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Democracy as practiced in Africa
Mavis Makuni, Financial Gazette
December 06, 2007

A glimpse of electoral processes in three countries Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa will give the world an idea of how democratically, freely and fairly they conduct elections when they hold polls to elect a president and parliamentary representatives in the case of Kenya and ruling party leaders in the case of the two southern African countries.

Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Kenya on December 27 while the ruling ANC in South Africa and its counterpart, ZANU PF in Zimbabwe will hold congresses earlier to elect or endorse party presidents.

ncumbent Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki, who will contest the elections under the auspices of the Party for National Unity will be vying for a second term. His main challengers will be Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement and Kalonzo Musyoka of ODM-Kenya. Seven other candidates representing smaller political parties will also be presidential candidates. This will be the first election since independence in 1963 in which the Kenya African National Union (KANU) will participate as an opposition party.

In the last elections in 2002, all opposition parties joined forces under what they called a rainbow coalition to end KANU's 40-year dominance as well as oust Daniel Arap Moi who had been in power for 24 years and was being accused of increasingly autocratic and corrupt governance. Ironically, Moi has endorsed his old political foe, Kibaki for the forthcoming presidential election. Since coming to power in 2002, Kibaki's government has in turn been accused of corruption and has weathered many storms. Kibaki, who has been accused of showing intolerance for divergent views dismissesdhealth minister Charity Ngilu and regional co-operation minister, John Koech for backing Odinga. Opinion polls towards the end of last month showed Odinga and Kibaki to be almost neck and neck.The main campaign issues are the economy, infrastructural development, corruption, health care, education and a new constitution.

While Kenya's will be a full-fledged national election, the ZANU PF congress to be held from December 11 to 14 and the ANC version beginning on December 21 promise to produce more fireworks. The main aim of the ZANU PF congress is apparently to endorse President Robert Mugabe as the party's presidential candidate in national polls to be held next year as well as declare him president for life.

Following the million-man march in Harare last weekend whose aim was to show solidarity with the head of state in his pursuit of the above goals, the congress almost seems redundant. The President has already accepted nomination, declaring during the march that he accepted the expression of confidence in him and would not let his supporters down. It would however, be interesting to see what would happen in the hypothetical event that the delegates to the congress voted for a different scenario from what already seems a fait accompli for the president.

The most interesting political event to watch will however, be the ANC Congress in South Africa when incumbent president Thabo Mbeki is expected to fight a do-or-die battle against his former deputy, Jacob Zuma. South African media reports suggest that Mbeki is in serious trouble after a majority of ANC provinces and structures have overwhelmingly nominated Zuma to take over as the ruling party's president. If he wins the contest, Zuma will automatically become the party's presidential candidate in elections to be held after Mbeki's current term ends in 2009. Mbeki seems to have his back against the wall following reports that his opponents are working on a strategy to have the congress record a vote of no confidence against him if he loses to Zuma in the vote for the party presidency.

It is suggested that eventuality could spark a constitutional scenario requiring the speaker of parliament, Baleka Mbete to temporarily take over the reins as acting president. Another possibility being speculated on is that Mbeki would be obliged to call an early general election. This option, however, seems to suggest more unexpected ramifications. Mbeki is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term after 2009. The question arises of what it would mean if he called an early election and won it. Would he then be able to serve another five-year term?

Whatever, the answer, Mbeki's political woes seem immense. The South African weekly, the Sunday Times, quotes a senior ANC official as saying "To put it bluntly, we cannot live with Mbeki for another 18 months." However, despite the odds being heavily stacked against him, South African newspapers report Mbeki to be defiant and preparing to fight the most difficult battle of his political life. When Mbeki was asked some time ago why he would seek a third term as party president when the constitution ruled this out, he retorted that if the leadership of the party approached him and asked him to continue, he would find it difficult to ignore their request.

But the outcome of the nomination process shows that the ANC leadership has not appealed to Mbeki to stay. Undeterred, however, Mbeki now says his fate should be decided by delegates to the ANC congress in Limpopo this month. What has caused Mbeki's political fortunes to nosedive so dramatically? An observer cannot know all the internal goings-on within the ANC but it is common knowledge that the South African president has come under scathing criticism over a number of issues.

One was his approach to the AIDS pandemic, which culminated in the Aids Treatment Campaign taking the government to court to force it to provide free treatment to ordinary South Africans. Mbeki has also taken some flak over his firing of Zuma, which was perceived to be self-serving in so far as it eliminated him from running for president. He has also been consistently taken to task at home for his equivocation with regard to the Zimbabwean crisis.

Despite basking in the glow of victory ahead of the ANC's Polokwane conference, Zuma has problems of his own. He still faces the threat of prosecution for corruption arising from his relationship with his former financial adviser, the jailed Shabir Schaik, which Judge Hillary Squires described as being "generally corrupt".

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