO Party but were sidelined and marginalized as a result of the internal power struggle over the succession of Sam Nujoma as party president and Namibia’s head of state (Melber 2006b). The formation of a new opposition party based on these dissenting voices, coming from within the belly of the beast, had a considerable impact on the political landscape. However, the RDP’s efforts to challenge the hegemonic status of SWAPO, at least to the extent that it would lose its two-thirds majority, did not produce the results the new party and its supporters

Namibia

53

had hoped for, with the RDP only polling 11.3 percent of the votes in the 2009 elections. As mentioned earlier, the new contenders were to a large extent part of the old guard. This connection obviously left the impression that the new party offered little to no new choices. As Du Pisani and Lindeke (2009b: 18) observe, there “is a widely held perception among the electorate that leaders are there to pursue sectional and personal interests. Alternatively, parties function as pulpits or pressure groups rather than as political parties in the more general understanding of what parties should do in a democracy.” While both the COD and the RDP were met with huge expectations, their results at the ballot box fell short. Breaking the electorate’s loyalty to SWAPO—the organization that liberated the country from colonial and apartheid rule at huge costs and sacrifices—proved difficult. During the first two decades of Namibia’s independence, SWAPO’s democratically received mandate seemed to encourage and further entrench the perception that the former liberation movement is entitled to form the government, which in turn is supposed to serve the party which represents and serves the Namibian people. In the absence of the opposition presenting a meaningful challenge at the ballot box, the 2004 and 2009 elections did see some legal challenges. During the 1999 elections some critical observations already pointed to perceived flaws in the electoral process (Glover 2000). In the aftermath of the 2004 elections, legal proceedings called the legitimacy of the parliamentary election results into question. Without a doubt, the SWAPO Party had retained its electoral dominance but numerous inconsistencies in the electoral procedures, discrepancies in the voters’ list, and irregularities in the casting and counting of votes, as well as an undue delay in announcing the election results, led the COD and the RP to initiate a legal intervention. After hearing the complaints, the High Court ruled in favor of the complainants and ordered a recount, the results of which were only marginally different from the original election results, thus leaving the distribution of parliamentary seats unchanged. The two opposition parties questioned the recount procedures and registered their objections to the influence of SWAPO officials in the process but did not appeal against the judgment. The newly elected members of the fourth National Assembly were subsequently sworn in on 20 March 2005. This legal dispute primarily showed “that there is scope for significant improvement in the way elections are regulated, managed, observed and monitored” (Kaapama 2005: 113). The official results of the election of the fifth National Assembly, announced by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) in early

54

Enduring One-Party Dominance

December 2009, were also marred by controversy. While the results once again confirmed the hegemonic status of the SWAPO Party, opposition parties objected to certain procedural mechanisms with regard to the voters’ roll and to the newly introduced counting procedures, which deviated from the originally agreed-upon process and which in the view of the opposition undermined the legitimacy of the election results. Thus, the official results of the parliamentary elections and parts of the electoral process were again disputed and, at the end of 2012, were still being contested in court.6 Despite this legal dispute, little has changed in terms of the power relations between the ruling party and the opposition. Interestingly, the results of the 2009 presidential elections, which used separate ballot papers but were conducted simultaneously with the disputed parliamentary elections, were not legally contested. These results showed that, as in all previous elections since 1989, the votes for SWAPO’s presidential candidate exceeded those for the SWAPO list of candidates in the parliamentary race. Hifikepunye Pohamba received 8,661 votes more than the party list of parliamentary candidates, which underscores his status as a respected leader and the preferred head of state. The Afrobarometer survey confirms his popularity and shows high approval rates for Pohamba, placing him among the highest-ranking democratically elected presidents in Africa (Afrobarometer 2009c: 8).

Mechanisms of One-Party Dominance in Namibia Historical Legacy

Most parts of the territory of the current Republic of Namibia were usurped as a protectorate of imperial Germany in 1884. “German South West Africa” lasted for thirty years. During this period it was transformed into a settler-dominated society under foreign rule characterized by strict racial segregation. The violent subjugation of the local population had lasting effects beyond the actual period of German rule. After World War I the former German colony was declared a League of Nations mandate, with far-reaching authority transferred upon the mandatory power. The mandate was administered on behalf of the British Crown by the Union of South Africa. With the end of the League of Nations and the subsequent establishment of the United Nations after World War II, South West Africa became the object of a long-running dispute between the world body and its founding member South Africa, with the latter refusing to place the former German colony under UN

Namibia

55

trusteeship. The future of South West Africa, including its status in terms of international law and self-determination, became one of the most prominent cases of internationally negotiated decolonization. In the 1950s a network of migrant workers from the northern part of South West Africa had formed the Ovamboland People’s Organisation (OPO). In 1960, a grassroots response to South African occupation and to discriminating labor conditions transformed this network into the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO). Being the second national organization of its kind, SWAPO initially competed with the South West African National Union (SWANU) for the status of representative of the Namibian people in their fight for self-determination. Because of its decision to engage in the struggle for liberation by military means, SWAPO, by the mid-1960s, emerged as the single most relevant anticolonial movement in the country and managed to rally local and international support for its aims. The first military encounters with the South African occupation forces during the second half of the 1960s—often more symbolic than meaningful challenges to the regime—consolidated SWAPO’s status as the only relevant social force fighting against colonial foreign rule in the country and were among the decisive factors that gave SWAPO its unique status in the history of the Namibian liberation struggle. The “winds of change” that brought about sovereignty and selfdetermination for many African countries in the 1960s contributed to a diversification within the United Nations, which in turn had an impact on the discourse in the international policy arena. The emergence of independent African states and the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) as well as the Non-Aligned Movement contributed markedly toward an international policy shift. Thus, the 1960s brought an end to the silent tolerance of the continued occupation of the territory of South West Africa by neighboring South Africa in defiance of the authority and responsibility claimed by the UN. The dispute turned into an open conflict.7 The UN struggled with the matter for more than two decades. In both the General Assembly and the Security Council, Namibia was a case of singular concern, which also manifested itself in the creation of the UN Council for Namibia and the UN Institute for Namibia. As Namibia’s national liberation movement, SWAPO consequently achieved a unique status. As a result of intensive diplomacy and with the support of the nonaligned states and the Eastern Bloc, SWAPO was acknowledged as the only legitimate agency of the Namibian people. UN General Assembly Resolution 3111 of 12 December 1973 recognized SWAPO as “the authentic representative of the Namibian people.” On 20 December 1976, resolution 31/146 amended this to read

56

Enduring One-Party Dominance

“sole and authentic representative,” thus giving SWAPO an exclusive status and endorsing its monopoly to negotiate on behalf of the Namibian population. SWAPO was also the only Namibian organization to obtain formal observer status to UN bodies. The slogan “SWAPO is the people and the people are SWAPO” testifies to this claim of sole agency. After the independence of Angola in 1975, military confrontation with South African occupation forces intensified. The involvement of Angolan and Cuban forces in support of SWAPO’s military resistance turned large parts of southern Angola and the Namibian border region into an open war zone.8 From the early 1970s until independence, northern Namibia was under a state of emergency with SWAPO combatants conducting infiltrations. Thus, the liberation war became the most important factor mobilizing support for SWAPO, both in Namibia and in international diplomacy. Ovamboland, the northern part of Namibia under a state of emergency for almost twenty years, whose people made the most extreme sacrifices during the era of armed struggle, is home to more than half of the country’s population. It is also the birthplace of SWAPO. Here, people’s identification with the party is almost all embracing. Since independence, the votes of the people in and from this region have been decisive in SWAPO’s trajectory of enduring dominance. To legitimize its position as a dominant party SWAPO relies heavily on a “struggle narrative” of patriotic history (Melber 2003b, 2005). As liberator of the people, it claims to be the obvious and only legitimate organization to execute political power. SWAPO’s patriotic history overemphasizes the liberation struggle and tends to downplay the international factors that contributed to Namibia’s achieving national sovereignty, such as the shift in global power relations that occurred with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Even more than two decades after independence the narrative of the liberation struggle has a powerful effect, perhaps even more so because SWAPO’s leadership still includes many members of the old “struggle elite.” The struggle narrative is a persuasive argument even among considerable portions of the generation of “born frees,” who voted for the first time in the 2009 elections. Political careers among the members of the SWAPO Youth League (who are on average in their early to mid-thirties when they take leadership positions) are based on the patriotic history and its anti-imperialist rhetoric, partly because SWAPO holds a monopoly over the claim to have liberated Namibia and its people from the yoke of colonialism. This claim still resonates

Namibia

57

strongly among the electorate, who dismiss racism and discrimination as inherent parts of a colonial past. In the absence of any other discourse claiming emancipation from injustice, SWAPO remains unchallenged and continues to cultivate the struggle narrative as a justification for its dominant position. Social Cleavages

In Namibia, settler colonialism has resulted in a society that, since the beginning of the twentieth century, was almost fully Christianized. Black churches of mainly Lutheran, but also Roman Catholic and Anglican denomination, together with autonomous “native” churches centered on the Christian belief system, represented almost all Namibians. With the liberation movement being repressed, the churches often were the only effective form of association and mobilization. Particularly the Lutheran churches and the ecumenical body of the Council of Churches in Namibia turned into a formidable force in support of emancipation and liberation from colonial minority rule. Thus, up to Namibia’s independence in 1990, the churches and SWAPO were strong allies (Tötemeyer, Kandetu, and Werner 1987). However, with the end of South African rule, the Namibian churches had to reposition themselves and redefine their relationship with government and the SWAPO Party. They are only gradually and more recently returning to a degree of autonomy that allows them to occasionally resume the role of moral and ethical watchdog (Tötemeyer 2010). Similar to the churches, the organized labor movement was an integral part of the anticolonial struggle and surrendered its autonomy in return for a close affiliation with SWAPO. It was subsequently co-opted into the political establishment of the independent Namibian state (Jauch 2010). By retaining its affiliation with SWAPO, the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) has access to those in power but in return it has surrendered its autonomous bargaining power. This pact between labor and government often seems to be at the expense of workers’ interests and has raised questions about the role of the trade unions vis-à-vis the new postcolonial political and economic elite (Peltola 1995; Bauer 1998; Jauch 2007, 2010). A similar process of co-optation based on old alliances from the “struggle days” has occurred with regard to the organized women movement. Women activists operating in a strategic alliance with SWAPO before independence were either isolated and neutralized or integrated into the new (male-dominated) political hierarchy during the

58

Enduring One-Party Dominance

transformation of the liberation movement into the new political party in control of government and state (Becker 1995). Against the background of these alliances and processes of cooptation, it is perhaps not surprising that Namibia’s party politics does not revolve around substantive ideological differences, despite the plural, multiparty character of its formal political system. A detailed and systematic comparison of political parties concluded that “ideology itself does not seem to play a large role in Namibian politics” (Boer 2005: 54) and that “there is fundamentally little to distinguish between the ruling party’s economic policies and those that would be pursued by the opposition parties” (Boer and Sherbourne 2005: 122). In confirmation of this phenomenon, J. Hunter (2005: 97) states: “Namibia’s main parties remain broadly centrist, and could be seen as more pragmatic and less ideological in nature.” P. Kaapama (2004) reaches the same conclusion: “Looking at the party manifestos, . . . Namibians are . . . presented with nine parties to choose from, but their policies are not significantly different.” In the absence of ideological differences perhaps generational differences matter in the political arena? In the 2009 elections, a considerable number of young voters were eligible to express their preferences for the first time. During the preelection buildup, these so-called born frees were considered important for the election outcome due to their numbers, and hence they became an unknown variable that caused much speculation. According to an Afrobarometer survey of late 2008, the SWAPO Party underperformed in terms of party attachment among younger voters (eighteen to thirty-four years old). The party’s core support remained primarily “older, rural respondents and respondents with less education, especially from the north-central areas,” while “urban, female, and younger voters represent a growing challenge for the ruling party in terms of party closeness or identification” (Afrobarometer 2009a: 8). Despite these discussions and findings, the born free generation did not affect the electoral dominance of the SWAPO Party, which lost only one parliamentary seat in 2009. The 2009 election results did, however, show pockets of dissenting votes in some of the urban centers as well as in the central and southern parts of the country (Melber 2010). A similar pattern of dissent was reproduced during the local and regional elections held in November 2010, indicating the importance of ethnic-regional loyalties in Namibian politics. Notably, these ethnic-regional patterns of loyalty, which Du Pisani (1996: 42) once described as “the rise of older identities,” ultimately benefit SWAPO. The party enjoys unconditional support in the so-called four O-regions of the former Ovamboland: Oshana, Omusati, Oshikoto,

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and Ohangwena. Its hegemonic status relies on the loyalty of the people in these most densely populated areas in the northern parts of the country who make up more than half of the electorate. Despite the fact that some RDP leaders come from these SWAPO strongholds, the SWAPO Party remains by far the biggest and, in most areas in these regions, the only fish in the electoral pond. With regard to opposition parties, Du Pisani (2010) has listed “the fact that many if not most of them are preeminently ethnic and/or regional parties” as one of the woes that beset the opposition in Namibia. Some opposition parties are strongly rooted in a Damara (United Democratic Front [UDF]) or Herero (National Unity Democratic Organisation [NUDO]) identity, while others mainly attract white voters. Other local cleavages are relevant to the parties obtaining votes in the Kavango and Caprivi regions. This type of ethnicregional politics not only serves to maintain SWAPO’s dominant position but may also lead to “the very familiar African scenario of politicized ethnic identities, monocratic and highly-personalized rule with no or very little opposition from the private sphere and a large-scale disengagement of a disillusioned citizenry from the political arena,” as C. Keulder (1996: 88) warns. Institutional Architecture

The Namibian Constitution establishes a strong central executive and gives the president substantive executive powers. Given the extent of these powers and the high degree of influence by the president over policy matters, the political style and approach of the officeholder matters considerably. Namibia had a very strong first president in Sam Nujoma. In 1998, the SWAPO Party even used its two-thirds majority in parliament to pass a constitutional amendment that allowed Nujoma a third term in office (Melber 2006b). Hifikepunye Pohamba, who often keeps a low profile, is a rather subdued successor. Therefore, while the country is still in the “presidential age” (Lindeke 2007) in terms of the powers and functions held by the head of state, its presidentialism seems to have become milder under the present incumbent. Pohamba will vacate the presidential office after two terms in 2015, and the succession race has already entered a serious stage of intraparty campaigning among several contestants within the SWAPO Party. The National Assembly of Namibia is established in Article 44 of the constitution as the highest lawmaking body of the Republic of Namibia “with the power to pass laws with the assent of the President.” According to Article 45, “members of the National Assembly shall be

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representative of all the people and shall in performance of their duties be guided by the objectives of this Constitution, by the public interest and by their conscience.” The National Assembly consists of seventytwo members who are elected every five years using a system of proportional representation based on party lists. Article 46(1)(b) allows for a maximum of six additional members appointed by the president “by virtue of their special expertise, status, skill or experience.” They have no vote “and shall not be taken into account for the purpose of determining any specific majorities that are required under this Constitution or any other law.” Article 35(1) stipulates that the prime minister and other ministers are appointed by the president from among the members of the National Assembly, including the parliamentarians appointed in terms of article 46(1)(b). Given the current size of the cabinet—around forty ministers and deputy ministers—almost all SWAPO members of parliament are also members of the cabinet or tasked to attend cabinet meetings on behalf of their ministers. This fusion of executive and legislative roles makes it very hard for parliament to maintain proper checks and balances despite the constitutional obligation for all ministers to be accountable to both the president and parliament (Article 41). Most SWAPO ministers are mainly accountable to themselves, the party, and the president, but not to the National Assembly or the electorate. Under these circumstances the separation of powers is more “wishful thinking” than practical reality (Kaakunga 2002: 30). Parliament is degraded to a rubber-stamping institution, which hardly ever tries to hold the executive accountable (Melber 2006a). In most instances, SWAPO members of parliament take the floor during parliamentary debates in their function as ministers or deputy ministers, not as parliamentarians representing the voters. This prioritization of one role over another blurs the distinction between the different responsibilities and ultimately weakens the National Assembly, which in any case has limited capacity to undertake any meaningful work on issues of public interest. In a critical assessment of the relationship between parliament and the executive during the first five-year term after independence, S. H. Bukurura (2002: 80) concludes that “parliament consciously or unconsciously gave room to the executive to become strong because that was considered desirable.” Moreover, as Bukurura (2002: 81) puts it, The executive has been very alert to the leeway it commands from a more than “sympathetic” Parliament. . . . Put differently, it is parliamentary deference to the executive that has bolstered executive

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strength. Parliament, therefore, has lost the initiative. As a result, it is the executive itself, and not Parliament . . . , that will ultimately decide, at its own pace and on its own terms, when the time is right to grant political space to Parliament.

Article 68 of the constitution establishes the National Council as the second house of parliament. Its twenty-six members are composed of two elected representatives from each of the thirteen regions of Namibia. According to Article 75 of the constitution, the National Council considers all bills passed by the National Assembly. It may propose amendments to a bill and refer the bill back to the National Assembly for further consideration. However, the National Assembly has the power to ultimately pass the bill with or without the amendments recommended by the National Council. Since its establishment in 1993, the National Council has been dominated by the SWAPO Party because SWAPO’s electoral dominance extends to the local and regional levels. During the local and regional elections in November 2010, the SWAPO Party obtained 98 out of the 107 council seats, with four opposition parties sharing the remaining 9 seats. The disappointing turnout of 38.6 percent of registered voters did not dampen the ruling party’s elation at winning absolute majorities in all but one of the thirteen regional councils, despite the fact that regional councils are elected on the basis of a first-past-the-post electoral system. Apparently, the SWAPO Party was able to secure its electoral dominance under the proportional representation system used in the national elections as well as by way of a majoritarian (first-past-the-post) electoral system as used in the regional and local elections. In both cases, only a few pockets of dissent remain. Despite its electorally dominant position, the SWAPO government, just prior to the 2010 elections, embarked on legislative changes to further entrench its dominance and neutralize the few remaining pockets of dissent. The Special Advisors and Regional Governors Appointment Amendment Act (Act 15 of 2010) amended the principal Regional Councils Act (Act 22 of 1992) in such a way as to give the president the power to appoint the thirteen regional governors and their special advisors. As a result, the only region in which the SWAPO Party did not have a majority no longer had the right to elect its governor from within the ranks of the regional council. A retired SWAPO stalwart was appointed as the new governor in the only region where the SWAPO Party did not gain a majority. Thus, with the appointment of governors being at the discretion of the president, decisionmaking was shifted

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away from the regionally elected political office bearers to the central government. A critical analysis suggested that this extension of the president’s powers of appointment was a move back to the old apartheid era system of “native commissioners” (Diescho 2010). Minister of Trade and Industry Hage Geingob, who was prime minister from 1990 to 2002 and is among the strong contenders for nomination as SWAPO’s presidential candidate in the 2014 elections, defended the move. In an address to parliament, he argued that governors “should be appointed by the President as the representatives of the constitutional head in the various regions” and they “should not be one of the regional councillors. This mode of appointment will strengthen the unitary nature of the state and make a positive contribution to the concept of taking government to the people” (Geingob 2010). Political Culture

Prior to independence, SWAPO’s organizational structures were strongly hierarchical in nature. Both the notion of democratic centralism and the concept of the “big man” as rooted in the power structures of local communities contributed to the hierarchical character of the liberation movement. SWAPO fostered and reinforced a strict commandand-obey mentality, which was in line with the military mind-set that emerged when the party was in exile and that permeated its internal political structures. This political culture established prior to independence still has a strong influence on the party’s main decisionmaking bodies, its central committee and the party congresses, as well as on the political practices that have evolved in state institutions and in government under SWAPO rule. It has also influenced the public mind-set. In a survey undertaken by the Helen Suzman Foundation in six Southern African states, Namibia was the only country in which a large majority would not accept defeat of its party. This survey also found that “not much more than one third of respondents felt confident of democracy’s future” (Johnson 1998). Another survey conducted at the turn of the century among six African countries (Mattes et al. 2000) ranked Namibia last in terms of public awareness of democracy. In addition, a summary of these survey findings concluded, with reference to Namibia and Nigeria, that “the consolidation of democracy is a distant prospect in both these countries” (Bratton and Mattes 2001: 120). In terms of support for democracy, in 2001 Namibia ranked second from the bottom with only 58 percent of respondents expressing their support (Afrobarometer 2002).

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M. A. M. Salih (2000: 24) has observed that “the state often uses democracy to perpetuate hegemony rather than to advance rights, liberty and democracy. The adoption of non-democratic measures is often justified against the backdrop of achieving ‘national’ objectives through a democratic mandate.” The SWAPO Party seems to display some of these tendencies. As J. Diescho (1996: 15) has observed, “one of the strengths of SWAPO is its ability to appear to transform itself from a non-democratic, authoritarian, top-down organization to a democratic, participatory organization while essentially remaining the same. It is this style of political chicanery that makes it very difficult for opposition against SWAPO.” Any challenge to SWAPO’s rule by other political parties is regarded as blasphemy and rejected as unpatriotic betrayal. The struggle credentials rest solely with those in the SWAPO Party and they in turn demand unwavering loyalty to the extent that there is no political alternative to the former liberation movement. In line with this mindset, the SWAPO Election Manifesto of 1999 responded to the challenge, which the formation of the COD represented, by denouncing political opposition as illegitimate. The document equated SWAPO’s political opponents with agents of imperialism by stating that “saving the opposition is the latest version of Europe’s burden to civilise the natives” (SWAPO Party, Department of Information and Publicity 1999: 24). Since 2007, the SWAPO Party has displayed a similar aggressive response to the RDP, the second breakaway party formed by former SWAPO heavyweights. The RDP was denounced, accused of being composed of traitors, who were labelled as agents of imperialism and remote-controlled pawns acting in the interest of regime change. The responses from both SWAPO party leaders and grassroots party activists were heavy handed and contributed to a climate of repression hitherto unknown. A witch hunt for so-called hibernators or RDP moles, suspected of undermining SWAPO structures from the inside, was initiated and marred the public discourse for years following the establishment of the new breakaway party. In the run-up to the 2009 elections, RDP activists were accused of provoking SWAPO supporters in their local strongholds and, on various occasions, were denied the right to campaign freely. Properly registered political rallies were prevented from taking place in some SWAPO strongholds. Leading political office bearers in the two main rival parties ignored the code of good conduct and used aggressive language bordering on hate speech. Clashes and acts of physical violence between members of both parties occurred and on several occasions the

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police had to intervene and disperse the crowd by using tear gas. For the first time since independence, an election campaign in Namibia turned visibly ugly. The tensions were indicative of a degree of confrontation and intolerance that does not bode well for the state of Namibia’s democracy (Melber 2009c). Government Performance

The political program, adopted by the SWAPO Central Committee in 1976 in Lusaka, Zambia, stated that the movement’s tasks included “uniting all Namibian people, particularly the working class, the peasantry and progressive intellectuals into a vanguard party capable of safe-guarding national independence and of building a classless, nonexploitative society based on the ideas and principles of scientific socialism” (SWAPO of Namibia, undated: 39). It further elaborated that “social justice and progress for all is the governing idea behind every SWAPO policy decision” (45). The revised party constitution adopted after independence has toned down the socialist ideology and modified the language but reiterates the following socioeconomic goals: “to fight underdevelopment, poverty, illiteracy and disease; to promote accelerated economic development and to create a balance and inter-linkages between the primary and the secondary sectors of our economy in order to promote self-reliance and the upliftment of the standard of living of the vast majority of the Namibian people” (SWAPO Party, undated: 3). But postindependence statistics speak a sobering language regarding improving the quality of life for the majority of Namibians. The official Household Income and Expenditure Review published toward the end of 2008 by the Central Bureau of Statistics revealed that almost one-third of the country’s two million people lived on US$1 or less per day. The report also noted a sharp rise in households classified as “severely poor” (i.e., living on less than US$20 per month). The same survey found that one-fifth of the population received 78.7 percent of the country’s total income, while the bottom fifth only accounted for 1.4 percent of the total income. Namibia ranks among those countries with the biggest income gaps in the world and the highest inequality in the distribution of wealth. Supposedly, the average income per capita has grown slightly, even among the poorer segments of society, but measured against the cost of living and the lack of basic social services, the overall trend is negative. As an economist affiliated with the UN Development Programme

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(UNDP) concluded, “over time income poverty appears to be decreasing while human poverty is increasing” (Levine 2007: 29). According to official figures released in 2010, the unemployment rate has crossed the 50 percent mark. More than twenty years into independence, the stateowned daily newspaper New Era contained a long article on the many people, including children, who live next to a dump site fifteen kilometers outside of Windhoek in order to have access to food thrown out by others. The story ends with the following conclusion: “If better life means scavenging from the dumpsites for discarded food and expired foodstuff, then Namibia has a long way to go to alleviate poverty and to meet its Millennium Development Goals” (Jason and Rhodes 2011). This social reality contrasts sharply with the fact that the new political and bureaucratic class has used its access to the country’s natural wealth to appropriate public goods and state property for personal gain. Namibia’s socioeconomic landscape has been reconfigured using political power and instruments such as affirmative action and black economic empowerment (BEE)—a redistributive strategy based on the cooptation of a new elite into the old socioeconomic structures (cf. Melber 2007b). SWAPO has used a nationalist discourse, which operates through an aggressively crafted version of patriotic history, to endorse this appropriation strategy. Based on its claim to be the only legitimate representative of the Namibian people, the SWAPO Party makes no distinction among its roles as party, as government, and as state and has, since independence, emphasized the notions of peace and stability. “National reconciliation” became the slogan for a co-optation strategy, which did nothing to change the structural legacy of colonial rule and its corresponding property relations. According to a government official, himself a beneficiary of this form of “black empowerment redistribution,” politics and economics are close bedfellows but clearly not aimed at any meaningful social reconstruction: BEE is simply about “empowering individuals who have business ideas and need information and capital to take off” (Weidlich 2010). Given the prevailing socioeconomic and political conditions, the biggest risk for Namibia’s political stability will not come from a wellorganized opposition that reduces SWAPO’s dominance because of the political alternative it offers. Rather, the main risk will be a lack of delivery by the former liberation movement, which is neither able nor willing to meet the expectations of a better life for all, but instead seeks a better life mainly if not exclusively for those who are members of or close to the new political elite. Lack of service delivery on national as well as regional and local levels is increasingly associated with policy

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failures by the SWAPO Party. In line with party members’ own understanding, the SWAPO Party is in the eyes of the majority of voters identical to the government and the state. If the state does not deliver, the party is perceived as directly responsible for the failure. In fact, when a lack of delivery is directly associated with political office bearers and the SWAPO Party, the social contract that was the basis of the popular support for the erstwhile liberation movement is called into question. Liberation from colonialism and apartheid was equated with a better life if not for all then at least for most of the previously marginalized. However, the “liberation gospel,” which so far has secured SWAPO’s unchallenged and undisputed political hegemony as well as its legitimacy, is showing some wear and tear. It also faces its natural expiry date, as personal memories of the fight against colonial and settler minority rule and the humiliating living conditions under apartheid fade away. What remains is the humiliation of the present-day living conditions, for which the party is increasingly held responsible. Given the growing frustrations over the self-enrichment strategy of the new political elite and its cohort in state-owned enterprises and the private sector, voters show signs of irritation. However, the situation has not yet reached a turning point. In the absence of credible political alternatives, the only available response seems to be to abstain from voting. State-Party Relations

A failure to distinguish between formal democratic legitimacy obtained through the number of votes received in free and fair elections on the one hand and the moral and ethical dimensions and responsibilities of such legitimacy on the other hand may lead to an abuse of state power. The overwhelming electoral mandate that the SWAPO Party received in the first two decades since independence seems to have encouraged the misperception that the government is supposed to serve the party and that the state is the property of the government. While a slogan in the days of the liberation struggle claimed that “SWAPO is the people,” the adjusted slogan for today could easily read that “SWAPO is the government and the government is the state.” The SWAPO Party “often fails to differentiate between its existence as a party and as the government when listing its achievements” (Boer 2005: 53) and even goes a step further by simply refusing to be measured against other parties. When, in 2004, party representatives were approached to offer their views on the economic policies they pursue, “the ruling SWAPO party decided not to participate arguing that this

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research project was designed to help opposition parties” (Sherbourne 2004: 2). As one of the few independent-minded Namibian scholars observes, SWAPO has shown over the years a desire to establish a permanent relationship with the state machinery in order to protect itself, and thereby entrenching its hegemony in the allocation of resources. As a consequence of the fused party-state apparatus, it has become the norm for ministers, who are also party leaders to use officialdom for partydom, if one could use such a word. . . . These actions . . . compromise the very integrity and essence of the constitutional state that ought to be nurtured because it places the political party above the nation it ought to serve. The monopolistic party has reduced the formal institutional processes of government to a mere appendix at the whims of a factional political elite. (Hengari 2008: 4)

Du Pisani (2010) observes that “the power of incumbency has been unashamedly used by the SWAPO party of Namibia, more so close to elections in an effort to maintain and strengthen its grip on the political life of the country.” The run-ups to the 2004 and 2009 elections provide telling examples. In both election periods the ruling party clearly viewed state assets as useful campaign instruments at its disposal. Public servants abused their access to state-owned facilities to the benefit of the SWAPO Party, thus reaffirming the misperception that equates the party with government and government with the state. Public property such as state-owned cars were used in the SWAPO election campaign, and the news programs of the state-owned Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) devoted a disproportional amount of time on radio and television to reporting positively about the SWAPO Party. Public funding for political parties is another area of benefit to the SWAPO Party. The proportional allocation of funds does not strengthen democracy or pluralism, but it adds to the strength of the dominant party, as the overview in Table 3.2 documents. Table 3.2 Party

SWAPO Others

Public Funding for SWAPO Versus All Other Political Parties in Namibia (N$ millions) 2000– 2001 9.6 2.9

2001– 2002 10.8 3.3

2002– 2003 13.8 4.2

Source: Du Pisani and Lindeke (2009a: 23).

2003– 2004 14.7 4.4

2004– 2005 12.2 3.7

2005– 2006 11.7 3.5

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The financial muscle of the SWAPO Party, in combination with its free access to state resources for election campaigns, creates anything but a level playing field. As a result, the election campaigns of the smaller parties are often only oriented to a narrow local or regional support base guided by cultural and ethnic affinities rather than political programs. Foreign observer teams, while testifying to the credibility of election results, raise concerns about the absence of a level playing field. A spokesperson of the forty-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) observer team for the 2009 elections recommended allocating equal airtime on the state-owned broadcasting company NBC to all political parties during the election campaign. He noted “vigorous coverage of the electoral process in a balanced manner” by the local (predominantly private-owned) print media but criticized the state broadcaster NBC for its bias in favor of the SWAPO Party (Weidlich 2009). The seventeen-member observer mission of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) also questioned reporting by the state-owned NBC, accused it of undue support for the SWAPO Party, and recommended that “the State media in Namibia be insulated from direct government control by the establishment of an independent media institution with the responsibility of appointment and dismissal of the heads of state media” (Shejavali 2009). However, given the relatively high degree of press freedom and the impressive number of independent and politically alert print media, the lack of media coverage of opposition parties is also partly due to the fact that they do not seem to be adept in generating newsworthy stories. On the other hand, while platforms seem to be available to articulate dissenting views, doing so presents a personal risk, related to if not the physical then at least the material security of the dissenter. Given the dependence of many on employment by state agencies or related institutions that are under the influence of the party elite, the articulation of dissenting views puts one’s employment and career perspectives at risk. International Influences

As discussed earlier in this chapter, the United Nations and its UN Council for Namibia were the midwives of Namibia’s transitional process to national sovereignty, with the SWAPO Party enjoying a unique status as the only representative of the Namibian people. As a result the party still enjoys wide recognition and legitimacy both at home and abroad. However, the SWAPO Party’s alliances in the international arena seem to be shifting. All Nordic countries, for example, which were

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among the strongest supporters of the anticolonial struggle, have downgraded or closed their embassies in Namibia. At least indirectly and informally, this downscaling of support seems to be a sign of growing concern over emerging autocratic tendencies and the lack of social progress. Namibia’s current bi- and multilateral relations seem to suggest that SWAPO’s foreign policy makers feel increasingly more comfortable in the company of states that lack democratic legitimacy, such as China, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Iran, with which friendly relations have been established. To some extent these preferences mirror SWAPO’s experience in exile during the struggle days when its main support came from the Soviet-allied countries of the Eastern Bloc and Cuba. Other alliances from the time of Namibia’s struggle for independence are even more important in current international relations in the form of solidarity among former liberation movements in Southern Africa. National liberation movements (NLMs) are in power in Angola (Movimento Popular da Libertação de Angola [MPLA]), Mozambique (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique [FRELIMO]), Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front [ZANU-PF]), Namibia (SWAPO), and South Africa (African National Congress [ANC]). They share a mind-set that suggests they deserve their power positions because they succeeded in the shared anticolonial struggle. A controversial white South African commentator put it as follows: The NLMs share what can only be termed a common theology. National liberation is both the just and historically necessary conclusion of the struggle between the people and the forces of racism and colonialism. This has two implications. First, the NLMs—whatever venial sins they may commit—are the righteous. They not merely represent the masses but in a sense they are the masses, and as such they cannot really be wrong. Secondly, according to the theology, their coming to power represents the end of a process. No further group can succeed them for that would mean that the masses, the forces of righteousness, had been overthrown. That, in turn, could only mean that the forces of racism and colonialism, after sulking in defeat and biding their time, had regrouped and launched a counter-attack. (Johnson 2002)

When ANC president Jacob Zuma visited Namibia a couple of months before assuming office as the South African president, the joint communiqué, which was released after he met with President Hifikepunye Pohamba and former president Sam Nujoma, markedly reflected this comment: “It was noted that there is a recurring reac-

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tionary debate around the need to reduce the dominance of former liberation movements on the African continent. In this regard the emergence of counter revolutionary forces to reverse the social, political and economical gains that have been made under the leadership of our liberation movements was discussed.”9 Finally, upon his return to South Africa, Zuma reiterated the same position in the following way: “Political analysts and all who claim to know Africans better than they know themselves tell us that it is good for Africa and democracy if the majority of former liberation movements was reduced. How do we as former liberation movements ensure that we do not steer away from our mandate of serving the poor and all our people, in the current climate of counter-revolution?” (Zuma 2008). Conclusion The sections above illustrate the continued dominance of the SWAPO Party since Namibia’s independence in 1990, as well as the mechanisms behind this trajectory. They document and testify to an interplay among historical, demographic, institutional, cultural, and international factors, all contributing to and reinforcing the continued, hitherto largely undisputed role of the SWAPO Party as the dominant party in Namibian politics. Namibia’s democracy meets all formal criteria of a multiparty political system. However, a substantive gap exists between the established formal framework on the one hand and its application and the sociopolitical realities on the other. Ironically, in the case of Namibia, the United Nations seems to have been the midwife not only for Namibian independence but also for its trajectory of one-party dominance. SWAPO clearly benefited from the status it obtained as the exclusive agency of the Namibian people. This international endorsement of SWAPO as sole representative paved the way for a mentality that regards the SWAPO Party as identical to the government and the state. According to the liberation gospel and its subsequent forms of patriotic history (cf. Saunders 2003, 2007), SWAPO acted as the sole liberator of the Namibian people. The SWAPO Party is largely respected and recognized as such in the perception of the overwhelming majority of the people. The corresponding degree of legitimacy remains effective even at a time when the first generation of born frees are casting their votes at the polling stations. As one observer concludes, “the supply of democracy in Namibia seems to outstrip the demand of it”

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(Du Pisani 2009: 19). In a comparative survey among twelve African countries, Namibians displayed the second-highest degree of satisfaction with democracy, with 69 percent, compared to an average of 45 percent in all twelve countries. At the same time, the support for multiple political parties among Namibians ranked, at 57 percent, as the third lowest, below the average of 63 percent (Bratton and Cho 2006). More than a decade after independence, another survey among Namibians aged eighteen to thirty-two concluded that “Namibia does not have sufficient young Democrats to make the consolidation of democracy a foregone conclusion” (Keulder and Spilker 2002: 28). This touches on certain aspects of Namibia’s political culture that could be termed authoritarian and which result from the oppressive systems of the colonial and settler regimes as well as the hierarchical character of the anticolonial movement, particularly in exile. Given these legacies, perhaps not surprisingly among the eighteen countries surveyed by Afrobarometer, “Namibians appear to be the most deferential to their elected leaders” (Logan, Fujiwara, and Parish 2006: 16). Another Afrobarometer survey classified Namibia as “a democracy without democrats” (Keulder and Wiese 2005: 26). However, reality lies in the eyes of the beholder, and in contrast to these negative findings, a 2008 Afrobarometer survey found that Namibians “are among the most satisfied populations in African democracies in terms of how democracy works in the country” (Afrobarometer 2009c: 9). W. Lindeke and N. Shejavali (2007: 12) also suggest that Namibia’s performance in terms of multiparty democracy is relatively successful, but they add that “it remains difficult to know whether this is the result of ‘democracy,’ SWAPO leadership and ideas, or the more general Namibian conditions that prevail in this particular historical setting.” In the context of Namibia’s trajectory of continued one-party dominance P. Kaapama and colleagues (2007: 92) conclude that One obstacle in the way of democratic consolidation is the present weakness of civil society. . . . In addition, a weak opposition has contributed significantly towards one-party dominance. While a strong opposition would contribute significantly to the consolidation of democracy, it is difficult to see a viable multiparty political system emerging in Namibia any time soon. A continuation of one-party dominance could impact on the character and resilience of Namibia’s democracy.

The dominance of the SWAPO Party and the weakness of the opposition are two sides of the same coin. Those active in Namibia’s opposi-

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tion parties do not present a meaningful challenge to the dominant discourse but rather seem to offer more of the same. In the absence of any genuine alternatives, voters may as well continue to render support to the devil they know. Notes 1. Founded as the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), the organization was later renamed SWAPO of Namibia and then the SWAPO Party, the latter in an attempt to reflect a transformation from liberation movement to political party. 2. Parts of this chapter are based on the author’s earlier work on related themes (Melber 2000, 2001, 2003a, 2004, 2007a, 2009a, 2009b, 2010, and 2011). 3. At independence, on 21 March 1990, the Constitutional Assembly became the first National Assembly of Namibia. 4. See various reports on the elections during the 1990s: Commonwealth Secretariat (1995), S. K. Glover (2000), C. Keulder (1998, 1999), C. Keulder, A. Nord, and C. Emminghaus (2000), R. Kössler (1993), T. Lodge (2000), D. Simon (2000), and I. Soiri (2001). 5. An effort to form alliances among opposition parties prior to the 2010 local elections failed. In September 2010, the RDP and the Republican Party (RP) entered into an agreement to merge. The plan’s implementation was however questioned and delayed because of internal resistance in the RP’s constituency and because of some formal-technical reasons related to the one parliamentary seat held by the RP. Not enough time has passed to make a prognosis about the impact this merger may have on the Namibian party political landscape. 6. In September 2012, after almost three years (!) of legal wrangling, the court case was still not brought to an end. 7. With Resolution 2145 dated 27 October 1966, the United Nations’ General Assembly terminated South Africa’s mandate over South West Africa and subsequently qualified its continued presence as illegal occupation. 8. A somewhat complicating factor, which cannot be adequately discussed within the limits of this chapter, has been the existence of União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), which was fighting in an alliance with South Africa against the Movimento Popular da Libertação de Angola (MPLA) government in Luanda, while historically and in regional-ethnic terms being close to most SWAPO combatants. 9. Joint Communiqué of the SWAPO Party and the African National Congress, 9 December 2008, available on http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?doc=./ ancdocs/pr/2008/pr1209.html, accessed on 14 December 2008.

4 South Africa: Racialized Discourse in the Context of Deteriorating Performance Thiven Reddy

campaigning for the 2009 national elections, confidently asserted that the ANC will rule until the return of Jesus Christ. The enduring electoral dominance of the ANC alongside a fragmented, electorally weak opposition is a distinctive feature of South Africa’s post-1994 democratic period. This configuration of the party system has prevailed for nearly two decades, remained unchanged in four national elections, and can justifiably be described as relatively stable. Thus, South Africa is a classic example of a one-party-dominant system. How long this system will define South African politics and whether such a system will help or hinder the newly developing democracy are matters of ongoing and, often, emotional debate. Those skeptical of long-lasting ANC dominance point to the abuse of state power and the increasing and debilitating factional tensions within the party. They regard the increasingly regular, and ever more violent, community protests over the government’s failure to adequately address postapartheid expectations as an indication of citizens’ frustration. Others— often those more sympathetic to the ANC—point to the party’s central role in the liberation struggle and its standing among the black majority, thus relegating the possibility of its electoral defeat to the distant future. In their view, the continued importance of the struggle against apartheid, the ANC’s significance as its representative, and the lack of viable opposition to what the ANC stands for account for the ANC’s ongoing and stable position of dominance. AFRICAN NATIONAL CONGRESS (ANC) LEADER JACOB ZUMA, WHILE

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In the first part of this chapter, the electoral fortunes of the ANC and other parties are addressed, thus outlining the trajectory of oneparty dominance in South Africa. In the second section a detailed discussion follows of the mechanisms behind the persistence of the ANC’s dominance, such as the way in which voters strongly associate the party with both the antiapartheid struggle and the transition to democracy. The ANC derives some of its current strength from the fact that, throughout its history, the party fairly successfully managed different factions, especially compared to its rivals. Attention will also be drawn to the fact that some ANC practices are difficult to reconcile with the values that form the cornerstone of the new democratic era. A case in point is the increasing influence of money in party politics, an influence that seems to be exacerbated by the ANC’s dominant position. Lastly, the fact that, against the current background of citizens’ frustration about growing corruption and the government’s deteriorating service delivery record, the ANC increasingly relies on a racialized discourse to defend itself and its dominant position will be reflected upon. The Trajectory of One-Party Dominance in South Africa During the first democratic election in 1994, the ANC won an overwhelming majority of seats in the national parliament and in seven of the nine provincial parliaments. In the subsequent elections of 1999, 2004, and 2009, the ANC continued to win resounding majorities. In 1994, the party won 62.7 percent of the vote (42 percent more than its nearest rival) and 252 of the 400 seats in the National Assembly. In 1999, the party increased its lead to 66.4 percent, winning another 14 parliamentary seats, thus bringing its total to 266 seats. The controversial “floor-crossing” legislation of 2002 allowed sitting members of parliament to change their party affiliation. Nine members of parliament (MPs) subsequently crossed the floor to the ANC, bringing its total number of seats to 275. In the 2004 election, the ANC won 279 seats by obtaining 69.7 percent of the vote. In 2007, the party gained an additional 8 representatives through floor crossing, thus bringing its number of parliamentary seats to 287. The public outcry surrounding floor crossing compelled parliament to overturn the relevant legislation in 2009, thus returning to the previous ban on defections. In the 2009 election, the number of ANC-held seats in parliament fell to 264, with the party retaining 65.9 percent of the vote.

