Journal of African Elections Special Issue West Africa
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VOLUME 10 NO 2 i Journal of African Elections Special Issue West Africa GUEST EDITOR Abdul Rahman Lamin ARTICLES BY Abdul Rahman Lamin David Dossou Zounmenou Jasper Ayelazuno Ben Simon Okolo R Okey Onunkwo Isaaka Souaré Khabele Matlosa Volume 10 Number 2 October 2011 i ii JOUR na L OF AFRIC an ELECTIO N S Published by EISA 14 Park Road, Richmond Johannesburg South Africa P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 11 381 6000 Fax: +27 (0) 11 482 6163 e-mail: [email protected] ©EISA 2011 ISSN: 1609-4700 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher Copy editor: Pat Tucker Printed by: Global Print, Johannesburg Cover photograph: Reproduced with the permission of the HAMILL GALLERY OF AFRICAN ART, BOSTON, MA, USA www.eisa.org.za VOLUME 10 NO 2 iii Editor Peter Vale, University of Johannesburg MANAGING Editor Jackie Kalley Editorial BOARD Acting chair: Denis Kadima, EISA, Johannesburg Jørgen Elklit, Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Denmark Amanda Gouws, Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch Abdul Rahman Lamin, UNESCO, Accra Tom Lodge, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick Khabele Matlosa, UNDP/ECA Joint Governance Initiatives, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Roger Southall, Department of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg The Journal of African Elections is an interdisciplinary biannual publication of research and writing in the human sciences, which seeks to promote a scholarly understanding of developments and change in Africa. Responsibility for opinions expressed and for the accuracy of facts published in papers, research notes, review articles and book reviews rests solely with the individual authors or reviewers. Contributions are referred to specialist readers for consideration, but the Editor is responsible for the final selection of the contents of the Journal. Editorial correspondence, including manuscripts for submission and books for review, should be sent to: The Managing Editor, Journal of African Elections EISA: P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006, South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 11 381 6000 | Fax: +27 (0) 11 482 6163 | e-mail: [email protected] Business correspondence, including orders and remittances, subscription queries, advertisements, back numbers and offprints, should be addressed to the publisher: The Publications Department, Journal of African Elections EISA: P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa Tel: 27 (0) 11 381 6000 | Fax: +27 (0) 11 482 6163 | e-mail: publications @eisa.org.za iv JOUR na L OF AFRIC an ELECTIO N S CONTENTS Housekeeping Notes ....................................................................................................................... v Editorial: West Africa in Context: Elections and the Challenges of Democratic Governance Abdul Rahman Lamin ...................................................................................................... 1 Côte D’Ivoire’s Post-electoral Crisis: Ouattara Rules but can he Govern? David Dossou Zounmenou and Abdul Rahman Lamin .....................................................6 Ghanaian Elections and Conflict Management: Interrogating the Absolute Majority Electoral System Jasper Ayelazuno (Abembia) ............................................................................................. 22 The 2011 Nigerian Elections: An Empirical Review Ben Simon Okolo and R Okey Onunkwo ......................................................................... 54 The 2011 Presidential Election in Benin: Explaining the Success of One of Two Firsts Issaka K Souaré ................................................................................................................ 73 The Tension Between Militarisation and Democratisation in West Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Niger and Guinea Khabele Matlosa and David Dossou Zounmenou ........................................................... 93 Contents of previous issues ...................................................................................... 115 Notes for contributors ................................................................................................ 135 VOLUME 10 NO 2 v HOUSEKEEPING NOTES Regular readers will note that the JAE has a new editor. It is customary to provide a new editor with the opportunity of setting down thoughts: this ought not be an agenda-setting exercise but, rather, a series of loose ideas on ways to take the journal forward. I say this because this journal belongs not to the editor, or the board or even to its nominal owners, EISA, but to the community it serves. So, and remember these words as both challenge and invitation, all who read this have a stake in the JAE and its future. *** It is appropriate to begin with a note of thanks to my immediate predecessors, Denis Kadima and Noam Pines. In many ways, Denis is the heart and soul of EISA – he is certainly at its heart and soul. Unsurprisingly then, he will continue his involvement with the JAE, initially as acting chair of the Editorial Board. He does so with the thanks of the Editorial Board, the managing editor and the incoming editor. Noam Pines has been a champion of democracy since I sat at his feet as an undergraduate student at Wits University – he brought the same passion and compassion to these pages as he did to his teaching. Noam is always a hard act to follow. Dr Jackie Kalley will remain in the vital managing editor’s chair in which she has done such sterling work since the founding of the JAE a decade ago. The hard slog of copy-editing continues to be done by Pat Tucker, whose journalism has inspired me for decades. *** This journal’s dual calling is clear: supporting Africa’s search for democracy and cultivating an intellectual interest in one thread of the continent’s search for democracy – elections. These goals, however, interact with the vibrant features of Africa’s life as much as they do with the dark side of the continent’s often dismal politics. The JAE, in my view, must encourage a turn towards explaining African democracy and its important elections within a wider social context. So, and this I will encourage in coming editions, the JAE will foster the belief that democracy is not only form and formal elections, it is also about culture in all its forms. The point is plain: without infusing the search for democracy (and elections) within the genuine cultural life of Africa, it will fail. So, here’s the first of four innovations vi JOUR na L OF AFRIC an ELECTIO N S I will encourage in the years ahead: the JAE will carry pieces beyond the narrow formal study of elections. Secondly, in each number I will write a brief column – what you are reading is the first of these – which I will call Housekeeping Notes. These will touch on the life and times of the JAE and, of course, on the more mundane but essential issues of the journal and, indeed, EISA itself. Although they do not do so on this occasion, these notes might also reflect on developments on the continent. To do so here would be to write a book. So, we might say just this: what a year this has been for Africa. Of the 54 years since the continent attached its hope to Ghana’s independence surely 2011 has been the most promising. Thirdly, from the next number each issue will carry an Open Forum: effectively this will be free space where prominent (and not-so-prominent) individuals may discuss elections on the continent in an unfettered, non-academic way. So, for example, we might interview prominent (and not-so-prominent) people who have been involved in African elections and encourage them to express their views on these and other matters which touch upon the continent’s search for democracy. The heart of each issue will, however, remain academically-inclined pieces which are accessible to the intelligent layperson. They will eschew, as a matter of principle, the often dense writing on empirically-inclined election studies and will favour – again as a matter of principle – African-based authors. Finally, the back of the book will not only consist of short reviews, as it does at present, but will encourage longer (and so, more worthwhile) review articles which might promote comparative insights, even from places beyond the continent – especially from the Global South. But books are only one form of communication. We will also consider reviews of websites and, of course, movies. My earnest hope is that readers of the JAE will accept the invitation contained in the challenge in the third sentence of these notes: all who read these words have a stake in the JAE and its future. Let the conversation begin … Peter Vale Editor VOLUME 10 NO 2 1 EDITORAL WEST AFRICA IN CONTEXT Elections and the Challenges of Democratic Governance Abdul Rahman Lamin Dr Abdul Rahman Lamin is Programme Specialist, Sector for Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO, Accra, Ghana e-mail: [email protected] Somewhat paradoxically elections are fast becoming the new civil wars in Africa today. Almost two decades ago, when the so-called ‘wave of democratisation’ swept across the continent signaling an end to authoritarian rule and ushering in a new era of multiparty politics, there was a high degree of optimism that Africa was indeed now on track towards developing a democratic culture based on representative and participatory politics. This optimism