Democratization, Elections and the Problem of Non-Acceptance of Election Results in Africa

Democratization, elections and the problem of non-acceptance of election 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 democracy/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 governments. But, while the holding of periodic elections has become a feature of African politics, 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 electoral system, 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 government. 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 Republic 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 judiciary 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 democracies (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.” 3 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 representative democracy 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

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