What
Africa
Can Learn from American Democracy and Election
2006*
Ghelawdewos Araia
November 18, 2006
Some
background history: - The development of
democratic tradition in the
United States
featured historical and social engineering. It
evolved historically along capitalist and
democratic ideals, but it was also deliberately
fashioned and engineered by enlightened statesmen
in the respective states, and later by the
founding fathers at a national level. Though the
democratic process in the
US
was not inclusive (African slaves during the
antebellum and women till 1920) and, by and large,
had a checkered history, the impetus behind its
realization owes to great awakening that seldom
appears on the stage of history. Factors that
contributed to this historical package are the
many visions of enlightened men, citizen and state
initiatives, and certainly a heavy dosage of the
Age of Enlightenment with its attendant democratic
principles and institutions.
In the final analysis,
students of history and politics can easily detect
that the
US
democratic experiment is an amalgam of external
and internal influences. There is no doubt that
the invention of democracy (demos + kratien) by
the Greeks and representative democracy (senate
–nobility- + assembly – commons -) of the
Romans influenced Western political thought and
the founding fathers of the
United States
. While that of the Greeks was total democracy
where there were no representatives, and the
people governed themselves; that of the Romans was
a type of democratic republic. However, despite
absolute democracy, the Greek form of government
too excluded slaves and women, and to be sure the
Greek democratic experiment was hijacked by the
oligarchy, and it was never tried again anywhere
in our planet earth.
Other
important influences in American democracy was the
Magna Carta that King John singed under the
supervision of the English nobility to forge a
law-making superstructure (incipient parliament).
Next to Magna Carta, major influences were the
Petition of Right (1628), by which the king’s
power to collect taxes was curtailed by
parliament, and the Bill of Rights (1689) that
stipulated freedom of speech and prohibited cruel
and unusual punishment. Just one year after the
Bill of Rights, John Locke’s Two Treaties
was published, in which the philosopher argued
that governments, by virtue of the ‘social
contract,’ are responsible for protecting the
natural rights (life, liberty, and ownership of
property) of citizens. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
further extrapolated Locke’s idea in his Social
Contract (1762). Both philosophers were in favor
of participation of the people in government
affairs, and their input is clearly embedded in
the Declaration of Independence of 1776.
The
writer of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson,
directly borrowed Locke’s ideas and inserted it
as ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness’ in the American constitution.
Jefferson
also took some ideas from Rousseau “when he said
that all men should have the right to take up arms
against the government if it did not respect these
rights (Jefferson).”1 In fact, in the
Declaration it is stated “that whenever any form
of government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish
it, and to institute new government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness.”2 On
top of formulating the Declaration and the law of
the land (the constitution), the actual structure
of the American government was borrowed from
Charles de Montesquieu’s ‘separation of
powers’ (checks and balances) of the
legislature, executive, and judiciary.
Long
before the Declaration of Independence and the
constitution of the
United States
, however, the fundamental democratic principles
were already enshrined in the Bill of Rights of
some states. For instance, the 1641 “Body of
Liberties” of Massachusetts incorporated, among
other things, the following democratic rights: 1)
“Every person within this Jurisdiction, whether
Inhabitant or forreiner shall enjoy the same
justice and law…” 2) “Every man whether
Inhabitant or forreiner, free or not free shall
have liberte to come to any publique court,
councel, or towne meeting…” 3) No man shall be
twise sentenced by Civill Justice for one and the
same crime, offence, or Trespasse…” 4) All
Jurors Shall be Chosen Continuallie by the Freemen
of the Towne where they dwell…”; 5) Any Shire
or Towne shall have liberte to chose their
Deputies whom and where they please for the
General Court…”; 6) The Freemen of Every
Towneship shall have power to make such by laws
and constitutions as may concern the welfare of
their towne, provided they are not criminall, but
only of a prudentiall nature…”3**
The ‘Body of Libertes’ was written 102 years
before Jefferson was born.