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In all four national elections the ANC won more than 60 percent of the registered vote. In the four local government elections, held in 1996, 2000, 2006, and 2011, the ANC showed a similar position of electoral dominance. In the recent local election of 2011 the party received 62 percent of the overall vote, thus gaining control of two-thirds of the 279 councils and seven of the eight large metropolitan councils. This result was similar to its electoral performance in the 2000 local government elections, when the ANC received 61.7 percent of the votes. In the 2006 local election, the party managed to win a vote share of 67.7 percent. The large vote shares consistently won by the ANC in national and provincial elections are much more modest when viewed against declining voter registration and decreasing voter turnout. While the number of eligible voters has increased since 1994, the number of voters participating in elections has decreased. Although voter registration and voter turnout rose slightly between 1999 and 2004, they have now both declined compared to 1994 figures. In other words, fewer eligible voters are going to the polls. If one would take the number of eligible voters instead of the number of votes cast, the ANC’s result in the 2009 election would change from 65.9 percent to 39.6 percent, thus presenting a starkly different picture (Schulz-Herzenberg 2009). In sum, more and more people in South Africa choose not to vote, and this choice contributes to the ANC’s electoral dominance. Since 1994, the opposition has been divided and weak with the exception of the Democratic Alliance (DA), which is the only opposition party showing a steady increase in vote share. The small parties—since 1999, twelve to thirteen political parties have been represented in parliament—typically have between one and four seats each. The larger, more viable opposition parties in parliament are the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Congress of the People (COPE), and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). However, in the 2011 local government elections, both the COPE and IFP performed dismally. As a case in point, regarding the mercurial nature of minority parties in postapartheid South Africa, one only has to look at what happened with the National Party (NP), the former ruling party of the apartheid era. The demise in 2005 of the NP (renamed the New National Party [NNP] in 1997), may not have been surprising. However, the fact that the party that dominated white politics for nearly five decades went through a failed merger with the Democratic Party (DP) and subsequently, upon its disbandment, urged its members to join its traditional arch enemy, the ANC, points to the fluidity and unpredictability of opposition politics in South Africa since 1994.

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After the ending of apartheid, in the relatively short period of 1997–2005, the NNP quickly lost support among its mostly white and colored Afrikaans-speaking electorate. The merger with the Democratic Party (DP), which resulted in the formation of the DA, was short lived. When the NNP withdrew from the DA, many of its supporters stayed with the newly formed party, attracted by its campaign, against the ANC’s affirmative action policies, against the ruling party’s stance toward the unfolding crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe, and against the ineffective implementation of policies to combat crime, unemployment, and the spread of HIV/AIDS. The DA only grew stronger and is presently the most viable opposition party. With the demise of the NNP, the DA initially adopted a strategy of “robust opposition” and assumed the role of representing minority interests. More recently, the party has started to use its governance record in the Western Cape—the province that it has controlled since 2009—to position itself as a realistic alternative to the ANC. The DA strongly opposes what it labels the ANC’s “racialization” of South African politics (i.e., the ruling party’s approach to transformation based on affirmative action and black economic empowerment [BEE]). In response, the DA has begun to advocate what it defines as an “equal opportunity” society, has attempted to include more black and colored people in its leadership, and has emphasized its wish to appeal to the black majority of voters. In 1994, the DP, perhaps unexpectedly, performed badly with only 1.7 percent of the vote, increasing this share to 9.6 percent in 1999. In 2004, the DP’s reincarnated form, the DA, gained 12.4 percent of the national vote, which increased to 16.7 percent in 2009. This trajectory of steady growth is in sharp contrast to other opposition parties and makes the DA the main opposition party with long-term viability. Opposition parties that have “struggle credentials” because of their involvement in the fight against apartheid, such as the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) and the Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO), compete with the ANC for the support of black voters. These parties have been severely weakened by infighting and campaign messages that do not significantly distinguish them from the ANC. Thus, they have failed to present a significant challenge to the ANC. Particularly in the first election in 1994, the PAC was expected to compete closely with the ANC. However, the PAC and the black consciousness party, AZAPO, received less than 1.5 percent of the vote, and this trend has not changed in subsequent elections. When COPE broke away from the ANC and contested the 2009 elections, its attempts to become an alter-

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native to the ANC did not live up to expectations: the breakaway party managed to win only 7.4 percent of the national vote. The parties to the extreme left and right of the ANC pose no threat to its electoral dominance. The parties on the white far right have failed to successfully attack the democratic order and have steadily declined in support. The Freedom Front Plus (FF+), representing mainly Afrikaans speakers who were once sympathetic to demands for an Afrikaner “homeland,” has seen its vote share decline from 2.25 percent in 1994 to 0.75 percent in the 1999 elections. In the 2004 and 2009 elections, the party just managed to hold on to four seats in parliament. Newly formed parties under charismatic leaders such as the United Democratic Movement and the African Christian Democratic Party performed well in their first elections, but proved unable to consolidate or increase their support in subsequent elections. These parties, however, contribute to the diversity of views represented in the national parliament.

Mechanisms of One-Party Dominance in South Africa Historical Legacy

The ANC’s formation in 1912 was a coming together of existing African organizations and civic bodies of chiefs, lawyers, journalists, and clergymen (Karis 1972; Simons 1983). This early nationalist elite took a fairly limited approach to representing the interests of South Africa’s African population. The main aim of the new organization was to extend the limited franchise that Africans had in the Cape Province—only African males with property could vote—to the whole country. Over the years, the ANC gradually broadened its ideological stance and started to focus on organizing popular pressure to resist an intransigent white government that implemented a policy of systematic racial discrimination against blacks. In 1955, the ANC adopted its Freedom Charter demanding a truly democratic society that would uphold political, civil, and socioeconomic rights. In the 1960s, when the ANC decided on a comprehensive strategy of liberation, it regarded itself as a multiclass nationalist movement encompassing various ideologies, traditions, and cultures. The ANC viewed itself as a “broad church,” reflective of the general population (including whites as a minority group)—the “nation in the making.” This key characteristic continues to contribute to the ANC’s distinctive status in South African politics.

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In addition to its broad, inclusive character, the ANC has a remarkably long institutional history and a proven ability to adapt and to contain factional conflict.1 Throughout the apartheid era, the struggle for liberation was fought by many organizations, each representing different ideologies, strategies, and tactics and having different strengths and weaknesses. In the 1920s the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union rivaled the ANC in popular support, in the 1950s, the PAC, which had split off from the ANC, appeared to be the organization of choice, especially in urban migrant communities, and in the 1970s the black consciousness movement of Steve Biko was leading the resistance inside the country. Compared to these rivals, the ANC pursued pragmatic politics, followed a more inclusive ideology, and was more open to negotiations with the apartheid regime, but most importantly, the ANC proved institutionally stronger in the long run. While rival organizations failed to adapt or remain internally coherent and were being torn apart by factional politics over leadership contests and ideological differences, the ANC managed its internal tensions pragmatically, despite representing a wider ideological spectrum. Thus, the ANC built upon the 1980s urban uprisings and entered into the politics of negotiations much stronger than its rivals, who could not contain internal differences and could not agree on the content of a new constitution or on how to effectively respond to President F. W. De Klerk’s initiatives to end apartheid through negotiations. The influence of South Africa’s historical legacy on its trajectory of one-party dominance since 1994 is not neatly bounded. It overlaps with aspects of political culture. The historical circumstances that determined people’s lives during the colonial era and under the apartheid regime continue to influence people’s perceptions today. As I will discuss in more detail in the sections below, the discourse of the struggle for liberation largely frames the culture of contemporary South African politics. The reference to the past remains strong, and opposition parties can easily be tainted by the impression that they are working to preserve white minority interests. This political culture, infused with the country’s historical legacy, ensures that the majority of the population continues to identify with the ANC and allows the party some slack even when it falls short of voter expectations. Because of the ANC’s reputation as the party that led the national liberation struggle, popular identification with the party goes beyond instrumentalist calculations. In addition, the ANC is strongly associated with the new democratic order because of its key role in the negotiated transition. In a relatively short period beginning with the first democratic election in 1994, South Africa has moved from a deeply divided,

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racist, and politically violent society into a more inclusive, democratic polity. After centuries of harsh colonial domination and an equally long history of resistance in the struggle for national liberation, the political system finally reflects values that provide a basis for regime legitimacy. In 1994, the ANC assumed control of the state while enjoying an impressive level of popular legitimacy. The party extended its reach throughout the country into rural areas, small towns, and heavily populated urban areas. While its leaders rightly claimed to rule on behalf of the majority, the party was also considered to be the institutional foundation of national unity. During the first years of democracy, the ANC’s legitimacy provided much-needed stability. The party bestowed legitimacy on the new political dispensation even though this new order was the product of a negotiated settlement in which the ANC had agreed to compromises with white minority interests. When the ANC, to some extent uncomfortably, entered the era of electoral politics in the new multiparty democracy, it was forced to take on the characteristics and functions of a modern political party. According to party stalwart and former minister Mac Maharaj (2008: 25), [The ANC] did not see itself in the mould of an orthodox political party, but rather as a broad organisation for national liberation. It participated in the 1994 elections on this platform, and even to the present moment adheres to this self-definition. The ANC conceptualises itself as a movement aimed at bringing about the national liberation of the oppressed people and the realisation of a non-racial, non-sexist society in South Africa. While the advent of democracy in 1994 established a critical beachhead, that task is yet to be completed. Accordingly, it also asserts that there is need for maintaining the old ANC/COSATU/SACP 2 alliance. Indeed, in contrast to the general concept of political parties as rivals, the ANC always saw its task to gather together in united mass action as wide a spectrum of forces and organisations as possible, in order to better pursue the goals of the liberation struggle.

Thus, in the past two decades the ANC has hesitantly tried to straddle both its movement identity and the functions of a ruling party engaged in competitive electoral politics. The transformation from liberation movement to political party is as yet incomplete and constitutes the main challenge the ANC is currently facing. The party’s proven ability to hold together a diverse range of interests—which partly explains its current position of dominance—is increasingly being tested as the ANC continues to embrace its position as a ruling party and moves further away from the values and practices that defined its struggle for liberation. Be that as it may, the ANC’s current position as the dominant party

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in South Africa’s party system is still strongly anchored to its history of antiapartheid struggle and its role in establishing the new democratic dispensation. Social Cleavages

Some observers (Giliomee and Simkins 1999) have argued that elections in postapartheid South Africa have not broken down the racial and ethnic divisions of the past and that the ANC’s electoral dominance can be attributed to racial voting. They regard elections as a “racial census,” arguing that South African citizens vote according to their racial identity. Thus, the ANC remains dominant because those who under apartheid were classified as Africans constitute the majority of voters and continue to vote for the ANC. In other words, race is identified as the key factor that explains voting behavior in the new South Africa. However, while significant overlap does occur between racial/ ethnic categories and party affiliation, the relation between race and voting behavior is by no means straightforward. In fact, a complex set of factors motivates and explains the political behavior of South Africans today, and a racial political identity is not self-evident. Ascertaining the validity of the racial census interpretation of voting behavior is difficult because other compelling factors such as the level of education, ideological and class differences, and the urban-rural division still correlate fairly closely with past racial classifications. Race is a convenient proxy for a range of other socioeconomic, historical, and politicalcultural markers. Thus, instead of dismissing or rarefying race, one has to acknowledge that it combines with other factors to produce a particular outcome in terms of voting behavior. To reduce this combination of factors to a single racial factor or to separate factors without appreciating the essence of their entanglement shows a lack of insight into the devastating realities and consequences of the apartheid regime. The underlying reasoning of the racial census perspective on voting behavior is that the ANC receives its support primarily from the African majority, and that this majority votes according to its primordial identity and does not take different interests into account. Thus, the ANC will remain in power for many decades, unless the African majority, presumably after more modernization, divides along the lines of class interests, ideology, or perhaps local cultures and traditions. This view—that Africans do not display modern traits of interest voting and vote in a herdlike fashion on the basis of race—sharply contrasts with an historical interpretation of the role of race in South African politics. Accord-

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ing to this interpretation, racial identity needs to be located within the broader political context of the country’s colonial history. Often, in politics, the shadow of the past plays an important part in contemporary behavior. In societies that are the products of colonial domination, the colonial past and the struggle to overcome the social relations defined by the colonial powers determine to a large extent the political behavior at the end of colonial rule. Thus, voting behavior in democratic South Africa is not simply a matter of race, but it reflects the country’s history of racism and minority rule. While rejecting the racial census viewpoint, I argue that in the context of South Africa’s current postcolonial society, the ANC’s dominance can best be understood by recognizing four important factors: (1) the history of the antiapartheid struggle, (2) the ANC’s association with and leading role in establishing the new democratic dispensation, (3) the level of party institutionalization of the ANC compared to its rivals, and (3) the continued existence of socioeconomic inequalities that can be traced back to apartheid and have given rise to a racialized discourse in the current political arena. The first two factors were discussed above, and the second two factors will be discussed below. These underlying mechanisms are not easily disentangled from each other. For example, the ANC’s credentials as the leading antiapartheid organization are strongly related to the degree of institutionalization by which it managed to outperform rival organizations such as the PAC. In later sections of this chapter, I will discuss this issue of interwoven mechanisms in more detail. Institutional Architecture

Less than two decades after the first democratic elections, few outside observers could have imagined the advances made by a society that saw such widespread civil unrest and political crisis in the late 1980s. The legitimacy of the current political system is not in question. The rules of the democratic constitution have held, with no significant group challenging them. Only time will tell how firmly these constitutional values have rooted themselves in the evolving democratic political culture; still, so far the constitutional rules have regulated the behavior of the political elite as “the only game in town.” Political conflicts are largely managed within the ruling party or through elections, through parliamentary debates and votes, and, when unresolved at a political level, by taking them to the Constitutional Court. At the same time, most of the institutional architecture set up by the constitution sits in tension with the ANC’s dominance of the political system.

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South Africa’s first democratic parliament elected in 1994 served as the Constitutional Assembly tasked with finalizing a constitution that would be compatible with the thirty-four constitutional principles that were agreed to at the negotiating table. The negotiators had agreed to universal adult suffrage in combination with a complex system of checks and balances, the protection of private property rights, and the cultural recognition of minorities. In addition, the ANC had promised to form a coalition government and to preserve the white civil service for a period of five years after the first election. The most important constitutional principles relating to political institutions were separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, regular elections, a multiparty political system, an electoral system based on proportional representation, cooperative government between national, provincial, and local levels, and various independent constitutional watchdog institutions. Some of South Africa’s key institutional features are typical of consensus-building polities. The system of proportional representation, South Africa’s form of weak federalism, its famously modern constitution, and the constitutional watchdog institutions all disperse rather than centralize power. In addition, the president and parliament share one electoral mandate—the president is not separately elected—and the executive’s survival depends on its support in the legislature, thus identifying South Africa as a parliamentary rather than a presidential system. Despite these institutional features, the political system can best be characterized as a qualified majoritarian system (Koeble 1998; Lijphart 1998). The dominance of the ANC clearly counteracts most of the institutional elements that are designed to share rather than concentrate power at the center. The Government of National Unity, which was established after the 1994 election and is widely acknowledged to have contributed to the initial racial reconciliation, ended shortly after the final constitution was adopted by parliament in 1996. Thereafter, any accommodation of minority interests occurred within the context of the ANC’s overwhelmingly dominant position, thus losing its power-sharing character.3 The electoral system of proportional representation, known to encourage the existence of multiple and diverse political parties, has not prevented a trajectory of enduring one-party dominance. On the contrary, the system of nominating and electing members of parliament via a closed party list has enhanced the parties’ control over their public representatives and in the case of the ANC strengthened its position of dominance. Not the public but party bosses—in the case of the ANC, the party’s top

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office bearers at its central headquarters, Luthuli House—determine which party members will be selected to fill a place on the party list and thus a position as public representative. Because representatives fear the loss of their seats at the hands of party bosses, party discipline is very strong. And because members toe the party line, little robust parliamentary oversight over the executive can be found (Southall 1994, 1998; Lodge 1999; Nijzink 2001; Piombo and Nijzink 2005). The now-abolished controversial legislation that allowed public representatives to switch parties in between elections without losing their seats further augmented the power of ANC party bosses over ordinary members of parliament. The floor-crossing legislation allowed defections only during a so-called window period and only if at least 10 percent of a party’s representatives decided to leave. The latter condition obviously left the smaller parties vulnerable while strengthening the position of the ANC. Not only did floor crossing benefit the ANC because the party gained a number of public representatives in this way, but it also fragmented the opposition (Nijzink 2012). Overall, the institutional architecture of South Africa’s political system since 1994 has, despite its consensus-building character, not prevented the country’s trajectory of enduring one-party dominance. In fact, some of these institutional features have gradually been rendered ineffectual by the ANC’s dominance. In this regard, the ANC’s own degree of institutionalization seems to have greatly contributed to its dominant position. L. Svåsand and V. Randall (2002a) identify two dimensions of party institutionalization. First, the structural/internal dimension comprises the strengths of the party organization, especially its capacity to adapt and fully embrace a rule-bound internal practice. Second, the attitudinal dimension is the organization’s ability to acquire widespread support and sustain this support over a period of time. Other writers (Huntington 1968; Panebianco 1988; Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Mainwaring 1998) emphasize additional internal features as indicators of party institutionalization, such as organizational adaptability, autonomy, complexity, internal coherence, and organizational durability. According to S. P. Huntington (1968) and A. Panebianco (1988), party autonomy is a key institutional attribute and can be defined as the degree of differentiation from other organizations or the party’s separateness from its immediate political environment. In other words, an institutionalized party not only wins support but also withstands incorporation by and undue influence from other organizations, while remaining internally coherent. Thus, the nature of the party’s external relations with other organizations indicates

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its degree of autonomy. In the case of the ANC, the way the party relates to its alliance partners (the Congress of South African Trade Unions [COSATU] and the South African Communist Party [SACP]) as well as to powerful societal sectors such as business is key to its autonomy and thus to its degree of institutionalization. I have already noted the ANC’s capacity to manage internal factions in such a way that the organization remained relatively coherent during the liberation struggle period. During the immediate post-1994 period, the party stood out because of its capacity to effectively manage internal rivalries despite important regional and ideological differences. However, when Nelson Mandela’s term came to an end, the leadership of President Thabo Mbeki produced tensions that the party found difficult to control. Mbeki’s style of leadership, his aloofness but also his response to the growing influence of money and corruption in the ruling party, encouraged rather than reduced factional tensions. When Deputy President Jacob Zuma was charged with corruption and Mbeki released him from his position, the ANC suffered a period of intense rivalry between the Mbeki and Zuma factions. The factional rivalry culminated in a party leadership contest at the ANC’s national conference in Polokwane, which saw Zuma elected as ANC president and Mbeki recalled as president of South Africa. Since then, factional divisions have not only led to the emergence of a breakaway party, COPE, but also complicated the ANC’s relations with its allies. As a result and because of the specific nature of state-party relations (discussed below), the consensus that characterized the party organization during the early years of democracy is waning. Thus, while the ANC’s degree of institutionalization has greatly contributed to its dominant position, one can find signs that increasing factionalism within the party is steadily undermining its ability to govern. Political Culture

With little doubt, of all political parties the ANC is most closely associated with South Africa’s new democracy. The ANC is the party of Mandela, the iconic symbol and face of the antiapartheid movement and the first president of the new South Africa. In addition to the ANC’s leading role in the struggle, the party took the lead in the negotiating process that ushered in the new democratic dispensation. In 1990, the apartheid regime led by F. W. De Klerk, set the stage for negotiations by releasing Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, unbanning the antiapartheid nationalist organizations, and allowing for the return of exiles. Although widely demanded and long hoped for,

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the announcement caught many by surprise. The decision to start negotiations had its roots in a deep crisis of social control related to the structural failings of apartheid, increasing splits in the ruling elite, and the development of a national culture of protest (Price 1991). In the 1980s, the United Democratic Front (a network of civil society organizations sympathetic to the banned ANC) had acquired enormous powers of mass mobilization inside the country. Together with a sophisticated international antiapartheid movement operating outside South Africa, it dramatically increased the pressure on an increasingly isolated apartheid regime (Murray 1987). The maturation of internal resistance—a key factor in the changing political terrain that eventually forced the ruling National Party to accept negotiations with the leaders of the national liberation movement—can be traced back to the 1970s. By the time of the 1976 student uprising in Soweto, the National Party leaders grudgingly had begun to recognize the importance of negotiations and political reform to avert further radicalization of the struggle against their rule (Lodge 1983). With the state apparatus unable to maintain social control in the black urban townships, the apartheid system was in crisis. The crisis took the form of lower economic productivity and profits, increased unemployment, growing resistance, and a general breakdown in social order, all of which were a cause for worry among South Africa’s remaining allies. Against this background, the international campaign for the release of Nelson Mandela and other long-term political prisoners proved successful in 1990. The four years of negotiations that followed saw many unpredictable setbacks and uncertainties but ultimately resulted in the start of a new democratic dispensation of which, in the perception of the majority of South Africans, the ANC was the “founding father” (Sparks 1994; Sisk 1995; Koeble 1998). The close association of the ANC with the new democratic dispensation was exactly the reason why the party’s dominance of the political system was initially not perceived as a threat to democracy. The ANC’s internal diversity—described by Lijphart (1998) as a grand system of power sharing—was another reason why the ANC’s dominance did not pose an immediate threat. Those who in the early to mid-1990s considered the ANC’s dominance to be unproblematic assumed that, in a relatively unified ANC, different factions would contribute to internal debate, openness, and overall stability. However, under the leadership of President Thabo Mbeki, who centralized power and discouraged dissent within the party, the opposite occurred. Together with the institutional incentives for party discipline, Mbeki could rely on long-held party traditions that valued internal unity highly. These traditions and internal

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practices, a legacy of the party’s days in exile, discourage internal dissension, in turn greatly strengthening the ANC’s dominant position. Thus, the growing intolerance of dissent during Mbeki’s leadership met little resistance within the ruling party. This intolerance was particularly apparent in the way criticism of Mbeki’s controversial denialist views on HIV/AIDS was repressed. This repression of dissenting views within the ANC, in turn, gave rise to increasing opposition from the side of civil society, which, led by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), eventually forced the government to change its stance on HIV/AIDS. The protracted conflict over party leadership that played itself out in 2007 further challenged the ANC’s traditions and culture. The conflict resulted in the resignation of President Mbeki before the end of his second term in office and had severe consequences for the ANC, the state, and civil society. Instead of expressing a national consensus, in line with its historical mandate to serve as a parliament of the people, the ANC became a source of division. The conflict between the Zuma and Mbeki factions within the ANC spilled over into other sectors of society, precisely because of the party’s continued dominance of politics and the state apparatus. At present, the factional infighting has not abated, and whether the ANC’s party traditions and values will be sufficiently strong to withstand the resulting havoc remains to be seen. Government Performance

Dominant party rule has important positive features, especially in newly democratizing societies where the potential for social instability is high. A. Arian and S. Barnes (1974: 593) argue that “the dominant party system suggests a model of how democracy and stability may be combined under difficult conditions.” One-party dominance in a democratic context mobilizes citizens to participate in the political system, provides for a stable government, and must be appreciated for providing “stability in fragmented polities” (Arian and Barnes 1974: 600). In the South African context, S. Friedman (1999) rightly draws attention to the democratic internal structure of the ANC and the party’s historical commitment to a plural democracy. Looking at the relative openness of the ANC, one could argue that the ANC shares many of its features with the Indian Congress Party (Reddy 2005). Between 1948 and 1967, the Congress Party demonstrated how internal factions can cooperate with external opposition parties to keep the ruling party pragmatic in the management of internal dissent, sensitive to opposition party concerns, and cohesive enough to bring the majority into the political system

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(Kothari 1964). H. Adam (1999) acknowledges that the ANC as a dominant party brings long-term stability, offers short-term safeguards for fearful minorities, and allows democratic institutions to take root. He argues that the ANC is also assuming the difficult role of managing the heightened expectations of the poor. Scholars such as R. Suttner (2006) on the other hand criticize the notion of a dominant party altogether. They argue that the concept is intrinsically conservative because it is grounded in a narrowly defined electoral understanding of democracy, rather than in democratic practices of popular participation and decisionmaking. This approach is interesting because the ANC has traditionally claimed to represent working and poor peoples’ interests and advocated a people’s democracy that includes socioeconomic redistribution. In 1994, the ANC embarked on the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) as its policy framework to tackle poverty and inequality (Marais 1998). From 1994 to 1996, the RDP was considered the overall policy framework aimed at redistributing wealth by way of extensive state intervention through the provision of services and infrastructure. However, RDP projects suffered from numerous problems in implementation as well as funding shortages. The ANC leadership subsequently shifted its thinking on economic policies, started favoring more market-oriented solutions, and thus abandoned the RDP. Instead of focusing on redistribution in the context of stagnant growth, the ANC government embraced what it called the Growth, Employment, and Redistribution (GEAR) Program. The GEAR Program amounted to a domestically designed structural adjustment program, advocating a variety of policies intended to inspire economic growth through increased foreign investment, rather than state intervention (Osborn 1997; Marais 1998; Southall 2008). The government’s new macroeconomic policy sought to encourage direct foreign investment and exports of South African goods and to increase the role of the market in the allocation of goods and services. This tactic was expected to result in the creation of jobs and therefore indirectly in redistribution. The policy has produced ambiguous results, leading to economic growth and stable inflation, but also to growing unemployment. In fact, South Africa has experienced what many call jobless growth, while insufficient social service delivery means that many backlogs inherited from the apartheid regime have not been addressed, thus increasing the frustrations of the poor. Poor service delivery has led to a series of protests, creating new tensions within the ANC and between the ANC and its alliance partners COSATU and the SACP. At the same time, the ruling party’s economic policy has been lauded by the South African business sector, as strong ties

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between the ANC and business developed, especially under Thabo Mbeki’s leadership. The adoption of the contentious GEAR Program encouraged COSATU and the SACP, the ANC’s alliance partners, to support a change in leadership at the ANC’s Polokwane conference in 2007 (Southall 2009). Consequently, Jacob Zuma was elected as the new president of the ANC, and Mbeki was dramatically asked by his party to resign as the president of South Africa. Since 2009, the Zuma government has not embarked on any significant changes in economic policy. Although the ANC government provides minimum welfare benefits for the least well off, the government’s aim to promote a “developmental state” in keeping with the ideological leanings of its alliance partners, particularly COSATU, has not manifested in any material changes in state structure or the state’s role in relation to society. A lack of state capacity (not unrelated to party cronyism) has resulted in inefficiencies and poor implementation of government policies. Together with widespread corruption and conservative marketfriendly policies beneficial to business interests, the state’s unresponsiveness has given rise to a growing frustration amongst citizens about poor service delivery. This discontent in turn has resulted in increased social mobilization, which has put the ANC under pressure. The party’s response has been ambiguous. On the one hand, the ANC, as the leading organization in a broad movement aimed at the “national democratic revolution,” encourages political and social mobilization, but on the other hand in its role as a ruling party the ANC has taken a defensive approach that emphasizes the “rule of law.” The ANC’s main strategy seems to be to draw attention to the racial divisions that are rooted in the apartheid past, thus evoking its history in the struggle for liberation as a basis for the party’s legitimacy. This strategy assists the ANC in legitimizing its dominant position but also gives rise to a racialized political discourse that runs the risk of further radicalizing and alienating the already discontented (see section below). Thus, the ANC finds itself in an increasingly tight corner: the party manages to hold on to the support of a majority of the electorate but is unlikely to translate its control of the state apparatus into the genuine popular consent that is necessary to transform South African society. State-Party Relations

Labeled in ANC terminology as the national democratic revolution, the ANC identified the transformation of society and the state as its main

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goal for the early democratic period. The ANC initially feared that the civil service inherited from the apartheid regime would resist its intentions to reorganize the state (and society) in the majority’s interests. This fear soon proved unwarranted. The apparatus of the apartheid state, surprisingly to many, was not an obstacle to the implementation of ANC policies. And in time, ANC members filled top positions in all government departments and took control of the state apparatus. In a polity where state resources and their distribution had always benefited the ruling party, the ANC, once in power, rapidly used its control over the state as a key mechanism to strengthen its position. On the one hand, the party’s control over the state served as an additional source of legitimacy supplementing the historically rooted legitimacy of the former liberation movement. On the other hand, state-party relations proved a major source of internal dissension and factional battles in the ruling party and will probably be one of the main reasons for the collapse of its dominance sometime in the future. The slow pace of change and the ineffective delivery of services, both of which were initially blamed on the conservative bureaucracy, are increasingly being identified as the result of a lack of capacity, reflecting on the ANC’s own appointees in what is now an overwhelmingly black civil service. The idea of transforming the state has been narrowly interpreted as replacing white personnel with black staff, most often party members. The selection of party appointees for positions in the state machinery and the access to state resources that comes with these positions have fueled factional battles within the ANC, which in recent years have become vicious and sometimes violent. Furthermore, the ANC’s control of the state and its practice of deploying party members to positions in the civil service blur the lines between party and state, reduce accountability, and increase corruption. State-party relations also suffocate constitutional watchdogs and civil society, thus reducing the democratic space (Southall 1998; Adam 1999; Lodge 1999). In the longer term, the current state-party relations could be detrimental to the ANC’s position as the dominant party especially if a viable opposition takes shape. The Interaction Between Mechanisms: The Increased Relevance of a Racialized Discourse Above I argued that South Africa’s trajectory of enduring one-party dominance relies heavily on the continued importance of the ANC’s struggle history, its degree of institutionalization in relation to its rivals,

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and the association of the party with the new democratic epoch. This section suggests that another more complex underlying mechanism, or rather an interaction of mechanisms, is at work: the stark visibility of social relations that still mirror apartheid’s socioeconomic inequalities and the (partial) failure of the ANC to systematically address these inequalities have created a fertile climate for a racialized discourse to become increasingly important in South African politics, which, in turn, contributes to the ANC’s persisting dominance. The central puzzle of South Africa’s current politics is that despite the questionable performance of the ruling party in terms of addressing the legacies of apartheid and improving the material conditions of the majority of citizens, the ANC has maintained its dominant position, even in communities that regularly embark on violent protest action against the government. The increased relevance of a racialized discourse is part of the answer to this puzzle. In the context of deteriorating government performance, the ruling party benefits from actively racializing politics or doing little to prevent such racialization from taking place. Thus, the race discrimination and inequality of the past informs, most often reflexively, the political debate of the present. Unraveling this complex interplay of mechanisms requires identifying the positive and negative elements of the ANC’s postapartheid politics. After centuries of white supremacist rule, the ANC, as the new ruling party in a democratic South Africa, had to confront three major challenges: (1) keeping society together despite disgruntled supporters of the old regime and leaders of ethnic groups demanding separate territorial jurisdictions, (2) addressing the apartheid legacy of massive race- and class-based socioeconomic inequality evident in virtually all aspects of society, and (3) creating the conditions to reproduce, legitimize, and institutionalize the newly won democratic structures, practices, and values. That the ANC overcame the first challenge with remarkable political skill cannot be disputed, yet the party has found the latter two more daunting and difficult. The present challenges facing the party have their roots in the slow pace of change, the failure to adequately address legacies of the past, and the resulting frustrations of citizens and communities. Unfulfilled expectations of the postapartheid era seem to permeate society. The problems of poverty and unemployment directly feed into high crime levels and other social ills, thus creating conditions that are not conducive to developing democracy. The current challenges to South Africa’s young democracy do not relate to its political institutions, but rather to its policies and policy implementation and the unresponsiveness of its political

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elite. Increasingly, the ANC is on the defensive because of media reports exposing corruption, nepotism, waste of public resources, and incompetence of state employees. In the period immediately after 1994, the negotiated settlement as reflected in the new constitution and Nelson Mandela’s emphasis on nation building established national reconciliation as a priority of the new democratic order. However, the initial success in moving toward racial reconciliation began to slowly lose its appeal, especially when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission failed to adequately compensate victims of human rights abuses. When Thabo Mbeki, Mandela’s successor, was confronted with widespread criticism of his government’s policies, he began to resort to a racialized discourse to defend himself and his government. Thus, the lack of progress in reducing unemployment and the poor delivery of services as well as ANC policies such as BEE and the deployment of party members to positions in the civil service produced a climate in which racial divisions and race consciousness have become more salient. Today, the South African middle class, the core of the ANC’s current support, finds itself faced with radicalized demands of the large underclass of poor South Africans as well as criticism from a still privileged white section of the population. As a result, the ANC and its core supporters increasingly appeal to and rely on discourses of nativism and race. The nonracial reputation of the ANC, built up over decades, seems to be retreating. What this change in discourse means for the future of South Africa’s party system remains to be seen. The immediate effect is a boost for the trajectory of one-party dominance. Conclusion In its hundred-year history the ANC has reached many sectors of South African society. It views itself as a “broad church,” representative of the South African nation. Besides its control of the state, the dominant party exerts an overwhelmingly powerful influence in the political system and many spheres of civil society. Critics accuse the ANC of wanting to behave like a single party that dominates society and undermines the spirit of constitutional democracy. However, the ANC’s history of national liberation and its association with the founding of the democratic epoch are the roots of its current dominant position. Furthermore, the fact that the ANC has not yet been threatened by a powerful oppositional rival has allowed the party to respect the rules of the political game.

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In a society that is still largely defined by inequalities inherited from the apartheid regime, not only the struggle but also race is still central to the political discourse. In a postcolonial, postapartheid South Africa, the ANC is still overwhelmingly associated with the struggle. Moreover, as long as race is relevant and prominent in South African politics, the ANC will find fertile ground to claim a dominant role. In sum, while the country’s historical legacy and the ANC’s role in founding the new South Africa together with the party’s institutionalization are the foundation for its trajectory of one-party dominance, a political culture that revolves around a racialized discourse is increasingly important as an underlying mechanism, especially in the context of the ANC’s failure to adequately address the socioeconomic legacies of the past. Notes 1. More recently this track record has been severely blemished by the damaging leadership contest between Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, which culminated in the ousting of President Mbeki in 2007, two years before his term in office expired. 2. COSATU stands for Congress of South African Trade Unions and SACP for the South African Communist Party. 3. At the level of local government the situation is different in that the relative strengths of the different political parties sometimes require the formation of a coalition to govern the municipality. The same has been true for the provincial government in KwaZulu-Natal, where the ANC did not have a majority between 1999 and 2004, and in the Western Cape, where various coalitions have ruled the province from 1994 to 2009. The Western Cape is currently the only province where the ANC is not in the provincial government, with the DA controlling the provincial administration.

5 Tanzania: Nurturing Legacies of the Past Mohammed Bakari and Richard Whitehead

dominance. Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) has been Tanzania’s ruling party since independence, maintaining an uninterrupted grip on power for half a century, two decades of which in the role of dominant party under multipartyism. In this chapter, we seek to explain the persistence of one-party dominance in Tanzania within the context of its current multiparty politics. We will explore the seven mechanisms that were identified by Doorenspleet and Nijzink in the first chapter of this book while seeking to determine the role these mechanisms play in the trajectory of Tanzania’s party system since its democratic reforms in the early 1990s. In this chapter, we argue that Tanzania’s dominant party, CCM, serves as a gatekeeper between society and the state. As the enforcer of state rules, CCM uses its control over state structures and resources to grant favors—tax breaks, business licenses, contracts, and so on—to powerful private economic actors. In this important way, the party has managed to maintain its support among the economic and political elites during the multiparty era. Moreover, based on its history as an independence movement as well as on the five decades of political stability Tanzania has enjoyed since CCM came to power, the party today can cultivate popular support by nurturing its image as the guardian of national unity and portraying an array of opposition parties as antithetical to that unity. TANZANIA IS ONE OF AFRICA’S MOST DURABLE CASES OF ONE-PARTY

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The Trajectory of One-Party Dominance in Tanzania One-party dominance refers to a regime in which, despite the existence of formal multiparty institutions, one political party emerges from several consecutive elections with a clear majority in the legislature and decisive control over the executive. CCM’s rule in Tanzania during the last twenty years meets even the most strict definitions of one-party dominance, whether one relies on G. Sartori’s (1976) requirement of winning a majority in three consecutive elections or adds criteria related to the size of the party’s legislative majority, such as the requirement to control at least 60 or 70 percent of the parliamentary seats (see Bogaards 2004). CCM has managed to overwhelmingly defeat its opponents in all four parliamentary elections that have transpired since the 1992 multiparty reforms (see Table 5.1). CCM’s sweeping victories at the ballot box have allowed it to remain in firm control of parliament and government, a position that accentuates the party’s ability to reproduce its dominance. Following the elections of 2000 and 2005, CCM controlled about 87 and 85 percent of the parliamentary seats, respectively. And even after the 2010 elections, in which the opposition gained some ground, the ruling party still managed to control 75 percent of the parliamentary seats. Although the 2010 elections showed a reversal in CCM’s electoral fortunes and exposed some cracks within the party’s otherwise formidable level of unity, the ruling party is still very firmly in control and its dominance in the context of Tanzania’s multiparty system is still firmly entrenched. Table 5.1 Party

Results of Tanzania’s Parliamentary Elections, 1995–2010 (percentage of votes and number of seats)

CCM NCCR-Mageuzi CHADEMA CUF UDP TLP Other Total

1995

59.2 (214) 21.8 (19) 6.2 (4) 5.0 (28) 3.3 (4) 0.4 (0) 4.1 (0) 100 (269)

2000

65.2 (258) 3.6 (1) 4.2 (5) 12.5 (22) 4.4 (4) 9.2 (5) 0.9 (0) 100 (295)

2005

70.0 (275) 2.2 (0) 8.2 (11) 14.2 (31) 1.4 (1) 2.8 (1) 1.2 (0) 100 (323)b

2010a

(259) (4) (48) (36) (1) (1) (1) 100 (350)

Source: African Elections Database. Notes: Total amount of seats include both directly and indirectly elected seats. a. Results in percentages of votes are not available for 2010. b. Four vacant seats are included in the total of 323.

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This dominance is also reflected in the results of the four presidential elections of the last two decades (see Table 5.2). At the same time, CCM’s historical association with national unity and the incumbent’s monopolization of clientele relations mean that Tanzania’s opposition parties are seemingly incapable of carving out their own symbolic spaces within the party system and instead come to resemble the caricatures of opposition constructed by the ruling party. The opposition faces serious financial constraints, distinct limitations in their spatial reach, and wide levels of mistrust throughout rural society. In some cases, opposition parties have leadership arrangements that are highly personalized and informal procedures that are incapable of dealing with internal conflict (Mmuya 1998; R. Whitehead 2000). Support for the two leading opposition parties, the Civic United Front (CUF) and the Party for Democracy and Development (Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo [CHADEMA]), is restricted to a limited number of regions and districts.

Mechanisms of One-Party Dominance in Tanzania Historical Legacy

CCM is the product of a merger in 1977 between two nationalist parties: the Tanzania African National Union (TANU) on the mainland (Tanganyika) and the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) on Zanzibar. During the nationalist struggle for independence, TANU was exceptionally success-

Table 5.2 Party

Results of Tanzania’s Presidential Elections, 1995–2010 (name of presidential candidate and percentage of votes)

CCM NCCR/Mageuzi CHADEMA CUF UDP TLP Others

1995

Mkapa, 61.8 Mrema, 27.8 — Lipumba, 6.4 Cheyo, 4.0 —

2000

Mkapa, 71.7 — — Lipumba, 11.7 Cheyo, 4.2 Mrema, 7.8

2005

Kikwete, 80.3 Mvungi, 0.5 Mbowe, 5.9 Lipumba, 16.3 — Mrema, 0.8 Various, 0.8

2010

Kikwete, 62.8 Rungwe, 0.3 Slaa, 27.1 Lipumba, 8.3 — Mgayhwa, 0.2 Various, 1.3

Source: African Elections Database. Notes: —indicates that the party in question did not field a presidential candidate. Empty cells indicate that there were no other parties fielding candidates.

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ful in bridging all important social cleavages in society—including tribal, regional, and religious divisions—to forge a broad-based nationalist movement. This success—the ability to unite and create a sense of nationhood—serves as CCM’s greatest historical legacy and is an important factor in the party’s continued position of dominance, despite recent problems of diminishing legitimacy. The success of TANU as a broad and popular organization is reflected in the election results at independence. In 1960, TANU secured 83 percent of the votes cast in the elections for the legislative council and controlled seventy out of the seventy-one seats. In the 1962 presidential elections, TANU leader Julius Nyerere soundly defeated his closest rival, the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) Zuberi Mtemvu, by collecting a massive 98 percent of the votes cast. Thus, Tanganyika was a de facto one-party state until 1965 when it became a de jure singleparty state with TANU being the only legal political party in Tanzania. The reason for the relative ease with which TANU came to dominate the political landscape can be located in the particularities of colonial rule in Tanganyika and the widespread use of Kiswahili throughout the country. Germany established colonial rule in Tanganyika in the late nineteenth century. The Germans practiced a form of direct rule that, while brutal, never sought to entrench social control by enlisting local collaborators from particular ethnic groups. Variations of indirect rule did not arrive in Tanganyika until well after Britain assumed colonial control in 1919, following Germany’s defeat in World War I. The late onset of indirect rule, which tended to fragment authority by enlisting local collaborators to help solve administrative shortcomings, meant that ethnic or tribal identities in Tanganyika remained quite weak (Okema 1996) and therefore could not serve as a basis for mobilizing popular contention against the rise of TANU. Moreover, as a peripheral component of Britain’s colonial economic interests, Tanganyika never experienced the economic differentiation in terms of capital ownership and occupations that occurred in Kenya and parts of Uganda and Zambia. Tanganyika did not face the rise of a yeoman farmer class or the social dislocations and growth of landlessness brought on by land consolidation (Bienen 1970). Instead, Tanganyika remained—and would remain even after independence—a relatively unstratified agrarian economy based largely on farming in traditional villages (Hyden 1980). The lack of class domination/subordination and the materially weak position of the rural petty bourgeoisie meant that political entrepreneurs at the time of independence simply lacked the basis to significantly challenge TANU (R. Whitehead 2009).

