Democratization, and the problem of non-acceptance of results in Africa.

Dr F K Makoa Associate Professor in Political and Administrative Studies National University of Lesotho, Roma

Abstract

With the threat of isolation looming, following the end of the Cold War, the ascendancy of neo- liberalism as a single world political framework and the acceleration of globalization, Africa finally bowed out of its African /socialism. It turned its back on the single-party participatory rule that it adopted soon after gaining independence, re-embracing the liberal democracy that it had shed during the first five years of post-colonial period. Elections have been reinstated as mechanisms for appointing rulers and legitimizing . But, while the holding of periodic elections has become a feature of African , only in a few countries have the losers accepted election results. In a majority of African countries election outcomes have become the focus of bloody conflicts and costly legal battles. Yet the problem has to do not only with the institutional framework of the elections. It is also rooted in the voters' view of elections, lack of confidence in the , mismanagement of the electoral process by the concerned African governments, and their failure to resolve electoral disputes timely. Including these issues in analyses of electoral disputes in Africa would move us a step closer to the solution of the problem. Introduction

With a few exceptions, Africa has re-embraced elections as a means of appointing rulers and testing the legitimacy of . This is a response to the pressure by Western donors and its vicissitudes among which concomitants are the revision of the definitions of democracy and legitimacy “to include accountable government, a culture of human rights and popular participation as central elements,” (NEPAD in AISA, 2002: 450).

However, owed to the exogenous forces, the re-emergent democracy is as yet delicate and fragile, a state of affairs that indeed evokes scepticism about the success of the democratization project as a whole. The scepticism is further deepened by the fact that the majority of the African leaders who are now supposed to be championing the idea “are either illegitimate, on the basis of rigged elections, or simply have refused to hold democratic elections.” (Kabemba, 2002: 2) In addition, elections in Africa have not seen an end to authoritarianism and state instigated political violence. Much of Africa is still steeped in civil wars, rebellions and banditry, examples being Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic of Congo, Congo Brazaville, Ivory Cost, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Central African Republic, Somalia, Ethiopia, Liberia, and until recently, Angola. Meanwhile, many of Africa’s incumbent presidents and prime ministers have by manipulating the national parliaments, secured amendments to their countries’ constitutions allowing them to compete in elections for as many times as they can afford.

I argue in this paper that electoral disputes and rejection of election results have to do not only with the institutional and structural framework of the elections. They are also rooted in the voters’ view of them, lack of confidence in the electoral system, mismanagement of the electoral process, and the mode of handling the ensuing disputes. The paper benefits largely, but not exclusively, from the data generated by the preliminary study mounted in Lesotho after the 1998 elections.

Facing up to the stark reality?

Whatever the case may be, however, African leaders now acknowledge the stark reality that “development is impossible in the absence of true democracy,… and good governance.” (Ibid, p. 457) This demands, and it is contingent upon, a retreat from a drive to the discredited “political monism”, also variously termed one-party participatory democracy and/or African socialism. Africa’s political about-turn was formally announced in a declaration made in its 1990 Charter (p. 297). This is that “nations cannot be built without the popular support and full participation of the people, nor can the economic crisis be resolved and human and economic conditions improved without the full and effective contribution, creativity and popular enthusiasm of the vast majority of the people.”

However, Africa only embraced this view as it became clear that foreign aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) to the continent were threatened. The drive is, in fact, a result of a “compact between he rich and poor nations in which the latter, to qualify for new aid allocations, must pursue a broad range of political, legal, and economic reforms.” (President Bush, 2002: 2)

Yet while elections are seen as basic to democracy and popular participation, only in few cases have election outcomes not been disputed or accepted unconditionally by the losers. For example, in 7 out of 29 countries in which elections were held between 1989 and 1994 the losers rejected the results,(Bratton and van de Walle, 1998: 1997) Inn Lesotho, in particular, the losers have disputed, not relying exclusively on the courts of law but backing up their case

2 with violence as they saw fit, in various ways every election outcome since 1965. (Makoa, 2002a: 1)

The Organization of African Unity (OAU)(2002) – now the African Union (AU) – on its part has seemed, as reflected in its Observer Team’s one and half page report on the March 2002 Zimbabwe presidential elections, uncommitted unequivocally to the principle of free and fair elections. The report declares without qualification the elections as free and fair. This is in spite of the overwhelming evidence that the regime disenfranchised thousands of registered voters.

Meanwhile, the penchant for the control and manipulation of elections is still strong among many of the present batch of African leaders. In their own interests, some of these leaders have also undermined or trivialized their country’s electoral processes themselves through, for example, refusal to work with and recognize the opposition, under-funding of the process, denial of independence for the and electoral commissions or directorates, and poor infrastructure. But where electoral commissions are not independent or not believed to be so, the losers do not readily accept the election outcome.

