Electoral malpractices and Africa's curse

The current events in Kenya make the sort of sorry reading that has made Africa the butt of bad jokes amongst the world’s community. And there is as yet no end in sight to the crisis and anarchy that have engulfed the one time model of democracy, development and tranquility on the continent. Yet the story of what is happening in Kenya has been told again and again before in several other African states – most notably in Zimbabwe in the past seven years and more recently in Nigeria. Why is it that in spite of all the evidence and lessons from the past, no improvement has occurred and, if anything, matters appear to be worsening on the elections front?

Let me start by saying that I believe in the principle and concept of elections as a platform for choosing national leaders. Throughout history national leadership has been established on a number of bases. In many traditional societies, leadership structures were based on heredity and succession. You were born into leadership and there was little debate on who led the people, other than in few circumstances were succession rules were not clearly defined or where the rulers or the ruled tried to subvert the succession rules. Leadership was also gained through conquest. If you felt your territory or empire was small or if you felt you had strong enough muscle, you simply invaded your neighbours, took over their territories and imposed your rule over their citizens. The third way was through democratic election of leaders by the citizens. Democratic elections, in my view, present the most complex and difficult approach to leadership selection. This is because of three main issues.

The first is unpredictability. Even in the best of circumstances, elections always throw up surprises. Until the votes are cast and counted, there can never be any certainty as to the outcome. Just look at the US (arguably, the world’s leading democracy) elections in the past eight years. In 1990, the leading contenders, George Bush and Al Gore were tied up to the last hour of counting (and recounting) and it took the Supreme to break the impasse. In 2004, there were gasps of surprise when, against the odds and the polls, Bush triumphed over John Kerry. In the current primaries, there has been a see-saw as voters have swung from one candidate to another. It is this element of surprise which motivates leaders to “rig” the election process in order to make the results more predicable – in their favour obviously.

The second issue about elections is that they involve competition against or amongst a number of other candidates. Other than for a few questionable elections in one party state systems were leaders compete against themselves, elections involve making a choice between a number of candidates. In an ideal situation, how those candidates sell themselves to the electorate and the resources which they have to sell themselves and their message will often determine who wins and who losses. This outcome of producing winners and losers compounds the problem in the sense that the winner often goes on to accumulate all the benefits of office while the loser, in many instances, becomes irrelevant or is discarded into the dustbin of history. Again look around and see how many leaders who have lost elections have come back and regained the leadership at another point in future. There are not many and they are even fewer in the more established democracies. It is this fear of being irrelevant which makes it very difficult for serving leaders to accept electoral defeat.

Thirdly, elections are based on personalities. Elections are all about electing a person to lead and that person must exhibit certain qualities that will make him or her more attractive to the electorate than the other candidates. It may be political inclinations (such as left or right leanings, conservative or liberal attitude, etc.) or something even more abstract like charm and charisma or something more tangible like a good policy programme that attracts voters to one leader instead of the other. However, the effect of personalities is influenced by the prevailing circumstances. A strong and uncompromising personality may be seen as relevant in a crisis situation where decisive action is required. However such a personality may be undesirable in stable circumstances where greater flexibility and compromise may be required. Therefore some leaders persist with their old ways believing, quite wrongly, that it still endears them to the electorate as was the case when they were initially elected.

The forth reason why election in Africa have generally been such a sham is what I would call the very low cost of non-conformity. There has been repeated and amplified evidence that nothing serious ever happens to leaders who rig elections. The doctrine of national sovereignty has seen to it that there is very little pressure that can be exerted by outsiders and so a leader who feels that he has relatively strong control (usually through dictatorship and repression) over internal elements will brazenly rig election in the comfort and knowledge that no-one will do anything about it. In any situation in which crime is seen to pay, more and more brazen criminality follows. One rigged election follows another and another and other leaders who witness this impunity are attracted to act in similar ways. The international community, which is generally expected to bring pressure to bear on arrant leaders, has three standard responses which have all been proved to be either ineffective or inappropriate or both.

Firstly, they give conditional approval of faulty elections. They will admit that there were some anomalies in the electoral process but such anomalies were insufficient to subvert the will of the people. This is absolutely wrong. In my view, if there is any evidence of anomalies in the election process, the results must be invalidated unconditionally. Once you start making exceptions, you are opening up the process to abuse and manipulation. In reality, an abuse may appear to be minor but its effect can be quite major and, alternatively, a large number of minor abuses can amount to a serious abuse. The election is the stock exchange at which the business of democracy is transacted. Just imagine running a stock exchange in which a little insider trading is permitted! Electoral anomalies should be vigorously investigated and offenders must be prosecuted without fail. That is the only way to stop these debilitating malpractices.

Second, they will condemn the election but state that the aggrieved parties should follow the legal channels for redress. This assumes that the legal system actually works efficiently and impartially. The reality is that in countries where electoral rape takes place, the legal system is usually hopelessly compromised and inefficient. To make matters worse, the legal systems are so slow that by the time the matter has gone through the hearing process and been decided upon, the term of office being contested will have ended. In Zimbabwe, electoral court cases arising from the 2000 elections had not been concluded when the 2005 elections were held. So what is the point of going to court if redress will not be achieved in a reasonable space of time? In my view, contested results should not be allowed to stand until the courts have resolved the matter. In other words, winners of questionable contests should not be sworn into office until the legal challenges have been exhausted.

The third reaction is to admit that the electoral process was flawed but the “winners” and “losers” should form a government of national unity. This is a seriously faulty and offensive solution to the problem. It is tantamount to suggesting that a victim of rape should marry her violator or that a robber should share the loot that he has robbed with his victim. This is illogical, acceptable and intolerable in a democratic sense. If a leader steals an election he should be condemned, prosecuted and forced out of office and not rewarded with leading a government of national unity. There should be no reward for transgressing.