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As mentioned earlier, the spread of Kiswahili also helped to minimize social polarization and to solidify support around the nationalist aspirations of TANU, both before and after independence, largely because the language was disassociated from any particular ethnic group (Okema 1996; Askew 2002). For some time, colonial authorities facilitated its growth. And after independence, the TANU government promoted Kiswahili as an engine for national integration and a symbol of national identity (Okema 1996; Miguel 2004). Zanzibar makes up a small but constituent part of present-day Tanzania. The islands’ politics in the years prior to its independence in 1963 and its subsequent revolution in 1964 serve to accentuate the impact of colonial rule on the formation of social cleavages. In the context of a plantation economy that revolved around clove production, racial categories produced and reproduced dominant and subordinate class categories, where Arab landlords were at the top, followed by Asian business owners and Shirazi smallholders. African slaves, squatters, and domestic servants were at the bottom (Mmuya and Chaligha 1994). These socioeconomic and ethnic divisions became the basis for intense rivalry between competing political parties at the time of independence. With fierce competition from the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) and the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party (ZPPP), the ASP clearly did not experience the seemingly hegemonic position that TANU enjoyed on the mainland. While colonial legacies help to explain the ability of TANU to emerge as the dominant political force throughout Tanganyika, a number of other factors explain the ability of CCM to remain in power uninterruptedly since independence. First, CCM has been associated with unity, peace, and political stability, all of which are highly valued in Tanzania. Indeed, compared to its East African neighbors Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda, Tanzania has been an island of peace and tranquillity. Even in its recent election campaigns, the CCM reminded Tanzanians of this record and contrasted it with the chaos that would prevail under squabbling oppositionists (R. Whitehead 2009). Second, discussing the credentials of CCM as a broad-based political party or the success of the country’s nation-building project would be next to impossible without referring to Julius Nyerere, one of the leading statesmen in Africa, who managed to achieve an impressive degree of national integration in Tanzania. As the country’s founding father, Nyerere, who is affectionately called Mwalimu (the Teacher), is still synonymous with Tanzania’s national identity. Even today, the nomination of candidates within CCM and many election campaigns

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largely revolve around which candidate can rightfully claim to be the embodiment of Nyerere’s ideals (R. Whitehead 2009). Nyerere’s lasting legacy gives CCM an obvious advantage. It certainly prevented CCM from facing heavy losses in the first multiparty elections in 1995. Despite the euphoria around the end of single-party rule and the extraordinary popularity of Augustine Mrema, a former cabinet minister who had defected from CCM and stood as a presidential candidate for the National Convention for Construction and Reform–Mageuzi (NCCRMageuzi), Nyerere’s influence ensured that CCM still polled almost 62 percent in the presidential race and 59 percent in the parliamentary race (Temco 1996). Another significant legacy from the country’s era of single-party rule relates to the unique structure and ideology of the ruling party itself and its relationship with the state. In organizational terms, the ruling party in Tanzania—TANU and its later incarnation CCM—has certainly been one of the most successful political parties in Africa at establishing an elaborate nationwide structure from the center to the grassroots. The penetration of CCM into society is as deep and extensive today as it was in the past, especially compared to the weak social ties maintained by opposition parties. This ubiquity should not be understood as simply a matter of being in power since independence. During the single-party era, CCM used its position to erect a party-state in which the functions of the party and the state were difficult to distinguish (Makulilo 2008). Today, the vestiges of this party-state can still be observed (and will be further discussed in the section “State-Party Relations” below). During the single-party era, TANU (and later CCM) performed the classic functions of leadership recruitment, policymaking, and legitimization of the political system through regular elections. These elections were comparatively open, democratic, and valuable to the party elite (Hopkins 1971; Okema 1990). The party rejected the divisiveness and militant language of Marxism and Leninism in favor of a rather romanticized concept of ujamaa, or “familyhood,” rooted in African rural traditions (Okoko 1987). After the landmark Arusha Declaration of 1967, TANU was fully committed to advancing the country’s agricultural production and prioritizing the least developed rural areas in its development efforts. The Leadership Code of the Arusha Declaration and the subsequent Party Guidelines of 1971 required party and government officials to abstain from capitalist activities, thus constraining the overt accumulation of wealth by the country’s political leaders. As P. F. Nursey-Bray (1980: 63) points out, “those [officials] privileged to indulge in luxury goods consumption have had to do so, by virtue of the prevailing ideology,

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somewhat more circumspectly and in fewer numbers than, say, in neighbouring Kenya.” Ideologically, TANU (and later CCM) clearly identified itself as a party for workers and peasants and adhered to what came to be known as African socialism or ujamaa. To some extent, the values embodied by ujamaa still resonate with Tanzanians today, especially in the rural areas. Compared to other postindependence states, where espousals of socialism were paired with policies that were difficult to distinguish from capitalism (Okoko 1987), early policies in Tanzania largely reflected the Fabian nature of Nyerere’s vision. As early as 1968, G. Arrighi and J. S. Saul (1968: 165) observed that “Tanzania is, perhaps, the country in contemporary Africa where socialist aspirations figure most prominently and interestingly in the development equation, and most powerfully affect the kinds of policies which are pursued.” Nyerere’s African socialism included the nationalization of the country’s key economic sectors and an attempt to improve rural production through a massive “villagization” scheme aimed at collectivizing agricultural capacity. In 1967, nearly all private sector manufacturing enterprises were nationalized, along with banks and trading and food-processing firms (Bienen 1970). With regards to rural development, the economic policies of the late 1960s and early 1970s increasingly stressed the importance of labor-intensive farming and the need to dismantle sources of private wealth accumulation. Consequently, semi-independent cooperative societies, which provided an independent base for the rural petty bourgeoisie, were taken over by state authorities (Hyden 1980; Barkan 1994; Okema 1996). At the same time, the government attempted to forcibly resettle rural families into collective farming villages. While villagization ultimately failed, the policies pursued during the 1970s effectively undermined the growth of a powerful petty bourgeoisie, which, in turn, had important implications for the organization of opposition in the lead-up to multiparty reforms. Whereas the vibrancy of commercial activity in countries like Kenya and Malawi proved a fertile breeding ground for the organization of opposition sentiments, the weakness of autonomous commercial activity in Tanzania—especially compared to the breadth of state power—explains why organized opposition remained relatively weak (R. Whitehead 2009). In the early 1990s, popular support for a transition to multipartyism was rather weak, suggesting that opposition parties would have a difficult time cultivating support. For example, a 1990 survey found that only 15 percent of the electorate favored multiparty politics, while 69 percent favored single-party rule (Baregu and Mushi 1994). A year later,

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a government commission found 77 percent of the surveyed Tanzanians to be supportive of the continuation of one-party rule (United Republic of Tanzania 1992). On the other hand, the legitimacy of single-party rule itself was contested in some quarters, despite the phenomenal success of the ruling party most notably in the areas of education and nation building. As M. Baregu and S. S. Mushi (1994: 129) aptly put it, The demands for multipartyism and democracy in Tanzania are the culmination of a long and cumulative (albeit uneven) struggle against authoritarian rule. At the time of independence in 1961, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), led by Julius Nyerere, arrogated power to itself and forcefully imposed one-party rule. The move was resisted right from the start and continued to be resisted until 1992. Thus, the political legitimacy of the one-party state has been contested throughout this period.

The legitimacy deficit was especially acute during the 1980s, when in the context of economic decline and rising inflation, politicians seemed to be increasingly concerned about their personal career advancements rather than the plight of country’s poor and unemployed. At one time in the late 1980s, Nyerere, who by then had retired as president but still remained the party chairman, raised concerns about the growing tendency of party leaders and government officials to alienate themselves from the people. This concern became Nyerere’s rationale for supporting multiparty change. To a large extent, and despite the multiparty reforms of 1992, the legitimacy deficit is still acute today, but for different reasons. With the passage of the Zanzibar Declaration in 1991, the Leadership Code was officially abandoned, which made it easier for politicians and bureaucrats to collude with businessmen and investors, both local and foreign, and swindle public resources at the expense of the poor. While such collusion has made it easier for the CCM to dominate the most lucrative clientele networks, it has also affected the ruling party’s legitimacy. Moreover, in the current era of liberalization, the principles of ujamaa have effectively been abandoned, and the ruling party is now grappling with a deep and fundamental ideological crisis. A wide rift separates what is officially stated (e.g., the party’s commitment to fighting poverty, ignorance, and disease) and the actual state of poverty and extent of corruption by public officials. In the current era of multiparty politics and liberalization, all parties, including CCM, have to deal with increased economic and political divisions—either real or perceived—while public opinion still places a high value on national unity. Consequently, CCM’s

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historical association with the project of nation building is advantageous. In other words, while CCM continues to face serious legitimacy deficits, the legitimacy of the opposition parties, which are commonly portrayed as divisive, subnational elements, is weaker still. Social Cleavages

Tanzania seems to be unique in the way that language and educational policies pursued under African socialism have helped to prevent the polarization of social cleavages. This uniqueness is especially true for ethnicity and ethnic divisions. The widespread use of Kiswahili and the focus of the educational program Education for Self-Reliance (ESR) on national integration provided the threads that stitched together the country’s otherwise disparate parts (Cooksey, Court, and Makau 1994; Lokuji 1995; Mpangala 2000). Indeed, in a region that has been characterized by intense ethnic conflict, the role that ethnicity plays in shaping national-level politics is comparatively weak in Tanzania (Okema 1996). This weakness partially explains the continued dominance of CCM. As the original nationalist movement, and with its deliberate efforts to reproduce a society characterized by weak expressions of subnational discourses within the national political arena, the party today still claims to be the guardian of national unity in the face of the “chaotic” and “divisive” forces of ethnicity (R. Whitehead 2009). We do not mean to suggest that ethnicity fails to play a role in structuring people’s political loyalties. The ruling party does well among all major ethnic groups throughout the entire country, but CHADEMA, for example, is widely known to receive disproportionate support among the Wachagga, while the United Democratic Party (UDP) receives most of its backing from the Wasukuma. However, separating affiliations based on ethnicity from support based on local or personal loyalties is difficult. Generally speaking, all opposition parties perform best in the home constituencies of the party founders (Mmuya 1998; R. Whitehead 2000). Religion has proven to be a somewhat more salient social cleavage, although it is still weak compared to the level of religious polarization found in other countries. Tanzania has been witnessing a revival of more fundamentalist strains of Christian and Muslim thought throughout the country (Mbongoni 2004). In the political arena, the Democratic Party (DP), led by Reverend Christopher Mtikila, is seen by some as forming a “common ground” between Pentecostalism and opposition politics (Ludwig 1996), while CUF boasts disproportionate support

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among Muslims. In reality, however, the relationship between religion and political affiliation is relatively weak. This weakness is clearly revealed in an analysis of data on party membership and religious beliefs that shows that the overwhelming majority of Christians and Muslims support CCM (R. Whitehead 2009). And while most of CUF’s members are Muslim, this majority simply reflects the fact that CUF’s political agenda revolves around the defense of Zanzibar’s autonomy and that the majority of the population on the archipelago is Muslim. The same can be said for most of the mainland opposition parties. The predominantly Christian profile of their membership simply reflects the profiles of the regions and districts where these parties gain their core support rather than a religion-based political agenda. However, the connection between occupation and class on the one hand and political affiliation on the other is becoming increasingly prominent. For example, during Tanzania’s move to multipartyism, business leaders were involved in the formation of the country’s opposition parties (Mmuya and Chaligha 1994). In addition, an analysis of data from the Registrar of Establishments and the 1995 election results reveals that opposition parties did relatively well in regions with higher concentrations of industrial establishments and commercial and professional services (R. Whitehead 2009). By contrast, the CCM enjoys the loyal support of the country’s sizable rural population, who generally see opposition parties as divisive and the ruling party as a guardian against such divisiveness. Against the background of the economic liberalization that has loosened the state’s control over the economy, political fissures along class lines are becoming more evident: new entrepreneurs are lending (material) support to the opposition. For example, prior to the 2010 elections, one of the country’s most prominent business figures openly donated money to CHADEMA. In short, ethnic and religious cleavages appear to have weak connections to party loyalties, whereas class-based cleavages seem to be becoming more prominent. At the same time, the CCM manages to successfully use the rhetoric that a vote for the opposition is a vote for ethnic or faith-based divisions. In the face of the pride that Tanzanians have in their country’s history of peace and unity, this campaign rhetoric has contributed considerably to the continued electoral success of CCM. Institutional Architecture

Constitutionally, Tanzania has a hybrid system in which executive power is shared between a directly elected president and a prime min-

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ister who needs the confidence of parliament. In practice, Tanzania’s government is a presidential one in which the president is the executive head of state and the head of government and has vast constitutional powers. As Julius Nyerere once said, I have “sufficient powers under the constitution to be a dictator” (cited in Hopkins 1971: 27). In consultation with the prime minister, who is the president’s appointee, the president appoints all cabinet ministers. The president, without the need to consult, appoints all heads of key government institutions as well as judges of the High Court and the Court of Appeal. No appointee, other than the prime minister, is subject to parliamentary endorsement. Most significantly perhaps, the president is solely responsible for appointing the members of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and the Registrar of Political Parties. These powers in particular have been the target of criticism from opposition parties. Extensive presidential powers such as these allow institutional space for the perpetuation of personal rule, patronage, and neopatrimonial forms of government, despite the presence of multiparty politics. Likewise, extensive presidential powers contribute to the endurance of one-party dominance. The power of appointment especially provides the president with the ability to reward supporters and sanction opponents, thus giving him an essential tool to maintain party discipline and ensure the compliance of ministries and other state institutions. Tanzania’s electoral system is a majoritarian one, whereby parliamentary seats are allocated on the basis of a simple plurality of votes in single-member districts. In addition, a number of special seats are allocated to women on the basis of proportional representation (PR). These special seats are allocated to political parties in proportion to the number of votes they have received. Finally, the president has the power to appoint up to ten additional members of parliament, which obviously increases his ability to dispense rewards to loyal party members. Whereas opposition parties advocate changing the electoral system, the ruling party vigorously defends the current arrangement. CCM clearly benefits from the current system because it tends to discourage people from supporting smaller parties and amplifies representation for the largest party. Opposition parties would see a significant increase in their share of parliamentary seats if the majoritarian system was abolished, and the entire electoral system was based on PR, although whether these gains would be enough to unseat CCM as the dominant party is unclear. The lack of independence of the election management body is another bone of contention between CCM and the opposition and a

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source of the ruling party’s strength. Both the National Electoral Commission (NEC) and the Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC) have seven members who are appointed by the president of the United Republic of Tanzania and the president of Zanzibar, respectively. Unlike the NEC, the ZEC includes representatives of political parties that hold seats in the Zanzibar House of Representatives. Currently, two representatives are chosen from CCM and two from CUF, in accordance with the second reconciliation accord (Muafaka II of 2001). Thus, when it comes to voting in the ZEC, CCM controls five votes (three appointees and two party representatives) versus two votes controlled by CUF. In both the NEC and ZEC a certain fusion can be found between the ruling party and the election management body. Opposition parties have been demanding the creation of an independent electoral commission, but CCM has been insisting that both electoral commissions are independent and therefore not in need of any changes to their current structures. In 1992, multiparty politics was introduced in Tanzania through a series of legal measures that, paired with a strong presidency and a weak opposition, allowed CCM to own and manage the democratization process (Makulilo and Raphael 2010). One of the most notable pieces of legislation was the Political Parties Act, which was introduced in 1992. This act established criteria for the registration of organizations as political parties, as well as guidelines governing the conduct of political parties. The act has been a point of contention with some regarding it as just another institutional mechanism that CCM uses to secure its continued dominance. Under the act, political parties are registered by the Registrar of Political Parties. Both the registrar and his or her deputy are presidential appointees and therefore widely seen, at least among the opposition, as being partial to the ruling party. To be registered, a political party must, among other things, secure signatures from 200 eligible voters in ten different regions, including at least two regions on Zanzibar. Political parties are prohibited from promoting the interests of particular religions, places of origin, or ethnic groups or advocating the breakup of the union (Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa [EISA] 2010). In the past, these grounds were used to deny the registration of Reverend Christopher Mtikila’s DP. More recently, following accusations made by CCM’s secretary for ideology and publicity, the registrar accused CHADEMA of treason when the opposition party issued an ultimatum to the government (Saiboko 2011). One of the main criticisms of the Political Parties Act is the nebulous distinction between legitimate political advocacy and advocacy that would justify deregis-

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tration. Although the government has accused opposition parties of the latter, the failure of political parties to secure enough signatures in the required number of regions appears to be the most common reason for deregistration. Perhaps the most serious threat to the advancement of competitive politics in Tanzania is the new amendments to the Political Parties Act that regulate the formation of alliances. When multiparty politics was introduced in Tanzania in 1992, no specific provisions regulated party alliances. In the absence of a clear legal framework, some of the opposition parties formed informal alliances. A party would decide not to nominate parliamentary or local council candidates in constituencies where another opposition party seemed to have a stronghold. The NCCRMageuzi and CHADEMA formed this sort of agreement in the 1995 parliamentary elections, while CUF and CHADEMA made a similar arrangement in the 2000 and 2005 parliamentary elections. In the 1995 presidential contest, CHADEMA even agreed to refrain from nominating a presidential candidate and instead supported the NCCR-Mageuzi’s candidate, Augustine Mrema. In 2009, the formation of such alliances became more complicated because of an amendment to the Political Parties Act that states (in Section 8), Subject to the Elections Act, every political party fully registered in accordance with the provisions of this Act may at any time prior to a general election be entitled to merge with other fully registered political parties. The parties to the alliance shall enter into an agreement and submit such agreement to the Registrar where upon satisfaction the Registrar shall register a new party in the name as may be suggested or preferred in the agreement.

This amendment effectively forces constituent parties in an alliance to dissolve and form a new party, thus transforming interparty alliances into mergers. In other words, opposition parties can no longer forge an electoral alliance in which they reap the benefits of cooperation while their respective identities and leadership remain intact. Thus the amendment creates a huge disincentive for party leaders to cooperate. Negative implications are likely for the formation of opposition alliances in the future, as well for the development of a more competitive political system. Another issue that seems to decrease rather than foster the competitiveness of the political system is the fact that independent candidates

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are prohibited. Opposition parties and human rights activists have been demanding legal reforms that would allow independent candidates to run for office, but the government has been reluctant to give in to those demands, even to the extent of appealing a decision of the High Court that ruled in favor of independent candidacy. In 2010, the Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the government by stating that the decision to allow independent candidates is not a legal but a political one, and therefore, the issue has to be resolved not in a court of law but in parliament by way of constitutional changes. In sum, a number of institutional and legal measures allow for the reproduction of one-party dominance in Tanzania. The president, who is also the leader of CCM, has extensive powers to reward those party members who demonstrate loyalty and to punish those that are less compliant. The majoritarian electoral system amplifies the number of parliamentary seats held by CCM. In addition, recent changes to the Political Parties Act simply erect another obstacle to the future formation of a united opposition. Political Culture

Various cultural factors can be identified as important contributors to the persistence of one-party dominance in Tanzania. These factors mainly relate to the country’s postindependence focus on civic education, the development of national unity, and the powerful symbolism attached to Julius Nyerere. If one can talk about a Tanzanian political culture, the corresponding socialization process undoubtedly unfolded through the educational efforts that were undertaken after the Arusha Declaration, most notably through the ESR program. This program combined civic education, information on current affairs, and political training with frequent participation in local development projects and Tanzanian Youth League (TYL) activities designed to strengthen people’s commitment to the “national political process, the national party and its ideology” (Buchert 1994: 115). ESR was clearly directed toward national integration not just in a material sense by creating a more inclusive and egalitarian society, but also in an ideational sense through the shaping of popular discourses about the meaning of the party and the nation and the roles played by citizens (Buchert 1994: 115). As B. Cooksey, D. Court, and D. Makau (1994: 216) point out, “ESR was without doubt one of the most systematic attempts in the Third World to mold cooperative, non-elitist, adaptive (to local economy and culture), and socially levelling education structures.”

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These educational efforts of the past shaped a political culture that helps to reproduce one-party dominance today. First, research shows that Tanzanians have a remarkably high level of trust in the country’s political institutions, including the ruling party. For example, in a recent study, E. Lavallée, M. Razafindrakoto, and F. Roubaud (2008) found that, compared to citizens from seventeen other African countries, Tanzanians are by far the least likely to express “no trust” in their political institutions, including the ruling party. The exception to this pattern is the low level of trust in the opposition: 63.4 percent of Tanzanian respondents say they have no trust in opposition parties. Second, Tanzanians from nearly every corner of the country display a remarkable level of reverence for the country’s founding leader Nyerere. In this regard, separating political culture from simple admiration for Nyerere’s modesty, lack of sectarian favoritism, and so on, is difficult. One of the reasons for the near universal reverence for Nyerere is the fact that, unlike many other postindependence leaders throughout Africa, he was an intellectual who refrained from the divisive politics of ethnic favoritism and managed to cultivate a culture of consensus and unity. Indeed, the connection between familyhood and the nation was central to Nyerere’s vision of African socialism and integral to the national development efforts at the time of independence. Earlier research by D. Koff and G. von der Muhll (1967) found that 78 percent of sampled Tanzanian secondary school students stressed the importance of nation over tribe, while only 16 percent emphasized religion over nation. More recent studies echo these findings. Okema (1996), in a study of political culture in Tanzania, points out that ethnicity takes a backseat in national political configurations, especially when Tanzania is compared to countries like Kenya, Burundi, and Nigeria. E. Miguel (2004) submits the salience of national identity as an explanation for why ethnic diversity in Kenya typically leads to collective action problems while similar levels of diversity in Tanzania do not. And both R. Whitehead (2009) and A. L. Robinson (2009) found that Tanzanians were by far the most likely to feel more attached to national identity than to ethnic identity. The Tanzanian national identity serves as an enormous source of political capital for CCM during election time, when the party claims to be the guardian of national unity, peace, and tranquillity. By contrast, opposition parties are portrayed as “colonial stooges,” “petty squabblers,” and corrupt “thugs” bent on bringing disorder, chaos, and genocide to the country (R. Whitehead 2009). At times, elections have served as opportunities to show videos or talk about the Rwandan genocide as

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an example of what might happen should the opposition win (Sundet 1996; Mørck 2006). Thus, the effects of political culture on the trajectory of one-party dominance in Tanzania are both structural and agential: structural to the extent that both national unity and Nyerere are still highly valued and revered among Tanzanians, and agential to the extent that CCM plays on these sentiments and beliefs when distinguishing itself from the opposition. Finally, many scholars claim that African politics revolves around leaders rather than policies. Indeed, Tanzanian politics—both within CCM and among the opposition—is highly centered around party leaders. However, whether this emphasis on political leadership is simply the product of a particular political culture or also closely related to the workings of clientelistic relations in a political context is unclear. What is clear is that the highly personalized nature of opposition parties often prevents their institutionalization as organizations that reach beyond their individual founders and political leaders. Government Performance

Government performance may be one of the reasons why voters continue to return the same party to power election after election. Yet this explanation seems only relevant in a few cases in which the ruling party is associated with a remarkable record of economic performance and political stability after years of civil strife. Despite the strength of its national identity and its record of political stability, Tanzania does not fall into this category. Economically, the CCM government can present some success stories. For example, between 2003 and 2008 the government managed to control the rate of inflation, while boasting a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of about 7.2 percent. And in the area of good governance, the first phase of the public sector reform program pursued under the leadership of Benjamin Mkapa saw institutions of accountability established in ministries, independent departments, executive agencies, and commercialized public entities. However, data on the overall state of the economy suggest that CCM has not performed well. In the leadup to the 1992 multiparty reforms and the first multiparty elections in 1995, Tanzania’s economy was barely recovering from a decade of serious inflation and painful economic decline. More recently, the economy still shows signs of serious trouble. The rate of inflation reached 7 percent in 2007 and 10.3 percent in 2008, while the purchasing power of the majority of people has drastically declined over the past ten years or

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so. That is to say, despite the growth in GDP, the level of poverty has not been drastically reduced. Moreover, poverty has a spatial dimension. According to the National Household Budget Survey of 2007, poverty remains highest in the rural areas, where 37 percent of the population falls below the poverty line. In contrast, Dar es Salaam has the lowest level of poverty, with a relatively small 16 percent of the population falling below the poverty line. Since 1992, poverty has shown the greatest decline (from 28 to 16 percent) in Dar es Salaam and the weakest decline (from 41 to 37 percent) in rural areas (National Bureau of Statistics 2011). With indicators such as these, the government performance argument would suggest that CCM’s support is weakest in rural areas and stronger in urban ones. However, the opposite is true: CCM’s strongest support bases are found in rural areas, while opposition strongholds are mostly located in urban centers. In fact, over 70 percent of the voting population lives in rural areas where CCM is extremely powerful and the opposition particularly weak. Clearly, CCM’s dominant position is not based on its performance in terms of economic policy. Other indicators of government performance also suggest that the argument linking CCM’s dominance to its performance in office is not convincing. According to an assessment by the World Bank Institute (2005), Tanzania’s government recorded some achievements in combating corruption between 1998 and 2004. However, in terms of government efficiency and accountability, no substantial improvement occurred during that period. With regard to the rule of law, political stability, and regulatory quality, the assessment even concluded that the situation was deteriorating. Interestingly, these negative observations came at a time when Tanzania was hailed by donors as one of Africa’s success stories in public sector reform. In contrast, many political analysts expressed doubts about the reported improvement in fighting corruption during Benjamin Mkapa’s tenure because the indicators were mainly looking at petty corruption. The assessment seemed to ignore the so-called grand corruption evident in the widely publicized scandals that unfolded during Mkapa’s presidency and in the early years of Jakaya Kikwete’s administration. The prevalence of grand corruption serves to highlight the role played by state-party relations in sustaining one-party dominance in Tanzania. While this connection will be more extensively explored in the next section, here we must note the clientelistic ties between CCM and a “rent-seeking” business elite (Bryan and Baer 2005) as well as the ruling party’s remarkable ability to move from ujamaa—defined by

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egalitarian socialism—to ruksa—defined by the essentials of liberal capitalism (Mmuya 1998). Both these factors help us understand how CCM has managed to sustain its position of dominance while its performance in government has not been particularly impressive. Another possible explanation is outright coercion. Repression, broadly defined, consists of nondemocratic tactics that reduce effective competition and allow the incumbent to maintain safe election margins, thus sustaining the longevity of tenure (Diamond 2002). In Tanzania, some forms of repression instill a sense of fear in those who want to voice dissent and raise the costs of opposing CCM. For example, opposition leaders risk sedition charges when criticizing the president or face harassment by police during rallies (Sued 2000). Security forces and “CCM zealots” sometimes block demonstrations or use tear gas against opposition rallies (Sadallah 2005). State authorities are frequently accused of excluding people from voter registration, turning a blind eye to or even encouraging double voting, and demonstrating their support for the ruling party by providing government resources to CCM campaign functions (Temco 2001, 2006). On Zanzibar, which represents only a small fraction of Tanzania’s population and territory, repression is especially overt and frequent (R. Whitehead 2012). Here, CUF activists regularly face antiriot squads, water cannons, tear gas, and sometimes bullets (Kabendera 2005). The violence was perhaps most notable in the 2000 election cycle, when excessive force by security personnel resulted in hundreds of beatings and dozens of deaths among CUF supporters (U.S. Department of State 2001). Given the fact that elections on Zanzibar are very close and the winning margins very small, harassment, intimidation, and manipulation might be the only way for CCM to prevent defeat. The same cannot be said about the party’s position on the mainland: coercion and election rigging cannot adequately explain the ability of the CCM to continuously win elections with such wide margins throughout the United Republic. Surveys continually show strong support for CCM. In 1994, for example, one survey found nearly 85 percent of respondents expressing their preference for CCM (Erdmann 1994). Survey data from Afrobarometer’s 2001 data set show that 80 percent of those that felt close to a political party indentified that party as CCM.1 The same question from the 2008 data set found 89.5 percent identifying themselves as close to CCM.2 In short, little evidence exists that government performance is a solid explanation for CCM’s sustained electoral success. Likewise, while repression plays a distinct and troublesome role in Tanzania’s

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polity, especially on Zanzibar, repression alone cannot explain CCM’s overwhelming and sustained election victories. State-Party Relations

The history of single-party rule in Tanzania is one of fusion between CCM and the state to the point where distinguishing between the functions, institutions, personnel, and resources of the state and the party became difficult. During the single-party era, party posts were held concurrently with governmental posts. District commissioners and regional commissioners, for example, were also CCM district secretaries and regional secretaries. The party could make use of the services of government personnel and other resources, including information and expertise (McHenry 1994). An estimated 90 percent of CCM’s funds were provided by the state. The lack of distinction between the state and the party prompted some scholars (e.g., Shivji 1991; Bakari 2001; Makulilo 2008) to question the identity of CCM as a political party and instead consider it a state-party or a party-state. The multiparty reforms in the early 1990s were, in part, about delinking party and state, but the vestiges of the old state-party arrangement are still observable today. While legal reforms formally separated the state from CCM, in practice most state institutions are still linked to the ruling party. S. Mushi (1995: 21) describes the situation as follows: “The thirty years of one party rule linked all important national institutions, which became politicized. These institutions include the military, the civil service, mass organizations, and state sources of funding. Fair play would require acceleration of the delinking and depoliticization processes which started in mid-1992 to ensure that the former associates of the ruling party behave neutrally during the transition.” A. Makulilo (2008) goes a step further and explains how various state institutions—civil service, security forces, election management bodies, the National Assembly—are still linked to the ruling party and discusses the implications this entanglement has for the consolidation of democracy in Tanzania. He also scrutinizes other forms of fusion between CCM and the media, civil society, and business community respectively and concludes that Tanzania is still a de facto one-party state. The persisting party-state nexus means that CCM still enjoys easy access to public resources, which is especially crucial during elections. Many of the election observation reports that cover elections in Tanzania cite CCM’s persistent use of state resources for campaigning purposes,

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while opposition parties are reported to languish in resource scarcity and are occasionally denied registration or the chance to hold campaign rallies (Sundet 1996; Temco 1996, 2006; Mørck 2006). For example, during the 2000 election campaign, rough roads were often improved just prior to visits by the CCM presidential and vice presidential candidates, or the candidates were flown in a police helicopter or a plane to the remote regions, while opposition candidates were forced to navigate the bush roads without assistance (Temco 2001). Another example is the stateowned media’s distinct bias in favor of the ruling party (Temco 2006). Some of the major corruption scandals that rocked the country in the aftermath of the 2005 elections are widely assumed to be related to funds the ruling party received through its ties to the state. These scandals include the so called external payment arrears (EPA) scandal that saw the Bank of Tanzania make fraudulent payments of about US$116 million to twenty-two companies with presumed links to the ruling party. Another scandal, the Richmond scandal, led to the downfall of Prime Minister Edward Lowassa, who was involved in awarding a contract worth about US$144 million to a nonexisting company meant to improve Tanzania’s electricity supply. These scandals not only exemplify CCM’s relationship with the state but also the party’s clientelistic relations with private enterprises, which have become increasingly important. Since the onset of economic and political liberalization, the CCM has found overtly using state resources for partisan purposes more difficult, and the ruling party has had to look to new sources of funding. With businesses in search of particular political favors from CCM politicians who occupy key positions within the state or bureaucrats who owe their positions to patrons within the ruling party, CCM’s financial support from private enterprises has grown. These clientelistic ties of the party to rising commercial interests coincide with the transformation of CCM from a party with some degree of ideological coherence to one that increasingly revolves around highly opportunistic leaders who have little loyalty to ujamaa. This ideological adjustment in turn coincides with the emergence of CCM as a campaign and fund-raising machine. The clientelistic relations between party officials and the commercial elite greatly facilitate CCM’s capacity to contest elections, especially in an environment where parties are “seen as private businesses rather than vehicles for addressing certain outstanding policy issues” (Bryan and Baer 2005: 129). As the corruption scandals illustrate, separating members of the ruling party and the state from members of the rapidly growing commercial class is now difficult. A convergence of interests certainly facil-

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itates the reproduction of the status quo. Thus, CCM’s dominant position seems increasingly tied to its control over state offices and myriad transactions that involve the exchange of tangible resources between commercial businesses and party or state officials (Hyden 2005). International Influences

International factors such as donor pressure and the diffusion of ideas have played a role in the wave of democratization we have witnessed on the African continent. International developments certainly seemed to provide important incentives for Tanzanian leaders to engage in multiparty reforms. As Nyerere often remarked, “When you see your neighbour being shaved, wet your head to avoid a dry shave.” The extent to which particular international actors influenced Tanzania’s transition to multiparty politics is unclear. While Tanzania’s heavy dependence on aid gave donors sufficient leverage to shape the country’s political direction, the absence of widespread and blatant human rights violations meant that donors saw little reason to use this leverage and push CCM into multiparty reforms (Chege 1994). At the same time, donors have played a key role in shaping anticorruption legislation and oversight institutions in Tanzania. In 2006, for example, donor pressure helped to move the country’s National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plan (NACSAP) from a singular focus on national authorities to a broader focus including local government, civil society, and the private sector (Fjeldstad, Ngalewa, and Katera 2008). Theoretically at least, such anticorruption measures weaken the capacity of the ruling party to use state resources to maintain clientelistic relations. On the other hand, certain trends in development aid seem to strengthen the position of CCM. For example, general budget support (GBS), as opposed to sector- and subsector-related support for specific development projects, has become more prevalent among donors. This trend translates into more fungible finances for the government and, as some would argue, greater risks that aid will help to entrench existing clientele networks (Hyden 2005). Moreover, in the face of widespread civil strife in a number of African countries, Western donors have once again come to embrace the importance of political and economic stability, even when stability means less democracy (Olsen 1998; Brown 2001). With regard to donor assistance directly to political parties, good reasons exist to assume that the modest volume of such party assistance does little to level the political playing field in a one-party-dominant setting (R. Whitehead 2011).

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Another important international factor is the resurgence of China’s economic interests in Africa (Wang 2007). The escalating volumes of merchandise trade, development assistance, foreign direct investment, and contract labor agreements between Tanzania and China demonstrate that Tanzania is no exception in this regard. China’s foreign policies have shown a greater inclination to partner with regimes without exerting pressure in the areas of political reform or the protection of human rights (Keenan 2009). To do so would clearly contradict the political realities in China’s own domestic sphere. As a result and given the interests that states have in accessing Africa’s markets and resources, Western powers might be forced to increasingly downplay issues of democracy in order to better compete with China. In sum, international pressures seem to have played a role in Tanzania’s move toward multiparty politics. However, in light of shifting aid practices and geopolitical competition over Africa’s resources, the overall international climate is currently moving in a direction that is more favorable to the persistence of one-party dominance. Conclusion Tanzania is one of Africa’s most durable cases of one-party dominance. CCM has been in power since independence, and even in the context of multiparty elections the prospects of unseating the ruling party seem almost fantastical. In this chapter we have reviewed a number of possible factors contributing to this trajectory. Some of these factors are clearly more important than others. Government performance and international influences are probably the least important, while political culture and social cleavages are almost totally subsumed by historical legacies. State-party relations and historical legacies have equal weight as underlying mechanisms, while institutional architecture also contributes considerably to the pattern of one-party dominance in Tanzania. The preceding analysis leads us to a number of important caveats and observations. First, a certain amount of overlap can be found between the different underlying mechanisms. This overlap is especially true for historical legacies, which, in the case of Tanzania, proved to have elements in common with social cleavages, political culture, and state-party relations. Second, some of the mechanisms that lie behind the trajectory of one-party dominance in Tanzania seem to work differently in the two constituent parts of the United Republic of Tanzania. The effects of state coercion and manipulation are most directly felt in

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Zanzibar. Third, the analysis in this chapter showed that, while certain circumstances helped to sustain CCM’s dominance in the past (e.g., the state’s monopoly over the economy), these have since changed. Therefore, ultimately, the ability of the ruling party to adapt to new political and economic circumstances explains its persistence today. Fourth, further research is needed to more adequately explore the internal party politics behind these adaptations if we are to truly understand their implications for the future of one-party dominance in Tanzania. CCM continues to display a remarkable level not only of popular support but also of elite cohesion. Most members of political society (politicians, bureaucrats, army officers, intellectuals, students, trade unionists, and prominent religious figures) have remained loyal to the ruling party (Bakari 2001). This situation stands in stark contrast to the situation in many other countries that were formerly under single-party rule: the party that dominated during the single-party era simply unravelled after splits that drove party leaders to new or existing opposition parties with enough credibility to garner support from the electorate. Elite cohesion within the CCM has been largely facilitated by the ability of the party to adapt to economic and political liberalization. Its relations with both the state and private enterprises ensure that many stakeholders have an interest in maintaining the status quo. All in all, the main mechanism behind the trajectory of one-party dominance in Tanzania must be understood as a product of both the historical legacies bequeathed to the ruling party at the time of multiparty reform and the ability of CCM to survive in a new multiparty context and a liberalized economy by adapting party-state relations and the state’s institutional architecture. From the perspective of a CCM insider, the future of one-party dominance in Tanzania looks rather bright. The opposition’s penetration into the rural areas where most Tanzanians live is glaringly low. Opposition parties are further troubled by poor infrastructure, weak organization, the absence of a unified front, and a lack of support among society’s elites. Nevertheless, the 2010 elections demonstrated the possible erosion of some of the conditions that facilitate CCM’s dominance, which might result in potentially higher levels of political competition in future. As the election results indicated, CHADEMA’s presidential candidate—Dr. Willibrord Slaa—received a fair level of support (i.e., 27 percent of the votes), partly because of popular dissatisfaction with CCM over unmet promises, the struggling economy, and high levels of corruption that brought down, among others, Prime Minister Edward Lowassa. In one of the more interesting breakthroughs, business tycoon

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Mustafa Jaffar Saboo—who still claims to be a CCM supporter— donated some 100 million Tanzanian shillings to CHADEMA’s campaign coffers, thus indicating that CCM’s support among commercial elites might be slipping. Cracks within the ruling party are another sign of the emergence of a more competitive polity in the future. Without the powerful ideological bonds of the past, a critical challenge for CCM is how to deal with government accountability and issues of corruption. On the one hand, corruption, especially on a grand scale, signifies the underlying patronclient ties that keep elites loyal to the party. At the same time, corruption is a major concern among many Tanzanians and a clear break with the ideals espoused by Nyerere. Thus, corruption may very well emerge as a major political issue that puts the ruling party at a disadvantage. In addition, the factionalism displayed within CCM in the run-up to the 2010 elections could become even more pronounced during the 2015 elections. As in many other parties, questions of leadership succession raise the prospect of debilitating internal splits, which can provide an opening for the opposition to present a strong challenge. In the run-up to the 2015 elections, CCM will have to deal with the turbulence of nominating a new presidential candidate to replace Jakaya Kikwete. This nomination might very well become the biggest challenge to the party’s continued dominance. Notes 1. Questions 92 and 93 from the 2001 Afrobarometer data set for Tanzania, round 1. 2. Questions 85 and 86 from the 2008(b) Afrobarometer data set for Tanzania, round 4.

6 Zambia: Manufactured One-Party Dominance and Its Collapse Neo Simutanyi

lar have emerged in Africa as a result of historical circumstances that include, among others, the struggle for independence and liberation and the nature of the political systems that emerged after independence (Carbone 2007; Simutanyi 2009; Doorenspleet and Nijzink, Chapter 1 in this volume). In many African countries, parties credited with the attainment of independence and liberation still dominate the political landscape. As authors of the previous chapters in this book have shown, the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in Namibia, and Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Tanzania are examples of liberation movements that became dominant parties in multiparty settings. These parties dominate their respective polities in that they not only win overwhelming majorities in subsequent elections but also monopolize control over government and determine public policy. Other countries have witnessed a dramatic decline of the old proindependence parties. The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in Malawi, the Kenya African National Union (KANU) in Kenya, and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) in Zambia were all ruling parties during the single-party era in their respective countries, but they barely managed to survive once multipartyism was introduced. In Zambia, the move to multiparty politics not only dismantled the powerful position of UNIP, but was also the basis for the dominant position that the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) enjoyed during its time in office POLITICAL PARTIES IN GENERAL AND DOMINANT PARTIES IN PARTICU-

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from 1991 to 2011. Interestingly, during half of this period the MMD, while controlling government and the presidency, did not have a majority of the seats in parliament, making the party’s hold on power tenuous and forcing it to somehow manufacture its continued dominance. In the 2011 elections, Michael Sata won the presidential race and his party, the Patriotic Front (PF), replaced MMD as the largest party in parliament, thus ending MMD’s position of manufactured dominance. In this chapter, I will discuss the trajectory of the Zambian party system since 1991 and seek to identify the underlying mechanisms that drive these party system developments. I argue that specific elements of Zambia’s institutional architecture, most notably the fact that the president is elected with a plurality of votes, contributed to the continuance of MMD’s dominant position even after the party no longer commanded a majority of seats in the legislature. Combined with the neopatrimonial linkages the MMD used to co-opt members of the opposition, the institutional architecture created a situation of manufactured one-party dominance in which the MMD continued its domination of political and state institutions without being electorally dominant. The Trajectory of Party System Change in Zambia After Zambia reintroduced a multiparty system in 1991, the MMD emerged as the dominant party in the new political system. As Tables 6.1 and 6.2 indicate, the MMD won with large margins in both the 1991 and 1996 elections. The party’s presidential candidate Frederick Chiluba won 76 percent of the votes in the founding elections of 1991 and 73 percent in 1996. The party gained control of 83 percent of the parliamentary seats in 1991 and managed to increase this portion to 87 percent in 1996, partly because UNIP, the former ruling party and the main opposition party at the time, boycotted the 1996 elections. These overwhelming victories seemed to put Zambia firmly on the road to becoming a one-partydominant system. Despite the large number of registered political parties, Zambia’s political opposition was weak and fragmented (Erdmann and Simutanyi 2003; Momba 2003). At the change over from single-party rule to multipartyism in 1991, the former ruling party, UNIP, managed to hold on to twenty-five parliamentary seats. The party, however, boycotted the 1996 elections and saw its number of seats drop to thirteen in 2001. In 2006, UNIP contested the elections under the banner of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA). Now the party is no longer represented in parliament.

