Africa’s epidemic of leader induced democracy crisis (2)

PHANTOM WOULD BE the best single word to describe most instances of democracy in Africa since the wave of independence swept across the continent till now. Or, it could be referred to as illusory. What sounds like democracy in name and proclamation has variants in practice in different settings and has been marred by many cases of individual’s perversions of the concept of democracy in practice. The most recent cases as seen in some countries call to question the validity of claims that democracy is indeed a government of the people, by the people and for the people. In some cases, where the government is of the people, it has failed to be one for the people or by the people. Three essential ingredients are either missing or out of alignment in the practice of democracy in many African countries, thus giving some individuals the unrestricted powers to hold their countries captive. One is that the legislature is easily turned into a rubber stamp rather than acting as an arm of government to check on the executive in a democracy. Second is the judiciary, perversely used to strengthen the levers of power as an agency of repression to actualise the executive frivolities through execution of draconian laws. Examples include tweaking the constitution to allow for tenure extension beyond two terms. Guilty of this are the likes of Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Guinea Conakry’s Alpha Condé, Côte d’Ivoire’s Allasane Ouattara and Chad’s Idriss Déby among others. The third is the use of the military to silence vocal critics or any perceived rebels.

Omar al-Bashir was a trained soldier. His forays into politics led Sudan on a tumultuous path from which it may not find a way out yet in some years ahead. As a brigadier general in the Sudanese Army, al-Bashir unseated the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi through a coup d’état in 1989, thus also ending the three years of President Ahmed al-Mirghani who has been the President of Sudan since May 1986, after the country’s last democratic elections.  Whether al-Bashir’s reason for taking over power made sense or not is contestable as the negotiations with rebels in the south by the government he removed seemed to have made sense, especially as the south ultimately achieved self-determination and became a new country known now as South Sudan.  He made matters worse for Sudan by unleashing a band of Sudanese Arab militia group known as Janjaweed on Darfur, in Western Sudan, a group that also spilled over to eastern Chad. Omar al-Bashir was clearly a bad manager of crisis as his ignoble intervention in Dafur was later to metamorphose into a monster that is ravaging Sudan today. The formation and official recognition of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in 2013, with subsequent funding following a restructuring and reactivation of Janjaweed militias was only a time bomb that was waiting to explode after al-Bashir’s forced exit in 2019 after his 30 years of brutal reign.

RSF, which easily became a parallel military group, has been up in arms against the conventional army of Sudan since April 15, and has done untold damage to Sudan’s peace since it chose to bare its fangs after disagreeing on the timeline for the integration and assimilation of the group into the country’s mainstream conventional army, thus creating a very dangerous vacuum that is already having untold negative impact in Central Africa, East Africa and the Sahel. In retrospect, al-Bashir’s democracy comes under severe criticisms, especially as the National Congress Party, which he formed, remained the dominant political party in the country until his ouster in 2019. How he used the cover of democracy to perpetuate his stay in power is a case in point in African contemporary democracy. Moreover, his alleged involvement in directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and plunder against civilians in Darfur has shown his bias against some of the citizens he presided over, a feat that earned him an indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and upon which the succeeding government has agreed to hand him over for trial. The succeeding government has also been shaky as a civilian Prime Minister, Abdallah Hamdok, had to resign after his embarrassing stint under the military leadership that took over from al-Bashir dithered on the promise to return power to democratic government. The legacy of al-Bashir is a country ravaged by war between the army and the RSF after a failed attempt to transform the country’s leadership back to a democracy.

The Western neighbour of al-Bashir’s Sudan has not fared any better in its practice of democracy. Idriss Déby Itno, the Chadian President since 1990 until his death in 2021, started out as a military officer, supported Hissène Habré, the head of one of the various rebel groups vying for control of the government and helped Habré to seize power, becoming president in 1982. Déby was made commander in chief of the armed forces. He later formed a group that launched an offensive against Habré’s government, toppling it in the late 1990. As a new man at the helm, Déby promised to create a democratic society, a promise that turned out to be a fluke as he turned out to be a ruthless authoritarian leader. Although he turned from military leadership to what was given an semblance of democracy as he promised a multiparty democracy, the political party he formed became a dominant one and a platform on which he tenaciously held on to power through a 2005 constitutional referendum that eliminated presidential term limits and was re-elected every five years up until the time of his death on April 20, 2021, after serving a total of 30 years in power.   