Similarly, rights embodied
in the
US
constitution were already incorporated in the
Virginia Bill of Rights, written by George Mason,
one of
Jefferson
’s idols. Most of the sections of the Virginia
Bill of Rights were unmistakably endorsed by the
US
constitution later, and here are some of them:
Section 1. That all men are
by nature equally free and independent, and have
certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter
into a state of society, they cannot, by any
compact, deprive or divest their posterity;
namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with
the means of acquiring and possessing property,
and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Section 2. That all power is
vested in, and consequently derived from, the
people; that magistrates are their trustees and
servants, and at all times amenable to them.
Section 3. That government
is, or ought to be, instituted for the common
benefit, protection, and security of the people,
nation, or community; of all the various modes and
forms of government, that is best which is capable
of producing the greatest degree of happiness and
safety, and most effectually secured against the
danger of maladministration; and that, when any
government shall be found inadequate or contrary
to these purposes, a majority of the community
hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible
right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such
manner as shall be judged most conducive to the
public weal.
Section 4. That no man, or
set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate
emoluments or privileges from the community, but
in consideration of public services; which, not
being discernible, neither ought the offices
magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary.
Section 5. That the
legislative and executive powers of the State
should be separate and distinct from the
judiciary; and that the members of the two first
may be restricted from oppression, by feeling and
participating the burdens of the people, they
should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private
station…and vacancies be supplied by frequent,
certain, and regular elections.”4
American democracy, thus,
was founded on the above-mentioned philosophies,
principles, body of laws, and constitutional
frameworks, and it is against this background that
we must now examine the
US
election of 2006.
Election
2006: Towards Administrative and Policy Changes: As
some observers and commentators have pointed out,
the 2006 election was a political Sunami in its
strength and a referendum in the turn out of
voters for regime change and subsequent change of
the composition of the legislative branch of
government. Just one day after Election Day, the
Wall Street Journal reports ‘power shift’ in
American politics and makes news analysis under
the title of “Democrats Roll Toward House
Win.” The Journal indicated that “voters,
dissatisfied after six years of Republican-led
government and worried about the Iraq war, handed
democrats a majority in the House, according to
projections based on exit polls and voting
results…Some 6 in 10 voters said they
disapproved of Mr. Bush’s performance as
president and of the way Congress is handling its
job. Even among voters who voted for President
Bush in 2004, about 16% were giving their votes to
democrats running for congress.”5
Most importantly, the Wall Street Journal captured
what it calls ‘Mood of the Electorate’ and
this, definitely, was crucial in voter’s
decision to oust the Republican regime and put
democrats in higher public office instead. Voters
saying the country is generally going on the right
direction were 40% as opposed to 56% who said it
is seriously on the wrong track, and out of the
former 21% were Democrats and 78% Republicans; and
of the latter, 80% were Democrats and 18%
Republicans.6 This
voter mood was already anticipated by Newsweek
Magazine a week before election day: “Voters in
the new poll say Dems are better able to bring
about the changes the country needs (50% vs. 30%),
manage the government well (47% vs. 31%) and
govern honestly (39% vs. 27%).”7
Ultimately, the Democrats
won the day by taking five more seats in the
Senate and 27 seats in the House of
Representatives. Democrats now control 54 out of
the total 100 seats in the Senate and 230 seats
out of the total 435 seats in the House. The
Democrats did not only make a sweeping victory in
controlling the legislature, but they also brought
a woman, Nancy Polosi, as the first woman speaker
of the House ever in US history. It is also for
the first time that the House witnessed a new
addition, a Moslem and an African American, Mr.
Keith Alison from Minnesota, and had it been for
the success of Harold Ford Jr. from Tennessee, we
would have had two African Americans in the
Senate. Democrats were successful not only in
their traditional sphere of influence but also in
the heart of America, states like Indiana and
Kentucky, normally considered strongholds of
Republicans. Another major victory for Democrats
was the victory of Eliot Spitzer, Democrat, over
the incumbent George A. Pataki, Republican, after
12 years. Democrats
also gained victories in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
Rhode Island; they took over the Northeast, with
the exception of Connecticut, where Joseph
Liberman, who defected from the Democratic Party
after he lost in the primary to Ned Lamont, was
reelected to the Senate.