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Zambia Table 6.1

MMD UNIP NP ZDC AZ UPND PF FDD HP ZRP ULP NDF ADD Independents Total

Results of Zambia’s Parliamentary Elections, 1991–2011 (number of seats) 1991 125 25 — — — — — — — — — — — — 150

1996 131

a

5 2 2 — — — — — — —

10 150

2001

69 13 — — — 49 1 12 4 1 — — — 1 150

2006

74 —b — — — 27b 44 —b — — 2 1 — 2 150

2011 55 — — — — 29 61 1 — — — — 1 3 150

Source: African Elections Database. Notes: a. UNIP boycotted the 1996 elections. b. In 2006, the UPND contested the elections as the United Democratic Alliance, which also included the FDD and UNIP. — indicates that the party did not receive any seats (because they did not yet exist, did not contest the elections, or they did not receive enough votes).

The new opposition parties formed during the first decade of multipartyism did not fare much better. They lacked policy coherence, visibility, and organizational viability, and most did not survive beyond one election. Despite the weakness of the opposition, the MMD dramatically lost ground in the 2001 elections. Its share of parliamentary seats fell below 50 percent and its presidential candidate, Levy Mwanawasa, polled a meager 29 percent. This dramatic decline had its origin not only in the party’s failure to satisfy popular expectations but also in the factional turmoil that arose within the party around the issue of leadership succession (Burnell 2002, 2005; Rakner 2003). The reversal of the MMD’s fortunes in 2001 coincided with Chiluba’s retirement as head of state and eventually as party leader. During his two terms in office, Chiluba had provided strong personal leadership to the MMD. When his bid for a third term did not succeed, uncertainty arose as to whether the patronage he dispensed would be sustained under a different leader. Internal splits in the MMD surfaced in 2000 when senior party leaders began to compete in the race to replace Chiluba as party leader. Chiluba succeeded in his election bid for a third term as MMD party president in May 2001, but this attempt to hang on to power was short lived. When

Results of Zambia’s Presidential Elections, 1991–2011 (name of presidential candidate and percentage of votes) 1991

MMD

F. Chiluba, 75.8

ZDC

—

AZ

—

UNIPa NP

UPNDa PF

FDDa

K. Kaunda, 24.2

— —

—

—

1996

F. Chiluba, 72.6

b

W. Mung’omba, 12.7

H. Mulemba, 6.7

A. MbikusitaLewanika, 4.7 —

—

—

2001

L. Mwanawasa, 29.2 T. Kaunda, 10.1 —

—

I. MbikusitaLewanika, 0.6

A. Mazoka, 27.2 M. Sata, 3.4

C. Tembo, 13.2

2006

L. Mwanawasa, 43.0 —

—

—

—

H. Hichilema, 25.3 M. Sata, 29.4

—

2008

R. Banda, 40.6 —

—

—

—

H. Hichilema, 20.0 M. Sata, 38.6

—

2011

R. Banda, 36.2 T. Kaunda, 0.4

—

—

—

H. Hichilema, 18.6

M. Sata, 42.9

E. Nawakwi, 0.3

HP

—

—

G. Miyanda, 8.1

G. Miyanda, 1.6

G. Miyanda, 0.8

G. Miyanda, 0.2

ADD

—

—

—

—

—

C. Milupi, 1.0

ZRP

Others

—

—

—

3.3

B. Mwila, 4.9 3.3

—

0.7

—

—

—

0.4

Source: African Elections Database. Notes: a. In 2006, the UPND contested the elections as the United Democratic Alliance, which also included the FDD and UNIP. b. UNIP boycotted the 1996 elections. — indicates that the party did not receive any votes (because they did not yet exist or did not field a presidential candidate).

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Table 6.2

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the constitutional amendment allowing him a third term as head of state was rejected, Chiluba was forced to give way to Levy Mwanawasa. By ensuring that the party leader and presidential candidate was again the same person, the MMD tried to safeguard the access to state resources and patronage that would come with winning the presidential race. All in all, Chiluba’s efforts to stay in power had an important negative effect on the MMD’s 2001 election results. Following the expulsion of twenty-two MMD members of parliament (MPs) in May 2001, three MMD leaders who had been prevented from contesting the party presidency (Christon Tembo, Godfrey Miyanda, and Michael Sata) formed their own political parties. The Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), the Heritage Party (HP), and the Patriotic Front (PF) subsequently drew significant support away from MMD at the ballot box. Because of the MMD’s dismal electoral performance in 2001, Zambia cannot formally be classified as a one-party-dominant system: the MMD did not satisfy the requirement of winning a third consecutive parliamentary election. Nevertheless, its trajectory of dominance continued. Despite its poor performance in the 2001 elections, the MMD retained political power for three main reasons. First, the majoritarian electoral system ensured that 29 percent of the votes were enough to secure the presidency. Moreover, the first-past-the-post system ensured that, despite its dramatic loss of voter support, the MMD still controlled 46 percent of the seats in parliament. Second, being the largest party in parliament and because of its control of the presidency and the executive branch, the MMD could co-opt opposition members. Using a neopatrimonial logic the party thus ensured a working majority in parliament. In other words, its continued position of dominance was a manufactured one. The third contributing factor was the nature of the opposition and its failure to capitalize on the weakening position of the ruling party. While most opposition formations operating in the first decade of multipartyism were weakly institutionalized, the parties that emerged just before and after the 2001 elections seemed better organized and capable of gaining broader support. However, they proved unable to wrestle control away from the MMD, until Michael Sata managed to win the presidential elections in 2011. During the decade preceding this PF victory, the opposition failed to form a united front against the MMD mainly because almost all opposition parties revolved around the persons of their respective party leaders. The personalization of opposition parties invariably affected efforts to unify the opposition. Most efforts in this direction were ill conceived and thereby failed. The most promising attempt was the formation

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of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) in 2006, comprising the UNIP and the FDD along with the United Party for National Development (UPND). However, the alliance performed much worse at the polls than the three parties had individually in 2001. Some have suggested that the UDA failed because it was seen as serving the individual presidential ambitions of Hakainde Hichilema, who had just replaced founding UPND president Anderson Mazoka (who died suddenly in May 2006) and hoped to benefit from Mazoka’s support.1 As mentioned above, during its second decade in government the MMD’s dominance was manufactured. Because the MMD controlled the presidency, the party could form a government even when the opposition had a majority in parliament. The fact that the president makes all the ministerial appointments and has the power to create new positions gave MMD the opportunity to co-opt members of the opposition and cement its own position. In the period between 2001 and 2006, the MMD enticed opposition MPs to either defect to the ruling party or support government motions. In the 2006–2011 parliamentary session, at least twenty-two PF MPs defied their party leader, Michael Sata, and voted with the MMD. However, as it turned out, the subsequent collapse of the MMD’s manufactured dominance was not caused by a weakening of the ruling party’s ability to co-opt opposition members or the coming together of the opposition Rather, the presidential elections of 2011 presented the turning point. By defeating the MMD’s sitting President Rupiah Banda and winning the presidential race with 42.9 percent of the vote, Sata and his PF signaled the end of Zambia’s trajectory of one-party dominance.

Mechanisms of Party System Change in Zambia Historical Legacy

Zambian political parties are of relatively recent origin, with the first political party formed only in 1948. Like elsewhere in Africa, political parties in Zambia came into existence as associations articulating African grievances and making demands for universal suffrage and selfrule. Established in 1959, UNIP soon became the leading party in the years prior to independence. It mobilized diverse groups, such as businessmen, workers, peasants, intellectuals, and students, to support the independence struggle. Because many different class forces identified with the nationalist movement, the cause of national liberation gave UNIP popular legitimacy when it gained power in 1964. Not only did

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UNIP enjoy immense popularity, but its position as the independence party also delegitimized political opposition. Those opposed to UNIP were considered to be opposed to the nationalist project of independence and national reconstruction. The assumption at the time was that all citizens shared a common destiny with UNIP. Thus, being opposed to UNIP was tantamount to being unpatriotic. In this context, the development of the Zambian party system in the period 1964–1972 was relatively lopsided. During this first period of multiparty rule UNIP dominated the political landscape. As Zambia’s independence party, it held an overwhelming majority of seats in the legislature and controlled the presidency. The opposition was weak and could not alter the balance of power. In fact, political parties that emerged after independence in 1964 were characterized by a lack of institutionalization, personalized leadership, factionalism, and a high degree of fragmentation (Van de Walle and Butler 1999; Burnell 2001; Rakner and Svåsand 2004; Erdmann and Simutanyi 2003). The multiparty system dominated by UNIP gave way to a one-party state in December 1972. One could argue that the introduction of singleparty rule in Zambia was a consequence of both UNIP’s dominant position and the party’s fear of losing this position. After independence in 1964, the African National Congress (ANC) had emerged as UNIP’s main competitor, but UNIP soon proved dominant in that it had overwhelming electoral support throughout the country, whereas the ANC drew its support mainly from the Southern Province, Western Province, and parts of the Eastern Province. However, UNIP’s widespread support presented a problem for the cohesion of the nationalist movement. Complaints about the marginalization of some regions and ethnic groups began to surface. In order to address this problem and obliterate any centers of opposition, UNIP in 1972 co-opted the ANC in a cleverly designed pact termed the Choma Declaration. According to the Choma Declaration, the ANC would disband and its leaders would be absorbed into UNIP and rewarded with senior party and government positions. This agreement meant that, in effect, the organized opposition was wiped out. The absorption of the ANC into UNIP2 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. By the end of the 1980s, the pervasive nature of Zambia’s one-party state and particularly UNIP’s debilitating tendency to limit political expression, harass political opponents, and monopolize power gave impetus to demands for the reintroduction of a multiparty system (Ihonvbere 1996). Thus, in early 1990, provoked by a perception that Zambia’s poor

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economic performance was a result of UNIP’s and Kenneth Kaunda’s rule, widespread demand arose for multipartyism in which civil society and in particular the trade unions played an important role. One of the main grievances was that Kaunda had been in office for too long. Because UNIP’s one-party state did not provide for alternation of the person in the office of the president, Kaunda had been in office for more than two decades, thus frustrating the political ambitions of many of his colleagues. In December 1990, at the end of a tumultuous year that saw people rioting in Lusaka, Kaunda signed legislation ending UNIP’s monopoly on power and paving the way for multiparty elections. The MMD, which was initially formed as a platform to campaign for the reintroduction of a multiparty democracy, transformed itself into a political party in January 1991 and defeated UNIP in the multiparty elections held on 31 October 1991. The MMD’s presidential candidate and former trade unionist, Frederick Chiluba, obtained 75.8 percent of the votes, against Kaunda’s 24.2 percent. The MMD, like UNIP, was organized as a broad coalition of diverse interests including businesspeople, retired politicians, farmers, students, workers and their trade unions, academics, unemployed urban youth, and ordinary rural people (MbikusitaLewanika and Chitala 1990). It was a broad movement of diverse social forces, all opposed to Kaunda and his single-party rule. Many had suffered oppression at the hands of UNIP’s one-party regime and saw the MMD as the platform to finally participate in Zambia’s political life. Because of its inclusive nature and broad character, MMD emerged as the only true representative of the opposition against single-party rule. And because the MMD symbolized public aspirations for democracy, it gained moral legitimacy. This overwhelming endorsement had important implications for the emergence of political opposition in Zambia. Because most significant forces were aligned with the MMD, opposition was seen as synonymous with the MMD. When the party subsequently gained power in 1991, opposition against the new party in government had no legitimacy. Those opposed to the MMD were regarded as in support of UNIP and the old single-party regime. However, because the glue that kept the MMD together was rather thin—hatred of UNIP and Kaunda—the new ruling party soon began to disintegrate. By 2001, internal factionalism led to a major split within the MMD. Although Chiluba’s desire to contest presidential elections for a third term in office has often been cited as the reason for the split in the MMD and the weakening of its dominant position, one can argue that the disintegration of the previous broad support by diverse social groups was mainly responsible for the MMD’s decline.

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As P. Burnell (2001) correctly observes, the development of Zambia’s party system since 1991 has shown a lot of continuities with the single-party era. These continuities reflect Zambia’s historical legacy. Whereas UNIP used its fight against colonialism as its main source of legitimacy, the MMD used the reintroduction of multiparty democracy as the mechanism around which its popularity was built. However, unlike the nationalist struggle, which was waged over decades, the prodemocracy struggle was fought over a relatively short period and had limited goals. Thus, despite the continuities, equating the liberation history of UNIP with the MMD’s history of advocating for multiparty democracy may be erroneous. Undoubtedly, the MMD’s leading role in demanding multiparty rule had an influence on its ideology, character, and strategy as the dominant party in Zambia’s multiparty system. The preceding period of singleparty rule gave the MMD not only the legitimacy to govern but also the task to ensure that the country would not return to a single-party regime. Thus, the strong electoral support for the MMD in 1991 and 1996 can be seen as an endorsement of the democratic transition and a confirmation of the MMD’s position as the champion of plural politics. This situation changed dramatically in 2001. In 1990, after being in power for almost three decades, the UNIP could no longer convincingly use the struggle for independence as the legitimization of its continuation in office. Given the deterioration in living standards and the runaway inflation, people felt they needed a change of government. UNIP could no longer evoke the ideology of liberation. The same logic applied to the MMD during its last decade in government (from 2001 to 2011). To the extent that the MMD defeated UNIP in the founding elections of 1991 and established a multiparty democracy, it had legitimacy. However, bringing about the end of single-party rule soon proved an insufficient source of legitimacy: people expected jobs, better living conditions, a secure environment, and enjoyment of civil liberties. All those proved more difficult to deliver. Thus, after ten years in office, the MMD could no longer satisfy people with the rhetoric of having brought multiparty democracy to Zambia, especially when it started to display undemocratic tendencies and a degree of political intolerance. Social Cleavages

The effect of social cleavages on the political system has been extensively discussed in the literature (e.g., Posner 2007). Some researchers have

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One-Party Dominance Discontinued

argued that given the multiethnic nature of African societies, political parties tend to forge ethnic alliances in order to win power. Thus, “ethnic congress” parties seem to dominate in Africa (Erdmann 2004). Some political parties overtly mobilize support on the basis of social cleavages such as ethnicity, religion, or region, but most parties seem to take on the character of an umbrella party embracing diverse groups and interests. In Zambia, social cleavages such as ethnicity and regional differences have not been overtly exploited in party mobilization. However, ethnic or regional divisions are not completely irrelevant in Zambian politics. During the single-party era, President Kenneth Kaunda used the idea of “tribal balancing” in his appointments in order to ensure that his government was “balanced” in terms of regional representation and would reflect the diversity of the country.3 When the MMD came to power in 1991, it did not alter this unwritten rule of tribal balancing. Nevertheless, complaints of domination by a specific ethnic group, in particular the Bembas, soon came to the fore. A split within the MMD in 1993 was partly due to a perception that Bemba-speaking people had a disproportionate share of ministerial positions compared to other groups.4 This division did not prove to be a serious threat to the position of the MMD. The party convincingly won the 1996 elections, though its performance in the Western and North-Western provinces mirrored regional grievances. Political parties led by individuals from these provinces performed well in their home areas but gained little support elsewhere, thus having little effect on the MMD’s overall position of electoral dominance. A close examination of election results in the period 1991–2001, however, suggests that the MMD’s main support did come from Bembaspeaking people. This fact led Erdmann (2007) to describe the MMD as a Bemba party. On the other hand, and in comparison to the opposition parties, the MMD was the only party with a broad membership and an ethnically diverse leadership. In terms of members and leaders, the MMD was a multiethnic party. Prior to 2001, the MMD had support across all nine provinces, with its strongest support coming from Copperbelt, Luapula, Northern, and Southern provinces. This picture changed in 2001 when the MMD lost electoral support in five provinces. In the 2008 presidential election, the MMD failed to win a majority in the Copperbelt, Luapula, Lusaka, Northern, and Southern provinces, thus losing all of its former strongholds. This erosion of support occurred partly because opposition parties took control of the regions where their respective party leaders came from. The UPND, for example, won a majority of the votes in Southern Province, the region where party leader

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Hakainde Hichilema comes from, in both 2006 and 2008 (see Table 6.4). In addition, Michael Sata’s PF managed to draw Bemba support away from the MMD. Three of the four provinces where the PF won a majority in the 2008 election were Bemba-speaking: Luapula, Copperbelt, and Northern province. (Simutanyi 2011; see Table 6.3). This configuration of the two major opposition parties relying on ethnic-regional support is further illustrated by the vote shares these parties managed to get in the areas in which they did not win a majority. In these areas, the PF polled on average a meager 9.8 percent of the votes in 2008, while the third-largest party, the UPND, fared slightly better with an average of 11.7 percent. The MMD, however, attracted an average of 29.2 percent of votes in those areas where it did not win a majority in the 2008 presidential elections. Although support for the MMD seems to have been less regionally concentrated than support for the main opposition parties, voting patterns in the 2001–2011 period appear to have been strongly influenced by ethno-regional dynamics. The realignment of electoral support along ethnic and regional lines—MMD in Central, Eastern, North-Western, and Western provinces; PF in Lusaka, Copperbelt, Luapula, and Northern provinces; and UPND in Southern Province—suggests that regional and ethnic divisions played an important role in the decline of the MMD and thus in the trajectory of Zambia’s one-party dominance. More empirical studies are needed to further assess these regional and ethnic voting patterns, particularly with regard to the 2011 elections, which marked the end of the MMD’s hold on power. Table 6.3

Province

PF’s Results in Zambia’s Presidential Elections, by Province, 2006 and 2008

Luapula Copperbelt Northern Lusaka Eastern Central Western Southern North-Western

2006

PF Votes All Votes

118,901 233,829 139,953 206,023 39,091 37,961 14,888 13,174 3,386

195,187 419,499 328,094 419,139 334,516 262,838 207,822 375,687 173,299

Percentage 61 56 43 49 12 14 7 4 2

2008

PF Votes All Votes Percentage

82,418 201,087 134,244 162,167 37,295 34,758 11,891 11,866 4,485

118,340 314,148 222,658 300,848 204,506 231,279 121,606 276,770 184,624

Source: Electoral Commission of Zambia, http://www.elections.org.zm/.

70 64 60 54 18 15 10 4 2

130 Table 6.4

Province

One-Party Dominance Discontinued UPND’s Results in Zambia’s Presidential Elections, by Province, 2006 and 2008 UPND Votes

Southern 279,329 North-Western 45,252 Central 64,429 Western 25,732 Lusaka 90,039 Copperbelt 32,962 Eastern 129,120 Northern 18,393 Luapula 8,234

2006 All Votes 383,168 177,971 268,878 213,490 421,679 444,032 341,891 334,585 197,963

Percentage 73 25 24 12 21 7 38 6 4

UPND Votes

180,976 38,265 31,821 24,678 43,515 17,846 11,624 2,660 1,588

2008 All Votes 250,808 104,424 155,279 121,606 300,848 330,196 202,506 213,986 118,340

Source: Electoral Commission of Zambia, http://www.elections.org.zm/.

Percentage 72 37 21 20 15 6 4 1 1

Interestingly, despite the increased salience of regional and ethnic voting patterns (Cheeseman and Hinfelaar 2010), most Zambian political parties claim to represent all ethnic groups. A party that is accused of being tribal is generally perceived as engaging in sectional politics and is resented by the bulk of the electorate. Thus, parties that are labeled as tribal, for example the UPND, most prominently, but also Agenda for Zambia (AZ) and the National Party (NP), have less legitimacy in the eyes of the general public. Overtly organizing and mobilizing along ethnic and regional lines are therefore not the way for the opposition to take power from the MMD. Nevertheless, while ethnicity and regional differences are in themselves not the basis on which political parties mobilize support, they are an important factor in the MMD’s decline and in the trajectory of one-party dominance. A similar logic applies to the role of class differences in Zambian politics. No political party in Zambia explicitly draws electoral support on the basis of class interests, such as the interests of workers, farmers, or the poor. Where this class-specific mobilization has been attempted, the results have been discouraging. In 1996, a party purporting to represent the interests of farmers, the National Lima Party (NLP), did not win representation in parliament. Umbrella parties such as the MMD sit on the other side of the spectrum because they include a wide range of social and class interests. Precisely because the MMD united various groups with diverse class interests, all in opposition to UNIP and Kaunda’s rule, it preempted the formation of political parties on a sectional or class basis. Crucial amongst the various groups that had been co-opted into the

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MMD’s ranks were the trade unions. They had been one of the MMD’s main building blocks during the transition to plural politics in 1991, but by 2001 they were split along ethnic lines and in 2006 they defected to the opposition PF. During its last decade in power, the MMD experienced increasing difficulty holding together the diverse social groups it had embraced in its fights against single-party rule, especially when corruption within the state, bad governance, and poor economic performance gave people reason to become dissatisfied with the ruling party. The broad character of the MMD turned out to be a burden. Initially, the use of state resources and patronage, which included the indiscriminate sale of government houses at giveaway prices, helped keep the party in power, but eventually its power base disintegrated. The performance of the MMD in the 2001 elections already suggested that the party was losing the support of essential social groups in terms of both class and ethnic/regional interests. Institutional Architecture

Two institutional factors were instrumental in manufacturing MMD’s dominance in the 2001–2011 period: Zambia’s first-past-the-post electoral system and its presidential system. The nature of Zambia’s electoral system ensured that the MMD retained its dominant position beyond its actual electoral strength. First, the first-past-the-post electoral system has exaggerated the position of the MMD and rewarded it with more seats than its actual share of the vote. In 1996, for example, the MMD won 60.1 percent of the votes cast but took up 87.3 percent of the parliamentary seats. In 2001, the MMD’s very meager 28 percent of the votes were still good for a 46 percent seat share in parliament, while in 2006 the MMD’s share of parliamentary seats stood at 49.3 percent, which it won with 42 percent of the vote. Thus, the MMD’s position in parliament was augmented by the electoral system that applies to parliamentary elections. Second, the electoral system that governs Zambia’s presidential elections actually manufactured the MMD’s position of dominance despite the party’s poor showing in the 2001 and 2006 polls. The electoral rules stipulate that a plurality of votes is enough to win the presidency. In other words, the first-past-the-post rule in the presidential race ensured that the MMD held on to power even without winning an absolute majority. The fact that in 2001, 2006, and 2008 the party won the presidency with less than 50 percent of the votes was a crucial building block in its position of manufactured dominance. In the 2008 presidential election, for

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example, MMD’s candidate Rupiah Banda obtained 40.6 percent of the national vote against 38.6 percent for PF’s candidate, Michael Sata, thus revealing a picture of strong electoral competition. The presidency is the ultimate prize of political competition. Zambia’s presidential system of government gives the head of state extensive powers of appointment (Simutanyi 2012). Thus, by controlling the presidency, a party has overall political control. The Constitution of Zambia makes no mention of the possibility of coalition governments, nor does it stipulate that the president needs to consult with various political parties before forming a government. In other words, the president can form a government at his own discretion even when he has failed to win an absolute majority. Furthermore, the powers of the presidency allow the incumbent to co-opt various groups and pacify political opponents by distributing government positions and patronage. This state of affairs has greatly influenced Zambia’s trajectory of manufactured one-party dominance. After the dramatic outcome of the 2001 elections, the MMD retained power and continued dominating Zambian politics because it managed to win the presidency with a plurality of the vote. Once MMD controlled the presidency, the party held on to power for another decade without holding a majority of parliamentary seats. If the electoral system would have required that the president be elected with an absolute majority, either in one election round or by way of a second round runoff between the two top candidates, the MMD probably would not have held on to power in 2001. At the same time, the current institutional architecture has also been instrumental in bringing about the end of MMD rule. Sata’s victory in the 2011 presidential elections not only signaled the end of one-party dominance but also paved the way for a change of government despite the fact that Sata polled “only” 42.9 percent of the votes and his PF holds 40 percent of the seats in parliament. Before Sata’s victory, the number of parliamentary seats taken up by opposition parties signaled to the electorate the viability of an opposition victory (i.e., that an alternative government not controlled by the MMD was a real possibility). In the 2001 and 2006 elections, the opposition polled 71 percent and 57 percent, respectively. In other words, despite losing the presidential race, the opposition parties together obtained more votes and seats than the MMD. This outcome showed that a united opposition could unseat the MMD. But more importantly, it gave the electorate reason to believe that a change of government was possible. The PF’s victory in 2011 proved them right. However, like its predecessor—the MMD—the PF failed to win an absolute majority.

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Thus, in order to boost his position in parliament, Sata promptly coopted ten MMD MPs into his government as deputy ministers. In sum, the specific electoral and presidential elements in Zambia’s institutional architecture have been crucial to its party system trajectory. Political Culture

Political culture refers to enduring norms, values, and practices relating to politics in general and to political leadership and institutions in particular (see also the first chapter in this book). Compared to the United States, Western Europe, and Latin America, political culture in Africa is understudied. The few post-1990 studies that do exist have been focused on associational life and attachment to political parties (Bratton, Alderfer, and Simutanyi 1997; Bratton Mattes, and Gyimah-Boadi 2005). Most of these authors have found that Africans have strong notions of deference to political leaders, especially to the president, and tend to assess him favorably compared to other politicians or political institutions. Furthermore, the authors of these studies agree that while most Africans are engaged in associational life (i.e., belong to voluntary organizations, especially church organizations), their attachment to political parties is very weak. Three aspects of political culture seem to have an impact on Zambia’s trajectory of one-party dominance. These are the above-mentioned deference to political leaders, tolerance of undemocratic tendencies, and the acceptance of patronage as a normal part of politics. Zambia’s party system is dominated by strong personalities (Randall 2007). Most leaders of Zambia’s current political parties have either served in UNIP or the MMD. The most successful of them have either held a senior position in government or are (or at least are perceived to be) relatively wealthy. Unlike the experience in Western Europe where political parties are institutions that primarily represent societal interests, most political parties in Zambia mainly serve as vehicles for ambitious politicians who want to compete for power. As a result, people’s attachment to political parties is rather weak. Several studies conducted between 1991 and 1996 revealed that up to 65 percent of Zambians were not affiliated with any political party (Bratton, Alderfer, and Simutanyi 1997). Where parties are perceived as furthering the interests of their leaders, a lack of ownership occurs, party membership is unreliable, and mass mobilization is problematic. When the founding leader retires, dies, or is co-opted by the ruling party, the party tends to lose its main

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mobilizing force. Few opposition parties have survived the departure of their leaders. The AZ and National Citizens’ Coalition (NCC) disbanded altogether when their respective leaders were co-opted by the MMD, while the UNIP and FDD continue to exist in name only after the departure of their respective founding leaders. Because of the emphasis on the person of the party president as opposed to policy positions, leadership succession becomes a divisive issue. Internal dissent or criticism is rarely tolerated, and internal policy debates are discouraged. Where internal debates exist, they are squashed. Party leaders who voice dissent or display personal ambitions for the top job of party president are confronted with serious sanctions, such as demotions, dismissals, suspensions, and even expulsion from the party. Few party leaders who have dared to challenge a party president have survived and “everything is done to finish them both politically and economically.”5 The handling of factional struggles and internal splits has important implications for one-party dominance. When a party enjoys widespread national appeal, an ambitious politician runs an incredible risk publicly challenging its leadership or policies because he or she may not succeed in attracting sufficient support outside the party. Many of the critics of the MMD suffered the wrath of the party for their criticisms and have disappeared into political oblivion. On the other hand, decisions to expel members or force rival leaders to resign and form their own parties have created a serious threat to the ruling party. The expulsion of twenty-two MMD MPs, including a vice president and a number of ministers, in May 2001 resulted in the formation of opposition parties, which seriously threatened MMD’s dominance. And in 2009, the MMD expelled two of its MPs for criticizing President Rupiah Banda and then followed up, in September 2010, with the expulsion of former minister of finance Ng’andu Magande and former defense minister George Mpombo. Magande in particular had declared his intention to contest the 2011 elections as the MMD presidential candidate and was perceived as a threat to Rupiah Banda’s chances of retaining the MMD party presidency (Simutanyi 2011). The second aspect of political culture relates to a worrying practice in all major parties of tolerating undemocratic tendencies either as a way of maintaining party unity and cohesion or showing respect for the party leadership. While all parties are expected to hold conventions, they do not take place, and party members who call for a party convention to elect leaders are considered undisciplined and are subjected to severe sanctions. For example, in early 2009 the MMD National Executive Commit-

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tee, contrary to party rules, declared Banda the only candidate to contest the party presidency and thus by default make him the MMD candidate for the presidential elections in 2011. As mentioned above, those who opposed this move and declared their intention to challenge Banda for the party leadership faced severe party sanctions. The same happened earlier when Levy Mwanawasa was faced with a challenge from both Austin Chewe and Nevers Mumba, Mwanawasa’s former vice president, for the MMD party presidency. The two were expelled from the party and Mwanawasa subsequently froze the post of vice president.6 In a display of still furthermore undemocratic tendencies, party members and supporters have publicly supported expulsion as a way of shutting down internal dissent and contestation. For example, when Rupiah Banda’s candidacy in 2011 was endorsed by all provincial MMD committees, party members organized public demonstrations demanding the expulsion of four MPs who were perceived as having presidential ambitions and were critical of the party and the president.7 The party acted swiftly on these demands to remove the MPs and proceeded without due process. This tolerance of undemocratic tendencies is also found in other parties, notably the PF and UPND, where anyone opposed to the party leader risks being expelled and senior party members publicly justify such measures. In the case of the MMD, however, such intolerance of dissent seems to have eroded the party’s dominant position to the point that it hastened the collapse of one-party dominance. Whether the new ruling party, PF, will be more skillful in managing factional infighting and more successful in growing a democratic culture of tolerance of dissent remains to be seen. The last aspect of 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 postings. Levy Mwanawasa was similarly accused of nepotism, as he was said to favor members of his Lenje and Lamba tribe as well as his own close friends and relatives. Rupiah Banda, in turn, seemed to have reversed Mwanawasa’s appointments, and State House under Banda was said to be dominated by members of Banda’s tribe or people coming from his region. In sum, one could argue that the state serves as a resource for clientelistic networks in that it is a source of

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employment. As one cabinet minister and senior MMD official told the author, “politics has come to be a source of employment. There is nothing wrong with us, once in government, giving jobs to our close friends, relatives and tribesmen, as long as they are qualified. In fact, our people expect us to do just that, if they are to have any trust in us.”8 This political culture of acceptance of or even expectations of patronage has been responsible for the high levels of support the MMD received in certain regions during the time the party was in government. Traditional leaders from Eastern, Western, Central, and North-Western provinces have thanked the MMD government for making certain appointments and for bringing development to their areas. This culture of patronage assisted the MMD in manufacturing its position of dominance during its last decade in power. However, it also held the danger of backlash from unfulfilled expectations. When the government can no longer deliver or the leaders who are expected to use their positions to distribute favors to their group no longer do so, political support may be transferred to another party in response to these unfulfilled expectations. Such loss of support, seems to have happened in Northern and Luapula provinces where the shift in support from the MMD to the PF was linked to perceptions that political appointments were going elsewhere, and the regions no longer benefited because they had no man at the top. Finally, regarding patronage as a motivator at the ballot box, people vote for the ruling party because it is in a better position to guarantee a continued dispensing of favors than parties that are not in power. Voting for the opposition is considered a waste of votes because it does not result in direct benefits. During its time in power, the MMD’s message was “Vote for us, because we are in government and we will deliver; vote for the opposition and you will see no development.” However, as the MMD has experienced, the desire of voters to support the party with access to state resources is a double-edged sword and holds no guarantee for the continuation of a party’s hold on power, especially if the ruling party fails to meet the expectations of patronage. Government Performance

Public opinion research seems to suggest that the relationship between a government’s performance record and its electoral performance can at times be weak. M. Bratton, R. Mattes, and E. Gyimah-Boadi (2005; see also Mattes et al. 2000) found that many citizens in Southern Africa were prepared to vote for the incumbent party even when they felt that it had not performed well in office. Citizens, apparently, do not always hold the party in power accountable for their poor living conditions.

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In Zambia, opinion surveys show a similarly weak relationship between the electoral support of the incumbent party and its performance record, especially during the first decade in which the MMD was in power (Simutanyi, 2000; Lolojih, 2010). Initially, Frederick Chiluba, presiding over a process of economic liberalization, brought a measure of normalcy to the economy he inherited from Kenneth Kaunda’s singleparty regime. During its first five years in power, the MMD government ended shortages of essential commodities, reduced inflation, removed trade barriers, and stabilized the local currency, which had become almost worthless in the dying days of the single-party regime. However, the effects of economic liberalization such as the closure of companies, job losses, and unemployment soon began to be felt and blamed on the president. In 1996, Chiluba, seeing that his popularity and that of his party were waning, resorted to buying votes by distributing free government houses and buying off chiefs and other influential individuals using a legally sanctioned presidential slush fund, which was worth US$20 million according to a former deputy speaker.9 This strategy may have delivered an MMD victory at the polls but did not solve the problem of an erosion of public confidence in the MMD government. The MMD won the 1996 elections against a background of massive job losses, company closures, and weak agricultural prices. Ten years later a survey found that 60 percent of the respondents who said they would vote for the MMD felt that the party had not done well on the economy and considered their living conditions to have deteriorated over the last year (Simutanyi 2006). However, the MMD’s dramatic loss of electoral support in the 2001 elections did signal a definite change in public support for the then ruling party. Urban voters especially shifted their support to the opposition. Despite this shift in public opinion and voter support, the MMD retained its power—partly because the opposition was not united but most importantly because the institutional architecture allowed it to win the presidency with only a plurality of the votes—but the writing was on the wall. Interestingly, some discrepancy can be found between government performance as perceived by the electorate and the actual performance of the MMD in office. The performance of the MMD government over the last two decades was mixed. During its first ten years in office the MMD executed an ambitious and painful structural adjustment program with little real benefits to the population (Simutanyi 1996; Rakner 2003; Burnell 2003). From 1991 to 2001 social and economic conditions declined and became comparable to those of a war-torn country. After 2002, Zambians saw economic improvement with inflation dropping to an all-time low of 9 percent and an average gross domestic product

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(GDP) growth of 5 percent over the period 2002–2008. Following Levy Mwanawasa’s death in August 2008, the economy began to decline again, perhaps due to political uncertainty, with some mining investors pulling out of the country. However, economic indicators reveal that Zambia recorded an average GDP growth rate of 6 percent in 2008 and 2009 and similar figures for 2010 (African Economic Outlook 2013). This trajectory of economic development did not run parallel to the trajectory of decline of the ruling party. The public’s assessment of the MMD’s performance seems to run in the opposite direction. A 2010 opinion poll found that the majority of respondents did not think that the government was handling the economy well (Lolojih 2010). They also thought that the government was very tolerant of corruption, and close to half of the respondents indicated they would vote for the opposition if elections were to be held immediately. This poor assessment of the MMD and President Rupiah Banda was not so much based on actual poor performance but rather on a perception that (1) the high GDP growth rates and low inflation did not significantly reduce poverty levels, (2) improvements in mining and infrastructural development were not contributing to an improvement in the living standards of the majority of people, and (3) the MMD had simply been in power for too long and time had come for change. A year later these perceptions were translated into a victory for Michael Sata in the presidential elections and a change of the ruling party. State-Party Relations

J.-F. Bayart (1993) and P. Chabal and J.-P. Daloz (1999) have argued that in Africa, access to the state is an avenue for wealth accumulation. By virtue of its control of the state, the ruling party has access to financial and material resources that can be used to its advantage during elections. In the Zambian case, the president and vice president are exempted from the provisions of the Electoral Code of Conduct, which prohibits the use of state resources during campaigns. During the first two decades since the democratic transition in 1991, the use of state resources by the president and vice president during election campaigns distorted the playing field in favor of the MMD. The advantages for the incumbent party took the form of the use of government vehicles and fuel, security, and money. The president and vice president had planes and helicopters at their disposal during election campaigns and often were accompanied by ministers, senior civil servants, and party officials who were paid government allowances while on party business. While in power, the MMD

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also used the state media to distribute its election messages, often at the exclusion of the opposition. Given the fact that the state broadcasting media (radio and television) have nationwide coverage, privileged access by the ruling party has been an important advantage. However, as I have argued elsewhere (Simutanyi 2011) and was proven correct in the 2011 elections, the use of state resources by the ruling MMD does not guarantee continued dominance. In 2001, the MMD suffered a dramatic loss at the polls despite the considerable use of state resources. The evidence produced in court during the hearing of a petition by UPND candidate Anderson Mazoka revealed that the MMD used state funds to purchase more than 100 motor vehicles for the party and to buy mealie meal (coarsely ground cornmeal) and campaign materials for distribution to would-be supporters. During both the 2001 and 2006 elections, the MMD government heavily subsidized agricultural supplies, such as seed, fertilizer, and insecticides, and selectively distributed food aid to small farmers in key regions perceived to be important for the reelection of the MMD (Eastern, Western, Central, North-Western, and Lusaka provinces). The MMD also used state resources to undertake development projects such as road rehabilitation, sinking of boreholes, and construction of health clinics and schools in targeted areas. Although this ability to use state resources constituted an important advantage for the ruling party, it proved insufficient to maintain the MMD’s position of dominance, mainly because the main opposition parties, PF and UPND, raised large amounts of money from both local and foreign sources to launch successful electoral campaigns. International Influences

In the run-up to the 2006 and 2008 presidential elections, sources told this author that the PF received generous donations from the governments of Taiwan, Malaysia, and South Korea. Some believe that the PF also received substantial financial support from some Western governments. A recent study (Simutanyi 2010) found that Michael Sata may have received financial support from the People’s Republic of China, in an effort to tone down his radical policy positions against Chinese investment in the country.10 Thus, the PF mobilized sufficient resources to offer a real challenge to the MMD. The 2006 and 2008 presidential elections already showed the strength of Sata and his PF in this regard, and the 2011 election results are a case in point. In 2006 and 2008, Michael Sata capitalized on ethnic Bemba grievances and the disenchantment among the urban unemployed to build a

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coalition of support from four provinces: Lusaka, Copperbelt, Luapula, and Northern (Cheeseman and Hinfelaar 2010). In the Copperbelt, Sata, using his organizational skills as a former national secretary of the MMD, exploited anti-Chinese sentiments to rally support behind his campaign. Amid concerns about low returns from the resurgent mining industry, Sata promised to ensure that more Zambians would be employed in Chinese-operated copper-mining companies. In response to complaints about low wages and poor working conditions for Zambian workers employed by Chinese firms, Sata promised to reverse pro-Chinese policies if he got elected. Although he toned down these promises in the 2008 and 2011 election campaigns, his supporters still expected him to honor them and deal decisively with Chinese investors in the country. Sata’s softening stance on the role of the Chinese in Zambia may have been influenced by the Chinese government’s open condemnation of his flirtation with Taiwan and its subsequent threat that China would cancel all aid to Zambia if Sata was elected. Perhaps in an attempt to assure the Chinese government that he would honor Zambia’s obligations, Sata has since made peace with the Chinese. Thus, Zambia-China relations have remained cordial after the PF came to power, suggesting that the Chinese government cajoled Sata into line, with promises of interest-free loans and generous grants or by using its political clout on the international stage (Larmer and Fraser 2007). Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that specific elements of Zambia’s institutional architecture, most notably the fact that the president is elected with a plurality of votes, contributed to the continuance of MMD’s dominant position even after the party no longer commanded a majority of seats in parliament. Combined with the neopatrimonial linkages the MMD used to co-opt members of the opposition, the institutional architecture created a situation of manufactured one-party dominance in which the party kept its grip on political and state institutions without being electorally dominant. We have also shown that the historical legacy of the MMD as the prodemocracy movement that brought about the end of single-party rule, which was a source of legitimacy during its first decade in power, did not withstand the test of time, especially in the context of changing class and regional loyalties. Finally, we have observed the importance of political culture in Zambia’s party system trajectory. The Zambian

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case suggests that the formation of broad prodemocracy movements during democratic transitions delegitimized opposition, thus contributing to a culture of one-party dominance. However, in the character of the dominant party as an umbrella organization also lay the seeds of the collapse of one-party dominance. Leadership-centered politics, succession issues, and factionalism made managing diverse factions and keeping the MMD together difficult. The emergence of dominant parties in sub-Saharan Africa has been the subject of some academic debate (Van de Walle and Butler 1999; Bogaards 2000, 2004; Erdmann and Basedau 2008) but with little agreement about the effects of one-party dominance on the political system. The end of one-party dominance has so far escaped scholarly attention. This oversight is remarkable because the collapse of dominant parties can shed as much light on party system developments and their consequences for democracy as a focus on enduring one-party dominance. The Zambian case is particularly interesting in this regard because the party that ended MMD’s twenty-year dominance did not achieve a convincing victory. Michael Sata and the PF obtained 42.9 percent of the national vote and only 40 percent of parliamentary seats in the 2011 elections. This narrow electoral victory has important implications for party system stability and the viability of the PF’s hold on power. A constitutional proposal that would require the president to be elected by an absolute majority (more than 50 percent of the vote) may be accepted some time in the future. Given the current power relations between political parties, this legal change would force a second round runoff between the two top presidential candidates. Such a runoff may not favor Sata and his PF. Based on the 2011 election results, the combined support for the opposition parties stands at 57 percent. Thus, the PF’s position in power is far from guaranteed. As already observed above, state patronage and the advantages of incumbency have been used by parties in power to win elections, but MMD’s defeat in the 2011 elections shows that even a divided opposition can wrest power away from the incumbent party. Given these dynamics, the Zambian case deserves more attention and further study. It can assist us in understanding the complex interplay of underlying mechanisms that drive party system developments. Notes 1. Personal communication with Griffiths Nang’omba, former UPND MP, 15 April 2010.

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2. A similar absorption of a rival party occurred in Zimbabwe in 1987, when Joshua Nkomo was persuaded to disband his Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), and join the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) led by President Robert Mugabe. 3. Despite tribal balancing, certain racial, ethnic, and religious minorities were always excluded from power. 4. Other political parties were also affected. The Caucus for National Unity (CNU) led by Lozi-speaking people first split in early 1992, while the National Party (NP) led by Tonga-, Lozi-, and Kaonde-speaking people was to follow a year later. 5. Personal communication with Mbita Chitala, former deputy minister and secretary-general of the now defunct Zambia Democratic Congress (ZDC), 10 March 2010. 6. The position of vice president was revived by the MMD following the resignation of Rupiah Banda as party leader in the wake in his defeat in the 2011 presidential elections. In May 2012, the party elected Nevers Mumba as party leader and created two vice presidential positions, which were filled in September 2012 by former ministers, Michael Kaingu and Brian Chituwo. 7. Former finance minister and Chilanga MP Ng’andu Magande and former defense minister and Kafulafuta MP George Mpombo as well as Katuba MP Jonas Shakafuswa and late Mpulungu MP Lameck Chibombamilimo. 8. Personal communication with Mike Mulongoti, former minister of works and supply and MMD chairperson for elections, 28 June 2010. Mike Mulongoti was expelled from the MMD in early 2011 for aspiring to the position of vice president of the party against the preferences of former president Rupiah Banda. 9. Personal communication with Sikota Wina, former deputy speaker and senior member of the MMD during Chiluba’s first term of office, 22 January 2010. 10. Personal communication with a senior member of the PF, 22 April 2010. See also Simutanyi (2010).

