Democracy in Africa
How is Democracy doing in sub-Saharan Africa, in an era of ethno-nationalism and COVID?
A tree grows in the Sahara, image via Wikimedia Commons
Across the globe, but particularly in Africa, democracy is in the midst of an hour of the wolf. Democratic Senegal is backsliding; controversial third terms are becoming the norm, rather than the exception; Kenya is contested. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, starts campaign season next month amid turmoil. And in Tanzania and Uganda, social media and the internet were restricted in the rundown to recent elections. In the face of these formidable challenges, we have Secretary Blinken’s charm offensive, counter-programed against the visit of Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. Blinken’s recent diplomatic trip to Africa asserted American cooperation with African allies on matters of democracy — of course — but also investment, security, Covid recovery support as well as clean energy. But is such a charm offensive enough to reverse the creeping democracy deficit sweeping the continent?
Beyond Nigeria, there are other important upcoming elections in Sub-Saharan Africa. For example, Angola’s on August 24 will be much watched and much commented upon. João Lourenço of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which has been in power for 47 years, is seeking re-election. “On 8 July, the man who ruled the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa for nearly 40 years died quietly in a private Spanish hospital after a prolonged illness. José Eduardo dos Santos – colloquially known as Zedu – was the president of Angola between 1979 and 2017,” writes Joana Ramiro in Novara Media. “During his time in power, Angola went from a newly-emancipated Portuguese colony to the stage of a harrowing civil war to the resource-rich convergence point of postmodern capitalism.” But is Angola done with being a one-party state?
African heads of state inveighing against unfavorable election outcomes is not a novel political phenomenon, to be sure. The African continent has a long history of heads of state rejecting defeat in the face of fairly transparent and wellrun democratic elections. Have the Trumpists been studying contemporary African politics (doubtful)? Have the autocrats been taking pages out of the Steve Bannon playbook? Are all unhappy ethno-nationalists more or less similar? In 2020, Ghana’s former President John Mahama ran as opposition to President Nana Akufo-Addo. After losing, he rejected his democratic defeat (in both 2020 and 2021 in Ghana the losing party contested the election results). It took a ruling by the Ghana’s Supreme Court to force a concession. Such is the proliferation of contested democratic elections in Africa that it is not inconceivable that in the future the results of all democratic elections on the continent will be settled in that nation’s Supreme Court. I say this only in half jest. Would a democratically backsliding America be far behind?
Also, whither Kenya? Kenya’s latest election — like others before it, unfortunately — is being contested in court, in real time; the former British colony is widely considered to be a test of the durability of democracy in East Africa. “Since East Africa includes politically troubled countries such as Eritrea, South Sudan, and Somalia, where would one go to seek a model of democracy?” asks the Atlanticist blog, soundly. “Maybe Kenya.” And, why not?
Why should Kenya matter in the ultimate fate of democracies? While small, Kenya is East Africa’s richest nation, as well as a Western ally that hosts regional headquarters for multinational businesses as well as the United Nations Environment Programme. Kenya's current Deputy President and President-elect William Ruto is facing a court challenge by his rival, the defeated ex-President Raila Odinga.The guardrails of democracy in Kenya have certainly weathered a beating, but they still stand.
Democracies, and their preservation, in an ethno-nationalist age, is all of our business. The West is still itself perambulating through what can only be properly construed as its own democratic recession. Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán was reelected in April 2022, and then valorized at the CPAC in the United States less than six months later. That same April, Marine le Pen came within a whisker of becoming the new Prime Minister of France, raising (if not breaking) the far-right’s glass ceiling in the process. Ethno-nationalist strongman Vladimir Putin invaded the Ukraine, a democracy, and Ferdinand Marcos’s son became head of state in the Philippines.
Adding to the rise of ethno-nationalism is the fact that African democratic institutions, by virtue of their youth vis-a-vis the West, are relatively fragile. The Middle East and Africa, for instance, score the lowest grades consistently on academic freedom, according to the worldwide index of academic freedom that was launched by the Varieties of Democracy database in 2019, V-Dem, in collaboration with the Scholars at Risk Network. Further, according to date from Freedom House, between 2006 to 2020, democracy has gradually declined across sub-Saharan Africa. African democracies and their electoral processes are canaries in the coal mines. The fault lines that are exploited by ethno-nationalists in Africa are probably the same fault lines that will emerge in Western democracies down the line.
Migration is another no-brainer as to why African democracies matter. The subject bedevils ethno-nationalists. It inhabits their every waking thought! And yet, African migration trends to Europe, North America, the Gulf and Asia continually mention economic despair as one of the primary drivers. Would the motivation to migrate be mitigated if the present turmoil were replaced, ideally, with stable democracies? “Such turmoil will grow as elites compete for power and citizens resist oppressive regimes, and will, in turn, inhibit social and economic development, to the disadvantage of the continent’s rapidly growing population,” write John Campbell and Nolan Quinn in What’s Happening to Democracy in Africa, for CJR.
All is not lost, however. For Campbell and Quinn remind us that the equator does not lack for sunshine:
When the “third wave” of democratization swept across much of Africa in the wake of the Cold War, hopes were high that Africans would begin to enjoy the freedoms afforded to citizens living in the former colonial powers. Initial progress was remarkable: In 1989, two-thirds of African states were “not free,” as measured by Freedom House. By 2009, two-thirds were considered “free” or “partly free.”
Emmanuel Macron and his bff Strongman Déby, in better days, via wikimedia commons
Finally, there is a longstanding tradition on the continent, formerly run by colonial rulers then followed by strongmen, to have the sons of the autocrats ultimately succeed them in power. That’s why the curious case of Chad offers some respite from the gloom. Chad’s strongman ruler of three decades recently died on the battlefield against Libyan -ased rebels, leaving the country in further chaos. Surprisingly, Chad’s Gen. Mahamat Idriss Deby, the son of longtime President Idriss Deby Itno, appears to be honoring his present position as head of a temporary caretaker government. Earlier this month, Deby met with rebel groups and opposition leaders in, of all places, Qatar, hosted by the Emir. The verdict is not in yet, but the notion that Chad could be at the beginning stages of a conversation to attempt acts of democracy is in an of itself, naught else but quite astonishing.