What
Africa Can Learn from the American Electoral
Process:
As
indicated above, the Jeffersonian model of
democracy ordains the people or the electorate as
sovereign. There is no doubt that the
‘elitist’ conception of democracy as opposed
to the ‘pluralist school’ of thought, that
have been debated for decades in academic circles,
will once more regenerate dialogue with respect to
the reaffirmation of ‘peoples power’ in the
American context. Election 2006 clearly testified
that elite politicians were unable to curtail the
general will, the peoples choice, or the decision
of the electorate. On the contrary, the elite were
unable to maintain the status quo, were unable to
survive the people’s avalanche, and to their
great surprise or chagrin they were out of public
office on Tuesday, November 7, 2006.
On top of the democratic
tradition reflected in the US constitution and the
Declaration of Independence, the electoral
process, as a whole, is free and fair. The latter
guarantee universal suffrage, freedom of citizens
to register and run for public office, freedom of
speech of candidates without restriction or
precondition, freedom to assemble and hold
rallies, demonstrations, and campaigns without
restriction and precondition; freedom from fear
and harassment; freedom of voters and candidates
to have equal access to polling stations; freedom
of candidates to have equal access to and obtain
feedback (vote outcome) from an impartial board or
committee of elections.
In most Africa, with the
exception of some countries, dictatorship prevails
over fair and free elections; in some African
countries, elections, let alone ‘free and
fair’ elections, are unthinkable. In fact, some
African nations are governed by paternalistic,
personal, and oligarchic regimes and hence the
people are subjected to oppression and
dehumanization. But, before I galvanize the
lessons Africa can get from election 2006, I like
to first deal with the relatively democratic,
albeit ephemeral in most instances, African
experiment with respect to elections.
Some
African countries have attempted to implement the
democratic principles of free and fair elections,
but because they were not grounded on a solid
foundation of a democratic culture, most of these
experiments were short-lived. A number of African
countries, however, despite the conspicuous
absence of democratic culture, have managed to
evolve a relatively fair and viable system.
“Nigeria developed a sophisticated federal
system; Gambia, Botswana, and Mauritius have been
able to sustain multiparty politics in the 1980s;
and most recently, Senegal returned to competitive
elections. These countries constitute important
examples of a possible shift away from the
convention of centralized non-participatory
politics.”8
The general view held by
Africans that multiparty democracy guarantees
peaceful transition in any election season is not
necessarily true. Neither multiparty system, nor
elections, nor brilliant and shinning
constitutions, can guarantee peaceful transference
of power unless a system of checks and balances is
in place. Dictatorial and/or hegemonial regimes,
especially the military variety, can easily
trample over the ‘general will’ and they have
done it in the past repeatedly. The countries in
Africa that haven’t had military dictatorships
were Botswana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Kenya,
Malawi, Senegal, and Zambia.
With
respect to multiparty democracy in the African
context, I have argued the following in 1993:
“The fact that it has become a vogue to declare
a multiparty system in order to be reciprocated by
the major, stable and donor powers is at once
unfortunate and ironic. Unfortunate because Third
World countries, in one form or another, are
compelled to adopt a “multiparty democracy”
irrespective of the latter’s relevance to their
particular concrete realties; ironic because the
prescription of “multiparty democracy” comes
from those who are stable due to conspicuous
absence of what they are offering. My reservation
on “multiparty democracy”, however, does not
automatically justify a mono-party system as an
alternative. Although the latter can also be
democratic, the danger of the emergence of
oligarchy without checks and balances could be
regrettable. For Ethiopia, the best road toward
realizing a democratic society is to rethink the
proliferation of multitude of parties without
resorting to a mono-party system. Dual or triad
party systems, with issues and policies agenda,
accompanied by an obligatory referendum to the
constitution, are a viable democratic option. In
many multiparty democracies, people are mobilized
but do not effectively participate in politics.
Referendum and/or peoples initiative, by and
large, guarantee peoples participation not just in
politics in general, but in the decision making
process as well.” 9
In some instances,
Africans’ reservation on multiparty systems is
justified, simply because multi parties tend to
gravitate toward manipulating ethnic politics; the
electorate exhibit affiliation to sectarian
ethnic-based parties, and the experience for the
most part was polarization of the larger society.
