Nearly a decade ago, debate around Africa that coincided with the Gleneagles G-8 Summit and the publication of the Blair Commission’s report tended to homogenise Africa. The attempt to mobilise a large number of people worldwide to help Africa through consistent pleas of rock stars and movie actresses who are far removed from Africa’s realities required commentators to talk about a more-or-less homogeneous Africa and to suggest explicitly that there was one solution for all countries. Nothing could be further from the truth. The common theme for all these discussions was that Africa as a whole was incapable of developing without massive foreign assistance. However, Africa traces its elements of democracy in the pre-colonial times; the European penetration and subsequent colonization only provided a gateway for the prevalence of Western form of another democracy with the practice of the parliamentary system. As each African state gained independence, beginning from the mid-twentieth century, political leaders mostly followed the Western democratic process. I would like to argue that Africa is becoming increasingly differentiated and only by understanding the emerging contrasts that the exact challenges and opportunities for each country can be understood. It is not unreasonable, for example, to suggest that while reflecting on what constitutes a free and fair election we should also reflect at the same time on what constitutes democracy more broadly lest we misunderstand each other. We should, from the outset, liberate ourselves from the idea that elections are equal to democracy. More importantly, it is a fact that there is a growing and unfortunately deepening lack of faith in national political institutions among citizens not only of Africa but the entire world. Although each national context has its own distinctive features, the declining passion for electoral politics in some parts of the world is troubling for the future of democracy. This is more so in the Western world where democracy is being diminished to little more than a liberal oligarchy of the rule by the few in form of elections without the substance of the will of the people being secured. Elections in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, are a case in point, where recently Congressional election process had to be suspended following some alleged irregularities that were uncovered. The stalemate caused by the elections in Africa remain a grim reminder that democracy in Africa is more than just casting the ballot paper and waiting for the outcome of the vote. A lot of civic education is required to enable the electorate conceptualise the reality in practicing democracy. The death and carnage arising from disputes and the hardened positions in the recent election processes that have taken place in some African countries, where victors and losers coupled with the high stakes involved shows that struggle for democracy is a hard and long road for Africa. There is need to learn from these unforgettable pasts and create a common front to build the continent. The United States roadmap for democratization, published in the early 1990s, listed the steps to the promised land of democracy as: struggle, transition, institutionalisation, elections and consolidation. This roadmap, prescriptive as it appears, does not seem to work for us in Africa. Presumptuous as it sounds, it does not work for us in Africa as it has taken so many decades – and counting – to come. It should be understood that democracy in Africa is about sharing of resources; it is about peace and security for the man and the woman on the street. The obligation lies with both the people and the authority to ensure everyone has a space in the society. It is indeed about the guarantee of basic rights and freedoms as enshrined in the constitution. While it has been argued that democracy and a robust civil society emerge together, it can be said that in developed countries, the United Kingdom for example, it took nearly seven centuries. This can be attributed to power struggles between local elites and the central monarchy, and not the activity of the masses. Democracy came later at last. But, most importantly, as it has been argued, their civil society was achieved in a way that did not destroy a sense of national unity and cohesion. For Africa to enjoy the fruits of genuine democracy and avoid the devastating conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s, popularly known as the lost decades, we need to do more than just wait to cast our much cherished ballots, the seemingly magic bullet to all that we lost. As it has been aptly observed by Patrick Smith, the editor of London-based newsletter Africa Confidential, politics in Africa remains too often an expensive game with the spoils of office being shared between members of the same elite wearing different political colours. For the development of popular and stable democracies in Africa, we need more that routine general elections. Democracy should strive to be participatory, consultative, transparent and publicly accountable. Ultimately, democratic governance rests on the consent of the governed. Finally, after all is said and done, and the dust has settled down after those stormy elections, we should learn to be peaceful bedfellows no matter how strange we are to each other and strive to build our nations as we wait for the next round of the game in the ring. oscar_kim2000@yahoo.co.uk
