The year 2021 has been characterised by 13 elections in Africa—in Uganda, Niger, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Benin, Chad, Ethiopia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Zambia, Somalia, Cabo Verde, The Gambia and one set for December 24 in Libya, but was postponed indefinitely.
Only those in Zambia, Cabo Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe can be considered free and fair. Why don’t elections work in Africa?
The primary reason is that, in the nine cases where elections resulted in questionable outcomes, the conditions of a level playing field for the incumbent and the opposition were absent.
The chaos in Libya does not make prospects for a democratic election high.
Closer to home, in Uganda, the government unleashed unprecedented violence on opposition supporters, denied it equal and free press and persecuted its leaders.
In Congo, incumbent septuagenarian Denis Sassou Nguesso has proliferated the electoral commission with allies, coerced or exiled opponents and created apathy in the electorate to want to participate in elections.
What was turning into a bright spot for democracy in West Africa is on the fast track to autocracy.
Despite the fact that Adama Barrow won the Gambian election, his use of parliamentary majorities to frustrate laws that would entrench term limits, his use of the legislature, through his ruling party, as a rubber stamp to legislation, and his bromance with former dictator Yahya Jammeh have democracy advocates very worried.
To Sierra Leone’s east, in Benin, President Pierre Talon has pursued a relentless campaign of jailing or exiling opponents, truncating any legitimate challenge to his hold on power. Elections have become a routine rather than a competitive process of selling ideas.
Without a strong central government and leadership to bring competing factions together, there is no chance of free and fair democratic elections in Libya and Somalia.
In Libya, the Government of National Unity (GNU) is in a perennial struggle for power with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar in the east. This situation is complicated by the arrival of Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, into the political space. He has won a court case challenging his ability to run in the election.
Multiplicity of foreign actors
On its part, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) is incapable of midwifing a credible election with a multiplicity of foreign actors, including the United States, France, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Egypt, UAE and Qatar, backing different factions.
Somalia is shackled by clan feuding in the crippling 4.5 formula system of election of delegates to the national legislature.
In Ethiopia, the Ahmed Abiy administration is engaged in an existential war with the Tigray region.
His recent electoral triumph has proved hollow, considering the imminent threat to the disintegration of the Ethiopian state, the humanitarian crisis in Tigray and the massive executions, rapes and mutilations by both the government and rebel troops. He has failed to create appropriate power sharing among the regions.
The prevailing reason elections don’t work in Africa is that the democratic and free will of the people is not heard.
Elections have deteriorated into selections with avenues to legitimately remove incumbents from power, checked by rigging, muzzling of the press, criminalisation of the opposition, partisan electoral commissions, military intervention and weak institutions of government.
However, all is not lost. While not widespread, past polls in Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia have shown that it’s possible to make elections work on the continent.
In Zambia, for example, the perennial opposition candidate Hakainde Hichilema trounced President Edgar Lungu. A big part of this was the long tradition of strong and independent electoral institutions. In addition, the opposition regularly challenges the government to democratise the playing field.
With critical elections in 2022, the continent will be watching to appreciate the Kenyan variant of electoral democracy.
The assertive and independent courts have nullified elections that were not free and fair. We can be an example of why elections can work in Africa BY DAILY NATION