A case in point is the Zambian experience where
tribal and linguistic affiliations were manifested
in a multiparty scenario, and various ethnic
groups forged coalition and unity under a one
party system. The dominant group, the Bemba, for
example sought an overarching umbrella and
included related groups such as the Bisa, Lunda,
Chisiga, and Membwe in an effort to rally them
around a national agenda. Otherwise, Zambia would
end up having 73 parties if indeed multiparty
system is allowed.
Some
of the African mono-party systems were also
mass-based liberation parties that were also the
founding political organizations of their
respective nations following decolinzation. A good
example of these are the Kenya Africa National
Union (KANU), Tanganyika (Tanzania) Africa
National Union (TANU, later Chama Cha Mapundizi),
the Parti Democratique de Guninee (PDG), Peoples
Liberation Movement for Angola (MPLA), and Front
for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO). These
political parties were unifying forces in nation
building but they were unable to create a viable
democratic system and institutionalize free and
fair elections. Nevertheless, as Phyllis Martin
and Patrick O’Meara convincingly argue, “some
one-party regimes, such as Kenya, Tanzania, and
Zambia, were able to retain a modicum of electoral
competition, even where voters were allowed to
choose only from among candidates who were
themselves members of the single party. The
Tanzanian African National Union (TANU) is a good
example of such competition. In elections after
TANU became the only legal political party in
Tanzania in 1964, voters rejected as many as 45
percent of the incumbent members of parliament,
and even cabinet ministers became subject to
similar accountability.”10
Therefore
it is not necessarily the number of parties that
augment the participation of the people in
elections and the decision making process. It is
the nature and goodwill of the parties and a
counterchecking or countervailing mechanism for
transparency and accountability that matters. The
nature of TANU, quoted above, was also discussed
in one of my articles with respect to Nyerere’s
contribution to good governance, and here is how I
put it then: “Nyerere was highly emphatic on
good governance, which, in the 1990s has become a
buzz word, if not a cliché in premier literary
publications. In 1967, under Nyerere’s
supervision, TANU introduced a ‘Leadership
Code’ for all its leaders to report regularly to
the president on their wealth and income, and for
the next three decades, he argued that the state
officials must be accountable to the people. In
fact, in his latest book entitled Our
Leadership and the Destiny of Tanzania (1995),
Nyerere still emphasized on leadership ethics and
good governance. Government officials, especially
those at the top level, should be “persons of
integrity of principles, and who respect the equal
humanity of all others regardless of their wealth,
religion, race, sex, or differing opinions.”
With respect to tolerance of differing opinions,
Nyerere was perhaps at the forefront for the
battle of democracy, and most of his writings,
speeches and actions bear the imprint of dialogue
in the promotion of meaningful political discourse
for the benefit of all citizens of society.
