Politicized Ethnicity, Electoral Competition and Politics of Exclusion in Zambia

‘A Tonga Will Never Be President of Zambia’: Politicized ethnicity, electoral competition and politics of exclusion in Zambia [Draft: Not to be cited without permission of the author] 1 Introduction ‘Zambia will never be led by a Tonga president’.1 This statement was made by a cabinet minister in the Patriotic Front (PF) government at an election rally in 2013. The manipulation of ethnicity to discredit political opponents is not new in Zambia, it is part of the fault lines of the incomplete colonial project of nation-state building or the so-called national integration imperative. Kenneth Kaunda, effectively used it against his political opponents, such as Harry Nkumbula, Nalumino Mundia and Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe to discredit and de-legitimise their bids for political power, as representing narrow ethnic interests as opposed to national interests (i.e. multi-ethnic national interest). At the dawn of independence African leaders opted to create Western-style nation-states and political institutions as a mark of modernization, and considered ethnicity (the idea of belonging to an autonomous cultural, language or regional community) as primitive and necessarily divisive. The nation or nation-state was considered multi-ethnic in character and as such inclusive of all social and ethnic groups. Leaders who represented regional or ethnic grievances were labelled sectional and therefore not worthy for national leadership. However, following on the influential work by Horowitz (1985) who characterised electoral competition in Africa in terms of ‘ethnic census’, most recent studies suggest that the use of ethnicity is an important elite resource to access power, patronage and material resources (Berman, 2007; Mozaffar, 2007 and Becker, 2015). However the ‘puzzle’ of African party systems is not only that ruling parties accuse political opponents of mobilizing support exclusively from one particular ethnic group (often the cultural community from which the leader hails), but that ethnic mobilization is the raison d’etre of electoral competition (Mozaffar and Scarritt, 2005; Posner, 2005; Cheeseman, 2007 and Ajulu, 2002). The literature identifies three strands in the debate on ethnicity. The first, is state-centric, which denies ethnic groups any recognized political role or collective rights. This position prohibits political organization along ethnic lines2. The second strand emphasizes ethnicity’s negative contribution to Africa’s political development. This paradigm treats ethnicity as a source of division, conflict, war, genocide and underdevelopment. The last strand is the instrumentalist approach, which considers ethnicity as an instrument of political manipulation enhanced by elite competition for power, status and material resources with the consequence of social and political exclusion of entire social groups from power and access to state resources (Salih, 2001: 30). It is not our intention in this paper to explore the meaning of ethnicity in terms of its utility in describing cultural identities. Suffice to say that, there is consensus in the literature on the fact that ethnic identities are social constructions or imagined communities (Vail, 1973: 1-20; Ranger 1 Sylvia Masebo, then Tourism and Arts Minister at an election rally in Livingstone. Zambia Newsnetwork. Available at: https://zambianewsnetwork.com//zambia-will-never-be-led-by-a-Tonga-president. 2 Samora Machel famously declared that ‘for the nation to live, the tribe must die.’ 2 1985). Berman (2010), in particular makes the point that African ethnicities are a ‘social construction’ characterised by ‘fluidity, heterogeneity and hybridity’ (p.2). He argues that African ethnicities can be ‘understood as open-ended and dynamic processes of social and political creation rather than static categories before, during and after colonial rule’ (p.3). Berman introduces the concept of ‘moral economy’ which he defines as: that part of culture that legitimates the inequalities in the distribution of values that mark almost all human communities primarily through principles of redistribution and reciprocity of obligations between rulers and ruled; rich and poor in specific social contexts.’ In other words, he contends that the moral economy of a society establishes the framework of social trust. Which is the stability of mutual expectations between actors that permit social and political cohesion. I find the concept of ‘moral economy’ especially important in understanding the process of construction of social or group hegemony, which is itself the basis of ethnic mobilization and contestation for power. The argument of this paper is that politicized ethnicity is an important resource in elite competition for power and has the consequence of building ethnic political hegemony and exclusion of opposition groups and their constituents from access to power and state resources. It is most overt in periods of intense electoral competition, especially when incumbents are vulnerable to electoral defeat. While agreeing with scholars, such as Cheeseman and Ford (2007) who argue that opposition parties tend to mainly mobilize ethnic constituencies as opposed to ruling parties that mobilize multi-ethnic support bases, we present empirical evidence from Zambia that suggests that ethnic mobilization can result in multi-ethnic coalitions that may not necessarily be bad for democracy, as the 2015 and 2016 presidential elections demonstrate. We agree with the scholarship that suggests that voting in Africa does not always follow on ethnic lines as suggested by Horowitz, but that voters take rational decisions in voting for particular parties as a way of maximizing their expected material benefits (Bratton and Kimenyi, 2010; Berman, 2010). Following the introduction, the second section discusses politicized ethnicity and electoral competition in historical perspective. The third section considers politicized ethnicity and electoral competition in Zambia since 2015. The fourth section discuses the consequences of politicized ethnicity on governance, especially on common citizenship and social inclusion. The last section is the conclusion. Politicized ethnicity and electoral competition: brief conceptual and historical background The concept of ethnicity has occupied scholars since the advent of independence in the early 1960s. The literature on ethnicity can be divided into four categories. The first relates to ethnicity as a form of identity, sometimes referred to as primordialism. Vail (1989) and Berman (1998) trace the historical evolution of the concept of ethnicity in Africa and show that it was an invention by colonial authorities who were obsessed with classifying the native populations into neat categories. As already pointed out above, ethnicity or the idea of belonging to a particular ethnic group is in fact an illusion given the complex multiple 3 Identities that individuals experience in their everyday existence (Berman 2010). As a concept, ethnicity defined as an identity group is of little significance. However, it is when ethnic identities are exploited and even manipulated that ethnicity acquires its utility as a ‘political resource’ in political or electoral mobilization (Büschges, 2015: 109). Secondly, ethnicity has been defined as a social cleavage with potential to provoke ethnic conflict in society. This second characterization of ethnicity is the most dominant in the literature. Mozaffar, Scarritt and Galaich (2003) and Lemarchand (1972) define ethnicity as the manipulation of ethnic differences in society and show that this is done to achieve political and economic gain. Lemarchand in particular argues that elites use ethnicity to access state patronage and reward supporters on the bases of ethnic affiliation, in what he refers to as political ‘clientelism.’ Other scholars within this category include those who have tried to link ethnicity with electoral mobilization or party affiliation (Erdmann, 2007). Erdmann and Stroh (2008), Cheeseman and Ford (2007) and Posner (2005) have tried to establish a link between ethnicity and voter behaviour in Africa. They all conclude that voter behaviour in Africa is largely influenced more by ethnic affiliation than the efficacy of political party manifestos. Third, ethnicity has also been described as potentially divisive and going against the logic of building national unity. Several authors, such as Berman (1998), Lonsdale (1998) and Lemarchand (1972) have argued that ethnicity is potentially divisive and a major cause of ethnic conflict in Africa. In characterizing ethnicity, especially in Africa, it is recognized that it means much more than just belonging to an ethnic group – it involves belonging to and often manipulation of broad ethno-regional or ethno-political groups (Mozaffar, et. al., 2003). It is argued that political competition in Africa is largely influenced by the manipulation of ethno-regional differences to further the political and economic interests of politicians. Thus ethnicity has acquired a negative connotation, both as a hindrance to national unity and development and as potentially corrupting as it tends to be used by politicians to win power and access to state resources. The African experience is full of examples of the negative effects of ethnic conflict. Horowitz’s (1985) influential study of ethnic conflict in Africa clearly demonstrates how ethnic divisions have led to internecine conflicts in many parts of Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. In Kenya, first president

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