I will start with a question: can we have democracy without democrats?
True democracy
Democracy is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people. It is government by the whole population, typically through elected representatives. As the saying goes, democracy is government of the people by the people for the people. It is the rule of the majority.
In a democracy supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them either directly or indirectly through a system of representation. This is achieved by periodic elections which are supposedly ‘free and fair’. I have often challenged colleagues to give me examples of countries in Africa where elections are truly free and fair.
How can we talk about ‘free and fair’ elections when the monetization of politics excludes the poor from participating? When those who conduct the elections survive at the mercy of the ruling party and the incumbent president?
True democracy requires free and fair elections, the separation of powers, and a means of holding the powerful to account. It provides governments which reflect the will of the people and upholds human rights. But all too often ‘democracy’ creates a ‘tyranny of the majority’ without effective accountability or minority rights.
Sham elections
Is the holding of elections a good measure of democracy?
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has been in power since 1994 and has just won another term in office with over 99% of the vote! He has tinkered with the constitution several times and has supressed the opposition. Is Rwanda really a democratic country when Kagame always wins elections by a landslide?
Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe won elections with over 90% of the votes. Did they lead democratic nations?
A dictator capable of pocketing an electoral commission will easily win every election. This has been the case in Uganda since 1996. Yoweri Museveni has ‘won’ every presidential election. For 30 years he has maintained a firm grip on power by persecuting his opponents. He has imprisoned rival presidential candidates and has had political activists shot dead during election campaigns.
In much of Africa elections are rigged and victory to the incumbent is a foregone conclusion. In these cases elections merely give legitimacy to crime and dictatorship.
You cannot have democracy without democrats!
Corruption
Having regular violence-free elections is not enough. Democracy can only be delivered in an environment free of corruption. But corruption permeates government in much of Africa, and corruption is a barrier to progress and development. In highly corrupt countries most people are poor and unhappy.
January 2024 data from Transparency International shows that the least corrupt countries have the highest quality of life. Countries like Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and Sweden.
So it is not surprising that some of the least corrupt countries in Africa – Ghana, the Seychelles, Botswana and Namibia – are also better governed and more democratic than many others. But even in these countries much more needs to be done. Poverty and unemployment continue to bite hard throughout Africa regardless of how democratic countries are.
Military coups
Since August 2020 here have been coups in seven African countries – Gabon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Guinea, Chad and Mali. Burkina Faso has had two putsches in eight months, and Mali has had two coups in nine months. Before these coups the countries in question were said to be ‘democratic’ and yet their citizens had felt the weight of excessively corrupt and dictatorial regimes.
This surge of coups shows the fragility of our kind of democracy. And the fact that the population welcomed their new military rulers with excitement and relief says a lot about the nature of the democracy which we have in much of Africa. Would people really be happy to be ruled by unelected militants if democracy had worked for them?
The replacement of civilian by military rule is a severe blow to democracy. What generally happens is that the military promise a short transition period before they ‘return power’ to civilians and restore constitutional order. But in practice the military do not let go of power.
The surge of coups and rule by junta negates democracy and all its principles. You cannot talk about the rule of law and constitutionalism in a country governed by the military. You cannot talk of human rights under a military dictatorship.
Civilian rulers cannot guarantee that their country will be worthy of being called democratic if they are themselves endemically corrupt.
A country that nurtures democracy will take deliberate steps to shape its citizens into democrats. This is something that we should be working on as African people. Democracy is not created by miracles – it has to be worked for.
You cannot have a democracy without democrats.
By Kato Mukasa (Uganda)