Elections in Africa have generally occurred amid contradictory conditions, namely legality with some semblance of constitutionalism and denial of the rule of law and political rights, as was the case with the Zimbabwean March 2002 presidential election. (Booysen, 2002:2) The Zambian election held in the previous year experienced a more or less similar problem. Madagascar confronted the worst problem, having to endue months of rioting and absence of government, and suspension or boycott by the AU. (Cornish, 2002) Episodes such as these raise the fundamental issue of whether we are now witnessing a resurgence of democracy and popular representation that have been subjected to relentless bashing since the early 1960s. This though is yet to be clear. But denial of the right to vote freely through violence or other forms of intimidation is not just one way by which the present incumbents guarantee their hold on power. It is a circumvention of and refusal by such rulers to accept the voters’ verdict. Thus where the ruling party is the loser or is faced with prospects of a defeat, non-acceptance or rejection of election results in Africa has taken this form.

Africa’s Western induced democratic change, or “second independence”, has faced this seemingly perennial dilemma. While “between 1990 and 1997 in more than forty-two countries a peaceful change of government took place as a result of competitive multiparty elections…, democracy in Africa is in profound trouble and has not moved beyond the holding of multiparty elections. This is not surprising, though. Being not Africa’s own credo but that of the Western donors, the call for democratization has gained only formal acceptance among some of the African leaders. For example, “elections where the incumbent president secures 98.8 per cent of the vote are still embarrassingly common.” (Cheru, 2002: 33-34) Apparently dazed by this, Joseph (200:2) has concluded “that many of the new (in Africa) are really liberalized autocracies…, deliberately instigated violence increasingly determines political outcomes.” [My emphasis]

Has the democratization project failed to inspire popular confidence in the processes driving it? But massive voter turn out at elections held in different African countries would appear to discount this possibility. This certainly underscores the need for a study with methodologies focusing beyond the familiar rational choice approach to the analysis of elections, and the institutional framework of elections. This will hopefully expose the bankruptcy of oft-rehearsed statements such as “the elections have been conducted in accordance with the provisions of constitution.”

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Perspectives on elections and their limitations

Popular general elections have always been, and still are today, associated with democracy, being mechanisms for “electing officials who make decisions on behalf of the people.” (Lijphart, 2000: 1) They are the basic pillars of for they are a means of choosing parliamentary or congressional representatives. In constituency-based systems of government they decide “who is to represent each individual constituency in parliament; and what the overall composition of parliament by is to be.” (Dummett, M. 1997: 2) Elections are rational mechanisms for appointing rulers as opposed to the use of ascriptive criteria such as family backgrounds. Moreover, they ensure that no single person of group can have an indefinite hold on power.

Thus the holding of free, fair, regular periodic elections signifies the presence of democracy in a particular country or polity. Elections are important indicators of the degree of commitment to democracy by regimes and their peoples and measures of their adherence to democratic principles. In a democratic administrative system, “a government must continually test its representativeness through a vote.” (Finer, 1977: 63) Thus elections are a crucial component of any democratization process. As an aspect of and a gateway to democracy, elections are said to be a panacea of political conflict for they are a rational means of distributing power. (Harris and Reilly, 1998: 17) However, as Bratton and van de Walle (1997: 13) warn, “the elections must be freely and fairly conducted within a matrix of civil liberties, and that all contestants accept the validity of the election results.”

But we need add, however, that confidence in and management of an electoral process is a crucial variable in acceptance or non-acceptance decisions. In other words, the decision to accept as valid any election results will in some cases be influenced by the way the elections are perceived to be managed. The management of an electoral process should not arouse any suspicion that the managers anticipate a particular outcome.

Elections’ institutional and legal framework and history are also important legitimating factors. Frameworks for elections and democratization in most of the African countries are “entrenched hierarchical and repressive structures.” (Cheru, Ibid: 34) Cheru’s remarks imply the lack accountability by those managing electoral processes in many African states. Hyden (1997: 162), however, warns that in some of the countries in Africa democratization and election have a damaging feature – “communalization or re-communalization of African politics…, political parties becoming increasingly identified with a particular ethnic group or alliance of some groups.” This becomes a serious problem if elections determine people’s economic fortunes.

The democratic representation model of elections may explain the functions of and the utility of elections but it cannot help us to predict the constants’ reaction to an outcome. Nor can it be a measure of their commitment to democracy. It is not useful either when used in studies seeking to understand the criteria and procedures that are followed by individual voters in choosing their representatives. Its assumption that elections are a sine qua non of democracy forecloses their other possible uses such as hampering democracy itself.

