Before Autumn Comes Some Mistakes the Arab Spring Should Avoid; Lessons From West Africa by Kwesi Jonah

CoDA Discussion Forum
On
 “Two Decades of Democratic Transition in Africa”- From the National Conferences of the 1990s to the Arab Spring of 2011: Results and Prospects
Saturday 12 November 2011.
The Residence, Gammarth Tunis

Institute for Democratic Governance, Accra, Ghana

INTRODUCTION

By 1991 the struggle between authoritarianism and democracy in sub-saharan Africa had been decisively settled in favour of democracy. Founding elections were in the process of being conducted in many countries. There was a lot of uncertainty about the future of democracy, but there was also considerable hope and expectation that democratic regression and even breakdown would not be the dominant political pattern. In West Africa several challenges to democracy were encountered in Togo, Niger and Cote D’Ivoire for example. By and large major success stories of electoral democracy were recorded in Ghana and several countries. Uncertainty and anxiety have given way to hope and great expectations. One of the greatest sources of hope is that overall economic growth has outstripped population growth and civil conflicts have all but subsided in West Africa.

Almost twenty years later Arab North Africa has successfully staged its own democratic struggles. There are differences as well as similarities. What appeared in West Africa as a relatively peaceful, low-intensity conflict, appeared in North Africa as a violent explosion of popular discontent. Some of West Africa’s anxieties and uncertainties are still evident in the Arab spring. The question now is not so much why the Arab spring happened but why it took two solid decades to materialize. In other words what explains the time-lag between West Africa’s democratic revolution and the Arab spring. And more importantly, from the totality of West Africa’s democratic experience what deadly mistakes should the Arab spring avoid?

THE TWENTY YEAR LAG
Enough socio-cultural differences exist between West Africa and Arab North Africa to justify why political reform did not occur at the same time in these two regions of the continent. Given the strong tendency for political liberalization to follow on the heels of economic liberalization perhaps it is in the economic domain that we should seek to explain this lag.
First almost all the North African countries experiencing the Arab spring are rich middle-income countries with oil revenues that enabled governments to buy citizens political silence and acquiescence for a long time. By contrast by the beginning of the 1990’s Cote D’Ivoire the only truly lower middle income country in West Africa was in economic distress due to lower cocoa prices. The rest were all low-income countries with a substantial proportion of their populations subsisting on less than one US dollar per day.

Second, while West African countries were gripped in serious economic crisis in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the North Africa oil producing countries were reaping benefits of oil price booms triggered by the Arab-Israeli conflict. They therefore did not have the need to undertake the kind of sustained economic reform and liberalization that prepared the ground for political reform in West Africa at the beginning of the 1990’s.

There were political reasons as well. Once the first successful elections had been conducted, repeated successful elections tended to breed more success. They triggered more electoral reform, produced a few alternations of power from one party to the other and legitimized power holders in West Africa.

The most important factor however was the incorporation of presidential term limits into national constitution. Regardless of the length of presidential term the two-term limit became the norm, to ensure that no single person stayed as president for more than eight to ten years. This was not the case in Arab North Africa where unlimited presidential terms had become standard political practice. With or without election a president could stay in office as long as he wished.

Finally wherever governments have access to windfall revenues such as oil revenues or foreign aid rather than direct taxation of its people there is little or no reason to be responsive to popular demands for political reform. Clearly this appeared to be much more the case in Arab North Africa than in West Africa.

MISTAKES TO AVOID
The twenty year lag between the democratic revolutions of northern and western Africa may be a blessing in disguise. It means that Northern Africa has an excellent opportunity to avoid some of the deadly mistakes committed by some countries in West Africa with very disastrous consequences for the affected populations

• First is the politics of exclusion. Political exclusion accentuates horizontal inequalities wherever it occurs. Excluding people from participating in politics on nationality, ethnic, religious or regional grounds heightens political horizontal inequalities. The exclusion of a prominent politician from participating in presidential election may be taken as political discrimination not against a person but against a group. And yet in West Africa there have been attempts to exclude some presidential candidates either on grounds of nationality on the basis of residential requirements. The representation of all major groups in government is key.
• Tampering with presidential term limits. In the authoritarian past West Africa’s presidents enjoyed unlimited term limits. Everybody knew when they came to office. No one knew when they would leave. This encouraged arbitrariness and despotism. To end this, constitutional reforms under the democratic revolution imposed a two-term limit. There has been a sustained attempt to remove term limits. Some have failed, others have ended in disaster and yet some very subtle ones continue.
• Weak and insecure electoral management body. Weak electoral management bodies never deliver successful elections. They only plunge their countries into violence. Weak electoral management bodies are created in several ways; one way is by padding or appointing favourites or supporters of the government on to the EMB. The second is by ensuring insecurity of tenure or poor conditions of service plus the power of the president to appoint and remove at will. Finally by splitting the election management function such that the body conducting the election is not the body with the power to do the final declaration of results.
• Absence of institutionalized channels of communication between parties and the election management body and among parties. When parties communicate among themselves and with the electoral management body consensus is easy to build and the notion can avoid unnecessary conflicts. Common political problems are solved collectively. In some West African countries this has been informally institutionalized by the establishment of an Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC). Whatever the name the idea is to provide an informal forum where the electoral management body and the parties can share ideas and solve problems together.

It has several important characteristics. It is informal not legal, because it is not backed by legislation. The role is purely advisory and its decisions cannot be binding on the electoral management body. The chairmanship and secretariat are under the EMB’s control. Members can ask for a meeting as and when necessary. Apart from the meetings with the EMB parties can also have their own informal meetings to reduce tension and enhance consensus.
When channels of communication work effectively big problems become small problems; when they neither exist nor work small problems easily become transformed into big ones.

• Restricting CSO activity. Civil society organizations have made substantial contribution to democracy in West Africa. They were active in the struggle to bring authoritarian political systems down. Since the transition they have been monitoring political processes closely and making policy inputs. They research and advocate reform. CSO activities in West Africa’s democracies are broadly acceptable to governments so long as they are not critical of government policies and actions. When they become critical of government their legitimacy is questioned. They are charged with representing nobody but themselves and demanding accountability of all apart from themselves. The truth is all West African countries constitutions broadly recognize the freedom of association and associational life.
• Poor treatment of former presidents. Democracy has abolished the old practice of unlimited presidential terms and presidential term limits has meant having several former presidents around. It is important to avoid unfair, poor and unequal treatment of former presidents.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Aim at inclusiveness in politics.
• Defend and preserve presidential term limits.
• Build and maintain the independence of EMB.
• Open and maintain the channels of communication between parties and EMB.
• Protect a vibrant civil society.
• Respect and treat fairly all former presidents.

FINAL COMMENTS

• Abuse of incumbency must stop. Parties in power should not use public money to perpetuate their stay in office.
• Internal party democracy must be promoted. We cannot build democracy in Africa with undemocratic parties.