www.africa-confidential.com 22 December 2000 Vol 41 No 25 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL CÔTE D’IVOIRE 3 USA/AFRICA Gbagbo rides the tiger Africa - where’s that? Expect a more commercial and less sentimental foreign policy The victory of President Gbagbo’s FPI in the 10 December polls under George W. Bush settles nothing. The exclusion of The bizarre twists in the saga of the United States’ presidential election have kept millions of Alassane Ouattara from the election has worsened tensions Africans entertained, especially those at the receiving end of Western lectures about ballot rigging between his northern-based RDR and nepotism. Now, with the belated confirmation of George W. Bush as the 43rd US President, and other political parties. the saga looks less entertaining to many African governments. Most of them knew and liked Bush’s opponent, Vice-President Al Gore, who had developed an understanding of African political affairs, as well as of wider environmental and economic ones. BOTSWANA 4 ‘Dubya’, as George W.’s friends call him, has none of the above and doesn’t look keen to acquire Diamonds and it. When asked about Africa during his campaign, he replied that the USA had no vital strategic interests there on a par with those in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. Africans shouldn’t danger feel too insulted: when asked by a journalist, he also failed to recall the names of the Indian and A year into President Festus Pakistani heads of state. Mogae’s first five-year term, the If the USA has no strategic interests in Africa, its doesn’t really require a policy, the thinking runs. ruling BDP, with 33 of the 40 directly It’s cheaper and safer to let former colonial powers Britain and France make the running and elected parliamentary seats, is firmly in control while the opposition maintain a strong grip on what the United Nations gets up to in the region. That was the position that BNF recovers from the electoral President Bill Clinton inherited (and tried to change) in 1992 from George W.’s father, the more pounding it took last year. cerebral and internationally minded George Bush Senior. As US Ambassador to the UN and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Bush Sr. had got to know many African leaders well and proved expert at corralling their votes in UN debates at the height of the Cold War. There are no such SOUTH AFRICA 6 pressures on his son to do the same on the global stage. Local heroes On the domestic stage, it looks different. George W.’s election has left a sour taste among many African-Americans amid allegations of the intimidation of minorities during the Florida vote, which The ANC won 59 per cent in the came under the purview of his brother Jeb Bush, the state Governor. Astutely, Bush appointed two local elections on 5 December, the opposition DA got less than 23 per African-Americans, General Colin Powell as Secretary of State and Condoleezza Rice as National cent. But the ANC’s vote was Security Advisor, to assuage some of the resentment. Neither Powell nor Rice has any track record down on its general election in Africa but both have the gravitas to make an impact and rein in the more extreme right-wing performance and the DA, a elements in the Bush camp. coalition of minorities - especially white ones, is making headway under Tony Leon’s leadership. Through the African-American optic If Bush’s attempts at bipartisanship between his Republicans and a generally embittered Democratic Party are to succeed, he needs an African-American policy and, as previously, his Africa policy will GHANA 7 be partly an extension of that. Bush knows that indifference to African-American concerns can be electorally expensive. In the 1980s, the fight against apartheid was the great Africa campaign among View from the Volta African-Americans. Many Republicans, such as Vice-President-elect Dick Cheney, voted against Opposition politicians brim with sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid regime. Some cynics in Washington suggest that Cheney’s confidence after the 7 December main role will be to retire gracefully, allowing Powell to step into the Vice-President’s job without elections gave the NPP 99 seats against the incumbent NDC’s 92 having to go through the indignity of an election campaign. seats. NPP candidate John Kufuor That leaves the matter of a mobilising issue for Africa. Africa-optimists argue that Republicans goes into the second round of the may find Africa a low-risk forum for forging bipartisan initiatives with the Democrats. The most presidential poll on 28 December likely candidate is the campaign against HIV-AIDS. It is a strong bipartisan issue in which the USA well ahead. But Kufuor and the can use its scientific sophistication. The difficulty is that Republicans are as tied to the pharmaceutical NPP have