In fact, there is what could be termed solidarity , that is, where votes are cast solely as a show of solidarity with or support for a particular person or organization, regardless of the prevailing circumstances. Often party membership and a liking for a particular party leader override other considerations in voting decisions. Voters may cast their vote in order to perpetuate that exclude other sections of the population from participating in

4 national decision making processes. Moreover, in situations where political power is linked to survival, elections are often used to deny one’s rival this important resource.

Thus in deeply divided societies, the appointment of parliamentary representatives or rulers is not necessarily the prime objective of the voters. Their main objective is to defeat and exclude the rival party – to deny it power and access to resources. Elections also enable voters to express themselves politically and thus perpetuate the status quo for this is a form of personal identity. This attitude is reinforced by and reproduced through multi-partyism that is today seen as the linchpin of democracy. This type of does not just ensure competition but institutionalizes societal divisions and reproduces them. Thus elections are also an arena in which mutual antagonisms play themselves out. All these suggest that an election is not a simple emotion and tension-free game. Africa’s history shows that elections are part of a continuing war against and of which the thrust is “to defeat or vanquish political opponents”, (Makoa, 1997b: 22) and to affirm the voters’ support for a particular political party or leader.

Yet all these in part reflect the failure of the liberal democratic that drives Africa’s democratization to overcome what Moyo (1998: 5) terms “genetic problems”, namely constructing viable states – “crafting societies on the basis of fundamentally new values”. Emphasizing institutional changes, the liberal framework has neglected factors that increase the capacity of African states to manage the process. Cheru (Ibid, p. 35) notes, for example, that “The economic reforms, coming under the rubric of IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programmes, have, in their political consequence, tended to encourage or reinforce authoritarian political forms that negate the ideals that” are supposed to be promoted.

In his essay on “The quest for Good Governance”, Nkiwane (2003: 55) makes a similar observation, warning that in Africa “a variety of economic weaknesses have tended to feed other weaknesses in the sociopolitical sphere.” Rooted in the colonial past, these weaknesses have worsened with the increasing marginalization of Africa as a result globalization. Cheru, (Ibid, p. 35) argues, that “The colonial state imposed its boundaries without creating the economic, political and social conditions for consolidation.” Yet this does not absolve Africa from its guilt, stymieing the growth of a democratic culture.

Indeed, the majority of African political leaders have displayed little no willingness to change the colonial legacy, their priority at independence being the tightening of their hold on power rather than economic capacity building and the entrenchment of constitutionalism and democratic rule. The inherited state was thus to remain a decisive factor, determining political outcomes as it was used to crush organized and potential opposition. This became easy because, as Ake (1996: 4) argues, “The normative, institutional and ideological mechanisms that would have made this power subject to constitutional constraints and accountability did not exist.”

Elections, conflict and non-acceptance of elections: familiar explanations as proffered in relation to Lesotho

With regard to Lesotho, and elsewhere in Africa, elections-related conflict and the losers’ non-acceptance of election results have not been short of theoretical explanations. However, these explanations are not entirely convincing. First, because of their specificity, political episodes and the problems that they entail do not easily lend themselves to generalization. Second, most of them are either as yet to be tested or simply tautologies that

5 cannot account for change and non-change since independence. Third, and finally, they ignore political attitudes and the alienating effect of the electoral process on the voter, including elections as one of the means of reproducing conflict. I will deal with each one by one, as have been used to explain Lesotho’s political crises.

The first cluster of explanations for elections related conflict in Lesotho derives from the school. This traces the political polarization, hence conflict, to colonialism and capitalist penetration into Lesotho with its socially de-homogenizing and stratifying consequences. Elections are said to contend with this situation in their task of changing rulers and political power relations. Therefore, for those proffering this explanation, conflict has been immanent in Lesotho since the advent of colonial rule. The explanation appears in different guises in Kimble (1981), Machobane (1986) and Strom’s (1978) analyzes. This implies class and ideological divisions in Lesotho, which is no denied. However, this is easily countered by the fact that “membership of political parties in Lesotho cuts across all classes and segments of society.” (Makoa, Ibid: .7)

The second bundle of explanations though related to the above, leans on the institutional and/or structural functionalist and social mobilization approaches. This constitutes the theoretical anchor of Weisfelder (1967) and Matlosa’s (1999) theses. While blaming the country’s structural problems, particularly the abject poverty, Weisfelder alludes to the dysfunction or absence of critical societal institutions. He argues that, with “negligible potential for satisfying their aspirations…, fully mobilized with no place to go, the Basotho employ their energies in popular battles.” (p.6) Thus Lesotho has few activities on which to expend human energies. The thesis cannot, however, account for long periods of political calm and stability in Lesotho. Neither is it able to explain why Lesotho’s rural areas are cradles of social harmony, peace and stability. It ignores the rulers’ conduct.

