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Could
Southern Africa be better off after its year 2004 multiple elections?
Tawanda
Mutasah
Extracted from OSISA News Edition 2, Issue 1, March 2004
March 2004
If he were to
be writing in the year 2004 in the context of southern Africa, would
Rousseau have cause to maintain his famous intellectual cynicism
concerning representative democracy, as we know it? In the social
Contract, Book III, Chapter 15, Rousseau wrote:
"The people…deceive
themselves when they fancy they are free: they are so, in fact,
during the election of members of parliament: for as soon as a new
one is elected, they are again in chains, and are nothing. And thus,
by the use they make of their brief moments of liberty, they deserve
to lose it."
For the 75 million
southern Africans whose countries have the opportunity to choose
their political leaders in the year 2004, are their lives set to
get better as a result of this opportunity? Is there a risk that
there is a growing cynicism, especially among younger people, in
democratic opportunities unfolding in southern Africa?
It is always
difficult for Africans to decide how they feel about the numerous
initiatives, and even democratic opportunities, that often come
up on or about the continent. This is principally because contemporary
African governance tends to be dogged by the stubborn menace: the
distance between rhetoric and intentions on the one hand, and action
on the other.
In Southern
Africa, should it matter, for instance, that, about four years onto
the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), annual economic
figures are - with the exception of Mozambique's nowhere near the
7% annual target on which the very accomplishment of Nepad goals
is predicted, and that, in fact, economies such as Zimbabwe have
been shrinking at the rate of 8 to 10% per annum?
Even if one
wants to be supportive of a 'new African commitment' to democratic
peer review, should it not be of concern that, four years after
the words 'peer review" gained ascendancy on the African political
podium, 37 countries have still not signed up for the African Review
mechanism? Should it, or should it not, trouble one that, on present
trends, 57 million African primary school age children will be out
of school in 2015, the new "jomtien' target, itself already adjusted
to accommodate poor results? Or that, against the backdrop of "Health
for all by the year 200" pledges in the different countries of the
region, there is currently no single official Voluntary Counselling
Testing facility in Angola's Benguela and Lobito cities?
At a personal
level, what is the most constructive African attitude I should have
amidst the deafening official rhetoric on "regional integration",
I still have to queue up annually for my hard to get passport because,
though I travel to the US on a ten-year multiple-entry visa, I have
to contend with page-gobbling single or two-month 'multiple' entry
visas into Mozambique in spite of the mutual sacrifices of our people
in a shared nationalist liberation history, and despite the obvious
flow-charts of consanguinity?
It is with this
burden of proof that Southern Africa prepares for a year where 5
of its nations- Malawi, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and South
Africa - will hold general elections.
In 2000, the
Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary forum
developed a set of electoral norms and standards that have since
been elaborated on by other organisations, including the Electoral
Institute of Southern Africa. If followed to the letter and spirit,
these norms and standards would be the envy of many a developing
region. Yet, because of the credibility gap of African politics,
the upshot, so far, is disconcerting.
The first important
challenge facing elections in the region is that we still have leaders
who notwithstanding the most high sounding democratic palaver, cling
to power by all means. At least four countries in Southern Africa
have already been rifted by presidential succession politics, manifested
in what I would call 'the third term curse' in the region.
It started with
President Sam Nujoma of Namibia suddenly finding that he was still
"young enough" to be President, and that, the people of Namibia,
(as "the masses" always do , don't they?) still wanted him to run
for a Third term in office, in spite of a Constitutional bar to
the contrary. Nujoma moved on to amend section 29 of the Namibian
Constitution, and in power since 1989, he made himself eligible
for a new term of office in 1999, which he won.
We have come
to realise in Southern Africa that the ruling elite clearly exchange
notes on (mis-) governance, and the contagion of the third term
curse has fortified us in our suspicions. In the course of the last
few years, Chiluba of Zambia decided he was not to be beaten at
the game. Chiluba, who had been in power since 1991,and was restricted
by part IV of the Constitution of Zambia No 18 of 1996, positioned
himself to amend the constitution and run for a third term in office
in the late 2001 elections, encouraging his sycophants to claim
that "he needs time to finish the projects that he had stated".
