Journal 2.2 Cover

JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS JOURNAL OF JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS Vol 3 No 1 June 2004 3 No 1 June Vol Volume 3 Number 1 June 2004 VOLUME 1 NO 2 1 Journal of African Elections ARTICLES BY Eghosa E Osaghae Dani W Nabudere Shumbana Karume Chaloka Beyani Koki Muli Joshua Bheki Mzizi Abdul Rahman Lamin Lloyd M Sachikonye Christof Hartmann Volume 3 Number 1 June 2004 2 JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS Published by the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa 2nd Floor The Atrium 41 Stanley Avenue Auckland Park Johannesburg South Africa P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa Tel: +27(0)11 482 5495 Fax: +27(0)11 482 6163 e-mail: [email protected] © EISA 2004 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. Layout: Sue Sandrock Printed by: Global Print, Johannesburg Cover photograph: Reproduced with permission of the HAMILL GALLERY OF AFRICAN ART, BOSTON, MA USA www.eisa.org.za VOLUME 1 NO 2 3 EDITORS Denis Kadima, Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, Johannesburg Khabele Matlosa, Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, Johannesburg EDITORIAL BOARD David Caroll, Democracy Program, The Carter Center, Atlanta Jørgen Elklit, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Copenhagen Amanda Gouws, Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch Sean Jacobs, Department of Political Science, University of Cape Town Peter Katjavivi, University of Namibia, Windhoek Tom Lodge, Department of Political Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Robert Mattes, Department of Political Science, University of Cape Town Yvonne Muthien, Corporate Affairs, MTN South Africa Ben Reilly, United Nations Development Program, New York Lloyd Sachikonye, Institute of Development Studies, University of Zimbabwe, Harare Jeremy Seekings, Sociology Department, University of Cape Town Gloria Somolekai, Democracy Research Project, University of Botswana, Gaborone Roger Southall, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria 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 Editors are 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 Editor, Journal of African Elections Electoral Institute of Southern Africa P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa Business correspondence, including orders and remittances, subscription queries, advertisements, back numbers and offprints, should be addressed to the publisher: Electoral Institute of Southern Africa P O Box 740 Auckland Park 2006 South Africa Tel: +27(0)11 482 5495 Fax: +27(0)11 482 6163 4 JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS CONTENTS Making Democracy Work in Africa: From the Institutional to the Substantive Eghosa E Osaghae ............................................................................................................. 1 Traditional and Modern Political Systems in Contemporary Governance in Africa Dani W Nabudere............................................................................................................ 13 Party Systems in the SADC Region: In Defence of the Dominant Party System Shumbana Karume .......................................................................................................... 42 Governance and Human Rights in the SADC Region Chaloka Beyani ................................................................................................................ 62 The Broader Context: Mainstreaming Gender in Public Institutions of Governance and Democracy Koki Muli......................................................................................................................... 81 The Dominance of the Swazi Monarchy and the Moral Dynamics of Democratisation of the Swazi State Joshua Bheki MzizI ......................................................................................................... 94 Post-Conflict Elections, Peacebuilding and Democracy Consolidation in Sierra Leone Abdul Rahman Lamin ...................................................................................................120 Zimbabwe: Constitutionalism, the Electoral System and Challenges for Governance and Stability Lloyd M Sachikonye ...................................................................................................... 140 Local Elections in the SADC Countries: A Comparative Analysis of Local Electoral Institutions Christof Hartmann ........................................................................................................ 160 Reviews South Africa’s Second Democratic Election 1999: An Annotated Bibliography ..........185 From Cape Town To Congo: Southern Africa Involving Security Challenges ............. 187 Contents of Previous Issues ...................................................................................... 189 Notes for Contributors ............................................................................................... 193 VOLUME 3 NO 1 1 MAKING DEMOCRACY WORK IN AFRICA From the Institutional to the Substantive By Eghosa E Osaghae Eghosa Osaghae is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He has published extensively on the state, democratisation and governance in Africa and is presently completing a book on The Federal Solution in Africa. PO Box 21012, University of Ibadan Post Office, Ibadan, Nigeria Tel: +234 803 70 35795 e-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT This paper argues that democracy can better facilitate and promote development when it is transformed from the institutional level, where it was at the time of transition, to the substantive level, where it is more likely to yield the ‘dividends of democracy’ and become more relevant to the lives of ordinary citizens. This transformative process at a minimum requires the institutionalisation of participation/citizen empowerment, accountability and legitimacy. After making the point that democracy and development are mutually reinforcing, the paper examines how human rights and elections can be strengthened to serve these purposes. INTRODUCTION The ‘liberalisation’ of political space that came through pluralism, multiparty politics and constitutional reform in the wave of democracy which swept through Africa in the 1980s and 1990s was a major achievement on a continent where authoritarian one-party and military regimes previously held sway. However, because the ensuing democracy was in many cases the product of conditions imposed by Western powers and/or the diffusion effect of the globalist triumph of liberal democracy, emphasis has tended to be laid on building formal democratic institutions and structures. A number of countries, especially those that have institutionalised periodic elections and functioning legislatures and established human rights commissions and constitutional courts, seem to have done well in this regard. But, as the experience of many of them has shown, democracy is not simply about satisfying theoretical expectations. For example, it is not about the electoral defeat of unpopular or 1 2 JOURNAL OF AFRICAN ELECTIONS discredited incumbents (the euphoria of ‘regime change’ does not last long!) or, for that matter, about holding periodic elections. Rather, the democratic project is about and for citizens who have stakes in the project and expect dividends from it. Ordinary citizens who queue for long hours to cast their votes, or take part in riots and demonstrations to oust authoritarian governments, and those who lead and join reform-seeking social movements and political parties, as of legitimate right, expect immediate and long-term dividends. Political scientists and policy analysts have engaged in the search for how best to establish the link between formal and substantive democracy with a view to making democracy more workable and meaningful in the lives of ordinary people. The focus on human rights, which the USA under Carter spearheaded as a foreign policy objective in relations with Third World countries, was one of the earliest fruits of this search. The concern with third generation rights represents a more recent face of this trajectory. The ‘invention’ of the governance perspective, which has been embraced by most donors, following in the footsteps of the World Bank and IMF, and the premium placed on accountability, participation, decentralisation, transparency, constitutionalism and the rule of law as key governance variables, represents another landmark in this search. But by far the most conceptually and theoretically profound effort to bridge the gap between formal and substantive democracy is to be found in the democracy- development or developmental democracy perspective. This perspective rejects the notion that democracy can be desired for its own sake, and ties the necessity and utility of democracy, especially in Africa, to its role as a promoter and facilitator

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