Earlier last semester, the UWA Politics Club was to host Dr. Roger Chongwe, Zambia’s opposition leader-in-exile, to talk about problems with democracy in southern African countries. Since we had trouble coordinating times with other speakers, this forum is still on the long term agenda. As background, then, this paper will discuss perspectives on current democratic dilemmas facing southern African countries. These obstacles are largely the legacy of colonial rule, which didn’t imbue the ‘weak’/ ‘threshold’/ ‘quasi’- states with enough of a democratic tradition to ensure accountability and regime continuity; facilitating corruption, nepotism and entrenched power in leadership.

This in turn leaves the people increasingly cynical as to whether anything has changed, or whether democracy can work in their country. Too often we hear disillusioned cries of "Democracy has not worked in Southern Africa". Are these cries justified or are expectations of ‘democracy’ unrealistically high?

The advent of political pluralism in the early 1990s throughout South African States brought new hopes for democracy, human rights, and economic prosperity. Since 1990, the year of the rise of political changes in Africa, multi-party elections have been held in more than 40 African countries. Many leaders and their movements which had been in power for so long, like Kenneth Kaunda (The father of Zambia’s independence) or Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda (Malawi) were removed. However, the shortcomings in the first and second batch of multi-party-elections show that new ‘democratic’ institutions have created their own challenges. Violence, corruption, human rights abuses and the entrenchment of leaders and their increasingly authoritarian stances continue, indicating that after decades of one-party rule, change doesn’t come easily.

Entrenched leadership

With few exceptions, the leadership elected at the first fair elections entrenched itself, disregarded democratic constitutions and replaced them with single party constitutions, thus in effect becoming dictators. Political rhetoric continues, but due to the way ‘democracy’ is seen and played out in these South African States, little consensus mitigating raw political conflict is the order of the day. The crushing of high hopes has largely been because of the misunderstanding and abuse of ‘democracy’ by political leaders, because of their false and unrealistic promises to the people, and because of the peoples’ tendency to equate democracy with economic advancement.

As mentioned, colonial rule didn’t create any lasting democratic tradition. The one party system was seen as a valid tool to create national unity and political stability against a background of ethnic and geographical diversity. Since independence, only a few leaders of the 48 black African countries have voluntarily resigned. The rest have been overthrown by their armies, killed or removed at the first democratic elections. Many constitutions have had loopholes and provisions to remove any limits to the number of terms in office, and this helps explain the high number of military coups. Nelson Mandela’s promise not to stand for a second term was so outstanding, since many African leaders still see themselves as irreplaceable – vital to their country’s unity. The constitutions of Zambia and Zimbabwe allow the President to nominate up to eight and up to thirty persons (respectively) to the National Assembly.

The undemocratic nature of this practice is worsened by the first past the post electoral system in the African Commonwealth countries, which strengthens majorities and lessens opportunities for political debate within and between states. A proportional representation system, such as in the Republics of South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique would promote a more multi-party system, reducing high majorities and allowing minority involvement. Public participation could also be increased by giving more autonomy to local councils. The predominantly centralised nature of the Southern African States far worsens the effects of inefficiency of the administration, fatal economic decisions and corruption.

Flawed Constitutionalism

The well-known doctrine of ‘separation of powers’ between legislative, executive and judiciary is vital for any true democracy, but as Dr Chongwe argues, almost all of the African Commonwealth Countries have an incomplete separation between the executive and legislative because, apart from the President, members of the executive are also members of the legislature. Constitutionalism will be inherently flawed without an overriding respect for its purposes, including respects for the rights of the people. Because of corruption, nepotism and the high stakes involved in transferring or maintaining power, the political process is too often devoid of any of the basic agreement on the nature of politics which is vital for democratic continuity.

 

Quasi-Democracy

We often hear of attempts to ‘Africanize’ democracy in Southern Africa. For example, in Ausust 1997 a Zimbabwean senior minister said that "foreigners masquerading as champions of democracy in Africa are in fact seeking access to wealth rather than entrenching human rights". He claimed that democracy had no roots in the history and experience of local (especially rural) people, except for learned academics who were imposing an interpretation of the world view among the people. He said "We can never run a democracy better than the Americans or the British, just as well they cannot run a chieftainship like us…So this political adventurism will only encourage dissent and instability within society..." While it cannot be denied that the lack of Western democratic tradition makes some of its principles difficult to understand or implement, these principles are more conducive to protecting basic human rights than autocratic regimes, and are not supposed to be in any way ‘culturally relative’.

Policies allowing the establishment and semi-autonomy of traditional villages to preserve African identity could reduce alienation of rural people to their government if they fostered communication, and offered respect the right of their people to basic freedoms; recognition of differing political opinions, and accountability and responsibility of their leaders. Without these principles claims to ‘democracy’ would be nothing more than a sham. For example, October 1st this year supposedly marks the end of military rule in Nigeria. But even if it does and the President becomes a civilian, this is no guarantee of democracy, since it is very likely that the military will remain powerful enough to remove (or accept endless bribes from ) presidents it doesn’t like, as it did in removing General Babangida.

Conclusion...