Democracy: A Foreign Concept for African Countries

CNN reports -- Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai have reached a truce after a vehement battle for the top most position in Zimbabwe. In March, Mugabe lost to Tsvangirai who had won the first round by 47 percent while Mugabe came in second with 43 percent. Tsvangirai could not take office because the constitution stipulates that a candidate has to win by 51 percent in order to be declared a winner.

Mugabe's Zanu-PF party is reported to have staged violence against his rival's supporters before the second round of elections. After the violence had escalated to heights that were unfavorable to Tsvangirai's MDC supporters, Tsvangirai decided to pull out of the race.

Mugabe ran solo in the second round of elections and declared himself a winner. The international community was disgruntled by Mugabe's behavior. Levy Mwanawasa, the late president of Zambia and the chairman of the Southern African Democratic Countries (SADC), was an outspoken critic of Mugabe. He likened the situation in Zimbabwe to a "sinking Titanic" , according to CNN. Sadly, Mwanawasa collapsed a day before he could address the issue on Zimbabwe at the Organization of African Unity summit held in Egypt- he was later flown to Paris where he later died.

Most African countries purport to have democracy but when the rubber hits the road, dictatorship carries the day. The two major elections on the continent in less than a year have ended in violence and deadlocks on who should take over.

Kenya and Zimbabwe have shown the world that democracy is a foreign concept on the African continent. Many African leaders running the show were once freedom fighters. Thus, the only leadership structure that most of them are cognizant of is the one they learned from the imperialists- where all the power was vested in one person.

In essence, there is no need to have a constitution if it is not the final authority in the land. The New York Times carried a story of Frederic Chiluba, the former president of the republic of Zambia, who tried to manipulate the constitution when he conjured up an idea to run for a third term after being in power for two consecutive 5 year terms. He tried to garner support for his idea but his dream was nipped in the bud before it could amount to anything substantial by the coming together of the citizens of Zambia and saying "no third term". He still managed to manipulate the system by picking Levy Mwanawasa without the consultation of anyone to be his successor. Ironically, Mwanawasa was a blessing in disguise to the people of Zambia. According to BBC , Mwanawasa went after his predecessor and stripped him off his immunity so that he could face trial for abuse of office.

The elections between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga in Kenya are no exception to this trend of power sharing. According to Breaking News Kenya, the outcome of the election brought about the death of more than 1000 people and 300 000 people displaced. A truce was reached when Odinga settled for the position of prime minister while Kibaki continued as the president.

The high-tech elections in Angola have been reported to having a lot of irregularities such as rigging and the like. Angola last had elections in 1992 and the outcome of those elections birthed a civil war that spanned a decade. In the recent elections, BBC reported that the rebel group conceded amid allegation that the elections where rigged. The elections saw Edward Dos Santos' party win 82 percent of the vote.

Power sharing between opposition parties looks like the new form of leadership in Africa. The incumbent is not willing to relinquish his power after a defeat. In the aftermath of the elections, the poor suffer while the rivals are not affected by the behavior of their surrogates.

During the deadlocks and confusion, infrastructures are destroyed because of a failure on part of the losing candidate to concede defeat. Funds that could be used for development of different economic sectors are channeled to revitalize the destroyed infrastructure. The repercussions can be severe and generally impede the country's progress to develop.

The leaders of African countries need look into amending their constitutions so that the power of the president is considerably reduced. The constitution should be held as the most important document in the land and should be respected.

African democracy is in its inchoation stages and will take a while to reach a stage where it is purely democratic. It might take the whole post-colonial generation of leaders being replaced by a new generation of leaders. The post-colonial leaders take leadership as an entitlement because they fought for independence. Maturity will come when many leaders can contribute to the development of a country and walk away from power like Nelson Mandela did. Somebody once said "what you walk away from you have mastered, but what you can not walk away from has mastered you." Most of them have been mastered by greed.

Resources:

Kenyan lessons for Zimbabwe crisis - BBC ( September 15, 2008)

Zambian Leader Is Nominated For 3rd Term Despite Dissent - New York Times (May 1, 2001)

Rivals sign Zimbabwe power-share deal- CNN ( September 15, 2008)

Angolan ex-rebels accept defeat - BBC News ( September 9, 2008)

We have a deal in Kenya - It's called the "National Accord and Reconciliation Act"- Breaking News Kenya (February 28, 2008)

Zambia: Zimbabwe 'sinking Titanic' - CNN (March 21, 2007)

Zambian MPs lift Chiluba's immunity- BBC (July 16, 2002)