to remember that the four poorest regions voted industry lobby as are Democrats. It would be difficult for a Republican President to insist that overwhelmingly for the NDC. manufacturers and developers of costly anti-AIDS retrovirals slash their prices in Africa or permit local manufacture of generic anti-AIDS treatments at marginal cost. Yet pressure will grow as Africa’s HIV-AIDS crisis deepens. POINTERS 8 This year, Congress voted US$300 million for President Bill Clinton’s anti-AIDS programme in Africa, which contrasted sharply with its reluctance to endorse finance for the UN. Few expect the Zimbabwe, Congo/ Republican government to meet US obligations to the UN any more than its Democratic predecessor, France & Gambia which was hamstrung by Republican opposition in Congress. 22 December 2000 Africa Confidential Vol 41 No 25 Other African issues with resonance among Republicans are debt strong ties to new National Security Advisor ‘Condi’ Rice through relief and reform of the multilateral financial institutions. Debt Stanford University, where Rice served as Provost after leaving the campaigners such as Jubilee 2000 found that America’s religious Bush government and where Campbell has tenure. In the last six right shared their views on the immorality and impracticality of the years, Campbell, who is fluent in French and Spanish, has emerged Western creditor position. There are also strong practical reasons as a strong advocate for Africa, particularly on debt relief and why a US government could do more: US creditors are far less funding for HIV-AIDS programmes. exposed in Africa than leading creditors such as France and Japan, Campbell worked closely with Donald Payne, Africa specialist and the current debt overhang, especially in US-favoured states in the Congressional Black Caucus, and travelled frequently to such as Angola and Nigeria, is holding back US market share. Africa. ‘He’s more of an interventionist than Powell and Rice, and Conservative Republicans and left-wing Democrats share a he would definitely put Africa on the foreign-policy map’, an common disdain for the operations of the International Monetary insider says. ‘If they want bipartisanism in foreign policy, they Fund and World Bank in Africa. There are the makings of a couldn’t do better than Campbell, and they owe him one for bipartisan position - the IMF should get out of Africa completely running for the Senate.’ Campbell’s downside is that he might be and the Bank should make only soft loans to African states - which seen as too enthusiastic, in danger of dragging Washington into would be anathema to most African and European governments. costly African adventures. Such pressure in the Bank’s and Fund’s headquarters in Washington Another possibility is Tom Callahan, the top Africa specialist could not be easily dismissed, however. on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, with The overwhelming input into Africa policy under Bush will be good connections to both right-wing and moderate Republicans. commercial: that revolves around US oil interests on West Africa’s He began his Washington career working for Senator Jesse Helms seaboard - specifically the massive oil and gas reserves in Angola and then was Director of the International Republican Institute and Nigeria - which some foreign policy wonks in Washington call (IRI) in South Africa before working for the Drug Enforcement ‘the new Middle East’, and South Africa, which provides the export Administration. His line on the Foreign Affairs Committee is that platform for the US sales effort in the rest of the continent. Africa must do more to open its markets if it wants US help. If he Whoever is chosen as Bush’s Assistant Secretary of State for doesn’t get the Assistant’s job or the Africa directorship on the African Affairs will have to give a lead role to such considerations. NSC, he’s said to be hoping for the DAC position with responsibility Bush’s chosen Secretary of State, Gen. Powell, already has a range for economics and business. to choose from. And at the NSC Names in the frame For NSC Africa Director, the top candidate is Jendayi Frazer, an The favoured but undeclared candidate for the Assistant Secretary’s African-American academic who was briefly with the Joint Chiefs job is Walter H. Kansteiner III, who acted as Africa point-man for of Staff at the Department of Defense and on the NSC under the Bush campaign. Some say he would prefer to be ambassador to Clinton. A professor at the Kennedy School of Government at South Africa. A partner with the Scowcroft Group, Kansteiner was Harvard University, Frazer specialises in security, particularly Africa Director at the National Security Council and Africa Director civilian-military relations. While she has relatively little direct on the policy-planning staff at the State Department under Bush Sr.