7 Mali: From Dominant Party to Platform of Unity Martin van Vliet

Amadou Toumani Touré just before the end of his second term in office. This uprising by disgruntled soldiers not only exposed the longstanding problem of fragile state authority in Mali’s northern regions, but also brought an end to a period of emerging democracy in Mali. In this chapter, I will discuss the party system change that occurred in Mali prior to the current turmoil. IN MARCH 2012, A MILITARY COUP OUSTED MALIAN PRESIDENT

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The trajectory of the Malian party system since the early 1990s is of particular interest to students of one-party dominance in sub-Saharan Africa. In the initial period after Mali’s transition to multiparty democracy in 1992, the party system was dominated by the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (Alliance pour la Démocratie en Mali [ADEMA]). However, this party’s dominance did not last for more than two elections. ADEMA’s seat share dropped dramatically from 87.1 percent in 1997 to 30.6 percent in the third multiparty elections of 2002 and 34.7 percent in the 2007 elections. In other words, although the party system showed signs of initial one-party dominance, it witnessed a sharp move away from this trend during the second decade of multiparty democracy. In this chapter, I weigh the significance of the seven factors outlined in the introductory chapter of this book for the trajectory of oneparty dominance in Mali. Which underlying mechanisms best account for ADEMA’s initial dominance? And what mechanisms lie behind the 143

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subsequent move away from one-party dominance? I will highlight a particularly interesting characteristic of the Malian trajectory: the dramatic loss of the dominant party did not lead to a more balanced system of party competition. Instead, the dominant party gave way to an allparty platform of national unity. The Trajectory of Party System Change in Mali One year after a successful coup against General Moussa Traoré in March 1991, Mali celebrated its return to multipartyism. The results of the first two multiparty elections show the position of dominance that ADEMA initially managed to achieve. The party secured 65.6 percent of parliamentary seats in the 1992 elections and 87.1 percent in 1997. However, the Malian party system did not develop into a one-partydominant system because ADEMA failed to secure more than 50 percent of parliamentary seats in the third consecutive election. Mali thus belongs to a group of countries in which initial one-party dominance did not persist. Similar to party systems in other countries on the African continent, the dominance of ADEMA was accompanied by extreme fragmentation of the opposition (Van de Walle 2003). The transitional government and national conference, which in 1991 and 1992 paved the way for Mali’s return to multiparty politics, adopted the Political Parties Act, which included minimal criteria for the registration of political parties. Between April and December 1991, more than twenty-five parties registered. More than a decade later, over 120 parties have received a registration card (PPRCPP/NIMD 2004). In parliament, ADEMA was initially surrounded by nine smaller parties, but this number dropped to seven in 1997. When ADEMA lost its dominant position in 2002, the fragmentation of the party system increased. During the elections in 2007 fifteen political parties gained parliamentary representation. The first two multiparty elections seemed to provide a solid foundation for a one-party-dominant system to establish itself in Mali. As M. Bratton and N. Van de Walle (2002) have illustrated, opposition parties in sub-Saharan Africa have difficulty recovering electoral terrain when they perform poorly in the “founding elections” that mark the return to multiparty politics. Mali’s opposition did not perform well during the 1992 elections and proved to be fragmented and weakly institutionalized, which further reduced the likelihood of a more balanced party system developing (cf. LeBas 2011). Despite the weakness of the opposition, the

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third multiparty elections in 2002 marked the end of one-party dominance in Mali. This rupture did not result from increased cooperation among or electoral recovery of opposition parties. Rather, the presidential elections and the subsequent role of the newly elected president proved to be the turning point. The 2002 presidential elections were won by Amadou Toumani Touré, who had led the coup against the Traoré regime in 1991 and decided to contest the 2002 elections as an independent candidate. The newly elected president, popularly referred to as ATT, managed to gain the support of a broad coalition of political parties and civic associations by way of an appeal to national unity and consensus. In fact, all parties in parliament rallied behind the president during his first term in office (2002–2007), leaving the opposition benches empty. During his second term (2007–2012), Touré’s Alliance for Democracy and Progress (Alliance pour la Démocratie et le Progrès [ADP]), which included the former dominant party ADEMA, continued to dominate parliament and Malian politics at large, with only three smaller parties not being in support of the president. Whereas ADEMA dominated the party system during the first decade of multiparty politics in Mali, President Touré’s platform of unity emerged as the dominant force during the second decade. In other words, a balanced and competitive multiparty system with a viable and increasingly institutionalized opposition did not materialize. The remaining sections of this chapter will be focused on the mechanisms that lie behind this trajectory of one-party dominance in Mali. I will look at the factors that can best explain the initial dominance of ADEMA and try to identify the mechanisms behind the dramatic change in 2002 and the party system trajectory thereafter.

Mechanisms of Party System Change in Mali Historical Legacy

In contrast to dominant parties in Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania, Mali’s ADEMA did not have deep historical roots nor could it claim legitimacy on the basis of an anticolonial liberation struggle. Established as a prodemocracy movement in 1991, the basis on which ADEMA built its dominance proved much shakier than the foundation of other dominant parties on the continent. ADEMA’s level of internal unity was already limited at the time of its formation. The party was

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established as a merger of three resistance movements that had fought against General Moussa Traoré’s regime. The constitutive blocks of ADEMA were the Malian Party of Labour (Parti Malien du Travail [PMT]), the Malian Party for Democracy and Revolution (Parti Malien pour la Révolution et la Démocratie [PMRD]), and the Committee to Defend Democratic Freedoms in Mali (Comité de Défense des Libertés Démocratiques au Mali [CDLDM]). The PMT was a group of urban elites particularly well connected to Malians living in Senegal and France. Within Mali, the trade unions were the PMT’s main support base.1 The PMRD had its most significant branch in the Soviet Union (Diarrah 1991). In 1986, these two movements together with CDLDM and representatives of the former ruling party the Sudanese Union–African Democratic Rally (Union Soudanaise-Rassemblement Démocratique Africain [US-RDA]) established the National Democratic People’s Front (Front National Démocratique et Populaire [FNDP]). This broad platform, together with the Malian Student Association (Association des Élèves et Étudiants du Mali [AEEM]) and the National Congress for Democratic Initiative (Congrès National d’Initiative Démocratique [CNID]), mobilized popular protest against military rule.2 After a protest march in central Bamako was put down violently in March 1991,3 a military coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré deposed General Moussa Traoré. Touré would subsequently preside over the transitional government that prepared Mali’s return to multiparty politics. The resistance movements cooperating within the FNDP decided to merge into one political party, ADEMA, and divided the positions on its National Executive Committee amongst themselves. The merger of these groups into one political party created a substantial electoral basis for ADEMA in the run-up to the first multiparty elections in 1992. The new party managed to include members of the educated elite at the local, regional, and national levels. Especially teachers and nurses occupied important positions within the party structures at the grassroots and formed an important constituency for ADEMA (Diarrah 1991; Amundsen 2000). In order to strengthen its electoral platform, the party decided, after heated internal debate, to co-opt numerous regional and local power brokers who had collaborated with the former regime. As a result of the inclusion of these different interest groups, the party was not particularly internally coherent at the time of its formal establishment. Already prior to the 1992 elections, significant tensions arose between the PMT and PMRD factions within ADEMA. Whereas PMRD was a more intellectually and ideologically oriented movement that had always kept its distance from the military

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regime, PMT representatives had been more pragmatic. Some of them, including Alpha Oumar Konaré who was ADEMA’s presidential candidate in 1992, had served as ministers under the military regime of Traoré. The resultant internal wrangling fueled breakaways and party splits, of which the creation of the Movement for the Independence, Renaissance, and Integration of Africa (Mouvement pour l’Independence, la Renaissance et l’Intégration Africaine [MIRIA]) in 1994 by ADEMA’s vice president and a number of other senior PMT representatives was the most noteworthy. In addition to ADEMA’s limited historical roots and poor level of internal unity, a third factor contributed to the relatively weak position of the party that was electorally dominant in the first two Malian multiparty elections. In some African countries, liberation movements dominated the process of transition toward democracy, and they determined the institutional architecture of the new democratic dispensation. In Mali, the transition to multiparty politics took the form of a coup against Traoré, which was led by Touré. Functioning as the head of state, Touré subsequently organized the national conference that drafted the new Malian Constitution and prepared the parliamentary and presidential elections of 1992. Only 10 percent of participants in the national conference represented a political party, and ADEMA was just one of many stakeholders involved. Thus, the influence of political parties in the process of democratic transition was limited. No single party controlled the process or pushed through proposals aimed at protecting its interests. In sum, the historical legacy of ADEMA differs from other parties on the continent that managed to dominate their respective party systems for a lengthy period of time. ADEMA’s character as a weakly institutionalized political party and the immediate internal rivalries between the various party factions as well as the limited influence ADEMA had over the process of transition created a rather shaky foundation for the trajectory of one-party dominance in Mali. Social Cleavages

Malian citizens are members of multiple interconnected social groups. The relevance of social cleavages, such as ethnicity, religion, and class, for the support bases of Malian political parties appears to be limited (Dunning and Harrison 2010). Class-based politics, for example, has not emerged over the last two decades. Most Malians are active in the agricultural sector, which is dominated by subsistence farmers. For more than eight out of ten people, their main occupation is directly related to agri-

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culture, livestock, or fishing (Marouani and Raffinot 2004). The vast majority of citizens are not integrated into the formal economy. In the 1980s, the informal economy expanded rapidly, and only a very small proportion of the overall population were then and are now officially salaried employees. Although the share of mining, especially gold mining, in the economy is increasing, it remains modest in terms of number of employees. Furthermore, many people working in this sector are nonMalians. Thus, class differences play only a marginal role in the construction of identity and have limited political relevance (Sears 2007). None of the main political parties in Mali advocates the interests of a specific socioeconomic class. Religious differences also have little relevance to the support bases of political parties, firstly, because almost all Malians are Muslim and, secondly, because religion is strongly related to other identities (Soares 2005). So far, political parties have not used emerging differences in religious interpretation as a basis for the mobilization of party support. In the run-up to the 2002 elections, the High Council of Islam attempted to rally popular support behind a particular presidential candidate on the basis of religious arguments but failed (Sears 2007; Bleck 2010). However, religion has proven to be an important mobilizing force for broad popular protest. This influence was demonstrated by the widespread protests against the adoption of a progressive family code by the National Assembly in 2009. Within a very short span of time, religious movements mobilized over 50,000 people to protest against the repeal of the so-called obedience clause (which specified the inferior status of women in relation to their husbands), against the increased age of marriage and the lack of legal status for religious marriages, and against particular changes in rights around inheritance. The protests proved highly effective, and two years after having adopted the progressive code, the very same parliamentarians voted for a revised version that took into account most of the objections raised. Yet the radical interpretation of Islam that is currently being forced upon local communities in northern Mali enjoys little popular support. While an externally driven but locally appropriated differentiation of religious interpretations has occurred over the last decade, these differences have not translated into specific constituencies for any of the main political parties.4 Because experts expected that ethnic diversity would encourage party system fragmentation, ethnic cleavages have played a prominent role in research on African political parties and party systems. Mali can be classified as an ethnically heterogeneous society. Almost half of the population belongs to the largest linguistic-ethnic group, the Mandé, which in turn is composed of Bamana, Soninke, and Malinke. In addi-

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tion, five other ethnic groups exist. On a scale developed to measure ethnic diversity, Mali’s scores clearly indicate that it is not ethnically homogeneous. However, Malian political parties have not used ethnicity to mobilize party support. Recent studies (Posner 2004; Cheeseman and Ford 2007; Dowd and Driessen 2008; Basedau and Stroh 2009) demonstrate that, with only one exception, none of the Malian parties can be labeled as an ethnic party. N. Cheeseman and R. Ford (2007) identify the CNID as the only party in their Malian sample that qualifies as an ethnic party, while M. Basedau and A. Stroh (2009) show that both ADEMA and the Rally for Mali (Rassemblement pour le Mali [RPM]) have weak ethnic support bases. Throughout the 1990s, ADEMA attracted supporters from different ethnic groups. No particular ethnic group considered the party to be theirs. In other words, in the context of an ethnically heterogeneous society, ADEMA established itself as a multiethnic party. In the run-up to and just after the watershed elections of 2002, ADEMA faced two important party splits. In 2001, its former party president and former prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita broke away and later founded the RPM. Then in 2003, Soumaïla Cissé, who had been ADEMA’s presidential candidate in the 2002 elections, created the Union for the Republic and Democracy (Union pour la République et la Démocratie [URD]). Although Malinke people are more likely to vote for RPM, the party has only a weak ethnic support basis. And although URD is sometimes considered a Songhai party as a result of the ethnic background of many of its senior party members, URD’s actual support basis shows that it cannot be classified as an ethnic party. Despite the fact that ethnic parties are absent from the Malian party system, research conducted by T. Dunning and L. Harrison (2010) suggests that Malians do prefer a politician from their own ethnic background over a candidate from another ethnic group. This preference is, however, counterbalanced by the social phenomenon of cousinage: the historically based “joking relationships” between particular patronymics5 that cut across ethnic boundaries. Dunning and Harrison (2010) show that the relationships between people with given patronymics influence their appreciation of and support for politicians. Political “cousins” (i.e., politicians with a particular patronymic with whom a voter maintains a joking relation) are evaluated more positively than politicians with another patronymic and are therefore more likely to be supported. This preference to vote for one’s political cousin stems from people’s conviction that political cousins, once in office, are more likely to provide assistance to them. In the absence of voter mobilization based on ethnic, religious, or class cleavages, personalized clientelistic networks strongly influence

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the relationship between voters and political parties. Afrobarometer (2004) data reveal that the vast majority of Malian citizens do not feel closely related to a particular political party. Instead, support networks within localized hierarchical structures are a decisive factor in voter mobilization (Koter 2009).6 The 1992 election demonstrated the significance of clientelistic networks and localized support. ADEMA’s presidential candidate Alpha Oumar Konaré won in all but nine constituencies. Not coincidentally, these nine were the home constituencies of his direct competitors (Vengroff 1993). The independence party US-RDA is marginalized today but has managed to keep one parliamentary seat in Tombouctou, the hometown of its leader. More political parties with a small, localized support basis have secured parliamentary representation over the years. As J. M. Sears (2007: 156) concludes in his dissertation on Mali’s process of democratic consolidation, “the links to regions of origin are key to political mobilization and economic redistribution.” Thus, while the urban-rural divide seems to be an increasingly relevant cleavage around which opposition and ruling parties in various African countries mobilize popular support, this divide is not to be found in Mali’s party system. All the larger Malian political parties draw support from both urban and rural areas. They have in fact a history of connecting urban elites with rural constituents through their networks of personalized clientelistic relations (see the sections on political culture and state-party relations below). In conclusion, clearly social cleavages such as class, religion, ethnicity, and the urban-rural divide are not the main mechanisms behind the development and trajectory of Mali’s party system. The dominance of ADEMA during the first decade of multipartyism did not result from the party’s successfully mobilizing support from the main ethnic group or around other social cleavages. Personalized clientelistic networks between politicians and citizens appear to be much more influential in shaping party support. Citizens do not closely identify with a particular political party and often switch parties (cf. Bleck 2010). Thus, the brief one-party dominance in Mali was established on shaky grounds. The sections below will discuss in more detail the fluid nature of relations between citizens and parties, which seems to be an important factor in the trajectory of Mali’s party system. Institutional Architecture

The institutional architecture of Malian democracy has had a strong impact on the development of the Malian party system since 1992. The

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principal pillars of the current institutional framework were set up during the national conference that was held between 29 July and 12 August 1991. Although the conference brought together over 700 delegates, the list of participants did not reflect Malian society. The majority of delegates were well-educated, urban, male, francophone civil servants. Nevertheless, the constitution gained popular legitimacy when it was adopted by referendum on 12 January 1992. The transition process was greatly influenced by Mali’s (upper) middle class, who had cooperated in various degrees with the military regime of General Moussa Traoré. In order to maintain their authority over society in the new democratic dispensation, they were reluctant to accept and unwilling to work toward extensive socio-political changes and opted for a continuation of strong executive dominance (Sears 2007; Jourde 2008). The secession threat of the Tuareg rebels encouraged the implementation of an ambitious decentralization program throughout the 1990s.7 Decentralization, however, did not prevent or curtail a simultaneous trajectory of executive and one-party dominance. In fact, the ruling party, ADEMA, benefited from the thousands of new political positions established at the local level, thus strengthening its dominant position. Two legislative proposals were adopted during the national conference that also contributed to—rather than counterbalanced—ADEMA’s initial dominance. First, the electoral system, which requires an absolute majority of votes to secure victory in a particular constituency, significantly benefited ADEMA. R. Vengroff (1993) has demonstrated that under proportional representation, the ruling party would have obtained 43 of the 116 parliamentary seats instead of the 76 seats it secured in the 1992 elections. The opposition, on the other hand, would have done much better if a system of proportional representation had been in effect. US-RDA would have secured twenty-one seats instead of the eight seats it actually obtained, whereas RDP would have obtained ten rather than four seats. Proportional representation was considered during the national conference but rejected because of fears of political instability (Massicotte 2009). Instead, a majoritarian system of closed party lists in single- and multimember constituencies was adopted.8 Not surprisingly, after 1992, electoral reform became one of the main demands of an increasingly frustrated opposition. In 1996, ADEMA ignored protests by opposition parties and used its parliamentary majority to push through a new electoral act that was subsequently annulled by the constitutional court. The ruling party then initiated a process of interparty dialogue and agreed to the establishment of an

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independent electoral commission. The commission was, however, unable to adequately prepare the 1997 elections within the very short amount of time still available. After a chaotic first round of voting, the Constitutional Court saw no other option but to officially annul the results (International Foundation for Electoral Systems [IFES] 1997).9 The opposition parties wanted the problems to be resolved before a new round of elections took place. ADEMA, however, again ignored their wishes and decided to set a date for new elections to be held within a month. A number of opposition parties subsequently boycotted the elections and both President Alpha Oumar Konaré and ADEMA secured an easy victory.10 As a consequence, the level of party system volatility increased, despite ADEMA’s electorally dominant position. Eight parties that had gained parliamentary representation in 1992 did not return to the National Assembly, while six new parties entered parliament in 1997. President Konaré did accede to some of the opposition’s demands concerning the electoral system. Before the second multiparty elections in 1997, the number of seats in the National Assembly increased from 116 to 147, and the number of single-member constituencies was reduced. The latter move encouraged the larger parties to establish electoral alliances in the run-up to elections and might have played a role in the dramatic loss of ADEMA’s dominant position in 2002. In the run-up to the 2002 and 2007 elections, alliance building certainly saw a notable increase. The second legislative proposal adopted during the national conference that greatly influenced the trajectory of Mali’s party system was the Political Parties Act. The national conference had established only minimal criteria for political parties to officially register. The procedure consists of three simple administrative steps and includes no criteria related to national representation or organizational capacity, thus engendering a fragmentation of the Malian party system. While public funding for political parties was widely objected to during the national conference, it was introduced in 2000 (law N.00-045, 7/07/2000). Although most of the public funding goes to the larger parties, parties without representation in parliament are also entitled to a basic amount of state funding. The Political Parties Act and the system of public funding for political parties not only directly benefited ADEMA (as the largest party) but also contributed to a fragmented opposition (Baudais and Chauzal 2006). This high level of fragmentation in turn seems to have contributed to ADEMA’s initial dominance (cf. Samaké 2007; Bleck 2010). At first glance, the institutional choices made during Mali’s transition period appeared to be influenced by international factors. A. Cissé

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(2006) even regards Mali’s 1992 constitution as a “pale copy” of the French 1958 constitution. Indeed, French advisors provided input for the draft constitution that was discussed at the national conference (Massicotte 2009). However, important differences between the political systems are apparent, especially with regard to the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government. For example, in Mali a two-thirds majority in parliament is required to censure the government, whereas a simple majority can pass a vote of no confidence in France. In addition, Mali’s system of government can justifiably be classified as superpresidential (Siaroff 2003; Van Cranenburg 2008). Unlike the French system, Mali’s form of semipresidentialism does little to limit presidential power. In fact, the Malian president has only a few colleagues on the continent with equally strong powers. Especially in the context of Mali’s neopatrimonial system and its economy, in which resources other than those managed by the state are limited, the powerful position of president is the ultimate prize of political competition. Moreover, the fact that the presidential elections are organized a few months prior to the parliamentary elections creates strong incentives for local and regional power brokers to align themselves with the newly elected president and the party that has managed to win the presidency. Throughout the 1990s, controlling the presidency provided ADEMA with a significant advantage over other parties, thereby contributing to its dominant position. In many northern cities and villages, ADEMA secured support from the traditional leaders and their families by allocating positions in the state bureaucracy, thus creating networks of mutual dependence. Other political parties, obviously, did not have similar advantages. The high level of executive dominance frustrated opposition parties. At the same time, the overwhelming influence of the president increased factionalism within the ruling party and negatively affected its overall organizational capacity, especially because, as we have noted above, ADEMA was not a strongly institutionalized party. Because power was heavily concentrated in the hands of the president and his close allies, the party itself was increasingly marginalized over time. Tensions between party leaders, which intensified when President Konaré was constitutionally prohibited to stand for a third term in office, resulted in party splits.11 Thus, internal competition in the context of leadership succession was a major contributor to ADEMA’s dramatic loss in the 2002 presidential elections. The party’s dominant position abruptly came to an end mainly because it could not withstand internal tensions and failed to successfully manage issues of leadership succession.12

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Mali’s party system has developed in a broader sociocultural context within which the virtues of mutual cooperation, unity, and consensus are widely recognized. Public opinion shows that Malian political culture is not a fertile breeding ground for party political competition. As a group of scholars put it, “the Malian conception of democracy is largely communitarian. It centers on a set of political values such as ‘equality’ and ‘justice,’ ‘mutual respect,’ ‘unity’ and ‘working together.’ . . . Malians prefer social consensus and national unity to political and economic competition” (Bratton, Coulibaly, and Machado 2002: 208). Ever since independence in 1960, these core values have been used to legitimize a broad movement of national unity under strong presidential leadership. After Mali’s move toward multiparty politics in 1992, ADEMA proved unable to fully appropriate this notion of national unity and increasingly struggled to use it to its advantage. By contrast, President Amadou Toumani Touré, who in 2002 was elected as an independent candidate, proved highly successful in using the discourse of national unity and building an all-party political platform. Immediately after its victory in the 1992 elections, ADEMA adhered to the political-cultural values of national unity and cooperation and decided to work closely together with other political parties and share cabinet positions.13 Later, amid growing popular demands and urban protests, ADEMA further enlarged the ruling coalition in order to reinforce national unity, preserve political stability, and safeguard the recent democratic gains. However, the broader political platform that ADEMA created disintegrated well before the end of the party’s first term in office. ADEMA’s political allies were increasingly frustrated by the party’s infiltration of the state apparatus, blurring state-party boundaries,14 and its lack of cooperation in day-to-day government business. They subsequently decided to withdraw from government. Interparty relations further soured when former allies interfered in and supported ongoing (often violent) student demonstrations against the ADEMA-led government.15 Amid these increased levels of polarization, the power of an appeal to national unity was lost. Following the controversy around the electoral process, an opposition coalition was formed, which subsequently boycotted the 1997 elections. Thus, ADEMA secured an easy win and a second term for President Konaré but could no longer be regarded as the embodiment of national unity. In the run-up to the 2002 elections, ADEMA, which controlled the presidency and a vast majority of seats in parliament, appeared to be in

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a good position to win and maintain its electoral dominance. However, because term limits precluded President Konaré from standing for a third term in office, the incumbent party was confronted with fierce competition between senior party representatives who wanted to become ADEMA’s presidential candidate. This rivalry represented not only a contest between individuals but also a competition between considerable networks of patronage aimed at distributing positions and access to resources. In the run-up to the nomination process, a reformist faction within ADEMA sidelined former prime minister and party chairman Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Together with a number of close allies, he subsequently left the party and formed his own political movement, which later became the RPM. The breakaway group was followed by an extensive network of national, regional, and local party representatives and members. As a consequence, Keita effectively split the ADEMA vote during the first round of the 2002 presidential elections.16 Prior to the second round, he mobilized his supporters to vote against ADEMA, thus paving the way for Amadou Toumani Touré, who was running as an independent candidate, to win the presidency.17 In an attempt to realign themselves with the likely winner, numerous senior ADEMA representatives openly supported Touré and campaigned against ADEMA’s own candidate, Soumaïla Cissé, in the run-up to the second round. Obviously frustrated by this lack of support from his own party,18 Cissé subsequently broke away from ADEMA and founded the URD in 2003. As with Keita, a large number of ADEMA representatives followed Cissé, and his party has performed well in subsequent elections. Touré came to power in 2002 with the support of a broad alliance of regional power brokers, smaller parties, and countless civic associations. As an independent candidate, he revitalized the national unity discourse. Following years of political polarization, he emphasized the need for political stability and promoted his wish to “unite everyone behind Mali’s socio-economic development,”19 linking this ideal with a need for strong leadership. Upon his election, Touré invited all principal political actors to partake in Mali’s governance processes on the condition that they accept his sturdy authority. Former opposition leaders gratefully accepted the invitation, which (re)established their access to the resources of the political center, thus enabling them to nurture their personalized support networks. 20 Various networks that had jointly operated under the institutional cover of the dominant party ADEMA found themselves back in business, albeit under different party labels. In sum, politics in Mali revolves around clientelistic relations between citizens and politicians who have managed to build a support

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network in a particular geographical area.21 Weakly institutionalized political parties accommodate these networks, thus providing an avenue to state resources. This personalistic character of politics directly contributed to the dramatic loss of ADEMA in the 2002 elections, which altered the trajectory of one-party dominance in Mali. The subsequent move toward an all-party platform of national unity was legitimized by appealing to the core social values of unity, harmony, and cooperation that had gradually lost their political force under one-party dominance. However, these references to political and cultural values were framed within a constellation of power relations and material interests. His allparty platform enabled President Touré to curb the ambitions of alternative centers of power and boost his own authority. Moreover, the platform also allowed a wide range of political actors to secure access to state resources and nurture their support networks (see the section on state-party relations below). Government Performance

Poor socioeconomic performance combined with an authoritarian style of governance greatly contributed to the demise of US-RDA in 1968 and Traoré’s Democratic Union of the Malian People (Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien [UDPM]) in 1991. By contrast, ADEMA’s dramatic loss of its dominant position in 2002 was not directly related to widespread popular dissatisfaction with its performance in office. Upon independence in 1960, independence party US-RDA radically broke away from Mali’s former colonial power France, strengthened diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union, implemented a socialist political program, and pulled the country out of the regional monetary union, thus delinking its currency from France. The nationalization of the economy, however, gave rise to a highly inefficient state bureaucracy, while Mali’s monetary isolation further contributed to increasing socioeconomic challenges. Commercial vendors and traders took to the streets and were soon accompanied by opposition forces. Exports had dropped dramatically, and during a devastating drought, the regime could not import sufficient food to avoid widespread famine. In 1967, President Modibo Keita brought Mali back into the regional monetary union while its currency was devalued. But the change in policies proved too late. Amid ever-growing popular dissatisfaction with his performance, Keita was overthrown by a military coup led by Moussa Traoré. The Traoré regime also faced increasing economic challenges as a result of global economic developments, droughts, and poor economic

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management. Moreover, in the 1980s the country was confronted with high urbanization rates while the state could not advance social services (Van Westen 1995). People started to depend on the informal sector for jobs and housing. The purchasing power of the urban population dropped to half of the 1962 level (Ouédrago and Piché 1995). With the treasury almost empty, General Traoré was forced to call upon the Bretton Woods institutions for assistance. Under the structural adjustment plans, public wages were frozen, many civil servants discharged, food subsidies brought to an end, and social services cut. Despite a modest economic and a substantial fiscal recovery, Malian citizens became increasingly frustrated with the Traoré regime. Traoré’s rule was built on a closed network of loyal followers, within which the northern communities were particularly underrepresented.22 The political elite was seen as passing the social costs of its economic policy on to ordinary citizens, especially when numerous corruption scandals revealed that they continued to illegally benefit from their positions within the state bureaucracy. In 1991, the Traoré regime was eventually overthrown in the military coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré, who, after retiring from the army, would go on to serve as Mali’s elected president from 2002 to 2012. Following the transition toward multiparty democracy, the new ADEMA-led regime was confronted with considerable popular demands. During their first term in office from 1992 to 1997, the government struggled to live up to the high popular expectations. It was constrained by heavy debt, built up under Traoré’s single-party rule, and by international pressure to cut state spending. Student demonstrations were the order of the day. The new party in power also inherited an ongoing Tuareg rebellion against the Malian state, which had started under the previous regime but evolved into a small-scale civil war during the first half of the 1990s.23 Despite these setbacks, ADEMA maintained a stable macroeconomic environment and realized an annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5 percent, on average, during its decade in power (from 1992 to 2002). While in 1994 the country’s imports were only covered by 60 percent of export revenues, this rate was augmented to 110 percent in 2002 (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] 2004). Social indicators also improved, at least in quantitative terms. Enrollment figures in primary schools increased from 36.4 percent in 1999 to 55.6 percent in 2004. Mali’s overall Human Development Index score improved gradually from 0.287 in 1990 to 0.380 in 1998, whereas formal employment increased in line with GDP growth (UNDP 2004),

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and poverty indices dropped by around 7 percent (International Monetary Fund [IMF] 2003). However, despite economic growth, inequality in society increased, and the quality of social services remained poor or even deteriorated (Marouani and Raffinot 2004). While popular opinion was greatly in favor of “economic democracy,” the economic advances brought only very limited improvements to the daily lives of the vast majority of ordinary citizens. Opinion polls conducted by the end of ADEMA’s second term in office reflect popular frustration with the elitist style of governance advanced by the dominant party.24 Informal political networks continued to heavily influence the functioning of the state bureaucracy and the principal economic sectors (cotton and gold). Development initiatives were incorporated within and often obstructed by these informal political networks, at both the national and local levels. In sum, frustration arose among ordinary citizens about the elitist form of democracy that had been established by ADEMA. However, these feelings of frustration did not engender broad-based popular protests. Internal rivalry and the resultant party splits discussed above seem to have contributed more to the demise of ADEMA as a dominant party than its actual performance in office. State-Party Relations

Privileged access to state resources has played an important role in the trajectory of Mali’s one-party dominance. Initially, blurred boundaries between party and state provided ADEMA with a major advantage and strengthened its dominant position. The party could provide family members of local and regional power brokers with jobs in the government administration. Throughout the 1990s, the state—and thereby the ruling party—also maintained a strong grip on key economic activities, particularly in the cotton and gold sectors. For example, a group of senior ADEMA representatives was popularly known as the “clan CMDT,” named after the national cotton company, which was controlled by this group. ADEMA also obtained privileged access to the state media. The national television and radio company (Office de RadiodiffusionTélévision du Mali [ORTM]) intensively covered the activities and views of representatives of the ruling party. This preferential treatment by the state media was most effective in the early years of the ADEMA government. In subsequent years, it was slightly countered by the explosive growth of independent community radio stations (Schultz 1999).

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As the results of the 2002 elections show, this privileged access to state resources did not insulate the ruling party from the devastating effects of internal battles and party splits. In other words, the strength of state-party relations did not guarantee continued electoral success. On the contrary, ADEMA’s clientelistic networks aimed at connecting citizens to centralized state resources proved to be the party’s Achilles’ heel. These networks benefited from the party’s privileged access to state resources, but also competed for resources amongst each other. This rivalry among personalized clientelistic networks at least partly explains the end of one-party dominance in 2002 and the subsequent move toward an all-party platform of national unity. Both the demise of ADEMA as the dominant party and President Amadou Toumani Touré’s success are heavily influenced by Mali’s well-established tradition of personalistic politics. During the colonial period, more precisely in 1946, West African urban intellectuals in Bamako established the African Democratic Rally [RDA]). They transcended the urban-rural divide by developing clientelistic networks with rural power brokers (cf. Herbst 2000; Cooper 2002). Successive regimes continued to rely on such informal, personalized relations to bridge the urban-rural divide.25 The persistence of these networks today can be partly explained by the pressures current politicians face from below. Results of the Afrobarometer (2008a) survey conducted in Mali reveal that the majority of citizens primarily expect politicians to bring jobs and development to their home areas, to respond to private demands of constituents, and to represent local interests at the national level. Malian voters tend to support politicians from their region of origin who are known and trusted and are believed to be capable of providing tangible services and goods.26 In this context, political parties are merely the institutional tools politicians use to maintain and nourish these personalized and geographically concentrated support networks. Parties serve as vehicles to connect localized demands with highly centralized state resources. 27 While the smaller parties are established around the personalized networks of the party leader, the larger parties consist of multiple and competing clientelistic networks.28 In 2002, some of these networks within ADEMA saw the writing on the wall and defected to the likely winner before the presidential elections; others joined Touré’s platform of national unity afterward. Above we discussed how the election of President Touré in 2002 was related to his successful appeal to the value of national unity. Here we need to emphasize the important role that access to state resources

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has played in Touré’s success. In-depth interviews by the author indicate that most political players rallied around the president in order to secure access to state resources. The following quote from a party leader and member of parliament (MP) who joined Touré’s alliance after years in opposition is illustrative: “For setting up a community school and other services in my constituency, I need signatures and funds from the minister of education. If your party is friends with the minister, it helps a lot.”29 Another parliamentarian was even more outspoken: Every time I want to, I can go and see the president. One of the wards in my constituency did not have electricity. So I went to see President Touré. I told him there were still doors of houses in my constituency decorated with his campaigning poster but lacking electricity. In my presence, the president personally called the director of the national electricity company to give instructions. If the president wouldn’t have intervened, we would still be waiting today. But now, they have electricity. So access to the president is crucial for developing my constituency, you see.30

However, many politicians who aligned themselves with the president indicated that they paid a price for participating in his platform of national unity. They were expected to refrain from publicly criticizing the president. Many MPs tellingly used the words “expected to shut up” or “hold our mouth shut.”31 This claim is in line with Sears’s (2007: 172) conclusion about Mali’s efforts to deepen democracy: “Mali’s platform of unity is, in fact, not effective at combining consensus and pluralism, but rather seeks consensus at the cost of pluralism.” In the run-up to the 2007 elections, political parties in general and ADEMA in particular were confronted with the question of whether to field a presidential candidate or support Touré’s quest for a second term in office. On the one hand, Touré, being an incumbent president backed by the business community, could provide future access to resources. Furthermore, the costs of political isolation if an ADEMA candidate contested the election and Touré won would be considerable. Once condemned to the opposition benches, a party would lose its valuable connections to centralized state resources and see its support networks crumble or defect (cf. Amundsen 2002). On the other hand, while ADEMA had been weakened by two major party splits, it still controlled over 30 percent of seats in parliament and held political networks covering the entire country. Therefore, the former dominant party decided to follow a middle way.

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During Touré’s first term, political parties had received only a limited number of ministerial positions in comparison to the civic movements and personal affiliates of the president (Baudais and Chauzal 2006). In the run-up to the 2007 elections, ADEMA became the driving force behind the establishment of a “grand coalition” of more than forty political parties aimed at improving the position of political parties within the president’s platform of national unity.32 By increasing their role in the president’s platform, ADEMA and other parties hoped to reinforce their clientelistic networks in preparation for the elections in 2012, in which Touré would no longer be able to stand. As it happened, the ADP alliance, together with numerous civic associations, secured a first round victory for President Touré in 2007. On the campaign trail, the various party leaders accompanied the president in those localities where their own support basis was primarily situated. As expected, the parties of the other presidential contenders were confronted with the dire consequences of the choice to compete against the incumbent. Opposition parties lost a vast amount of seats in the 2009 municipal elections and their local support networks increasingly defected to other parties.33 ADEMA’s choice to be part of the ADP alliance in 2007 illustrates again the important role that access to state resources plays in the fortunes of individual political parties and in the trajectory of the party system as a whole. It also demonstrates the important difference between so-called open seat elections34 on the one hand and electoral contests during which the incumbent stands for reelection on the other hand. International Influences

International factors seem to have contributed to some extent to Mali’s transition to multiparty democracy and to the initial dominance of ADEMA during the 1990s. However, international influences did not play a role in the subsequent trajectory of Mali’s party system. Mali’s transition to democratic rule in 1992 can only be fully understood within its international context. The early 1990s were marked by the end of the Cold War. French aid policies under President François Mitterrand became linked to demands for democratic reforms. Structural adjustment programs fuelled popular protests across the continent. In February 1990, Benin organized a national conference, which discussed and adopted democratic reforms, thus inspiring many people in the region.

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Despite these international influences, domestic forces played a crucial part in shaping Mali’s transition to multiparty politics. While international factors determined the context, domestic forces determined Mali’s particular road to democracy in the early 1990s. ADEMA secured a convincing electoral victory in 1992 as a result of its ability to co-opt existing and new political networks into one organization. Although the party received some international support, its electoral performance was largely due to successful domestic strategies. International influences, particularly Mali’s bilateral and multilateral aid relationships, played a more prominent role in ADEMA’s ability to maintain its position in power throughout the 1990s. By 1999, official development assistance covered more than 50 percent of government expenditure. A considerable percentage of Mali’s gross national income consisted of foreign aid (Africa South of the Sahara 2004). In a neopatrimonial context, where state-party boundaries are blurred, these foreign funds provided ADEMA with opportunities to entrench its position in the political system and society at large (see section on state-party relations above). Although numerous public enterprises were privatized as a result of aid packages signed with the Bretton Woods institutions, the Malian government maintained in both formal and informal ways a strong grip on the economy. The involvement of civil society and parliament in the development, implementation, and monitoring of bilateral and multilateral support programs was limited, which further fueled ADEMA’s dominant position. In addition, throughout the 1990s donors proved not to be critical about governance issues nor vocal about political reforms. As C. Jourde (2008: 85) states, Even a country like Mali, in which the legislative and presidential elections of 1997 were clearly unsatisfactory in terms of fairness and freeness, never faced any significant pressure. In fact, as the opposition parties boycotted an electoral contest they legitimately saw as too flawed, the president got re-elected with a “one-party style” score of 85% . . . and yet he was not the subject of the usual foreign “concerns” following the election.

The demise of ADEMA as a dominant party in 2002, however, illustrates that the particular advantages stemming from these international influences did not automatically translate into the endurance of one-party dominance over time. Clearly, domestic factors such as Mali’s political culture, the weak institutionalization of political parties, and the negative effects of leadership and succession battles proved much more influential in determining the electoral outcome of 2002.