Nyerere was one of the few African leaders who
could listen and respect ideas diametrically
opposite to that of his own.”11
In
spite of the African overall fragile political
systems, proliferation of hegemonic and
dictatorial regimes, and massive corruption, Naomi
Chasan et al argue that “managed political
change has also been launched through the ballot
box.” The authors further pointed out that
“elections in most part of the continent have
been neither infrequent nor totally
manipulated,” and most importantly they identify
five main types of post-colonial elections: “the
first are symbolic elections, in which a single
slate of candidates for parliament and the
presidency is presented to the voters and receives
near unanimous (engineered) mandate…the second
kind of elections permits competition for office
within a single-party system…A third form of
elections, held regularly in the pluralist regimes
of Gambia, Botswana, Mauritius, and Senegal
throughout the 1970s and 1980s, entertains limited
multiparty competition…[the fourth kind is
plebiscite that] seeks popular approval for
constitutional changes or proposed adjustments in
the organization of the political center. In
Ghana, the 1960 plebescite on the republican
constitution and the Union government referendum
are two examples of the widespread practice of
seeking to bring about a regime change without a
shift in the composition of the government. A
fifth kind of elections, however, has provided a
mechanism for the simultaneous turnover of both
leaders and regimes. These elections (held
primarily in administrative regimes) are a
concomitant of a military withdrawal from the
political arena.”12
Many African countries,
therefore, have implemented different mechanisms
and styles in conducting elections. Some have
managed to exhibit constancy and change in
upholding the democratic process. Gambia,
Botswana, and Mauritius are a good example of this
category. Others intermittently sustained
democratic elections but their respective
single-parties deteriorated to the level of
emasculating democratic rights and shutting down
parliaments. Examples of this variety are the
bygone regimes of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Sekou
Toure in Guniea, Seaka Stevens in Sierra Leone,
and Milton Obote in Uganda. Although the military
regimes that followed Nkrumah and Obote were by
far repressive, the two countries made a come back
to electoral politics in recent years. By the same
token, Nigeria’s democratic electoral process
was interrupted several times and has now been
resuscitated by Olusegun Obasanjo, himself a
military interventionist but who abdicated power
voluntarily and now again wielded the reigns of
state power as a moderate and reformist president
of Nigeria. However, beneath these revivalist
scenarios lie the patron-client relations that
effectively preclude genuine democratic elections.
Clients could be bribed or intimidated to vote for
patrons rather than for qualified and capable
leaders. Countries such as Algeria, Kenya,
Tanzania, Senegal and Zambia exhibited this
phenomenon, time and again.
African electoral process
is also undermined by the virtual absence of
tolerance and dialogue in some and by lack of
accommodation to political opponents in others. A
good example of the former is the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Uganda; and the
latter is best exemplified by the 2005 elections
in Ethiopia. The pre-election debates in Ethiopia
were wonderful civic virtues that seemingly
signaled peaceful power transference in the
country, but the incumbent Ethiopian Peoples
Revolutionary Democratic Forces (EPRDF) and the
opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD)
were far from reconciling and ironing out their
differences. On the contrary, they were at
loggerheads and the end result, as expected, was a
violent conclusion to the democratic process.
Given the Ethiopian psychology of power and the
long history of skirmish among rival powers, the
CUD would probably have put the EPRDF officials
behind bars had they got a chance to control the
reigns of power.
One African country that has just emerged from the
ashes of long civil war is the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. The country has just resuscitated
from an apparent death and just conducted
elections on the second week of November 2006, and
according to many observers the election was
“free and fair.” The National Electoral
Commission of DR Congo reported that Joseph Kabila
defeated his opponent Jean-Pierre Bemba in a 65%
turn out of 25 million registered voters. As per
the Commission, Kabila got 58.5% of the votes and
Bemba 41.9% but the challenger has now filed at
the Supreme Court for a recount.
I hope the healthy sign of democratic
elections in DR Congo will exhibit relative
durability.
One important dimension of
the American election is the fact that voters cast
their votes based on issues, policies and ideas.
The demographics of the electorate are
highly diverse; it cuts across classes, racial and
ethnic affiliations, sex, income gradations, and
religious groups etc. Nevertheless, voters in the
US vote on policy-related issues that may or may
not affect their life directly; they vote on
legally sanctioned statues and laws; they vote on
controversial issues such as stem cell research or
abortion; they vote on a variety of Proposals as
in California. By doing so, they participate
without inhibition or prohibition in the electoral
process, and all this is done in a single day, the
first Tuesday of the first week of November.
A week before Election Day,
for instance, Newsweek’s poll survey indicated
that, “55% of likely voters said they would vote
for the Democratic candidate in their district if
the election were held today. Only 37% would vote
for Republican…in the new poll, 31% of voters
said that Iraq was their top issue, with the
economy second at 18%, a majority (54%) thinks the
U.S. was wrong to go to war in Iraq, up from 47%
in August.”13 The issues are
inseparable from the candidate in the minds of the
electorate, although from time to time charismatic
personalities could escape the scrutiny of
unsuspecting voters. It is this culture that
Africans need to embrace before they cast their
votes for a candidate.