This was particularly
ironic for a man who had been on record as saying leaders should
not see themselves as indispensable, and ought to leave office and
not manipulate the Constituion to remain in power. Chiluba was topped
in his tracks thanks to the efforts of the Oasis forum and other
campaigners within and outside Zambia.
Hot on the heels
of the Chiluba scandal, President Muluzi of Malawi initially launched
himself to run for a third term in office in the elections now scheduled
for May 2004,with cheer leaders positioned to clamour that Malawi
"would be orphaned without him".
In Zimbabwe,
President Mugabe had long thrown caution to the wind. Claiming at
his 2001 birthday interview that he was "as fit as two fiddles",
Zimbabweans found him running for a fifth term in office in the
April 2002 elections.
In the latest
birthday interview in February 2004, President Mugabe has left Zimbabweans
guessing again as he boasted that, although he may have retired
by then, in five years' time he will still be around, "boxing quite
a lot".
Despite its
dramatic overtones, the third term curse in Southern Africa has,
in fact, been a manifestation of a deeper-seated malady in the Constitutions
and constitutional practice of a number of countries of the region.
Elections are thwarted in the region by constitutions that vest
too much power in individuals as is clearly borne out in, for instance,
Chapter VIII of the Malawian Constitution, Chapter IV of the Zimbabwean
Constitution of Zambia. In addition, the culture of respect for
the Constitution is not entrenched in the minds of the leadership,
in spite of their solemn oaths of office.
Contrary to
the rather lame, if popular, prescription that "we ought to educate
our leaders on respect for human rights and the Constitution", it
appears obvious that constitutional abrogation in Southern Africa
is not for want of knowledge of the importance of Constitutions
on the part of some leaders: it is a bargain on what they can get
away with.
There are a
number of other challenges. How so we ensure that elections become
issue-based platforms, providing the opportunity for the contestation
of policy alternatives? How do we eliminate intimidation and violence?
What of the much needed reform of constitutional and electoral models?
How do we enable
the fuller participation of both men and women in decision making,
including moving southern African politics - whether exercised by
men or women - away from the present masculinist posture whereby
too high a premium is put on power for its own sake? How do we make
political leaders accountable beyond elections, so that, after voting,
the people do not find themselves "again in chains"? In a word,
how do we make elections in Southern Africa a meaningful event for
the everyday lives of the region's people?
For the Open
Initiative for Southern Africa and our partners, there is already
some work underway to ensure that the region comes to as close as
possible to the spirit and intentions of the SADC norms and standards
on elections.
These include
an OSISA-EISA conference, held in late 2003, that explored the question
of electoral models and systems; support for democracy education;
support for the Malawian Economic and Justice Network to elevate
the election debate in Malawi to the level of policy and issue-based
discourses; support for ongoing human rights monitoring in Namibia;
support for women participation in decision making in Botswana;
and efforts at peace-building and consolidation in Mozambique and
Angola.
Equally important
are ongoing efforts to ensure that the media is accessible to all
contesting ideas and political shades of opinion. These include
the work we are involved in through the media Monitoring Project
of Namibia, as well as the watershed Africa Freedom of Expression
conference that Article 19 organised on the 19th and
20th of February, 2004.
To make the
2004 Southern African elections meaningful for the region's citizens,
- There is
need to help civil society in the development of comprehensive
elections engagement strategies that are not limited to elections
monitoring, but include advocacy and legal action on constitutional
frameworks, close monitoring of electoral administrative, effective
voter education, and media and other communication efforts;
- There is
need to develop and support public interest litigation on a number
of laws and practices that could potentially he held as infracting
on even the limited freedoms currently protected in the electoral
laws ad related legislation in the different countries of the
region;
- There is
need to strengthen learning and solidarity across the region as
a way of generating transitional norms and standards in electoral
management and engagement;
- There is
comprehensive mutual learning by civil society of what electoral
models work best for what standards; and
- Lastly, there
is need to support other advocacy and legal strategies that defend
the right of civil society to organise, even though, prima
facie, they may not appear to deliver directly on elections.
- This is because
a civil society that consistently fights for space across different
causes and platforms against gender violence to influencing the
national budget, develops the social infrastructure and expectations
for citizens to demand electoral fairness. Approached this way,
elections move from being occasional events, into opportunities
to organise social values, rights, and interests; and - for the
politicians - to seek (what should be no more than) the means
of advancing those interests - political office.
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