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Conclusion During the country’s first decade of multiparty politics from 1992 to 2002, Mali’s party system was dominated by ADEMA. The 2002 elections marked the end of ADEMA’s position of dominance, although pluralistic politics with a strong opposition did not materialize. Instead, the dominant party was replaced by an all-party platform of national unity. In this chapter, I have revealed three underlying mechanisms that particularly influenced the trajectory of initial dominance. First, the capacity of ADEMA to bring together old and new political networks into one organization provided the party with a broad electoral platform in the run-up to the 1992 elections. ADEMA was a merger of multiple resistance movements against General Moussa Traoré and, in contrast to its two main political competitors at the time, the party also co-opted influential power brokers from the former authoritarian regime. Second, the electoral system and the Political Parties Act contributed to ADEMA’s initial dominance. Under a system of proportional representation, ADEMA would not have secured a majority in parliament in 1992. The Political Parties Act stimulated rather than prevented fragmentation of the party system, which indirectly benefited ADEMA because it weakened the opposition. Third, superpresidentialism favored ADEMA as the ruling party in both formal and informal ways. Given the extensive powers of the president, the political playing field did not guarantee equal opportunities to all political parties. Superpresidentialism also opened up informal gateways for ADEMA to maintain its political support networks and its position of dominance. The president’s control over the state, which was heavily sponsored by international donors, guaranteed the party’s access to resources with which it could feed its clientelistic support networks throughout the 1990s. However, in time the overwhelming influence of the president proved a double-edged sword, especially when the party failed to successfully manage issues of leadership succession. This turmoil increased factionalism within the ruling party and fueled tensions between party leaders. In this chapter, I also demonstrated that the demise of ADEMA as a dominant party in 2002 was not so much related to its actual performance in office. The fact that one-party dominance has not endured in Mali seems to be primarily connected to the country’s broader sociopolitical context characterized by a culture of personalistic politics. The composition of Malian society and its political culture did not allow for a party system to be established on the basis of social cleavages such as

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religion, class, or ethnicity. Ethnic divisions in particular are politically neutralized by the joking relationships of cousinage, which cut across social divisions. Malian politics has historically centered on urban elites creating personalized support relations within localized hierarchies that are nurtured through patronage. Thus, personalistic politics significantly outweighs party politics. Malian citizens proved to have little attachment to political parties. They predominantly support individual politicians who have managed to establish a support network in their home areas and can provide tangible assistance to their supporters. At the time of its rise as a dominant party, ADEMA was not a particularly unified or strongly institutionalized party. Bringing together multiple old and new political networks, it was a loose amalgamation of different groupings, which soon started to compete for influence. Furthermore, in comparison to many other dominant parties on the continent, ADEMA did not have deep historical roots or liberation credentials. Eventually, the party proved unable to maintain its unity in the run-up to the 2002 elections. The question of who would succeed President Alpha Oumar Konaré fueled competition between senior party representatives who primarily pursued their personal agendas and thus caused large scissions within the dominant party. The Malian case clearly illustrates that weak institutionalization of the dominant party in the context of a highly personalized and clientelistic political culture prevented the endurance of one-party dominance, especially against the backdrop of upcoming elections in which the incumbent president was not allowed to stand for reelection. Privileged access to state resources, donor support, a favorable electoral system, a fragmented opposition, and an uneven playing field did not automatically translate into the endurance of one-party dominance because these advantages did not insulate the dominant party from the devastating effects of internal battles and party splits caused by uncertainty over leadership succession. Whereas the 2002 elections marked a move away from one-party dominance, pluralistic politics did not emerge and a parliamentary opposition did not arise. Instead, all political parties rallied around the newly elected president. Amadou Toumani Touré, who had been elected as an independent candidate, deliberately and frequently referred to widely shared cultural values such as unity, social harmony, stability, and dialogue to justify an African style of consensual democracy. Framed within historical narratives and linked to cultural values, the politics of consensus proved an effective strategy for the president to establish and reinforce his authority and legitimacy. Furthermore, politicians and their

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political parties joined the president’s alliance in order to secure access to state resources and feed their personalized support networks. The short and medium term interests of President Touré and his supporters thus led to the formation of a platform of national unity, which until recently dominated Malian politics. While a formal classification of Mali’s party system points to a dramatic change in the 2002 elections, this shift goes together with a great deal of continuity on the ground. The vast majority of leading politicians of the ADEMA era aligned their personalized support networks with the new political administration of Touré. The Malian case clearly shows that a trajectory away from one-party dominance does not necessarily move toward a stronger multiparty democracy with a viable opposition. In fact, the convergence of all main clientelistic networks under the president’s unity platform eroded existing checks and balances. Moreover, popular satisfaction with democracy dwindled amidst skyrocketing levels of corruption, unaltered levels of rural poverty, and the infiltration of weak state structures by transnational smuggling networks.35 Notwithstanding the strongly propagated rhetoric of unity and stability, the first months of 2012 saw a revived Tuareg rebellion followed by a military coup. When three Salafist movements subsequently took control of the northern regions of Tombouctou, Gao, and Kidal the state lost control over half of the country’s national territory. This brings us to the sad conclusion that, barely a decade after the end of one-party dominance, Mali now qualifies for further analysis of the collapse of its state authority and the reversal of its move toward multiparty democracy. Notes 1. In the early 1970s, the trade unions on various occasions publicly demanded that the military return to the barracks and hand over power to a civilian government. Many of their leaders were jailed by the Traoré regime (Camara 2001). 2. See C. Fay (1995) for a detailed analysis of the groups that were mobilized and the issues around which this popular protest was organized. 3. Officially, 106 people were killed and 708 injured (Amundsen 2000). 4. For the rise of transnational Islamic networks in northern Mali, see International Crisis Group (ICG; 2005, 2012) and D. Gutelius (2006). B. Lecocq (2010) illustrates how these transnational religious networks influenced local politics in the run-up to the municipal elections in 2009. 5. Patronymic refers to a person’s last name but also to a historical figure. Patronymics have a strong social meaning. Between specific patronymics a “joking relationship” exists that allows people to neglect certain moral codes and

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communicate less formally with each other. These relationships have the potential to reduce tensions between different ethnic communities (cf. Van Vliet 2012). 6. An increasing body of empirical studies points toward the importance of the politics of geographical proximity in African societies. See S. Lindberg and M. K. Morrisson (2005) for Ghana; G. Erdmann (2007) for Zambia; A. K. Méthodjo (2008) for Benin; and A. Stroh (2009) for Burkina Faso. 7. In exchange for more autonomy, the northern regions accepted their inclusion within the Malian state. 8. Whether a constituency elects a single MP or multiple MPs depends on the number of inhabitants. Under the so-called two-round majority runoff system, if only a simple majority is obtained during the first round, the two top lists compete in a second round. The quorum is set at 60,000 inhabitants for a seat. See the Mali page of the Electoral Knowledge Network website for an historical overview and more in-depth analysis of the electoral system in Mali (http://aceproject.org/main/english/es/esy_ml.htm). 9. Two major problems became immediately apparent: the register of eligible voters was flawed, and the electoral commission could not produce voter cards in time. 10. In 1999, a national stakeholder conference managed to resolve some of the issues but the flawed electoral process of 1997 had, by then, already ensured the continuation of ADEMA’s initial dominance. 11. Author’s interviews with previous and current National Executive Committee members of the party (2007–2010). 12. The Constitutional Court invalidated 28 percent of the votes cast in the first round of the presidential race and 15 percent of the votes in the second round. The candidate most affected by this decision was ADEMA’s Soumaïla Cissé. Several observers have argued that by ruling against the dominant party, the Constitutional Court proved its autonomous stand vis-à-vis the executive. But local observers have also pointed to persistent rumors that this ruling served to facilitate Konaré’s wish to hand over power to Amadou Toumani Touré. 13. The party had signed a political agreement (Pacte Républicain) with coalition partners and invited representatives of three other parties to take up cabinet positions. 14. By the end of its second term in office, ADEMA controlled 90 percent of the directorships of ministries as well as key management positions within public enterprises. See http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/docs/2197.pdf. 15. Numerous opposition leaders were arrested on charges of inciting violence. See S. D. Wing (2008). 16. See P. Boilley (2002) for a detailed analysis of the 2002 elections. 17. The elections were marred by serious irregularities, with 28 percent of the votes annulled by the Constitutional Court. 18. He was convinced that former President Konaré had supported the candidature of Touré. 19. Public speeches by President Touré and personal communication (2007). The president often referred to historical narratives about Malian political heroes such as Samori Touré and Sundjata Keïta. These stories emphasized the importance of collective action and social cohesion.

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20. Personal communication (2009). 21. Political authority, as mentioned before, is established around a variety of criteria including religion, claims of autochthony, and gender. Yet distributing material and financial support within one’s network remains crucial for sustaining a political support basis. 22. The northern regions were highly marginalized under the Traoré regime. Between 1968 and 1990, only 17 percent of the national budget for infrastructure was allocated to these regions, which remained highly isolated. See http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/10/28/what-s-happening-in-mali/. 23. The ADEMA-run government eventually reached a peace agreement with the various rebel groups, following local and international mediation efforts, and the country remained relatively stable in the run-up to the 2002 elections. 24. Results of an opinion poll summarized by Sears (2007). 25. For the persistence of clientelism under the independence regime (1960–1968), see S. Bagayoko (1987). Both C. Fay (1995) and J. L. Amselle (1992) demonstrate that clientelistic politics was reinforced under single-party rule (1968–1991). 26. A wide range of factors such as seniority, claims of autochthony, status group membership, gender, and financial resources have an impact upon one’s potential to establish a support basis. As one party president put it, “politics is first of all real knowledge of a social milieu,” a “reservoir of confidence,” and a “whole social network that puts itself at your disposal because you too have known how to be sociable and to be in symbiosis, in phase with society” (Party president Mamadou Bakary “Blaise” Sangaré, quoted from Sears 2007: 169). 27. Over the last decade, the resources available from a range of transnational networks, both legitimate and illicit (migrant networks, nongovernmental organizations [NGOs], multinationals, and smuggling rings) have risen to prominence in Mali, reducing the centrality of the state. The growing number of alternative funding resources has also had a strong impact upon political dynamics. Drug money gradually transformed into campaign funds, and in particular areas resources made available by migrants and NGOs were more significant than state resources. While this influx of new moneys changed the political dynamics in the course of the 2000s, it did not have a strong impact on the demise of oneparty dominance in 2002. 28. Failure by the leader of a smaller party to nurture these networks eventually leads to a reorientation of clients toward another political entrepreneur. Fearing precisely that scenario, the leader of a smaller party active in the Mopti region decided to merge with ADEMA and thereby secured a continued flow of resources for his personalized network. Personal communication (August 2011). Also see an interview with the party leader on http://www.bamanet.net/ index.php/actualite/essor/180-abdoulaye-garba-tapo-ex-rndneo-adema-l-au -mali-on-fuit-le-vrai-debat-pour-le-futile-r-.html. 29. Interview with Malian member of parliament, Bamako, 8 December 2009 30. Interview with Malian member of parliament, Bamako, 14 December 2009.

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31. Personal communication with Malian members of parliament, 8–15 December 2009. 32. The coalition is called the Alliance for Democracy and Progress (Alliance pour la Démocratie et le Progrès [ADP]). 33. RPM lost almost 60 percent of its seats, while Party for National Rebirth (Parti pour la Renaissance Nationale [PARENA]) lost over 30 percent. See http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/05/09BAMAKO277.html#. 34. N. Cheeseman (2010) earlier described how open seat elections can present a challenge for ruling parties that want to stay in power. 35. See Afrobarometer (2009b), and also see http://www.afrobarometer .org/files/documents/democracy_indicators/mal_r4_di.pdf. On the rise of transnational smuggling networks, see the ICG report Mali: eviter l’escalade, available at http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/west-africa/mali/189 -mali-eviter-l-escalade.pdf.

8 Senegal: The Rise and Fall of a One-Party-Dominant System Christof Hartmann

Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste [PS]) to learn about their strategies in the wake of the party’s resounding defeat in the parliamentary elections that were held in April of that year. The meeting was scheduled to take place in the party’s headquarters situated outside the center of Dakar on one of the arterial roads linking the peninsula with the mainland. The Maison du Parti turned out to be a gigantic building, and while I was walking through the endless carpeted corridors to meet my interlocutors, two things struck me. This building had been constructed as a symbol of a state-party, but its grandiose halls and staircases now seemed only a souvenir of a glorious past. The building was practically empty: no citizens were calling on PS dignitaries. The decline of the PS, the party that dominated Senegalese politics since independence in 1960, started before 2001. Signs of the party’s imminent fall from power were apparent for some time but the PS’s defeat in the second round of the presidential elections of 2000 clearly marked the end of its dominant position. Thus, these elections were the turning point in Senegal’s trajectory of oneparty dominance. Senegal is an interesting case for students of African party politics. The country liberalized its political system at a time when most states on the African continent were military authoritarian regimes or under strict single-party rule. During the 1980s, Senegal followed the principle of limited party pluralism and evolved from a single-party state into a form of multipartyism with one dominant party. However, the party IN JUNE 2001, I WENT TO SEE SOME LEADERS OF THE SENEGALESE

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system trajectory since the 1990s seems to have ended Senegal’s reputation as a role model of enlightened political rule on the African continent. Moreover, the end of the PS’s dominant position in 2000 did not lead to the emergence of a fully pluralist or two-party system but saw the continuation of certain system characteristics: this time a coalition of parties under the strict control of the newly elected president, Abdoulaye Wade, seemed determined to reinforce rather than transform the limited nature of party competition. Thus, Wade’s defeat in the 2012 presidential elections signified Senegal’s final move away from oneparty dominance. In this chapter, I will trace the evolution of Senegal’s one-partydominant system. I will start with a description of the trajectory of oneparty dominance and then discuss a number of underlying mechanisms in line with the broader analytical framework of this book. The analysis concentrates on the rise and fall of the PS as the dominant force in Senegalese multiparty politics (1978–2001). I will not only identify the mechanisms that lie behind the trajectory of one-party dominance since the early 1980s but also discuss to what extent these factors assist our understanding of party system developments since the watershed elections of 2000. The Trajectory of Party System Change in Senegal Following independence in 1960, the political developments in Senegal initially did not differ from those in most other African states. In 1963, after three years of growing tensions within the ruling Senegalese Progressive Union (Union Progressiste Sénégalaise [UPS]), the liberal constitution with its French-inspired system of government was replaced by a presidential regime.1 At the same time, President Léopold Senghor introduced an electoral system based on plurality with one national constituency, thus laying the foundation for a de facto single-party system. Although the 1963 constitution explicitly recognized the role of political parties, the ruling UPS won all eighty seats in the National Assembly and, in 1964, dissolved the main opposition party, the Senegalese National Front (Front National Sénégalais [FNS]) of Cheikh Anta Diop, for no apparent reason (Ziemer 1978). At the end of 1964, a new party law was ratified that regulated the participation of political parties in elections. It stipulated that political parties had to register with the minister of the interior. None of the existing opposition parties did so, and by the end of 1966 the ruling UPS was the only legal political party.2 The UPS consequently won all seats in the parliamentary elections of 1968 and 1973.

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The single-party configuration lasted until the mid-1970s. In 1974, against the backdrop of growing political and social unrest, the government legalized a second political party, the newly created Senegalese Democratic Party (Parti Démocratique Sénégalais [PDS]), and in 1975 a new party law was passed. The subsequent constitutional reforms of 1976 confirmed the departure from single-party rule by formalizing the principle of limited party pluralism. The amended constitution determined that three political parties would be allowed to organize and would “represent different ideological perspectives.”3 The new Article 3 of the constitution did not mention any specific political parties or spell out their ideological profiles, but in April 1976 additional legislation determined that the ideological perspective of the UPS, the party in power, was socialist-democratic, while the PDS had a liberal-democratic profile and the African Independence Party (Parti African de l’Indépendance [PAI]) represented a Marxist-Leninist or communist ideology (Fall 2007). This attempt at creating a three-party system by government fiat was met with criticism, a low turnout in the 1978 elections, and outright opposition. Cheikh Anta Diop formed a fourth political party, the National Democratic Rally (Rassemblement National Démocratique [RND]), which claimed to represent the true left-radical interests. The government subsequently urged the RND to merge with the PAI if it wanted to compete in elections but without success (cf. Wiseman 1990). In a period when nearly all African states were military regimes or under strict single-party rule, the introduction of limited party pluralism in Senegal was an unusual development. It proved to be a crucial step in the emergence of a one-party-dominant system in Senegal. The introduction of limited party competition was clearly not intended to threaten the position of the UPS (which was renamed Parti Socialiste [PS] in December 1976, one month after having been admitted to the International Socialist Movement). The 1978 elections revealed the success of this strategy. With 81.7 percent of the votes, the PS gained a large majority, winning 83 of the 100 parliamentary seats, while the PDS obtained 17.9 percent of the votes and 17 seats. The third party, PAI, did not gain a single seat in parliament. After the elections, the Senegalese Constitution was again modified to legalize a fourth political party, the Senegalese Republican Movement (Mouvement Républicain Sénégalais [MRS]) as the official representative of a nationalistdemocratic ideology. On 31 December 1980, Léopold Senghor, who had been Senegal’s president since independence, retired from politics and was succeeded by his prime minister, Abdou Diouf. One of Diouf’s first political decisions

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was to legalize four clandestine political movements. And in April 1981 the Senegalese Constitution was again amended, this time in order to end all restrictions on the number of political parties.4 The strategy of further liberalization was not only intended to pacify dissatisfied sections of the population, which had started political protests in the streets of Dakar, but also to fragment the opposition. At the end of 1983, seventeen legal political parties had been organized in Senegal, and most of them indeed proved ephemeral. Despite the growing number of political parties, the 1983, 1988, and 1993 elections were essentially two-party contests between the PS and PDS, which the PS managed to win with fairly comfortable majorities. At the same time, however, the PDS consistently grew its support, from 14 percent of the votes in 1983 to 24.7 percent in 1988 and 30.2 percent in 1993. During the early 1990s when presidents and ruling parties were voted out of office in countries such as Mali and Zambia, Senegal lost its standing as a democratic “showcase” in Africa. In 1988, against a background of growing economic crisis and unemployment especially among the urban youth, “both Wade’s PDS and much of the urban population seemed sincerely to believe in the inevitability of a PS loss in the elections of that year” (Villalón and Kané 1998: 147). When Diouf and the PS were declared the winners, the opposition mobilized support and organized protests, which sparked a wave of violence and destruction in Dakar and other cities. In April 1991, following ongoing violent protests in the country and in the context of the wave of democratization that had started to gain momentum on the continent, President Diouf invited Abdoulaye Wade and three other PDS leaders to join a government of national unity. Wade was successful in pressing for electoral reform, perhaps because the PS wanted to avoid holding a national conference to guide political reform like in Benin, but the government of national unity proved short lived. The PDS ministers left government in October 1992. The experience nevertheless sent a strong signal to the opposition that change was possible even without winning an election (Diouf 1994; Beck 1997). The opposition would, however, have to wait until the end of the 1990s to see the PS lose its dominant position. Prior to the PS’s fall from power in 2000, President Diouf, who had been in office since 1981, found maintaining control of his own party increasingly difficult. The PS, which had always been a coalition of several rather autonomous power centers, suffered from factional battles and party splits. One of these new breakaway parties was Djibo Kâ’s Union for Democratic Renewal (Union pour le Renouveau Démocratique

Table 8.1 Party

Results of Senegal’s Parliamentary Elections, 1978–2012 (percentages of votes and number of seats)

PS PDS RND URD SOPI AFP Yakaar coalition Variousc Other Total

1978

1983

1988

1993

1998

81.7 (83) 17.9 (17)

79.9 (111) 14.0 (8) 2.7 (1)

71.3 (103) 24.7 (17) —

56.5 (84) 30.2 (27) —

50.2 (93) 19.2 (23) 0.7 (1) 13.2 (11)

0.4 (—) 100 (100)

3.4 (—) 100 (120)

4.0 (—) 100 (120)

13.2 (9) 0.1 (—) 100 (120)

14.6 (12) 2.1 (—) 100 (140)

2001

2007a

b

b

17.4 (10)

0.7 (1) 3.7 (3) 49.6 (89) 16.1 (11)

7.3 (6) 5.2 (—) 100 (120)

—

— — 69.2 (131) — 28.2 (19) 2.6 (—) 100 (150)

2012

— 15.2 (12) — 1.1 (1) — — 53.1 (119) 25.2 (18) 5.4 (—) 100 (150)

Source: African Elections Database. Notes: a. The main opposition parties boycotted the 2007 elections. b. The PDS is the core party in the Sopi Coalition. c. Total percentage of votes won by various other parties that gained between one and four parliamentary seats each (total amount of seats occupied by these various one-member parties). — indicates that the party/coalition did not gain representation in parliament. Empty cell means the party/coalition did not yet exist.

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[URD]). In the 1998 parliamentary elections the URD gained a surprising 13.2 percent of the votes, while the PS was reduced to 50.2 percent of the votes.5 In 1999, another PS heavyweight, former prime minister Moustapha Niasse, formed his own party, the Alliance for the Forces of Progress (Alliance des Forces de Progrès [AFP]). In the watershed presidential elections of 2000, Diouf was defeated because both Niasse and Kâ, after having prevented the PS from winning an outright majority in the first round, put their weight behind opposition leader Abdoulaye Wade from the PDS in the second round (Diop, Diouf, and Diaw 2000). After his victory in 2000, newly elected president Abdoulaye Wade dissolved the National Assembly in which the PS still held a comfortable majority, and early parliamentary elections were held in April 2001. These elections marked the indisputable defeat of the PS, which saw its support crash to only 17.4 percent of the votes. The former ruling party was crumbling partly because more PS politicians formed their own political parties in the run-up to the elections.6 At the same time, President Wade created what in francophone Africa is called a mouvance présidentielle, a loose coalition of a number of smaller parties with his own party, the PDS, at its core.7 Rightly fearing that the PDS alone could not win an outright majority in the parliamentary elections, Wade formed the Sopi Coalition, which included nearly forty parties. Sopi—meaning “change” in Wolof—won 49.6 percent of the votes, and with a little help of the electoral system Sopi held 89 of the 120 seats after the 2001 parliamentary elections. The PS and Niasse’s AFP obtained ten and eleven seats respectively, with seven other parties sharing the remaining ten seats. The next parliamentary elections scheduled for 2006 were postponed by President Wade to February 2007, which was the date of the next presidential elections. This decision was heavily criticized by opposition parties. When the Constitutional Court subsequently upheld an appeal against a presidential decree that allocated a certain amount of parliamentary seats to particular constituencies, the parliamentary elections had to be shifted a second time, to June 2007. In the meantime, the eighty-one-year-old Wade won a second mandate at the presidential elections of February 2007 by polling 55.9 percent of the votes in the first and only round. Out of protest against the use of an outdated electoral register during the presidential elections and other electoral malpractice, most opposition parties decided to boycott the 2007 parliamentary elections. Wade’s Sopi Coalition subsequently won 131 of the 150 parliamentary seats with a historically low turnout of 34.7 percent of registered voters.

Table 8.2

PS

PDS/SOPI

AFP

Results of Senegal’s Presidential Elections, 1978–2012 (name of presidential candidate and percentage of votes) 1978

1983

Wade, 17.8

Wade, 14.8

Senghor, 82.2 Diouf, 83.5

1988

Diouf, 73.2

Wade, 25.8

1993

Diouf, 58.4

Wade, 32.0

URD

APR-Yakaar Other

1.7

1.0

9.6

2000, Round 1

Diouf, 41.3

2000, Round 2

Diouf, 41.5

Wade, 31.0

Wade, 58.5

Kâ, 7.1

n.a.

3.8

n.a.

Niasse, 16.8 n.a.

2012,

2012, Round 2

2007

Round 1

Wade, 55.9

Wade, 34.8

Wade, 34.2

Sall, 26.6

Sall, 65.8

Dieng, 13.6 Dieng, 11.3

Niasse, 5.9 24.6

Source: African Elections Database. Note: n.a. indicates not applicable. In Round 2 elections, only the top two candidates are contesting.

Niasse, 13.2 14.1

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

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The dramatic defeat of the PS in the 2000 and 2001 elections is clearly the turning point in the trajectory of Senegal’s party system. Since then, the volatility of the system seems to have grown. A sharp increase has occurred in the number of political parties. While 26 parties existed at the end of 1997 and 57 in 2000, this number rose to 94 in 2006 and 154 in 2009. The new ruling party, PDS, was surrounded by myriad smaller political parties, whose elected representatives were easily coopted and at times crossed the floor. Few genuine opposition forces remained, partly because the main oppositional strategy seemed to be to boycott elections.8 In addition, President Wade did not show much interest in strengthening his own party, the PDS. Instead, he preferred to rely on an unstable coalition of many small parties that were easier to manipulate and that to a certain extent were deliberately created and funded by his government.9 Nevertheless, the PDS’s central position in this coalition and the government’s apparent interference at the level of party competition indicated certain system continuities, despite the dramatic changes that had occurred in Senegal’s party system since the PS’s defeat in 2000.

Mechanisms of Party System Change in Senegal Historical Legacy

Senegal has a long history of elections starting in the colonial era. Since 1848, a small percentage of Senegalese had the right to vote because they held French citizenship. People born in one of the four communes, the oldest colonial towns of Senegal, were entitled to elect a deputy to represent them in the French National Assembly. Although this experience was limited to a small group, it continued for over a century, laid the foundation for the mobilization of social forces around political issues, and instilled the value of political competition and participation into the political conscience of the Senegalese elite. In 1914, Blaise Diagne was the first African to be elected as the deputy for Senegal in the French parliament. Diagne was also the first African to hold a cabinet position in the French government in the early 1930s. According to Coulon (1988: 143, 146), “this democracy of the few set the tone for Senegalese political life and contributed to the creation of a class of professional politicians. . . . It made it very difficult to impose restrictions on a people who, for more than a century, had been used to political battles.”

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177

After World War II the French colonial government extended political rights in its colonies. In 1946, with a still limited franchise, the Senegalese were allowed to elect their own representatives for the newly established General Council, which was in essence a consultative body. In 1956, the so-called loi cadre (reform act) brought universal suffrage to Senegal. Between 1945 and 1958, Senegalese voters were called to vote nine times, not only for elections to the French Constituent and National Assemblies but also for elections to the Territorial Assembly, municipal elections, and a referendum. Against a background of rapid social change, upheavals in the rural areas, and the emergence of trade unions and other social movements, a Senegalese party system developed. Having been elected to the French National Assembly in 1946, Léopold Senghor initially belonged to the Senegal branch of the French Socialist Party (officially called Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière [French Section of Worker’s International], SFIO). However, in 1948, leadership tensions caused him to leave and form his own party, the Senegalese Democratic Bloc (Bloc Démocratique Sénégalais [BDS]). Senghor’s new party claimed to represent people in the rural areas and fight for African socialism. It managed to build an effective relationship with the Muslim brotherhoods and rural leaders. In 1951, the BDS captured both seats reserved for Senegal in the French National Assembly and in the 1952 elections Senghor’s party won forty-three of the fifty seats in the Territorial Assembly. The BDS subsequently managed to unite and eventually absorb other political parties, including the SFIO, and in 1958 the party changed its name to the Senegalese Progressive Union (Union Progressiste Sénégalaise [UPS]). During the 1950s, the debate over whether to accept the French design for decolonization created strong divisions in Senegalese politics but did not prevent the UPS from dominating the political arena and gaining full control over all political institutions when Senegal became independent in 1960. The colonial history of Senegal has left a distinct legacy that seems to have influenced the country’s subsequent trajectory of one-party dominance. The fusion of competing parties under the UPS umbrella prior to independence had occurred through largely peaceful means. And just after independence, the Senegalese people seemed to unite behind President Senghor. In these circumstances, the UPS relatively easily dominated the political arena by claiming its identity as the African socialist party led by a “father of the nation.” At the same time, the colonial experience had ensured that the Senegalese political elite

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was well acquainted with electoral institutions and political competition. This combination of factors explains why the UPS (and later the PS) was never a monolithic party. Even, the elimination of official opposition in the 1960s did not end the power politics within Senegal’s sole political party. Since Senghor did not create an ideological mass party or a plebiscitary variation of authoritarianism, the UPS/PS resembled a political arena in which different clientele networks competed for control. The introduction of limited multiparty rule in the 1970s could be interpreted as an attempt to regain control over these competitive party structures by confronting them with external competitors (Fatton 1987). Twenty years later in the second half of the 1990s, the accepted tradition of political competition made it possible for disgruntled PS leaders to go their own way without being stigmatized as traitors or enemies of the nation. Social Cleavages

Like many other African states Senegal is an ethnically heterogeneous country. While Wolof is the largest ethnic group and has dominated economic and political life since colonial times, relationships between ethnic groups have generally been peaceful. During the early 1980s, however, a violent conflict erupted in the southern province of Casamance. This province is virtually cut off from the rest of Senegal by the enclave of The Gambia. The mostly Diola and Christian population resented their growing economic and social marginalization and the influx of “Northerners” into the Casamance administration and among business elites. In 1983 a rebel movement called Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance [MFDC]) had started a military campaign to gain independence from Senegal and found widespread support among the population. Although large-scale violence was brought to an end in the early 1990s, the conflict has reerupted again and again, and a sustainable political solution has not yet been found (Foucher 2003; Englebert 2005). The Casamance conflict and ethnic differences more generally have had little influence on Senegal’s party system. Many Senegalese deny that the conflict in Casamance is about ethnicity or religion, as not all of the Casamançais are Diola, and numerous non-Christians are among them. Generally, religious, regional, and ethnic cleavages are crosscutting in Senegal. Due to these multiple loyalties, political parties have difficulty creating a distinct ethnic or regional identity that appeals to a specific support base. Whether one defines an ethnic party either on the

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179

basis of its program and behavior, or by looking at its main support basis, no ethnic or regional political parties would seem to exist in Senegal. Many students of Senegalese party politics and local political analysts agree that—among more than a hundred relevant Senegalese parties—no parties can be found with an ethnic or regionalist program or rhetoric.10 Some of the many parties in Senegal exist only on paper. Others are based in the capital city, Dakar, and have difficulty reaching out to the rural population. The PS and the PDS, on the other hand, have managed to reach out to all ethnic and regional groups and to maintain a multiethnic support basis over the years. Be that as it may, the PS’s dramatic decline in voter support throughout the 1990s cannot be explained by a growing rejection of the party in specific regional or ethnic constituencies. Although important PS dissidents such as Djibo Kâ and Moustapha Niasse were primarily popular in their home regions, they did not openly promote the interests of a specific ethnic group. The few regional variations in voter support seemed to reflect the clientelistic style of Senegalese politics rather than any regional or ethnic divisions. Senegal is a predominantly Islamic country where the boundaries between the religious and civic spheres are blurred. Since colonial times the Islamic brotherhoods—the main ones being the Mourides and the Tidjane—have been strongly involved in economic and political issues. During Léopold Senghor’s presidency and in the first decade of Abdou Diouf’s rule, a clear alliance existed between the brotherhoods and the Parti Socialiste. The secular Senegalese state promoted the local interests of the religious leaders (marabouts), while they in turn asked their followers to vote for the PS. The popular legitimacy of the PS and its dominant position were thus created and maintained with the active assistance of religious leaders. However, their direct orders to cast a specific vote became more contested in the second half of the 1980s, as the brotherhoods gained more political autonomy.11 The 1993 elections were the first electoral contest in which religious leaders were mainly silent on political issues. Identifying the roots of this loosening of the relationship between the PS and the brotherhoods is difficult. The causes seem to lie on both sides of the relationship. A growing diversity of religious groups and beliefs together with intergenerational conflicts within the brotherhoods (Villalón 1999) and the growing social and economic influence of more radical Arab versions of Islam (Dahou and Foucher 2004) changed the religious sphere. Within this changed religious context, the PS leaders faced more difficulties in maintaining close relationships with the leaders of the

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brotherhoods. On the other hand, religious leaders seemed to have grasped the dynamics of the changing political landscape and realized the risk of aligning themselves with one political party, the PS. In other words, whether the change in loyalty among religious leaders contributed to or was the result of the decline of the PS is unclear, but this changing dynamic was clearly an important factor underlying Senegal’s party system trajectory until the end of the 1990s. Institutional Architecture

Senegal’s political system has been characterized by a certain degree of institutional stability. The formal system of government has changed from semipresidential to presidential (in 1963) and back (in 1970), and the office of the prime minister was once again abolished in 1983 and reestablished later. However, a powerful president has consistently been the core of Senegal’s institutional architecture. Since the election of Abdoulaye Wade in 2000, the centralization of political power in the presidency became even stronger. Although not apparent in the constitutional provisions, the extent of presidential power was reflected in the frequent change of prime ministers and cabinet ministers. As a consequence, the civil-society-driven movement for constitutional reform, Assises Nationales, advocated a parliamentary system in their 2009 constitutional guidelines. This position was in line with Wade’s own stated preference: he argued for a parliamentary system when he was still in opposition. The influence of the institutional architecture of executive-legislative relations on the trajectory of one-party dominance in Senegal is not straightforward. Under Léopold Senghor and Abdou Diouf, strong presidential powers certainly facilitated the dominance of the PS. On the other hand, the slow erosion of the PS’s position and its collapse after forty years in power did not coincide with any significant changes in institutional architecture. Since 2000, the centralization of political power in the hands of President Wade and the monarchization of his rule enabled his Sopi Coalition to dominate the electoral contest but did not result in a strong ruling party. The role of electoral institutions in the Senegalese trajectory of one-party dominance is more obvious. The limited party competition introduced in the 1970s functioned with an electoral system that made challenging the position of the PS difficult. And for the 1983 elections, which were the first elections after legal restrictions on the number of political parties were abolished, the Diouf government implemented a

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combined electoral system. In this system, 50 of the 120 seats were allocated to closed party lists on the basis of plurality using small constituencies of different sizes. The remaining 70 seats were distributed at a national level to party lists based on a system of proportional representation.12 This electoral system favored the party with the most widespread support throughout the country, the Parti Socialiste. The fact that voters had a single vote on the basis of which both elements of the system were calculated made coordination between opposition parties difficult. In order to win in a small multimember constituency, opposition parties needed to build coalitions, but this combining of efforts strongly reduced their chances of winning seats at the national level where seats were allocated according to a system of proportional representation. Thus, the system augmented the seat share of the biggest party. In 1983, the PS won 92.5 percent of the parliamentary seats with 79.9 percent of the votes. In 1993 and 1998, the electoral system transformed the PS’s narrow majorities of 56.5 percent and 50.2 percent of the votes into relatively comfortable seat shares of 70.0 percent and 66.4 percent, thus enabling the PS to maintain its dominant position even with significantly lower levels of voter support. One could argue that the electoral system has been instrumental in sustaining Senegal’s one-party-dominant system even when voters were no longer overwhelmingly in favor of the PS. At the same time, the end of the PS’s dominance was not triggered by parliamentary elections, but by Diouf’s defeat in the presidential elections of 2000, when he lost to Wade in the second round. The parliamentary elections of 2001 merely confirmed the changed balance of power. Thus, while the combined electoral system has been influential in creating and maintaining the dominance of the PS, it did not prevent the end of the party’s forty-year rule. Once in power the new president and his Sopi Coalition did not change the electoral system, which is still in effect. The rules of electoral management and administration, on the other hand, have been changed over the years in order to create a more level playing field for electoral competition. Electoral governance was initially heavily tilted in favor of the ruling PS, but the opposition became increasingly vocal about the need for reform. With each election pitting Diouf against opposition veteran Wade, the opposition came with new allegations of electoral fraud and claims of manipulation and stolen victories. Following the civil unrest after the 1988 elections and in the context of the wave of democratization reaching West Africa, the PS was willing to accept a new electoral code in 1992, which included most of the oppo-

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sition’s demands: obligatory use of voting booths, mandatory voter identification, lower voting age (from twenty-one to eighteen), fairer access to state media, publication of results for each polling station, and right of parties to name representatives at each polling station.13 Whether and to what extent these improvements prevented irregularities during the subsequent elections in the 1990s are not clear, but the opposition obviously was initially unable to capitalize on the improved electoral administration (cf. Villalón and Kané 1998). Party regulations have played a more important role in the dynamics of Senegal’s party system development. The artificial creation of an ideology-based party system in the mid-1970s was accompanied by party laws that ruled out the creation of ethnic, religious, or other particularistic parties. After the introduction of broader party competition under Diouf, these regulations were implemented in a fairly lax way,14 so as to fragment the opposition by allowing the creation of a multitude of political parties. This strategy worked to the extent that the PS remained Senegal’s dominant party throughout the 1980s and 1990s. However, despite the continuous rise in the number of opposition parties, the PDS proved to be a solid and relatively institutionalized opponent.15 Political Culture

The question to what extent political culture has been an underlying mechanism in Senegal’s trajectory of one-party dominance has been partly discussed in the section on the country’s historical legacy. A tradition of political competition and a marked propensity for political debate certainly exist, which can be traced back to different local political systems in precolonial Senegal. “Political competition between clans was indispensable for the exercise of power, and the Senegalese certainly did not wait for the birth of modern politics to discover the virtues (and the shortcomings) of political contests—they belong to their ‘natural’ political universe” (Coulon 1988: 159). According to Cheikh Anta Diop (1960), those in power were held accountable by dignitaries and by informal institutions that required them to work for their people. In contrast to many other francophone states in Africa, Senegal has not developed a policy of nation building around national heroes and historical narratives. Leading intellectuals such as Cheikh Anta Diop and President Léopold Senghor were proud of the precolonial past but had little interest in producing a distinct Senegalese national tradition and history. Although Senghor was clearly a charismatic leader, this charisma did not lead to glorification of his leadership.

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The political culture of the Senegalese elites not only had its roots in the political codes of the precolonial past, but was also strongly influenced by their exposure to French culture and their education at French universities (LeVine 2004). Reinforced by intergovernmental contacts, the French influence has made Senegalese political culture at the elite level both centralist and decisively liberal. We must note that the “folk concept” of democracy among Wolof speakers appears to be different from the elite understanding. According to F. C. Schaffer (1998), who collected data about Senegalese political culture during the PS era at the beginning of the 1990s, the folk concept of democracy stresses notions of consensus, solidarity, and evenhandedness, which are the moral principles of public life in local communities. Schaffer (1998) also showed that the liberal notion of civil rights as the main component of democracy (which is demonstrated in various Afrobarometer surveys) originated in the period when Senegal’s democratic system was dominated by the PS. During these years, the PS advocated a popular understanding of democracy that revolved around the enjoyment of civil liberties but did not emphasize government accountability or the alternation of power as advocated by the opposition. Data on political attitudes among the Senegalese population have been systematically collected in various Afrobarometer surveys conducted since 2002. These data show a consistently high support for multiparty rule (Afrobarometer 2010). The rate of rejection of single-party rule is significantly higher than the reported average level of 67 percent for fifteen other African countries (Wantchekon et al. 2007). Interestingly, the percentage of the Senegalese population rejecting a situation in which “only one party is allowed to stand for election and hold office” even grew from 76 percent in 2002 to 90 percent in 2008. Clearly, single-party rule is now wholeheartedly dismissed in Senegalese political culture. In the light of these findings, assessing the role political culture has played in the trajectory of one-party dominance in Senegal is difficult. Initially, Senegalese political culture provided a certain resistance against single-party rule in the first half of the 1970s. Later, prevailing political attitudes made it more difficult for the PS to maintain its position of dominance and keep the party together. The current political culture, especially at the level of local communities, is characterized by a strong resistance to state authority, which is often supported by religious beliefs and a huge skepticism toward the legitimacy of the public sphere. We have already mentioned the fact that in the 1990s the relationship between the Islamic brotherhoods and the PS seemed to weaken, and religious leaders ceased to be the pillars of the state and the ruling

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elite. In the same period, the secular opposition clearly could not capture the votes of socially marginalized urban dwellers.16 Today, Islam increasingly serves as an ideology of protest and mobilization, which is a new element in Senegal’s political culture. Government Performance

Although admired for the intellectual standing of its leaders and its peaceful and stable political system, Senegal has never been hailed for its economic or social policies. When President Abdou Diouf took over from Léopold Senghor in 1981, the country faced severe economic problems. The situation in the rural areas had clearly deteriorated since independence, with a significant contraction of agricultural production between 1973 and 1984 (Coulon 1988). In 1975, after the African, Carribean, and Pacific states and the European Community signed the Lomé agreements, groundnut production, which was the backbone of the Senegalese economy, declined sharply. A core feature of the Lomé agreements was generalized access to European markets for all African exporters to the detriment of the preferential access Senegal had enjoyed before. At the same time, the prices that the government continued to pay to farmers were much below the world price, thus creating incentives for illegal exports to The Gambia and contributing to a growing alienation of the rural population. Prior to his first electoral test in 1983, President Diouf increased the price paid to groundnut producers despite a downward trend on the world market, only to bring prices more in line with the world market price the year after his election (cf. Dahou 2000). Commenting about profits in the agricultural sector, R. Cruise O’Brien (1979: 30) notes that “instead of being used to support modernization and increased productivity in the rural sector, the surplus was absorbed into costly services, state enterprises and the civil service.”17 Throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s, human development remained at standards lower than those experienced in other low-income countries in Africa. In 1980, for example, Senegalese had a life expectancy below fifty, an adult literacy rate of 10 percent, and primary school enrollment of 53 percent, compared to a sub-Saharan average of 76 precent (cf. Coulon 1988). In addition, Senegal suffered chronic droughts, leading to drastic fluctuations in agricultural production. Small successes in other sectors such as tourism were insufficient to compensate for a loss in export earnings, and with an increase in the price of oil, Senegal became heavily indebted. Although President Diouf proceeded

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with the liberalization of key economic sectors and started a policy of dialogue with important constituencies, particularly the trade unions, little changed in economic policy outcomes. Since independence, the PS’s economic performance had been weak, but initially this shortcoming had no visible impact on voting behavior. Only in the course of the 1990s did the PS lose the support of voters in urban areas. While the PS continued to dominate the countryside, thousands of people migrated from the rural regions to Dakar where the PDS gained a majority in 1993. With the devaluation of the CFA franc (Communauté Financière Africaine) in January 1994, the socioeconomic crisis worsened. The purchasing power of salaries was cut in half and living conditions deteriorated especially for the urban population. Thus, the disenchantment with the PS regime increased. However, because the PS had already lost the support of most urban voters, the worsening of the economic crisis did not directly lead to a further decline in the PS’s fortunes. Instead, the shifting loyalties of religious leaders and their rural followers were at the heart of the decline of the dominant party. State-Party Relations

Few students of Senegalese politics question the relevance of clientelist networks for the functioning of the political system. L. A. Villalón and O. Kané (1998: 146) have compared Senegal with Mexico “where a dominant party has been able to pursue the gradual liberalization of the system while maintaining a hegemonic position via an extensive network of patronage ties.” In Mexico, “the economic decline of the 1980s gradually eroded the stability of the system and called into question its continued viability.” The Senegalese experience is similar. Clientelism has been central to the Senegalese political system since colonial times. The French colonial administration used local intermediaries to collect taxes and organize economic production. At independence, the rural masses followed these rural notables in their transfer of support from the French colonial power to the Senegalese urbanized elite (Diop and Diouf 1992). The precise influence of clientelism on modern Senegalese politics is, however, contested. C. Coulon (1988) and others see Senegal as a prime example of a centralized state. During the PS era, the state was the main employer and the means by which individuals accumulated wealth. This centralization of competencies and resources was based on the French approach to state power and the functional logic of Senegal’s own

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(semi)presidential system. In addition, international aid and foreign investment strengthened the state apparatus and the ruling elite instead of developing productive forces outside the state. This fortification of the state created a situation, not very different from other African countries, where the state was omnipresent and employed a great number of people. Particularly in the period of de facto single-party rule (1970– 1975), the state established state-owned companies. In strategic sectors such as groundnut production the combination of a centralized marketing board and state-owned development banks made gaining access by independent economic actors impossible. This central role of the state in the organization of the economy and the access to resources laid the basis for a clientelist network of patronage. C. Boone (2003), on the other hand, argues that the seemingly all powerful central state could project power, at least in the economically vital Groundnut Basin, only by undertaking some kind of power sharing with the Wolof aristocracy and the marabouts. “The maraboutic elite was granted wide latitude in running the political system at the regional level” (Boone 2003: 67). They could, inter alia, name deputies to the National Assembly, choose mayors, and establish direct links with the head of state, thus bypassing the administrative authorities (Diop and Diouf 1992). Positions in state-owned companies and rural cooperatives were distributed to rural aristocrats and religious leaders. Since colonial times, the state’s control over society has been uneven, and at times the state would enhance its limited capacity by using existing social structures or intermediaries, such as local strongmen or religious leaders. The Senegalese colonial state and later the PS went a long way to accommodate the interests of these intermediaries, although the political and economic liberalization of the 1980s seems to have modified the structural context of this network of clientelism. While the state continued to monopolize access to land, privatization and decentralization of other state functions to subnational levels reduced the possibilities that the state bureaucracy could exert control through networks of patronage. The need to maintain its clientelistic networks might have been the reason why the PS postponed new regulations that would give rural communities the power to allocate land. The PS also discovered how donor money, received for fighting drought and gaining food security by supporting “independent” producer or women’s associations, could be instrumental in maintaining its rural support base (Dahou 2000). After the decline of groundnut production, the PS government helped the Mouride leaders to move their economic activities toward trade, often bypassing state regulations. Finally, the