If there are no foundations
and necessary ingredients that contribute to a
vibrant democratic culture, how is it possible
then that I urge Africans to learn from the
American experiment? Understandably, in the
absence of democratic principles and practice, one
could not expect much for an overnight triumph of
free and fair elections. Notwithstanding the cliché
‘more time is needed to foster democracy in
Africa,’ it is crucially important for Africans
to begin to admit their weaknesses, appreciate
other democratic cultures and learn from them.
Even if we agree that comparison between the US
and Africa is a futile exercise in history, there
is no doubt that we can gain immensely and make
great stride not so much in implementing
democratic principles but in borrowing ideas that
could help us inculcate the democratic culture.
Thus, Africans should begin at the beginning and
take ‘lessons in democracy’.
While taking ‘lessons in
democracy’, we must concurrently attempt to
implement the following proposals in order to
fashion a modicum of democratic principles as
guidelines for our electoral processes:
- Change
of attitude and/or psychological make-up via
education and not by imposition or ideological
confrontation.
- Educators
and other professionals should transcend the
patron-client relations and organize annual or
biannual conferences surrounding issues,
policies, or anecdotes pertinent to democracy
and elections. They may also supplement the
conferences with ‘workshops on democracy’.
For recommendations, please refer to footnote
# 14 below.14
- Educators
in administrative positions –from university
staff to the ministry of education- should
seriously and deliberately foster curricula
deliberately designed to promote history of
democracy and the electoral process in
countries such as the United States.
- It
is incumbent upon scholar intellectuals to
write books or produce literature in any form
and address important departure points in the
making of a democratic culture.
- Government
officials and enlightened men and women in
public service should transcend personal
vested interests and join hands with
intellectuals and professionals who are
willing to serve their respective nations.
- The
media (TV, Radio, newspapers, websites etc.)
and the ministries of culture and information
in African countries should disseminate ideas
of democracy and the electoral process and
must sustain their efforts.
Notes
and Sources:
*When
this article was underway, to my great surprise, I
came across almost identical title on Dekialula
website and I had to make slight adjustments to my
own title. It is, however, a delight to learn that
some African observers (in this case, Ethiopian)
are on the same wavelength.
- http://library.thinkquest.org/26466/history_of_democracy.html
- The
Declaration of Independence (1776)
- Diane
Ravitch and Abigail Thernstorm (editors), The
Democracy Reader, Harper Perennial, 1992,
pp. 99-100; ** note the archaic English in the
Body of Liberties
- Ravitch
and Thernstorm, ibid, p. 106
- The
Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, November 8,
2006
- The
Wall Street Journal, ibid,
- Newsweek,
October 30, 2006, p. 40
- Naomi
Chazan et al, Politics and Society in
Contemporary Africa, Lynne Rienner
Publishers, Boulder, Colorado, 1988, p. 7
- Ghelawdewos
Araia, Democracy in A Historical and
Ethiopian Context, Ethiopian Commentator,
May 1, 1993, p. 51
- Phyllis
M. Martin and Patrick O’Meara, Africa,
Third Edition, Indiana University Press, 1995,
p. 350
- Ghelawdewos
Araia, Tribute to Mwalimu Julius Kambarage
Nyerrere, African Link, Fourth Quarter,
Vol. 8, No. 4, 1999, p. 20
- Naomi
Chazan et al, op cit, p. 206
- Newsweek,
op cit, pages 30 and 36 respectively
- 1)
“Designing Continuum to Enrich Ethiopian
Educational Discourse and Debate Culture,” www.africanidea.org/designing.html;
2) “Coalition Government and Comparative
Politics: Meanings for Ethiopia,” www.africanidea.org/coalition_government.html;
3) “Humanizing the Ethiopian Political
Culture,” www.africanidea.org/humanizing.html
; 4) Political Culture in the Context of
Contemporary Ethiopian Politics,” www.africanidea.org/political_culture.html
; 5) “Education for Tolerance: Sustainable
Dialogue for Human Dignity,” www.africanidea.org/tolerance.html
Copy
Right © IDEA, Inc. 2006 Dr. Ghelawdewos Araia can
be reached at ga51@columbia.edu
for educational and constructive feedback.
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