Other writers blame what they call the country’s unprofessional army that is opposed to democratic rule and used for decades to keep Jonathan in power. (Petlane, 1995, Mothibe 1999) This is not denied, but political instability in Lesotho predates this unprofessional army. Even during the Jonathan’s iron-fisted rule, the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) did not act independently of government. It was subordinated to the civilian authority. Like the one above, the approach ignores the nature of dispute settlement machinery in place and governments’ conduct.

Governments are not ordinary and unbiased role players in their political systems. They are competitors in the power contest, and prongs and representatives of ruling political parties and the implementers of their programmes. It goes without saying, therefore, that the very fact that governments manage or control electoral processes is bound to raise the question of trust and readiness of such a government to address its rivals’ legitimate concerns. Central to the Lesotho 1998 election dispute was, for example, the failure of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to provide the voters’ list as required under the electoral law and the suspicion that the government had influenced the Electoral Commission’s conduct. The Problem was compounded by delayed High Court decision on the complaint, coming only after the election. (Makoa, 1999c: 89)

Matlosa invokes the Huntingtonian political development theory, arguing in relation to Lesotho’s recurrent elections-related crises that the problem reflects institutional decay and the weakness of the societal institutions. Because of this weakness, he argues, they can neither mediate political conflict nor transform it. The Lesotho political parties are, however, probably too powerful if they can, as in the past, paralyze or disrupt government. In fact, that

6 the institutions referred to are unspecified further weakens Matlosa’s argument. In any case, the thesis contains the same biases as those critiqued above. It sees conflict as external to governments and the latter simply responding or having to respond to it.

As noted above, governments in Africa are usually not innocent victims of what are usually dubbed or seen as opposition’s machinations. They may be as blameworthy as the other power contestants. Some governments manipulate electoral processes, torture their opponents and deny opportunities and important information to their rivals. African governments are not neutral guardians and upholders of democratic rule. This is underscored by their apparent lack of enthusiasm for the NEPAD’s “peer review” clause during their March 2003 meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. Only 13 of the AU’s 53 member countries signed the draft agreement on the peer review as a mechanism for ensuring democratic governance. (BBC, 2003)

The AU has also prevaricated with respect to the disputed and rigged Madagascar presidential elections – refusing to recognize the legitimate winner thus contributing significantly to political instability and violence in that country. To justify its decision, the OAU hid behind the familiar slogans of and non-interference in internal affairs of member states. This shows that by their attitude the AU and Africa’s sub-regional organizations can and often contribute to problems of acceptance and non-acceptance of election results on the continent. Rulers simply cling to power either through rigging of preventing their opponents from voting because the OAU supports governments and not opposition parties.

Conclusions

The paper has highlighted the issues that should be addressed by any studies and analyses of non-acceptance or rejection of election results and elections related disputes in Africa. As should be clear from this presentation, there are a number of possible explanations for the widespread phenomenon of refusal by the losers to accept election outcomes, and these cannot be discussed again here for they have been adequately dealt with. The analysis though suggests that elections should no be treated simply as legal and/or constitutional matters for this removes them from the realm of politics with dire repercussions. Among these repercussions are that popular control over and ownership of the elections and the electoral process are lost.

Barring a few exceptions, elections in Africa occur as processes external to and alien to the voters, leaving them only the right to cast their vote. Alienation undoubtedly breeds and nurtures tension, political irrationality and violence. Depoliticizing elections and electoral processes, in turn, has an unfortunate consequence, namely precluding political solutions to elections related complaints, using instead, costly, slow, and tedious litigation that often widens rather than narrow the political chasm. For opposition parties – invariably the losers in African elections – the choice under these circumstances is always between bankruptcy and violent political protests. Simple litigation as a method of resolving electoral disputes is devoid of justice for it uses prohibitively costly court processes to perpetuate injustices.

In addition, the analysis shows that non-acceptance of election results should not be seen only as the rejection of the final statistics after counting the ballot papers. It should be defined contextually to embrace deliberate prevention by incumbent regimes of people from voting as this denies voters the right to deliver their verdict. Finally, confidence in elections as a fair means of making political choices must be built as a way of changing voters’ view

7 of an electoral process and voting. With this, defeat in an election will not inflict an intolerable pain or trauma on the losers. This will help to lessen mutual suspicion, mistrust and hatred that characterize inter-party relations in Africa.

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