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inclusion of PDS politicians in existing clientelist networks was instrumental in prolonging the period of PS rule, even when the party had effectively lost the support of the people. According to Dahou (2000), a combination of the economic crisis, demographic pressure, and the moralization of public life eventually caused a breakdown of the PS’s clientelistic networks in some regions, such as the Senegal River delta. Already existing societal qualms about illicit enrichment were “activated” in relation to the ruling party, not by the opposition but by a growing number of national and local elites that were excluded from relations of patronage. The very same clientelist networks that had hitherto been considered as an element of redistribution were now rejected in a public discourse that took aim at the stateparty and its corrupt practices. Thus, the PS’s hold on the networks of clientelism in the rural areas backfired. To what extent these clientelist networks, especially in rural areas, have collapsed since the 1990s is unclear. Boone (2003: 337) notices a stark deterioration of the government’s capacity to spend money in the rural outposts of the state but thinks that “local government and party institutions still function as purveyors of central resources and as sites that local elites capture in order to consolidate their personal clienteles and constituencies.” L. J. Beck (2008) similarly argues that clientelism is a permanent feature of Senegalese society and that most “brokers” will offer their services to whoever seems to be in a position to guarantee access to power. International Influences Throughout the era of PS dominance France was “the main dispenser of aid and a guarantor of preferential trading arrangements” (Nugent 2005: 195). The PS government also consented to the presence of some 7,000 French troops. Senghor had close links to the French business community, which retained special privileges with regard to market access, tax exemptions, and guarantees against nationalization. Hence, various actors determining French African policy had no interest in ending the PS’s position of dominance. The move toward limited multipartyism and thus the start of Senegal’s one-party-dominant system in the mid-1970s might have been triggered by Léopold Senghor’s concern about the international reputation of his country. According to Coulon (1988: 157), the Senegalese political elite had a “constant concern to convey an acceptable image to the out-

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side.” Senghor wanted the PS to be recognized as a full member of the International Socialist Movement, which required the official acknowledgment that Senegal was a pluralist state. In fact, a year after the introduction of limited party pluralism, the PS was admitted to the International Socialist Movement (Coulon 1988: Young and Kanté 1992). Initially, international donor assistance was not linked to political conditions. When in the early 1990s donors started to put more pressure on African countries to open up their political systems, Senegal was not a target. On the contrary, Senegal might have served as an example of how to liberalize a political system while at the same time maintaining a high degree of stability and control over the political process. The question as to what extent the changing context of the 1990s— with democratic elections in Benin, Cape Verde, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria leading to the defeat of incumbents—affected the fate of the Parti Socialiste remains open. The experiences elsewhere clearly showed the Senegalese opposition the importance of a more balanced and neutral electoral administration. The developments on the continent also sent a signal to the PS leadership that Senegal’s role as a democratic leader would be impossible to maintain without giving up the party’s control over the political process. Little evidence can be found of donor intervention in the electoral contests of the 1990s and the watershed elections of 2000, which ended forty years of PS rule. In contrast, during the second term of Abdoulaye Wade’s presidency, donors started to openly criticize the growing lack of respect for political and civil rights and the rule of law. Finally, transnational coalitions of both religious and civil society actors seem to have influenced Senegal’s trajectory of one-party dominance during the critical years in the 1990s. Civil society actors and particularly journalists became outspoken in their criticism of PS corruption and bad governance because they had started to organize themselves in regional and international networks. In a similar way, Senegalese living and working abroad influenced perceptions about the legitimacy of PS dominance and its alliance with religious leaders. Conclusion The creation of Senegal’s multiparty system and its incremental liberalization resulted in a party system that was dominated by the PS from 1976 to 2000. Thus, a combination of historical and institutional factors had the most influence in the initial trajectory of one-party dominance

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in Senegal, while the nature of state-party relations and especially the role of religious leaders explain how the PS managed to stay in power until 2000. The presidential elections in 2000 proved to be the turning point for the fortunes of the dominant party. Still, even before this decisive presidential race, the position of the PS was undermined by the shifting loyalties of key groups within and outside the party in the context of its weak socioeconomic performance and a political culture that embraced political competition and incorporated a growing skepticism toward the state. As for the party system developments after 2000, Abdoulaye Wade’s PDS appeared to be the new dominant political force, but it had to rely on a great number of smaller parties to have a majority in parliament. Moreover, the seat share that this Sopi Coalition managed to obtain in the 2007 elections (87.3 percent) was mainly due to the fact that the main opposition parties boycotted these elections. However, even if we regarded Wade’s Sopi Coalition as the new dominant party, we can now no longer classify Senegal as a one-party-dominant system. In the 2012 presidential elections, Wade was defeated in the second round by Macky Sall, and his Sopi Coalition was subsequently reduced to a small group of twelve MPs. Sall’s Benno Bokk Yaakaar (BBY) Alliance, which comprised all major opposition parties, managed to win 119 out of 150 seats. Thus, according to G. Sartori’s (1976) criteria of gaining a majority in three consecutive elections, Wade’s defeat in the 2012 elections signified Senegal’s final move away from one-party dominance. Some structural conditions that contributed to the dominance of the PS have changed. Senegal’s historical legacy and political culture now seem to be forces that work against the entrenchment of another dominant party. In truth, some institutional factors, most importantly the overwhelmingly strong presidency and the electoral system, seem to point to a trajectory of continued one-party dominance. Nevertheless, this dominance of one party or rather one coalition of parties depends to a large extent on the quality and strategy of the president. Many observers of Senegalese politics would agree that Wade relied on a strategy of co-optation and the strengthening of clientelistic relationships with a multitude of actors. These clientelistic relations were built to entrench the president’s rule rather than strengthen the linkages of the PDS throughout the country. At the time of writing, not enough time has passed to speculate about the strategy of the newly elected President Sall and whether his alliance will transform into a sta-

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ble coalition or even a new dominant party, although a return by Senegal’s party system to one-party dominance is unlikely. Notes 1. In 1970 the office of prime minister was reestablished by constitutional amendment. 2. Several smaller parties, such as the African Regroupment Party of Senegal (Parti du Regroupement Africain [PRA-Sénégal]) were co-opted by the UPS and thus disappeared (cf. Tiné 1997). 3. According to the original French-language version of the constitution, the political parties “doivent représenter des courants de pensée différents” (must represent different schools of thought). The new Article 3 of the constitution also stipulated that the party law would have to determine the conditions under which political parties were created, existed, and “ceased to exist.” 4. The new Party Law (Law No. 81–17 of 6 May 1981) also came into force. 5. The majoritarian character of the electoral system ensured that the PS still held 93 of the 140 parliamentary seats (i.e., 66.4 percent). 6. Abdourahim Agne (Parti de la Réforme [Reform Party], PR), Abdoulaye Makhtar Diop (Socialistes Unis pour la Renaissance/Socialists United for the Renaissance, SUR), Robert Sagna (Rassemblement pour le Socialisme et la Démocratie/Rally for Socialism and Democracy, RSD), and Souty Touré (Parti Socialiste Authentique/Authentic Socialist Party, PSA). 7. President Wade’s victory also allowed the PDS to reintegrate parties that had left the PDS long ago, such as the Senegalese Democratic Party– Renewal (Parti Démocratique Sénégalais–Renovation [PDS-R]) of Serigne Diop (after fifteen years of separate existence). 8. For critical assessments by Senegalese authors, see M. Dia (2005) and M.-C. Diop (2006). 9. This seems to be the case for the Waar Wi Coalition directed by Wade’s former environmental minister; see P. Mbow (2008). 10. See A. Tiné (1997), G. Hesseling (1985), I. Mögenburg (2002), T. Dahou and V. Foucher (2004), I. M. Fall (2007), M. Dia (2005), and A. L. Coulibaly (2006). 11. In 1993 the Tijane marabout Moustapha Sy heavily criticized Diouf, but his family distanced themselves from him. They affirmed on television “ceux qui refusent de voter pour Abdou Diouf sont des imbéciles” (those who refuse to vote for Abdou Diouf are idiots). On Sy and his movement, see L. A. Villalón and O. Kané (1998). 12. Hare quota system with distribution of remaining votes according to the method of greatest remainder. No legal threshold is applied. The ratio between constituency seats and the national list was modified for the 1998 elections to 70/70. 13. Demands for the establishment of an electoral commission to replace the Ministry of Interior in handling the organization of elections were only partially

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fulfilled in September 1997 when the Observatoire National des Elections (National Election Observatory [ONEL]) was tasked with supervising the elections. In 2005, a more independent and financially autonomous Electoral Commission with the power to penalize violations of the electoral law was established. 14. For more details on the lack of enforcement, see C. Hartmann (2010). 15. Interestingly, most political parties operating in Senegal today belong to one of two groups: they have split from either the PS or the PDS. There are two main exceptions: religious parties and parties that originated during the economic reforms of the late 1980s. The leaders of the latter are former teachers or former employees in the public sector who lost their jobs in the various civil service reform programs. Both types of parties have not achieved any significant electoral success. 16. Villalón and Kané (1998) show that many young people in urban areas decided not to register for elections or ‘abstained, thus demonstrating a lack of confidence in the ability of the democratic system to produce any meaningful change. 17. According to P. Nugent (2005), this redirection of funds from agriculture to state bureaucracy explains the difference in performance between Senegal and countries such as Côte d’Ivoire.

9 Why One-Party Dominance Endures in Some Democracies but Not Others Lia Nijzink and Renske Doorenspleet

democracies over time and tries to answer the question of why some one-party-dominant systems endure and others do not. Looking at the trajectory of the party systems in six African democracies, the authors of the preceding chapters have described three cases—Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania—with trajectories of enduring one-party dominance as well as three cases—Mali, Senegal, and Zambia—in which initial dominance has not persisted because the dominant party failed to win three consecutive elections or lost its dominant position. In the introductory chapter, we identified seven mechanisms that potentially influence a party system’s trajectory of one-party dominance: historical legacy, social cleavages, institutional architecture, political culture, government performance, state-party relations, and international influences. The authors of the chapters on the six specific countries have described the role these mechanisms play in their respective country cases. The main aim of this concluding chapter is to compare these findings, to identify similarities and differences between the cases, and to determine what conclusions we can draw about the trajectories of one-party dominance in African democracies and their underlying mechanisms. First, we will present the main findings related to the underlying mechanisms that we identified earlier. Second, we will focus on the three cases of enduring one-party dominance and identify the selfreinforcing mechanisms that enable a trajectory of endurance. Third, we THIS BOOK ANALYZES PARTY SYSTEM DEVELOPMENTS IN AFRICAN

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will turn to the three country cases in which initial dominance did not persist and which show an interesting variation in their party system trajectories. We will identify the mechanisms that contributed to the initial dominance in these three cases as well as those that counteracted the self-reinforcing mechanisms, thus moving the trajectories away from one-party dominance. Finally, we will discuss the implications of our findings not only for our understanding of the phenomenon of one-party dominance in Africa but also for the existing theories on one-partydominant systems. In this way, we hope to contribute to the agenda for future research in this field. Underlying Mechanisms Each country chapter has described the trajectory of one-party dominance in a specific country case and identified its underlying mechanisms. Based on these findings we now can draw the following conclusions about the seven mechanisms that potentially influence a party system’s trajectory of one-party dominance. First, the predominant historical legacy in the cases in which oneparty dominance did not endure differs from the predominant legacy in those in which it did. The cases in which initial one-party dominance did not persist (Mali, Senegal, and Zambia) all experienced a long period of single-party rule before the advent of multipartyism. Tanzania is the exception in this pattern: while it also has a history of single-party rule, it displays a trajectory of enduring one-party dominance. Our country chapters show that political parties that have their roots in the nationalist and liberation movements of the 1960s are more stable in their position of dominance under multiparty politics, while dominant parties that evolved from the prodemocracy movements of the early 1990s proved to be more vulnerable. In South Africa, Namibia, and Tanzania, the countries’ struggles for independence/liberation not only influenced the ideology, identity, and character of the current dominant party but also explain why the opposition remains weak and lacks legitimacy amongst the majority of voters. In Tanzania and Namibia, in particular, the historical legacy of nation building, while positive in many respects, increasingly took the form of intolerance toward dissenting views and opposition, which seems to be a contributing factor in the trajectory of enduring one-party dominance. In Tanzania, the dominant party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), has shown a remarkable ability to adapt to the new political and economic circumstances under multipartyism, which

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explains much of its persistence today. Whether the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in Namibia can continue to benefit from their historical legacy remains to be seen, especially now that young people, who were born under multiparty democracy and have no direct experience of the struggle for liberation, have become eligible to vote. Second, in our introductory chapter we observed that most African countries are heterogeneous in terms of religion, ethnicity, and language. As a consequence, we expected the dominant parties in cases of enduring dominance to be more successful in transcending such social cleavages, attracting broad support, and co-opting various groups than the ruling parties in the cases in which one-party dominance did not endure. The Zambian case clearly shows that the broad support that the dominant party, Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), enjoyed in the first decade after the transition to multiparty democracy was difficult to maintain. In 2001, against the backdrop of the factional turmoil that arose within the party around the issue of leadership succession, the MMD lost the crucial support of the trade unions, which were split along ethnic lines and subsequently defected to the opposition, the Patriotic Front (PF). Senegal shows that the dominant party, the Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste [PS]), lost crucial support amongst religious leaders, while the opposition managed to join forces. Even in Mali the ability to transcend social cleavages was an important factor in the move away from one-party dominance. Only in this case it happened in a different way: President Amadou Toumani Touré, elected on a nonpartisan ticket, managed to transcend social cleavages even better than the dominant party Alliance for Democracy in Mali (Alliance pour la Démocratie en Mali [ADEMA]) and could rely on a culture of unity to draw almost every political grouping to his side. Third, at first glance the type of electoral system and the institutional arrangements of executive-legislative relations seem to have little influence on the trajectories of one-party dominance in our analysis. The six chapters describing the individual countries show that one-partydominant systems exist not only in countries that run elections according to a first-past-the-post, constituency system but also in those using a system of proportional representation based on party lists. Similarly, oneparty dominance occurs in parliamentary, presidential, and semipresidential systems. However, the Zambian case proves that this initial conclusion does not hold when we take a closer look at certain details of the institutional architecture. The fact that the president can be elected with a simple plurality of the votes instead of a majority turned out to

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be the cornerstone of the artificial dominance of the MMD. This factor made the trajectory of one-party dominance in Zambia inherently unstable. In Senegal and Mali, the electoral system had a similar effect of artificially boosting the position of the dominant party. Interestingly, this artificial boost seems to have contributed to, rather than prevented, the move away from one-party dominance. In Chapter 3 to Chapter 8, the authors show that in all six country cases, other aspects of the institutional architecture such as the institutionalization of political parties and issues around incumbency and succession are even more relevant to the trajectories of one-party dominance. In both Zambia and Mali, political parties are poorly rooted in society and the dominant parties—MMD and ADEMA, respectively—were weakly institutionalized, thus contributing to a trajectory of nonenduring one-party dominance. In Senegal, the PS was organizationally very strong but had to give way to a coalition of opposition forces propelled to power by Abdoulaye Wade, who won the presidential race. In fact, the issue of leadership and the outcome of presidential elections in 2000 played crucial roles in all three trajectories in which one-party dominance did not persist. The country chapters of the three cases of enduring one-party dominance show that the dominant parties in Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania have not been immune to succession battles and issues around party leadership but have been better in managing these, thus limiting their disrupting effects. Fourth, the individual case studies show that people’s political beliefs are related to the different trajectories of one-party dominance. In Namibia, for example, a growing culture of intolerance toward dissenting views and most importantly the continued relevance of the struggle for liberation are contributing factors in its trajectory of enduring one-party dominance. In South Africa, the past struggle against apartheid similarly determines people’s current political beliefs and their attachment to the ANC as the ruling party. In Tanzania, the values of Julius Nyerere’s African socialism and his emphasis on national unity still resonate with Tanzanians today and contributed in important ways to the persistence of one-party dominance. Perhaps not surprisingly, in all three cases political culture overlaps with and is to some extent subsumed by historical legacy. Especially in combination with historical legacy, political culture is clearly an underlying mechanism in the trajectory of enduring one-party dominance. However, we must note that political culture and even historical legacy are not static phenomena. People’s political beliefs may change over time and generational differences imply that the influence of historical legacy is not a given. Moreover, as the cases of Mali and Senegal show, political-cultural norms

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that value consensus and unity may initially influence voting behavior in favor of the dominant party but can prove equally influential in reversing its fortunes. Fifth, the case studies show that the relationship between government performance and the endurance of one-party-dominant systems is not straightforward. As the South African case demonstrates, dissatisfaction with the dominant party does not necessarily mean that the electorate will prevent it from staying in power. Similarly, the persisting dominance of one party does not mean that the party in question is necessarily performing well while in office. In fact, analysis of the individual countries suggests that governments in the cases of enduring dominance do not perform better than the governments in the other cases. Countries in both groups suffer from problems such as ineffectual policies on job creation and poverty reduction. Similarly, negative public opinion about their government’s performance is reported in both enduring one-party-dominant systems and in countries in which oneparty dominance did not persist. What marks the difference between the two trajectories is the ability of the opposition to capitalize on deteriorating performance and negative perceptions. In both Senegal and Zambia, the opposition galvanized support for their presidential candidate on the basis of people’s growing dissatisfaction with the dominant party, while the opposition in Namibia, Tanzania, and South Africa remains ineffectual in this regard despite rising levels of dissatisfaction. Sixth, at first glance state-party relations seem to be strongly related to the endurance of one-party dominance. The authors of the chapters on Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania show that a so-called cycle of dominance is taking place: long-term victory allows a dominant party better access to state resources, thus increasing the opportunity for further electoral successes. However, this cycle of dominance is not a given. Looking at state-party relationships in cases in which one-party dominance did not persist, we find that, although the respective dominant parties initially benefited from privileged access to state resources, at some point this advantage was clearly no longer enough to maintain their dominant positions. Counteracting influences such as the shifting alliances of various social groups (in Senegal and Zambia) or the overwhelming value attached to a culture of unity (Mali) proved stronger than the reinforcing mechanism of state-party relations. Interestingly, succession issues and upcoming leadership changes were at the heart of the change of loyalties that pushed the trajectory away from one-party dominance. In many instances, imminent changes in party leadership resulted in uncertainty about the sustainability of patronage networks. This uncertainty in

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turn highlights the fact that state-party relations largely revolve around party leaders, are not necessarily stable, and require the dominant party to be adaptable in order to use them to its benefit. Finally, theoretically one can argue that various international influences affect the endurance of one-party dominance, but we found very little empirical evidence of individual donor countries or international organizations influencing party system trajectories. Namibia is the exception in this regard. Its special status as a former colony under United Nations (UN) trusteeship resulted in SWAPO being internationally recognized as the sole and authentic representative of the Namibian people, thus establishing that party’s dominant position even before elections could confirm this assertion. We know that strong ties have formed between some of the former liberation movements–cum– dominant parties, but none of the case studies provide evidence that these relations contribute to the endurance of one-party dominance. We also could not find evidence of any diffusion effects that would explain why one-party dominance endures in some countries but not in others. Thus, international influences hardly play a role and, with the exception of Namibia, seem to have little effect on the trajectories of one-party dominance. Self-Reinforcing Mechanisms Since their respective transitions to multiparty democracy, the party systems of Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania have followed a trajectory of enduring one-party dominance. The dominance of the ruling parties is reflected in the fact that they have consistently gained more than half of the parliamentary seats in consecutive elections. Interestingly, they outperform dominant parties in other parts of the world in that their seat shares repeatedly reach a two-thirds threshold. The enduring one-party dominance in our three country cases goes together with a particularly weak and divided opposition. In all three countries the opposition is plagued by fragmentation and fails to present a unified challenge to the dominant party. Even opposition parties that were formed by factions breaking away from the dominant party have so far not presented a viable alternative to the voters. The three country case studies focused on the party-system trajectories in Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania show that some of the mechanisms discussed above enable one-party dominance to persist. They serve as self-reinforcing mechanisms for the endurance of one-party-dominant systems.

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The legacies of the past and the political culture of the dominant party and society at large are the most important mechanisms behind the endurance of one-party dominance in Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania. Interestingly, these mechanisms play out slightly differently in the three cases of enduring one-party dominance under study. In Tanzania, the dominant party, CCM, has proven to be highly adaptable and continues to benefit from the powerful legacy of its famous leader Nyerere. In South Africa, much of the ANC’s current legitimacy is derived from the continued political importance of the anti-apartheid struggle. However, against the background of deteriorating government performance and rising citizens’ frustration, the dominant party increasingly relies on a racialized discourse to maintain its position of dominance. In Namibia, the historical legacy of the struggle for independence has left SWAPO in a virtually unchallenged position, which seems to have fueled a growing culture of intolerance. As already noted above, distinguishing between political culture and historical legacy proved difficult. Especially in the three cases of enduring one-party dominance, the past continues to influence current political beliefs and values. However, we must guard against regarding historical legacy and political culture as static influences. The Tanzanian and South African cases in particular show that a dominant party can actively adapt to a changing environment and make strategic choices about how to make use of its historical legacy. Similarly, cultural norms that manifest themselves in political parties and in society at large can be reinvented and redefined or change meaning as generational shifts in the electorate occur. Indications can be found that in the case studies of both Namibia and South Africa the first signs of such generational shifts are appearing but have not threatened the entrenched position of the respective dominant parties as yet. State-party relations are another mechanism that lies behind a trajectory of enduring one-party dominance. The fusion between party and state is especially strong in Tanzania, but Namibia and South Africa also show the resource advantages of a dominant party that give rise to a cycle of dominance. The case studies also provide evidence that patronage-based dominance is most successful in the context of a politicized public sector. However, state-party relations do not necessarily serve as a self-reinforcing mechanism for one-party dominance. Or to be more precise, it is a less stable underlying mechanism than we initially thought. Privileged access to state resources clearly benefits the dominant party but, as the cases of nonenduring dominance demonstrate, this access can also turn into a double-edged sword, especially when issues

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around leadership succession raise tensions within the dominant party. In other words, patronage-based dominance needs to be actively maintained and seems less effective in the context of imminent leadership change. Finally, in the three case studies focused on the trajectories of enduring one-party dominance in Namibia, South Africa, and Tanzania, the authors emphasized the important advantage the respective dominant parties derive from their organizational strengths and the way they are rooted in society. The ANC, SWAPO, and CCM are all well-established political organizations with their own institutional memories, values, rules, and norms. These organizational strengths enabled them to negotiate the transition from liberation movement to ruling party, maintain party discipline, and manage leadership succession. In sum, what sets the dominant parties in the cases of enduring dominance apart from the parties in cases of discontinued dominance is the fact that they continue to be associated with important historical legacies, that they are well organized and deeply rooted political movements, and that they successfully manage leadership change and succession. Counteracting Mechanisms After their respective transitions to multiparty democracy, the party systems of Zambia, Senegal, and Mali initially followed a trajectory toward one-party dominance, but that trend did not persist because the dominant party failed to win three consecutive elections or lost its dominant position. Their trajectories away from one-party dominance show interesting variations. In Zambia one-party dominance was artificially created and maintained, mainly by institutional design and through state-party relations, and subsequently collapsed when the main opposition party won the presidential elections. In Mali, a one-party-dominant system was never established. The party that initially held a dominant position failed to win a third consecutive election and made way for a platform of unity that revolved around the newly elected president. And finally, Senegal’s trajectory shows how a dominant party that was in power for over twenty years lost its position and a one-party-dominant system came to an end. Looking at the different trajectories of cases in which one-party dominance did not persist, we identified the mechanisms that contributed to the initial dominance in these three countries as well as the factors that counteracted these self-reinforcing mechanisms, thus moving the trajectories away from one-party dominance. As noted above,

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the dominant parties in Mali, Senegal, and Zambia benefited from certain elements in the institutional architecture, most notably the electoral system. This advantage is most evident in Zambia where the president only needs a plurality of votes to be elected, but in Senegal and Mali the electoral system also artificially boosted the position of the dominant party. Another important mechanism behind the initial dominance in these three cases was the relationship between the dominant parties and the state. As in the three cases of enduring one-party dominance, the party in power managed to build extensive networks of patronage. However, unlike in these cases, these networks did not translate into the persistence of one-party dominance over time. The dominant parties in Mali, Senegal, and Zambia failed to maintain their position despite their strong relationship with the state. The advantages derived from the institutional architecture and privileged access to state resources did not insulate them from the devastating effects of shifting loyalties, internal battles, and party splits. In all three countries with a trajectory that moved away from oneparty dominance, presidential elections proved to be the turning point. In Zambia, once the MMD lost the presidential elections, the artificial nature of its dominant position became clear and the end of one-party dominance was inevitable. In Senegal, the dynamics around Abdoulaye Wade’s victory in the presidential race signaled the end of the PS’s dominant position, while in Mali the significance of the role of Amadou Toumani Touré’s election in ending ADEMA’s initial dominance is overwhelming. The fact that presidential elections were the turning point in all three cases also has implications for the way we define and measure one-party dominance. Throughout this book, we have looked at the seat share in parliamentary elections to determine whether a particular country has a one-party-dominant system. Our findings about the importance of presidential elections in the trajectories that move away from dominance suggest that we might need to refine this operationalization. The way powerful presidents and their elections influence party system developments is clearly an interesting area for future research. In addition to the pivotal role of presidential elections in the trajectories away from one-party dominance, authors of the chapters on Mali, Senegal, and Zambia identified other mechanisms that counteracted the initial move toward dominance. With the exception of Senegal, the dominant parties in the countries that did not remain one-party dominant do not have deep historical roots. The broad support they gained as prodemocracy movements proved difficult to maintain as early loyalties of specific groups shifted elsewhere. In Zambia, for example, MMD

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could not maintain the crucial support of the trade unions. The lack of historical roots is manifested in weak party structures. With the exception of Senegal, the initially dominant parties that could not hold on to power were weakly institutionalized. This lack of party institutionalization increased their vulnerability when issues of succession and party leadership caused tensions and friction within the party. The way party splits undermined the position of ADEMA, the dominant party in Mali, is a case in point. This is not to say that a strong historical and organizational legacy is sufficient to keep a dominant party in power. Even the PS in Senegal with its long history as a socialist movement eventually lost the crucial support of religious leaders and had to give way to a coalition of opposition forces. In sum, institutional factors, in particular issues of leadership succession and a lack of party institutionalization, serve as the main underlying mechanisms that move a trajectory away from one-party dominance. Presidential elections were the turning point at which trajectories of initial dominance dramatically changed direction. This finding does not mean that political culture is not relevant to party systems that move away from one-party dominance. We found clear evidence that people’s political beliefs influenced trajectories of party systems where one party did not continue to dominate. The influence of Mali’s culture of unity on its party system trajectory is a case in point. However, more research is needed to fully understand the influence of cultural norms on African politics in general and on trajectories of one-party dominance in particular. The Way Forward What are the implications of our study, not only for our overall understanding of the phenomenon of one-party dominance in Africa, but also for existing theories on one-party-dominant systems and for future studies in this field? Our study has a number of important implications for future work. We have provided a general framework for cross-national comparison. This framework enabled us to systematically compare cases and to judge the specific merits of the different potential mechanisms we identified. Our theoretically based framework thus served as an important heuristic tool for inquiry. Because the case studies determined which mechanisms are most salient to describing and explaining the trajectories of one-party dominance in the six selected cases, we could test and refine existing theoretical ideas.

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We found that certain mechanisms played an important role in the endurance of one-party dominance. Especially, the legacies of the past and the political culture of the dominant party and society at large serve as self-reinforcing mechanisms. Other factors, international influences in particular, have very little effect on the persistence of one-party dominance, although Namibia proved to be an exception in this regard. We also found that the mechanisms that counteract one-party dominance and move the party system trajectory in another direction are mainly related to certain aspects of the institutional architecture (i.e., a lack of party institutionalization and the overwhelming importance of presidential elections and issues of party leadership and succession). These factors proved crucial when trying to understand our cases in which oneparty-dominant systems did not endure. By identifying these reinforcing and counteracting mechanisms in a systematic and comparative way, this book contributes to the development of new theory in this field. The book also clearly shows that the different mechanisms are not always sharply distinguishable from one another. Certain mechanisms overlap, most notably political culture and historical legacy, or may interact with each other. Moreover, this study has shown that timing and the sequence of events are important matters for further investigation. Through systematic and comparative process tracing we provided more insight into the question of how one-partydominant systems that seem to be stable and firmly entrenched cease to exist. We found that presidential elections were the turning point at which trajectories dramatically changed direction. To further identify and investigate such conjunctures will be a crucial task for future research in this field. Our study has shown that we must guard against a purely structural approach. Identifying underlying mechanisms does not imply that political parties have no agency. Dominant parties as well as opposition parties play an active role in maintaining one-party dominance or moving away from it. Not just the presence or absence of a particular mechanism but also the ability of political parties to use various mechanisms to their benefit determine the outcome. A dominant party may make active use of privileged access to state resources to mobilize popular support or successfully claim its historical legacy in order to safeguard its position. On the other hand, success is not guaranteed, especially when questions around leadership succession increase internal tensions and factionalism within the dominant party. Adaptability is required when a dominant party is confronted with changing loyalties among the electorate or by a stronger opposition.

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Moreover, we must address the issue of adaptability and flexibility on the part of the one-party-dominant system itself. We must guard against understanding the system as a static phenomenon and regarding a trajectory of endurance as a given. The trajectory of a party system may be stable because the system can deal with underlying dynamics and counteracting mechanisms, not because of a lack of change or the absence of counteracting forces. After we have identified the self-reinforcing mechanisms behind the endurance of one-party dominance as well as the counteracting mechanisms that force a party system trajectory away from one-party dominance, another important contribution of our study is methodological. We have applied a so-called most similar systems design (see Chapter 1) and identified the key features that are different (reinforcing and counteracting mechanisms) among similar countries (African democracies) in an effort to account for a particular different outcome (enduring versus nonenduring one-party dominance). Thus, our study included only truly comparable cases. Importantly, we have limited our study to one-party dominance in democracies, thus leaving the mechanisms behind one-party dominance in authoritarian regimes as an area for future research. Our case selection was guided not only by this important distinction between one-party dominance in a democratic versus authoritarian context but also by our main research question. We have demonstrated that only by comparing cases in which dominance endured with cases in which it did not can we discover what lies behind the endurance of one-party-dominant systems. By choosing this rigorous comparative approach, we have overcome the shortcomings of previous studies on one-party dominance. This method has resulted in a more systematic exploration of the different trajectories of and mechanisms behind one-party dominance. Our final contribution is an empirical one, in that we present in this book a systematic empirical analysis of one-party dominance in African democracies. The analysis is innovative because the study has gone beyond the obvious cases of one-party dominance (Botswana, Mexico, and Japan) and focused on one-party-dominant systems within the African context. With titles like Uncommon Democracies (Pempel 1990) and The Awkward Embrace (Giliomee and Simkins 1999), most studies on one-party-dominant systems suggest that they are exceptional and anomalous in democratic systems. This book has taken a contrasting view and presented evidence that showed one-party dominance to be prevalent among African democracies. Moreover, each case study was focused on the trajectory of one-party dominance in a particular African

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democracy and its salient underlying mechanisms, thus presenting new empirical findings. Although the book is case oriented, we have also searched for generalizations, while at the same time underlining some of the unique characteristics of specific country cases. Thus, the empirical findings in this book, presented within our theoretical framework, have identified the specific dynamics that arise from the particular context and time in which one-party dominance occurred in Africa. Although we have acquired more knowledge and a better understanding of the trajectories of one-party dominance in Africa, we do not yet know what the consequences of these developments are. Democratic systems need political parties (Schattschneider 1942; Stokes 1999; Van Biezen and Saward 2008), but are dominant parties necessarily bad for democracy? Political competition in Africa’s one-party-dominant systems is constrained and limited. The opposition is small, often fragmented, and toothless, which weakens government accountability and makes an alternation of the party in power highly unlikely. In the small body of literature on one-party dominance, several other negative consequences are mentioned, but without a detailed investigation, we do not know to what extent these consequences actually occur. A thorough and comparative examination of how party systems with one dominant political party contribute or pose a threat to the development of democracy on the African continent is an interesting avenue for future research (Doorenspleet and Nijzink, forthcoming).

Acronyms

ACN ADD ADEMA ADI

ADP

ADS AEEM

AFP

AJ-PADS ANC ANC ANC APC APP APRC

Action Christian National (Namibia) Alliance for Development and Democracy (Zambia) Alliance pour la Démocratie en Mali/Alliance for Democracy in Mali Acção Democrática Independente/Independent Democratic Action (São Tomé and Principe) Alliance pour la Démocratie et le Progrès/Alliance for Democracy and Progress (Mali) And Defar Sénégal/Build Senegal Together Association des Élèves et Étudiants du Mali/Malian Students Association Alliance des Forces de Progrès/Alliance of Forces for Progress (Senegal) And-Jëf–Parti Africain pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme/And-Jëf–African Party for Democracy and Socialism (Senegal) African National Congress (South Africa) African National Congress (Tanzania) African National Congress (Zambia) All People’s Congress (Sierra Leone) All People’s Party (Namibia) Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (The Gambia) 209

210

AREMA ARES

AS ASP AZ AZAPO BBY BCP BDP BDS

BEE Cartel HVR CCM CdÎA CDLDM CDP CFA

CHADEMA

CNDD-FDD

CNID

CNU COD COPE COSATU COTOL CUF

Acronyms

Avant-garde de la Révolution Malgache/Vanguard of the Malagasy Revolution (Madagascar) Avant-gardes pour le Redressement Économique et Social/Vanguard for Economic and Social Recovery (Madagascar) Alliance Sociale/Social Alliance (Mauritius) Afro-Shirazi Party (Tanzania) Agenda for Zambia Azian People’s Organisation (South Africa) Benno Bokk Yaakaar/United in Hope (Senegal) Basotho Congress Party (Lesotho) Botswana Democratic Party Bloc Démocratique Sénégalais/Senegalese Democratic Bloc black economic empowerment Living Forces Rasalama Coalition (Madagascar) Chama Cha Mapinduzi/Revolutionary Party (Tanzania) Camp des Îles Autonomes/Camp of the Autonomous Islands (Comoros) Comité de Défense des Libertés Démocratiques au Mali/Committee to Defend Democratic Freedom in Mali Congrès pour la Démocratie et le Progrès/Congress for Democracy and Progress (Burkina Faso) Communaute Financiere Africaine/African Financial Community Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo/Party for Democracy and Development (Tanzania) Conseil National Pour la Défense de la Démocratie–Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie/National Council for the Defense of Democracy–Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Burundi) Congrès National d’Initiative Démocratique/National Congress for Democratic Initiative (Mali) Caucus for National Unity (Zambia) Congress of Democrats (Namibia) Congress of the People (South Africa) Congress of South African Trade Unions Coalition for the Transformation of Liberia Civic United Front (Tanzania)

Acronyms

DA DCN DP DP DPP DTA ECN EISA

211

Democratic Alliance (South Africa) Democratic Coalition of Namibia Democratic Party (South Africa) Democratic Party (Tanzania) Democratic Progressive Party (Malawi) Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (Namibia) Electoral Commission of Namibia Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (formerly Electoral Institute of Southern Africa) EPA external payment arrears EPRDF Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front ESR Education for Self-Reliance (Tanzania) FCBE Forces Cauris pour un Bénin Emergent/Force Cowrie for an Emerging Benin FCN Federal Convention of Namibia FDD Forum for Democracy and Development (Zambia) FF+ Freedom Front Plus (South Africa) FNDP Front National Démocratique et Populaire/National Democratic People’s Front (Mali) FNS Front National Sénégalais/Senegalese National Front FPI Front Populaire Ivoirien/Ivorian Popular Front (Côte d’Ivoire) FPR Front Patriotique Rwandais/Rwanda Patriotic Front FRELIMO Frente de Libertação de Moçambique/Front for the Liberation of Mozambique FRODEBU Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi/Front for Democracy in Burundi FRUD Front pour la Restauration de l’Unite et la Democratie/Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (Djibouti) GBS general budget support GDP gross domestic product GEAR Program Growth, Employment, and Redistribution Program (South Africa) HP Heritage Party (Zambia) ICG International Crisis Group IFP Inkatha Freedom Party (South Africa) IMF International Monetary Fund KANU Kenya African National Union KWK Kwa Na Kwa/National Convergence (Central African Republic)

212

LCD LD-MPT MAG MCP MDFM-PCD MFDC MIRIA MLPC MLSTP MMD MMM

MNSD

MP MPD

MPLA

MPS

MRS

MSM

NACSAP

Acronyms

Lesotho Congress for Democracy Ligue Démocratique–Mouvement pour le Parti du Travail/Democratic League–Labor Party Movement (Senegal) Monitor Action Group (Namibia) Malawi Congress Party Movimento Democrático das Forças da Mudança/Partido de Convergência Democrática/Force for Change Democratic Movement–Democratic Convergence Party (São Tomé and Principe) Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance/Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (Senegal) Mouvement pour l’Independence, la Renaissance et l’Intégration Africaine/Movement for the Independence, Renaissance, and Integration of Africa (Mali) Mouvement pour la Libération du Peuple Centrafricain/Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People (Central African Republic) Movimento de Libertação de São Tomé e Principe/ Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Principe Movement for Multiparty Democracy (Zambia) Mouvement Militant Mauricien/Mauritian Militant Movement (Mauritius) Mouvement National pour la Société du Développement/National Movement for the Society of Development (Niger) member of parliament Movimento para a Democracia/Movement for Democracy (Cape Verde) Movimento Popular da Libertação de Angola/ People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola Mouvement Patriotique du Salut/Patriotic Salvation Movement (Chad) Mouvement Républicain Sénégalais/Senegalese Republican Movement Mouvement Socialiste Militant/Militant Socialist Movement (Mauritius) National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plan (Tanzania)

Acronyms

NARC NBC NCC NCCR

NCP NDC NDF NDMC NEC NLM NLP NNF NNP NP NPF NPP NPP NRM NUDO NUNW OAU ODM ODP-MT ONEL

OPO ORTM

PAC PAI

PAICV PAIGC PAP

213

National Rainbow Coalition (Kenya) Namibian Broadcasting Corporation National Citizens’ Coalition (Zambia) National Convention for Construction and Reform (Tanzania) National Congress Party (Sudan) National Democratic Congress (Ghana) National Democratic Focus (Zambia) National Democratic Movement for Change (Namibia) National Electoral Commission (Tanzania) national liberation movement National Lima Party (Zambia) Namibia National Front New National Party (South Africa) National Party (Zambia) Namibia Patriotic Front National Patriotic Party (Liberia) New Patriotic Party (Ghana) National Resistance Movement (Uganda) National Unity Democratic Organisation (Namibia) National Union of Namibian Workers Organisation of African Unity Orange Democratic Movement (Kenya) Congrès Organisation pour la Démocratie Populaire– Mouvement du Travail/Organization for Popular Democracy–Labor Movement (Burkina Faso) Observatoir National des Elections/National Election Observatory (Senegal) Ovamboland People’s Organisation (Namibia) Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision du Mali/Office of Radio and Television of Mali Pan-Africanist Congress (South Africa) Parti African de l’Indépendance/African Independence Party (Senegal) Partido Africano da Independência de Cabo Verde/African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde/African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (Guinea-Bissau) Pan-African Parliament

214

PARENA PCD-GR PCT

PDCI PDG

PDGE PDP PDS

PDS-R PF PIT

PMRD PMSD

PMT PPP PPRD

PR PR PRA

PRDS

PRI

PRS

PS

Acronyms

Parti pour la Renaissance Nationale/Party for National Rebirth (Mali) Partido de Convergência Democrática–Grupa de Reflexão/Democratic Convergence Party–Group of Reflection (São Tomé and Principe) Parti Congolais du Travail/Congolese Party of Labor (Congo-Brazzaville) Parti Democratique de Côte d’Ivoire/Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire Parti Démocratique Gabonais/Democratic Party of Gabon Partido Democrático de Guinea Ecuatorial/Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea People’s Democratic Party (Nigeria) Parti Démocratique Sénégalais/Senegalese Democratic Party Parti Démocratique Sénégalais–Renovation/ Senegales Democratic Party–Renewal Patriotic Front (Zambia) Parti de l’Indépendance et du Travail/Independence and Labor Party (Senegal) Parti Malien pour la Révolution et la Démocratie/Malian Party for Revolution and Democracy Parti Mauricien Social Démocrate/Mauritian Social Democratic Party (Mauritius) Parti Malien du Travail /Malian Party of Labour People’s Progressive Party (The Gambia) People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (Democratic Republic of Congo) Parti de la Réforme/Reform Party (Senegal) proportional representation Parti du Regroupement Africain/African Regroupment Party (Senegal) Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social/ Democratic and Social Republican Party (Mauritania) Partido Revolucionario Institucional/Instiutional Revolutionary Party (Mexico) Partido de Renovacao Social/Social Renovation Party (Guinea-Bissau) Parti Socialiste/Socialist Party (Senegal)

Acronyms

PSA

PSD

PSM PT PUP

RB RDA RDP RDP

RDPC RDR RFD

RND

RND RP

RP RPM RPP

RPT

RSD SACP SADC SDP

215

Parti Socialiste Authentique/Authentic Socialist Party (Senegal) Parti Social Démocrate/Social Democratic Party (Madagascar) Parti Socialiste Mauricien/Mauritian Socialist Party (Mauritius) Parti Travailliste/Labor Party (Mauritius) Parti de l’Unité et du Progrès/Party of Unity and Progress (Guinea) Renaisance du Benin/Rebirth of Benin Rassemblement Démocratique Africain/African Democratic Rally (Mali) Rally for Democracy and Progress (Namibia) Reconstruction and Development Program (South Africa) Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple Camerounais/Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement Rassemblement pour la Démocratie et le Renouveau/ Rally for Democracy and Renewal (Comoros) Rassemblement des Forces Démocratiques/Rally of Democratic Forces (Mauritania) Rassemblement National Démocratique/National Democratic Rally (Senegal) Rassemblement National pour le Développement/National Rally for Development (Comoros) Rassemblement pour le Peuple/Rally for the People (Senegal) Republican Party (Namibia) Rassemblement pour le Mali/Rally for Mali Rassemblement Populaire pour le Progrès/People’s Rally for Progress (Djibouti) Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais/Rally of the Togolese People (Togo) Rassemblement pour le Socialisme et la Démocratie/Rally for Socialism and Democracy (Senegal) South African Communist Party Southern African Development Community Social Democratic Party (Nigeria)

216

SFIO SLPP SPPF SUR

SWANU SWAPO TAC TANU TIM TLP TYL UBF UDA UDD

UDF UDF UDP UDPM ULP UMP

UN UNDP UNIP UNIRD UNITA

UPADS UPND UPS

Acronyms

Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière/French Socialist Party (literally translated as French Section of Worker’s International) Sierra Leone People’s Party Seychelles People’s Progressive Front Socialistes unis pour la Renaissance/Socialists United for the Renaissance (Senegal) South West African National Union (Namibia) South West Africa People’s Organisation (Namibia) Treatment Action Campaign (South Africa) Tanzania African National Union Tiako i Madagasikara/I Love Madagascar Tanzania Labour Party Tanzanian Youth League Union pour le Bénin du Futur/Union of Tomorrow’s Benin United Democratic Alliance (Zambia) Union des Démocrates pour la Démocratie/Union of Democrats for Democracy (Comoros) United Democratic Front (Malawi) United Democratic Front (Namibia) United Democratic Party (Tanzania) Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien/Democratic Union of the Malian People United Liberal Party (Zambia) Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle/Union for the Presidential Majority (Djibouti) United Nations United Nations Development Programme United National Independence Party (Zambia) Union Nationale des Indépendants pour la Renouveau Démocratique/National Union of Independents for Democratic Revival (Niger) União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola/ National Union for the Total Independence of Angola Union Panafricaine pour la Démocratie Sociale/ Pan-African Union for Social Development (CongoBrazzaville) United Party for National Development (Zambia) Union Progressiste Sénégalaise/Senegalese Progressive Union

Acronyms

URD

URD

US-RDA UTRD ZANU-PF ZDC ZEC ZNP ZPPP ZRP

217

Union pour la République et la Démocratie/Union for the Republic and Democracy (Mali) Union pour le Renouveau Démocratique/Union for Democratic Renewal (Senegal) Union Soudanaise–Rassemblement Démocratique Africain/Sudanese Union–African Democratic Rally (Mali) Union pour le Triomphe du Renouvellement Démocratique/Union for the Triumph of Democratic Renewal (Benin) Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front Zambia Democratic Congress Zanzibar Electoral Commission Zanzibar Nationalist Party (Tanzania) Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party (Tanzania) Zambian Republican Party

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The Contributors

Mohammed Bakari is senior lecturer and head of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. From 2005 to 2009, he served as chief editor of The African Review: A Journal of African Politics, Development and International Affairs. His numerous publications include The Democratisation Process in Zanzibar: A Retarded Transition (2001). His main research interests are Zanzibar’s politics, political parties and elections, public policy, and religion and politics.