Given all these problems with elections, I submit that hotly contested election results, such as those in Kenya, should be subject to adjudication by an international court. The United Nations should establish such a judicial institution to review election results when required. Anyone who rigs or steals elections should be considered as having committed crimes against his people and should be dealt with in the same way as those accused of committing genocide. For what is a worse genocide that denying your own people their universal right to choose leaders of their own liking and preference?

Regaining my lost voice

Welcome to this very first instalment of Pragmatic Insights, the newest blog providing commentary on socio, political and economic events taking place around the world with a general bearing on Africa and a specific focus on Zimbabwe. I intend to use this blog as a platform for expressing and sharing my ideas on a wide range of issues and events concerning Africa and specific African countries and for generating debate and dialogue on opportunities and options to heal the African continent of its many and well recognised and acknowledged afflictions and improve the welfare of its citizens.

At a more personal level, I intend to use the blog to regain my lost voice and, once again, make a public contribution on matters of critical importance to my people in my irreverent and inimitable manner. Perhaps I should, at this very early stage, give a short introduction of myself. In the early 1980’s, as a young man with nothing much more than a small gift of written expression, I was invited by Geoff Nyarota, then editor of the Chronicle newspaper in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to write a weekly column for the newspaper as a successor of Bill Saidi (a veteran Zimbabwean newspaper editor) who had left to take up promotion elsewhere in the newspaper stable.

For more than four years the Farai Pasipanodya Weekend Column entertained readers covering a wide range of topics from light hearted social events to serious political and economic issues. But then the 80’s were a time of many exciting developments for my country and other not so exciting events, as history was later to reveal. It was a time when the country enjoyed high levels economic growth and freedom of expression – a time when the media could make or break careers. My compatriots with good memory will recall the exposure of the infamous Willowgate scandal which exposed high level corruption and resulted in the resignation (and one suicide) of several ministers of Robert Mugabe’s government.

Oh yes, there was a time in my country when ministers resigned if and when their misdemeanours were exposed and, believe me, one committed suicide in the well known tradition of the Japanese. That is no longer the case. Now ministers get promoted for being corrupt, incorrigible and incompetent. Just look at the mess that Zimbabwe is now in, yet there is a government of well paid ministers. What are they doing, when the country has all but collapsed? There was a time when most of the present jokers of ministers would have been gently persuaded, and probably would have accepted, to drink poison or to put a bullet through their heads as atonement for their sins. Now no longer! But this is the subject of another day and time.

To get back to my brief biography, after I left Bulawayo in 1987 to take up a new position in Harare, it became increasingly difficult to sustain my weekly column. Remember that was the time the manual typewriters and telex machines were the state of the art journalistic paraphernalia. Imagine, I would bash out my piece on my lovely portable typewriter and send it to Herald House (that was the Chronicle’s head office, if you really need to know) where some overworked telex operator would retype the piece and then transmit it to the Chronicle office in Bulawayo.

If you consider what is happening now, that period was the equivalent of the Stone Age. Now the typewriter has been replaced by the computer and there is now email in place of the telex machine. I can even bash out a piece on a hand held device and zap it instantaneously to any destination using a mobile device such as a Blackberry. Such are the times. Ok, where was I? Oh yes, I was still introducing myself.

While in Harare, I whiled up my journalistic time in the late 80s writing columns for the Financial Gazette and the Independent, both business oriented weekly newspapers, and freelancing for a number of other newspapers and magazines include Parade Magazine. After that, I kind of lost my way, my voice, my interest (and whatever else one loses) as a writer and public commentator and pursued a career as a professional public policy advisor working mainly in African countries and, more recently, elsewhere around the world. So after almost twenty years in journalistic isolation (doing what President Mbeki famously called quiet diplomacy), I have decided to break my silence and regain my voice as a public commentator. And thank god to modern technology, I do not have to beholden myself to some newspaper editor to do so.

This blog represents my space and time for expression of my thoughts and feelings on events taking place in the world, in Africa and in my homeland of Zimbabwe. This blog will be my platform for indulging in serious and not so serious banter on social, political, economic and other issues and events that have a bearing on Africa. It is an analytic and witty expose of what is happening, why it is happening (from my pragmatic perspective) and who are behind the events – the culprits and the benefactors, the heroes and villains, the wise and the foolish, the beauties and the beasts.

More importantly, I will seek to suggest or provide solutions by objectively examining options on the way forward and opportunities for change. I will pose questions on and seek answers to why certain things are happening, when they are happening and what the consequences of the events are. Pragmatic Insights is not a partisan blog and I hold no brief for any particular political inclination, the left or the right. I will say things as I see them without fear or favour. I am not seeking political office (not yet anyway!) and am I using this blog to launch a political career. Of course, I am a political animal (who isn’t?) and I have strong political views. But this blog goes way beyond the basics and mechanics of politics.

The blog is intended to elevate discussion on African issues beyond the pedestrian and to challenge conventional wisdoms about what works or doesn’t work in Africa. It is about exploring ways in which brighter light can shine on the Dark Continent. It is about improving the lives and welfare of a people who have suffered untold injustices and misery for far too long. Africans endured more than two thousand years of slavery and, after that, close to a hundred years of colonial rule and exploitation. After the so called “independence”, they have languished under years of brutal dictatorships.

This blog intends to break from the stereotype that Africans tolerate injustice, mediocrity and impropriety. We have tolerated rigged elections (maybe not in all cases, but who cared anyway?), kleptocratic and despotic rule by leaders who care for nothing but self-enrichment and personal aggrandisement. This blog says no more to that, kwete ndaramba! My voice is back!