Matthias Basedau is political scientist and lead research fellow with the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany, where he heads the research program, Violence and Security, and is deputy director of the Institute of African Affairs. His recent publications include various coauthored articles on parties and party systems in Africa, as well as work on the ambiguous effect of resource wealth and resource dependence on violent conflict.

Renske Doorenspleet is associate professor of comparative politics in the Department of Politics and International Studies and director of the Centre for Studies in Democratization (CSD) at Warwick University, UK. She is author of Democratic Transitions: Exploring the Structural Sources of the Fourth Wave (2005), and, with Lia Nijzink, Political Parties, Party Systems and Democracy in Africa (2014). 241

242

The Contributors

Gero Erdmann is political scientist and senior research fellow with the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg, Germany, where he heads the research program, Legitimacy and Efficiency of Political Systems. He is also head of the GIGA Berlin office. His main research interests are political parties and party systems, neopatrimonialism, and the development of different regime types in Africa. He is coeditor of the journal Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft (Comparative Governance and Politics) and coconvener of the Democracy Studies research group of the German Political Science Association.

Christof Hartmann is professor of international and development politics at the Institute of Political Science, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. Previously, he worked at the University of Heidelberg and the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany, and at the School of Government, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. His publications inlcude Decentralisation in Africa (2008) and Ethnic Party Bans in Africa (2012). His most recent work is focused on the reform and functions of political institutions at subnational, national, and supra-national levels.

Henning Melber is extraordinary professor in the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa, and at the Centre for Africa Studies, University of the Free State, South Africa. He is also senior adviser and former executive director (2006–2012) of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden. From 2000 to 2006, he was research director at the Nordic Africa Institute, and from 1992 to 2000 he was director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU). He is coeditor of the Africa Yearbook (published annually), managing coeditor of Africa Spectrum, and editor-in-chief of the Strategic Review for Southern Africa. He has published extensively on Namibia and Southern Africa.

Lia Nijzink formerly was senior researcher in the Department of Public Law at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where she coordinated the South-North research partnership with the universities of Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania) and Warwick (UK). She coedited Electoral Politics in South Africa: Assessing the First Democratic Decade (2005) and Accountable Government in Africa (2012). With Renske Doorenspleet, she has edited Political Parties, Party Systems, and Democracy in Africa (2014). She is currently working on her PhD dissertation on the

The Contributors

243

impact of floor crossing on accountability relations in Malawi and South Africa.

Thiven Reddy is senior lecturer in the Department of Political Studies, University of Cape Town. He is the author of Hegemony and Resistance (2000) and has published several articles on political theory, South Africa’s democratic transition, and contemporary South African politics. Neo Simutanyi is executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Lusaka, Zambia, an independent policy research organization. Previously, he was research fellow at the Institute of Economic and Social Research, coordinator of the Governance Research Programme, and taught in the Department of Political and Administrative Studies at the University of Zambia. He has published extensively on political economy, political parties, constitutional reform, and the democratic transition in Zambia.

Martin van Vliet is a PhD candidate at the African Studies Centre in Leiden (The Netherlands). From 2004 to 2010, he worked at the Netherlands Institute for Multi-Party Democracy (NIMD), where he was responsible for support programs for political parties in African countries. His research is focused on accountability processes in Mali, including the implementation of Mali’s decentralization program, the functioning of Malian members of parliament and the Malian party system, and an assessment of the impact of transnational crime on statesociety relations.

Richard Whitehead is director of Edit to Publish AS, a Norwegianbased company that specializes in publication and research consulting. Key findings from his PhD dissertation, “Single-Party Rule in a Multiparty Age: Tanzania in Comparative Perspective,” were published in working papers and in the journal Democratization.

Index

Adam, H., 87 ADEMA. See Alliance for Democracy in Mali ADP. See Alliance for Democracy and Progress AEEM. See Malian Student Association Affirmative action, 65, 76 African Christian Democratic Party, 77 African Democratic Rally (RDA), 159 African Independence Party (Parti African de l’Indépendance, PAI), 171 African National Congress (ANC), 9, 18, 21, 69, 119; absorption of, 125; challenges confronting, 90–91; factors in dominance of, 13, 73, 81, 202; Freedom Charter, 77; GEAR Program and, 87–88; historical legacy of, 74, 77–80, 90–91, 92n1, 197; Luthuli House, 83; political culture and, 84–86; RDP and, 87; social cleavages and, 80–81; in South Africa one-party dominance trajectory, 74–77; stateparty relations and, 89 African Regroupment Party of Senegal (Parti du Regroupement Africain, PRA-Sénégal), 190n2 Afrikaner homeland, 77 Afrobarometer surveys, 54, 58, 71, 110, 159, 183

Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP), 95 Agenda for Zambia (AZ), 130, 134 Alliance for Democracy and Progress (Alliance pour la Démocratie et le Progrès, ADP), 145, 161, 168n32 Alliance for Democracy in Mali (Alliance pour la Démocratie en Mali, ADEMA), 10, 143; demise of, 158, 162, 163–164; historical legacy of, 145–147; institutional architecture and, 151–153; main findings on, 198, 203, 204; Mali party system change trajectory and, 144–145; party splits, 149; political culture and, 154–156, 166n13; state-party relations and, 154, 158–161, 166n14 Almond, G. A., 16 ANC. See African National Congress Angola, 56, 72n8 Apartheid: impacts of, 88, 89, 90, 92; native commissioners system during, 62; struggle against, 73, 76, 78, 84–85 Arian, A., 86 Arrighi, G., 99 Arusha Declaration (1967), 98, 106 ASP. See Afro-Shirazi Party Associational life, 133 Authoritarian regimes, 31, 33

245

246

Index

AZ. See Agenda for Zambia Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO), 76–77

Bakari, Mohammed, 21 Banda, Rupiah, 124, 132, 134–135, 138, 142n6 Baregu, M., 100 Barnes, S., 86 Basedau, M., 3–5, 21, 149 Bauer, G., 50 Bayart, J.-F., 138 BBY. See Benno Bokk Yaakaar BDS. See Senegalese Democratic Bloc Beck, L. J., 187 BEE. See Black economic empowerment Bembas, 128, 135, 139 Benin, 32 Benno Bokk Yaakaar (BBY) Alliance, 189 Berlin Wall, fall of, 56 Big-man politics, 17, 62 Black economic empowerment (BEE), 65, 76 Blondel, J., 27–28 Bogaards, M., 4, 25, 26–27, 29, 31 Boone, C., 186, 187 Born frees, 56, 58 Botswana, 5, 22n5, 22n10 Bratton, M., 12, 17, 136, 144 Bretton Woods institutions, 157, 162 Britain, 96 Bukurura, S. H., 60–61 Burnell, P., 127 Butler, K. S., 26–28

Capitalism, 99, 110 Caucus for National Unity (CNU), 142n4 CCM. See Chama Cha Mapinduzi CDLDM. See Committee to Defend Democratic Freedoms in Mali Chabal, P., 138 CHADEMA. See Party for Democracy and Development Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), 9, 114, 116, 119, 196; favors granted by, 93; government performance and, 108– 111; historical legacy of, 95–101; institutional architecture and, 103– 104, 106; international influences and,

113; main findings on, 201, 202; Party Guidelines of, 98; political culture and, 107–108; social cleavages and, 96, 101–102; state-party relations and, 98, 109, 111–113, 115 Cheeseman, N., 149 Chewe, Austin, 135 Chibombamilimo, Lameck, 142n7 Chiluba, Frederick, 120–121, 123, 126, 135, 137 China, 114, 139–140 Chituwo, Brian, 142n6 Choma Declaration (1972), 125 Churches, 57. See also Religion Cissé, A., 152–153 Cissé, Soumaïla, 149, 155, 166n12, 166n18 Civic United Front (CUF), 95, 101–102, 104, 105, 110 Clan CMDT, 158 Class-based cleavages, 102, 130–131 Clientelistic networks, 135, 149–150, 159, 161, 164–165, 185, 186–187 CNID. See National Congress for Democratic Initiative CNU. See Caucus for National Unity Coalitions, 30, 32, 92n3, 145, 161, 181. See also specific coalitions COD. See Congress of Democrats Cold War, end of, 161 Coleman, J. S., 26–28 Colonialism: in Namibia, 54–57; in Senegal, 176–177, 183, 185–186; in Tanzania, 96–97 Committee to Defend Democratic Freedoms in Mali (Comité de Défense des Libertés Démocratiques au Mali, CDLDM), 146 Congress of Democrats (COD), 52–53, 63 Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), 79, 84, 88, 92n2 Congress of the People (COPE), 75, 77, 84 Consensus, 17, 23n15 Constitutions: of Mali, 147, 153; of Namibia, 49, 59–61; of Senegal, 171–172, 180, 190n1, 190n3; of South Africa, 82; two-thirds majority for changing, 46n2; of Zambia, 123, 132

Index Cooksey, B., 106 COPE. See Congress of the People Corruption, 109, 112, 116 COSATU. See Congress of South African Trade Unions Coulon, C., 176, 185, 188 Counting rules, 30, 31, 46n3 Court, D., 106 Cousinage, 149, 164 Cox, G., 14 CUF. See Civic United Front Cycle of dominance, 18, 50, 199

DA. See Democratic Alliance Dahou, T., 187 Daloz, J.-P., 138 De Klerk, F. W., 78, 85 Democracies, 17; democracy assistance, 20; electoral, 22nn8–9; folk concept of, 183; minimal and liberal, 22n8; multiparty democracy, 12, 197, 200, 202; party systems in established, 25; surveys on, 62, 71 Democratic Alliance (DA), 75, 76 Democratic centralism, 62 Democratic Party (DP) (South Africa), 76 Democratic Party (DP) (Tanzania), 101, 104 Democratic Republic of Congo, 52 Democratization: obstacles to, 15; social cleavages and, 23n12; wave of, 17, 113, 172, 181 Demokaraasi, 17, 23nn15–17 Diagne, Blaise, 176 Diamond, L., 16 Diescho, J., 63 Diola, 178 Diop, Cheikh Anta, 170–171, 182 Diouf, Abdou, 171–172, 179–181, 184–185, 190n11 Dominance: cycle of, 18, 50, 199; distinction between plurality and majority, 27; in Sartori’s party system topology, 30–32 Dominant party systems: dominantauthoritarian party systems compared to, 4–5, 6; predominant party system compared to, 29, 36 Dominant-authoritarian party systems, 4–5, 6

247

DP. See Democratic Party Du Pisani, A., 50, 51, 58–59, 67 Dunning, T., 149 Duverger, M., 11

Education for Self-Reliance (ESR), 101, 106 Effective number of parties, 31 EISA. See Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa Elections, 3, 5; in Benin, 32; countries holding at least three consecutive multiparty, 34; countries holding multiparty, 46n4; duration or time span for, 28; in The Gambia, 33; in Mali, 10, 30, 143, 144–145, 150, 152–156, 159–161, 164–165, 166n12, 166n17, 166nn9–10, 168n34; in Mauritius, 30; in Namibia, 8–9, 8tab, 49, 50–54, 51tab, 56, 58, 63–64, 66–68, 72n5; party constellations resulting from, 32–33; PR and, 14–15; as racial census, 80–81; results of multiparty parliamentary elections, 37tab–44tab; in Senegal, 170–172, 173tab, 174, 175tab, 176, 180–182, 184–185, 188–189, 190n5, 190n12, 191n13, 191n16; in South Africa, 8–9, 8tab, 18, 74–77, 79–81; in Tanzania, 8–9, 8tab, 94–98, 94tab, 95tab, 102, 105, 107–108, 110–112; in Zambia, 120–121, 121tab, 122tab, 123–124, 126–135, 129tab, 130tab, 137–139, 141 Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA), 104 Erdmann, Gero, 3–5, 21, 128 Ersson, S., 16 ESR. See Education for Self-Reliance Ethnicity: conflict, 101; ethnic divisions, 1; ethnic-regional identity, 58–59, 128–131, 178–179; identity, 107, 148–149; multiethnic character of liberation movements, 13, 23n13 Evenhandedness, 17, 23n17

Familyhood (ujamaa), 98–100, 110, 112 FDD. See Forum for Democracy and Development FF+. See Freedom Front Plus Floor-crossing legislation, 74, 83

248

Index

FNDP. See National Democratic People’s Front FNS. See Senegalese National Front Ford, R., 149 Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), 123, 134 France, 153, 161, 176–177, 183, 185–186, 187 Free countries, 6–7, 7tab, 22n10 Freedom Front Plus (FF+), 77 Freedom House: index, 33; on political rights and civil liberties, 6–7, 7tab FRELIMO. See Frente de Libertação de Moçambique French Socialist Party (Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière, French Section of Worker’s International, SFIO), 177 Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO), 69 Friedman, E., 6 Friedman, S., 13, 86

The Gambia, 33, 178, 184 GEAR Program, 87–88 Geographical proximity, 156, 159, 166, 166n6 Germany, 54, 96 Giliomee, H., 11–12, 13 Good governance surveys, 49 Government performance, 17–18; CCM and, 108–111; in Mali, 156–158; MMD and, 137–138; in Namibia, 64–66; in Senegal, 184–185, 191n17; in South Africa, 18, 86–89; SWAPO Party and, 64–66; in Tanzania, 108–111; in Zambia, 136–138 Greene, K. F., 19 Growth, Employment, and Redistribution. See GEAR Program Gyimah-Boadi, E., 17, 18–19, 136

Harrison, L., 149 Hartmann, Christof, 21 Hate speech, 63 Hegemonic party systems, 5, 19, 36 Helen Suzman Foundation, 62 Heritage Party (HP), 123 Hibernators or RDP moles, 63 Hichilema, Hakainde, 124, 129 HIV/AIDS, 86

Household Income and Expenditure Review, 64 HP. See Heritage Party Human Development Index, 157 Hunter, J., 58 Huntington, S. P., 11, 12, 18

IFP. See Inkatha Freedom Party Incumbency advantages, 19 Independence, 55; of Angola, 56, 72n8; of Mali, 154; of Namibia, 49, 50, 72n3; of Senegal, 170, 185; of Tanzania, 97; of Zambia, 125 Indian Congress Party, 87 Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, 78 Inglehart, R., 16 Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), 75 Institutional architecture, 13–15; ADEMA and, 151–153; CCM and, 103–104, 106; in Mali, 150–153; MMD and, 131–133; in Namibia, 59–62; PS and, 180–182; in Senegal, 180–182; in South Africa, 81–84; SWAPO Party and, 59–62; in Tanzania, 102–106; in Zambia, 131–133, 140 Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI), 19 International influences, 20; CCM and, 113; in Mali, 161–162; in Namibia, 68–70; in Senegal, 187–188; SWAPO Party and, 68–69; in Tanzania, 113–114; in Zambia, 139–140 International Socialist Movement, 171, 188 Islamic brotherhoods, 179–180, 183

Joking relationships between patronymics, 149, 164, 165n5 Jourde, C., 162

Kâ, Djibo, 172, 179 Kaapama, P., 58, 71 Kabila, Laurent-Désiré, 52 Kaingu, Michael, 142n6 Kané, O., 185 KANU. See Kenya African National Union Kaunda, Kenneth, 126, 128, 130, 137

Index Keita, Ibrahim Boubacar, 149, 155 Keita, Modibo, 156 Keïta, Sundjata, 166n19 Kenya African National Union (KANU), 119 Keulder, C., 50, 59 Kikwete, Jakaya, 109, 116 Kiswahili language, 96, 97, 101 Koff, D., 107 Konaré, Alpha Oumar, 147, 150, 152, 154–155, 164, 166n12

Laakso, M., 31 Lane, J.-E., 16 Lavallée, E., 107 League of Nations, 54 Lesotho, 22n4, 22n10 Liberation movements, 11–13, 20, 23n13. See also specific movements Lijphart, A., 85 Limited party pluralism, 169, 171 Lindberg, S., 33 Lindeke, W., 50, 71 Lipset, S. M., 12 Loi cadre (reform act, 1956), 177 Lomé agreements, 184 Lowassa, Edward, 112, 115 Loyalty: patriotism and party, 11–12, 22n11; between patrons and clients, 17 Luthuli House (ANC headquarters), 83

Magande, Ng’andu, 134, 142n7 Magoloni, B., 19 Maharaj, Mac, 79 Majoritarian systems, 14, 151, 166n8 Makau, D., 106 Makulilo, A., 111 Malawi, 99 Malawi Congress Party (MCP), 119 Mali, 21, 143–165; constitution of, 147, 153; decentralization in, 151, 166n7; elections in, 10, 30, 143, 144–145, 150, 152–156, 159–161, 164–165, 166n12, 166n17, 166nn9–10, 168n34; as free country, 7; government performance in, 156–158; historical legacy of, 145–147; independence of, 154; institutional architecture in, 150–153; international influences in, 161–162; main findings on, 197–199,

249

202–204; multiparty politics in, 143, 144–147, 150, 152, 154, 161–163, 165; National Assembly of, 148; opposition parties in, 144, 151–155, 166n15; party system change mechanisms in, 145–147; party system change trajectory in, 144–145; political culture in, 154–156; religion in, 148, 165n4; social cleavages in, 147–150, 163–164; state-party relations in, 154, 158–161, 166n14, 167nn26–28. See also Alliance for Democracy in Mali; specific parties Malian Party for Democracy and Revolution (Parti Malien pour la Révolution et la Démocratie, PMRD), 146 Malian Party of Labour (Parti Malien du Travail, PMT), 146–147 Malian Student Association (Association des Élèves et Étudiants du Mali, AEEM), 146 Malinke people, 148, 149 Mandé people, 148 Mandela, Nelson, 84, 85 Mass party, 34 Mattes, R., 17, 136 Mauritius, 30 Mazoka, Anderson, 124 Mbeki, Thabo, 84, 86, 88, 91, 92n1 McDonald, R. H., 26–28 MCP. See Malawi Congress Party Media, 68, 112, 158 Melber, Henning, 21 Mexico, 19, 185 MFDC. See Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance Miguel, E., 107 Mill, John Stuart, 10 MIRIA. See Movement for the Independence, Renaissance, and Integration of Africa Mitterrand, François, 161 Miyanda, Godfrey, 123 Mkapa, Benjamin, 108, 109 MMD. See Movement for Multiparty Democracy Most similar systems design, 10, 206 Mourides, 179, 187 Mouvance présidentielle coalition, 174

250

Index

Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), 9; government performance and, 137–138; historical legacy of, 119–120, 126–127, 140; institutional architecture and, 131–133; main findings on, 197–198, 203–204; political culture and, 133–136; social cleavages and, 127–131; state-party relations and, 138–139; Zambia party system trajectory and, 121, 123–124 Movement for the Independence, Renaissance, and Integration of Africa (Mouvement pour l’Independence, la Renaissance et l’Intégration Africaine, MIRIA), 147 Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance, MFDC), 178 Movimento Popular da Libertação de Angola (MPLA), 69, 72n8 Mozambique, 69 MPLA. See Movimento Popular da Libertação de Angola Mpombo, George, 134 Mrema, Augustine, 98, 105 MRS. See Senegalese Republican Movement Mtemvu, Zuberi, 96 Mtikila, Christopher, 101, 104 Mugabe, Robert, 142n2 Mulongoti, Mike, 142n8 Multiparty democracy, 12, 197, 200, 202 Multiparty politics: in Mali, 143, 144–147, 150, 152, 154, 161–163, 165; reintroduction of, 25; in Senegal, 169, 187, 188–189; in Tanzania, 99–100, 102, 104–105, 108, 113; in Zambia, 119, 120, 123, 125–127. See also Elections Mumba, Nevers, 135, 142n6 Mushi, S. S., 100, 111 Mwanawasa, Levy, 121, 123, 135, 138

NACSAP. See National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plan Namibia, 5, 21, 22n5, 49–72; churches in, 57; colonialism in, 54–57; constitution of, 49, 59–61; elections in, 8–9, 8tab, 49, 50–54, 51tab, 56, 58, 63–64, 66–68, 72n5; as free country, 7; government performance

in, 64–66; historical legacy of, 54–57; independence of, 49, 50, 72n3; institutional architecture in, 59–62; international influences in, 68–70; main findings on, 196–202; National Assembly of, 53, 59–61, 72n3; National Council of, 61; one-party dominance mechanisms in, 54–57; one-party dominance trajectory in, 50–54, 70–71; opposition parties in, 51–54, 59, 63–64, 71–72, 72n5; organized labor movement in, 57; political culture in, 62–64, 71; public funding for SWAPO versus other political parties in, 67tab; religion in, 57; segregation in, 54; social cleavages in, 57–59; state of emergency in, 56; state-party relations in, 66–68; UN and, 54–55, 68, 70, 200. See also SWAPO Party; specific parties Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), 67, 68 National Anti-Corruption Strategy and Action Plan (NACSAP), 113 National Assembly: of Mali, 148; of Namibia, 53, 59–61, 72n3; of Senegal, 170, 174, 186; of South Africa, 74 National Citizens’ Coalition (NCC), 134 National Congress for Democratic Initiative (Congrès National d’Initiative Démocratique, CNID), 146, 149 National Convention for Construction and Reform–Mageuzi (NCCRMageuzi), 98, 105 National Council (Namibia), 61 National Democratic People’s Front (Front National Démocratique et Populaire, FNDP), 146 National Democratic Rally (Rassemblement National Démocratique, RND), 171 National democratic revolution, 88, 89 National Electoral Commission (NEC; Tanzania), 103, 104 National liberation movements (NLMs), 69 National Lima Party (NLP), 130

Index National Party (NP) (South Africa), 75, 85 National Party (NP) (Zambia), 130, 142n4 National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW), 57 National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO), 59 Nationalist movements, 10–13 Native commissioners system, 62 NBC. See Namibian Broadcasting Corporation NCC. See National Citizens’ Coalition NCCR-Mageuzi. See National Convention for Construction and Reform–Mageuzi NEC. See National Electoral Commission Neopatrimonialism, 17, 103, 120, 123, 140, 162 Nepotism, 135 New Era, 65 New National Party (NNP), 75–76 Niasse, Moustapha, 179 Nkomo, Joshua, 142n2 NLMs. See National liberation movements NLP. See National Lima Party NNP. See New National Party Non-Aligned Movement, 55 Nondominant party system, 4, 32–33 Not free countries, 6–7, 7tab NP. See National Party NUDO. See National Unity Democratic Organisation Nujoma, Sam, 52, 59, 69 NUNW. See National Union of Namibian Workers Nursey-Bray, P. F., 98–99 Nyerere, Julius, 96–100, 103, 106–108, 113, 198, 201

OAU. See Organisation of African Unity Obedience clause, 148 Observatoire National des Elections (National Election Observatory, ONEL), 191n13 Okema, M., 107 ONEL. See Observatoire National des Elections One-party dominance: characteristics of, 7, 22n10; counteracting mechanisms

251

for, 202–204; criteria for, 3, 26, 94, 189; definitions of, 3–5, 26–30, 27tab, 94; enduring compared to nonenduring, 2, 4–21, 22nn3–4, 195–207; geographical areas of application in, 28; methodology and case selection for, 5–10, 206–207; Sartori on, 3–4, 6, 8–9, 22n3, 22n5, 26, 32, 94, 189; self-reinforcing mechanisms for, 200–202; seven mechanisms of, 3, 195; single-party system compared to, 26; studies of, 1–2, 5–10, 22n1, 204–207; thresholds for, 3, 26–28, 30; turnover in, 28; as uncommon, deviant, or outliers, 5; worrying trend of, 1, 25 One-party dominance mechanisms: in Namibia, 54–57; in South Africa, 74, 77–80; in Tanzania, 95–101, 114 One-party dominance trajectory: in Namibia, 50–54, 70–71; in South Africa, 74–77; in Tanzania, 94–95, 114–115; underlying mechanisms of, 10–20, 196–200 OPO. See Ovamboland People’s Organisation Opposition parties: in Mali, 144, 151–155, 166n15; in Namibia, 51–54, 59, 63–64, 71–72, 72n5; in Senegal, 172, 174, 176, 181–182, 189, 190n6, 191n15; in South Africa, 75–77, 78, 87; in Tanzania, 93, 94–95, 97, 99, 102, 103–108, 110, 112, 115; in Zambia, 120–121, 123–126, 129, 136, 139, 141. See also specific parties Organisation of African Unity (OAU), 55 Organized labor movement, 57 Ovamboland, 56; four O-regions of (Oshana, Omusati, Oshikoto, Ohangwena), 58–59 Ovamboland People’s Organisation (OPO), 55

PAC. See Pan-Africanist Congress PAI. See African Independence Party Pan-African Parliament (PAP), 68 Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), 76–77, 78 PAP. See Pan-African Parliament Parliamentary systems: presidential or semipresidential systems versus, 15,

252

Index

29–30, 31; results of multiparty parliamentary elections, 37tab–44tab; two-thirds majority for changing constitution, 46n2 Partly free countries, 6–7, 7tab, 22n10 Party assistance, 20 Party autonomy, 83–84 Party constellations, 32–33 Party for Democracy and Development (Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo, CHADEMA), 95, 101, 102, 104, 105, 115, 116 Party institutionalization, 4; party autonomy and, 83–84; party system institutionalization compared to, 22n2; two dimensions of, 83 Party loyalty, 11–12, 22n11 Party system change mechanisms: in Mali, 145–147; in Senegal, 176–178; in Zambia, 124–127 Party system change trajectory: in Mali, 144–145; in Senegal, 9, 170–176, 188–189; in Zambia, 9, 120–124 Party system institutionalization: countries, 46n7; fluid versus structured or, 30–31, 33–34, 35tab–36tab; party institutionalization compared to, 22n2 Party system topology. See Sartori’s party system topology Party system trajectories, 3. See also One-party dominance trajectory Party systems: classification of, 5, 32–36, 35tab–36tab, 46; electoral systems’ impact on, 13–15; in established democracies, 25; stable versus fluid, 4–5, 22nn3–4; volatility of, 34, 46n6. See also specific party systems Patriotic Front (PF), 9, 120, 123, 124, 129tab, 132, 139–141, 197 Patriotism: party loyalty and, 11–12, 22n11; struggle narrative of patriotic history, 56, 65 Patronage, 19, 135–136, 155, 186 Patronymics, joking relationships between, 149, 164, 165n5 PDS. See Senegalese Democratic Party PDS-R. See Senegalese Democratic Party–Renewal Pedersen, M., 34, 46n6

Pempel, T. J., 2, 3, 26, 27–28, 30 Petty bourgeoisie, 99 PF. See Patriotic Front PMRD. See Malian Party for Democracy and Revolution PMT. See Malian Party of Labour Pohamba, Hifikepunye, 54, 59, 69 Political authority, 167n21 Political culture: ADEMA and, 154–156, 166n13; ANC and, 84–86; CCM and, 107–108; definition of, 16, 133; in Mali, 154–156; MMD and, 133–136; in Namibia, 62–64, 71; in Senegal, 17, 23nn15–17, 182–184; in South Africa, 78, 84–86; SWAPO Party and, 62–64; in Tanzania, 106–108; in Zambia, 133–136 Political Parties Act (Mali), 144, 152 Political Parties Act (Tanzania), 104–106 Political rights and civil liberties, 6–7, 7tab Politics of aspiration, 18 Power: exercise of, 12; issue of, 32; of presidents, 15–16, 59, 102–103, 132, 153, 180; separation of powers, 60 PR. See Proportional representation PRA-Sénégal. See African Regroupment Party of Senegal Predominant party systems, 4, 5, 22n5; dominant party system compared to, 29, 36 Presidential or semipresidential systems: divided governments in, 29; parliamentary systems versus, 15, 29–30, 31 Presidents, power of, 15–16, 102–103, 132, 153, 180 PRI. See Institutional Revolutionary Party Prodemocracy movements, 10–12, 145. See also specific movements Proportional representation (PR), 14–15, 82–83, 103, 181 PS. See Socialist Party Pulverized party system, 4, 32

Race: racialized discourse interaction between mechanisms in South Africa, 90–91 Rally for Mali (Rassemblement pour le Mali, RPM), 149, 155, 168n33

Index Randall, V., 83 Razafindrakoto, M., 107 RDA. See African Democratic Rally RDP. See Rally for Democracy and Progress; Reconstruction and Development Program Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP), 87 Reddy, Thiven, 21 Reform act (loi cadre, 1956), 177 Regional Councils Act (1992), 61 Registrar of Political Parties, 103, 104 Religion: in Mali, 148, 165n4; in Namibia, 57; in Senegal, 178–180, 183–184; in Tanzania, 101–102 Repression, 110–111 Republican Party (RP), 72n5 Resource advantages, 19, 201 Rimanelli, M., 22n6 RND. See National Democratic Rally Robinson, A. L., 107 Rokkan, S., 12 Roubaud, F., 107 RP. See Republican Party RPM. See Rally for Mali Rule of law, 88, 109, 188 Rwanda, genocide in, 107–108

Saboo, Mustafa Jaffar, 116 SACP. See South African Communist Party SADC. See Southern African Development Community Salafist movements, 165 Salih, M. A. M., 63 Sall, Macky, 189, 190 Sartori, G.: on fluid versus institutionalized or structured party systems, 30–31, 34; on one-party dominance, 3–4, 6, 8–9, 22n3, 22n5, 26, 32, 94, 189 Sartori’s party system topology, 3–4, 28–29, 31tab; counting rules in, 30, 31, 46n3; dominance in, 30–32 Sata, Michael, 9, 120, 123–124, 129, 132–133, 138, 139–141 Saul, J. S., 99 Schaffer, F. C., 16–17, 183 Sears, J. M., 150, 160 Segregation, 54

253

Senegal, 21, 169–190; colonialism in, 176–177, 183, 185–186; constitution of, 171–172, 180, 190n1, 190n3; elections in, 170–172, 173tab, 174, 175tab, 176, 180–182, 184–185, 188–189, 190n5, 190n12, 191n13, 191n16; government performance in, 184–185, 191n17; historical legacy of, 176–178, 189; independence of, 170, 185; institutional architecture in, 180–182; international influences in, 187–188; main findings on, 197–199, 202–204; multiparty politics in, 169, 187, 188–189; National Assembly of, 170, 174, 186; opposition parties in, 172, 174, 176, 181–182, 189, 190n6, 191n15; as party free country, 7; party system change mechanisms in, 176–178; party system change trajectory in, 9, 170–176, 188–189; political culture in, 17, 23nn5–17, 182–184; religion in, 178–180, 183–184; social cleavages in, 178–180; state-party relations in, 185–187. See also Socialist Party; specific parties Senegalese Democratic Bloc (Bloc Démocratique Sénégalais, BDS), 177 Senegalese Democratic Party (Parti Démocratique Sénégalais, PDS), 171–172, 174, 176, 185, 189, 190n7 Senegalese Democratic Party–Renewal (Parti Démocratique Sénégalais–Renovation, PDS-R), 190n7 Senegalese National Front (Front National Sénégalais, FNS), 170 Senegalese Progressive Union (Union Progressiste Sénégalaise, UPS), 9, 170–171, 177–178. See also Socialist Party Senegalese Republican Movement (Mouvement Républicain Sénégalais, MRS), 171 Senghor, Léopold, 170, 171, 177–179, 182, 184, 187–188 Seychelles, 5, 22n5, 22n10 SFIO. See French Socialist Party Shakafuswa, Jonas, 142n7 Shejavali, N., 71 Simkins, C., 11–12, 13

254

Index

Simutanyi, Neo, 21 Single-party system, 26 Slaa, Willibrord, 115 Social cleavages, 12–13; ANC and, 80–81; CCM and, 96, 101–102; democraticization and, 23n12; in Mali, 147–150, 163–164; MMD and, 127–131; in Namibia, 57–59; in Senegal, 178–180; in South Africa, 80–81; SWAPO Party and, 57–59; in Tanzania, 96, 97, 101–102; in Zambia, 127–131 Socialism, 99, 107, 110, 198 Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste, PS), 9; criticism of, 188; institutional architecture and, 180–182; Islamic brotherhoods and, 179–180, 183; rise and fall of, 169–170, 185, 204; in Senegal party system change trajectory, 171–172, 174, 176, 188– 189; state-party relations and, 185–187 Solidarity, 17, 23n16 Sopi Coalition, 9, 174, 180, 181, 189 South Africa, 5, 21, 73–92; constitution of, 82; elections in, 8–9, 8tab, 18, 74–77, 79–81; as free country, 7; government performance in, 18, 86–89; historical legacy of, 77–80, 92; institutional architecture in, 81–84; main findings on, 196–202; National Assembly of, 74; one-party dominance mechanisms in, 74, 77–80; one-party dominance trajectory in, 74–77; opposition parties in, 75–77, 78, 87; political culture in, 78, 84–86; provincial governments in, 92n3; racialized discourse and interaction between mechanisms in, 90–91; social cleavages in, 80–81; South West Africa, UN and, 54–55, 72n7; Soweto student uprising, 85; state-party relations in, 89. See also African National Congress; specific parties South African Communist Party (SACP), 79, 84, 88, 92n2 South West Africa, 54–55, 72n7 South West Africa People’s Organisation. See SWAPO Party South West African National Union (SWANU), 55

Southern African Development Community (SADC), 68 Soviet Union, 56, 146 Soweto student uprising, 85 Special Advisors and Regional Governors Appointment Amendment Act (2010), 61 Spiess, C., 22n7 State-party relations, 18–19; ADEMA and, 154, 158–161, 166n14; ANC and, 89; CCM and, 98, 109, 111–113, 115; in Mali, 154, 158–161, 166n14, 167nn26–28; MMD and, 138–139; in Namibia, 66–68; PS and, 185–187; in Senegal, 185–187; in South Africa, 89; SWAPO Party and, 66–68; in Tanzania, 98, 109, 111–113, 115; in Zambia, 138–139 Stroh, A., 149 Sudanese Union–African Democratic Rally (Union Soudanaise–Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, US-RDA), 146, 150, 151 Superpresidentialism, 153, 163 Suttner, R., 87 Svåsand, L., 83 SWANU. See South West African National Union SWAPO Party (formerly South West Africa People’s Organisation), 9, 49, 72n1, 119; Election Manifesto of 1999, 63; government performance and, 64–66; historical legacy of, 55–57, 72n8, 197; institutional architecture and, 59–62; international influences and, 68–69; main findings on, 201, 202; in Namibia one-party dominance trajectory, 50–54, 70–71; political culture and, 62–64; public funding for other political parties versus, 67tab; social cleavages and, 57–59; state-party relations and, 66–68; UN General Assembly Resolution 3111 on, 55–56; Youth League, 56 Sy, Moustapha, 190n11

Taagepera, R., 31 TAC. See Treatment Action Campaign Tanganyika, 95–96

Index TANU. See Tanzania African National Union Tanzania, 5, 21, 93–116; colonialism in, 96–97; compared to other countries, 96, 97, 99, 107, 109, 115; corruption in, 109, 112, 116; elections in, 8–9, 8tab, 94–98, 94tab, 95tab, 102, 105, 107–108, 110–112; government performance in, 108–111; historical legacy of, 95–101; independence of, 97; institutional architecture in, 102–106; international influences in, 113–114; main findings on, 196–201; multiparty politics in, 99–100, 102, 104–105, 108, 113; one-party dominance mechanisms in, 95–101, 114; one-party dominance trajectory in, 94–95, 114–115; opposition parties in, 93, 94–95, 97, 99, 102, 103–108, 110, 112, 115; as party free country, 7; political culture in, 106–108; religion in, 101–102; social cleavages in, 96, 97, 101–102; stateparty relations in, 98, 109, 111–113, 115. See also Chama Cha Mapinduzi; specific parties Tanzania African National Union (TANU, later CCM), 95–99 Tanzanian Youth League (TYL), 106 Tembo, Christon, 123 Tidjane, 179 Touré, Amadou Toumani, 10, 143, 166n12, 203; coup against Traoré, 145, 146, 147, 157; platform and success of, 145, 154, 155–156, 159–161, 164–165, 197; public speeches by, 166n19 Touré, Samori, 166n19 Trade unions, 57, 126, 146, 165n1 Traoré, Moussa, 144, 163; coup against, 145, 146, 147, 157; coup lead by, 156; regime of, 146, 147, 151, 156–157, 167n22 Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), 86 Tribal balancing, 128, 142n3 Tuareg rebellion, 151, 157, 165, 167n23 TYL. See Tanzanian Youth League

UDA. See United Democratic Alliance UDF. See United Democratic Front

255

Ujamaa (familyhood), 98–100, 110, 112 Ulenga, Ben, 52 UN. See United Nations UN Council for Namibia, 55, 68 UN Development Programme (UNDP), 64–65 UN General Assembly Resolution 3111, 55–56 UN Institute for Namibia, 55 UNDP. See UN Development Programme União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), 72n8 Union for Democratic Renewal (Union pour le Renouveau Démocratique, URD), 172, 174 Union for the Republic and Democracy (Union pour la République et la Démocratie, URD), 149 UNIP. See United National Independence Party UNITA. See União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola United Democratic Alliance (UDA), 120, 124 United Democratic Front (UDF), 59, 85 United Democratic Movement, 77 United National Independence Party (UNIP), 119, 120, 124–127, 133–134 United Nations (UN): establishment of, 54; Namibia and, 54–55, 68, 70, 200; South Africa, South West Africa and, 54–55, 72n7; supervision of, 50 United Party for National Development (UPND), 124, 129, 130tab UPS. See Senegalese Progressive Union URD. See Union for Democratic Renewal; Union for the Republic and Democracy US-RDA. See Sudanese Union–African Democratic Rally

Van de Walle, N., 12, 15, 26–28, 144 Van Vliet, Martin, 21 Vengroff, R., 151 Verba, S., 16 Villagization, 99 Villalón, L. A., 185 Von der Muhll, G., 107 Voting: impacts on, 17–19; race and, 80–81. See also Elections

256 Waar Wi Coalition, 190n9 Wachagga, 101 Wade, Abdoulaye, 9, 190n7, 198; policies of, 170, 172, 174, 176, 180, 181, 188, 189 Ware, A., 28 Wasukuma, 101 Whitehead, Richard, 21, 107 Wolofs, 178, 183, 186 Women: activists, 57; PR basis for, 103 Wong, J., 6 World Bank Institute, 109 World War I, 96 World War II, 177

Index

Zambia, 21, 119–141; constitution of, 123, 132; elections in, 120–121, 121tab, 122tab, 123–124, 126–135, 129tab, 130tab, 137–139, 141; government performance in, 136–138; historical legacy of, 124–127; independence of, 125; institutional architecture in, 131–133, 140; international influences in, 139–140; main findings on, 197–198, 202–204; multiparty politics in, 119, 120, 123, 125–127; opposition parties in, 120–121, 123–126, 129, 136, 139, 141; as party free country, 7; party system change mechanisms in,

124–127; party system change trajectory in, 9, 120–124; political culture in, 133–136; social cleavages in, 127–131; state-party relations in, 138–139. See also Movement for Multiparty Democracy; specific parties ZANU-PF. See Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front Zanzibar, 95, 97, 102, 110, 115 Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party (ZPPP), 97 Zanzibar Declaration (1991), 100 Zanzibar Electoral Commission (ZEC), 104 Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), 97 ZAPU. See Zimbabwe African People’s Union ZEC. See Zanzibar Electoral Commission Zimbabwe, 76 Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), 69, 142n2 Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), 142n2 ZNP. See Zanzibar Nationalist Party ZPPP. See Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party Zuma, Jacob, 69–70, 73, 84, 88, 92n1

About the Book

emerging democracy or simply an expression of the will of the people? Why has one-party dominance endured in some African democracies and not in others? What are the mechanisms behind the varying party system trajectories? Considering these questions, the authors of this collaborative work use a rigorous comparative research design and rich case material to greatly enhance our understanding of one of the key issues confronting emerging democracies in sub-Saharan Africa. IS THE DOMINANCE OF ONE POLITICAL PARTY A PROBLEM IN AN

Renske Doorenspleet is associate professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. She is author of Democratic Transitions: Exploring the Structural Sources of the Fourth Wave. Lia Nijzink formerly was senior researcher at the University of Cape Town. Currently, she is writing her PhD dissertation on the impact of floor crossing on accountability relations in Malawi and South Africa. Her recent publications include Accountable Government in Africa: Perspectives from Public Law and Political Studies.

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