Déby’s long regime was characterised by reports of corruption and human rights abuses, typical of many other African political leaders. As soon as his death was reported, the Chadian army announced the formation of a transitional council, to run the country for 18 months, headed by Déby’s son and Chad’s military leader, Mahamat, who was named the nation’s transition president in October 2022 for a non-renewable two years transition period until elections. That was after the conclusion of a National Sovereign Inclusive Dialogue which was launched earlier on August 20, and after the “Transitional Military Council that had ruled the country for 18 months was dissolved, and appointed Mahamat Deby as president of the transition.” It will be hardly surprising if Mahamat emerges the new “democratic” president after the “transition.” This will most probably swell the ranks of political state dynasties in Africa, following the likes of Omar Bongo of Gabon and Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo in which their democracies are nearly synonymous with their particular family names as their sons succeeded them in office.

Democracy in Mali has been through its ups and downs. Since independence and the beginning of self-rule, the country has experienced five episodes of coup d’état, two of which were carried out in the past three years. Assimi  Goïta, a colonel and the head of the military junta that led the August 2020 coup d’état, installed Bah N’daw as interim president and Moctar Ouane as Prime Minister respectively after toppling the democratically elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. In a transitional charter enacted on October 1, the military forces fixed the length of the transition at 18 months, with the initial commitment to organise elections on February 27 of the following year. This commitment was later revoked as after another he toppled N’daw and Ouane on May 24, 2021, declaring himself as the transitional president. In his bid to calm frayed nerves within and outside Mali, Goita pledged to go ahead with holding new elections in February 2022 amidst Malians’ doubts and misgivings, based on his display of force. With two months to go before the statutory end of the transition, Goita justified postponing the election again. In April 2022, Goita announced that no elections would be conducted until 2024 – an apparent bid to prolong his stay in power to nearly four years, after initially proposing 2026 for elections, thereafter caving in to ECOWAS and other international agencies’ pressure and earlier revising it to 2025.

Although the draft transitional charter earlier indicated that Goïta as a coup leader will not be able to run for president in elections, there are indications that the 2024 election – if it holds at all – will revolve around Goita. The lack of clarity on whether he will run or not is a cause for more pessimism among political observers as the election still has no date. However, chances are high that Goita may run as the transition arrangement will most likely allow a sitting military head of state to contest.  A referendum that could pave the way for the presidential election coming in February 2024, earlier scheduled for March 19, 2023, was held only on Sunday, June 18. The potential weakness of the referendum is that it was merely a YES or NO vote, which could be just one of the Machiavellian steps towards the anticipated election and could be used for legitimising Goita’s ambition to run for president. It could be considered flawed and questionable as a constitutional exercise carried out by a non-democratically elected leadership. Moreover, the referendum is expected to give more powers to the president, in which case he can unilaterally dissolve the parliament and remove any key elected officials. Goita has probably surveyed Mali’s political landscape and convinced himself of his pre-eminence in the political calculations. It is surmised that the ruling military leader does not seem to have much potential as the older politicians seem to have lost the trust of the people. Goita may therefore jettison his initial commitment that he would not run.

Goita, obviously aware of international isolation of Mali under his rule, has tried to impress upon the international community and regional economic bloc that he is doing his bit to ensure a transition to democratic rule. One of the reasons given for toppling Boubacar Keita’s democratic government was that it failed to ensure security within the territories of Mali. Goita’s approach seems different, however, as he appears resolute about ensuring the exit of external peace keeping forces in Mali. In November 2022, the period of Operation Barkhane – an anti-insurgent operation led by the French military against Islamist groups in Africa’s Sahel region that started on 1 August 2014 – formally ended. Since then, controversies have surrounded the presence and operations of Russian government-backed mercenaries known as Wagner Group in Mali. Moscow’s military support for Goita’s junta has been raising tensions with France. His disdain for the French troops is not hidden. Last May, his government announced that it was disengaging from its defence agreement with France and has also disclosed that Mali now treating French as a working language rather than official language. These have far-reaching implications for the democracy that Mali has been used to since independence. Under Goita, the United Nations peacekeeping force has also been told to end its operations.  A popular rhetoric in Mali in currently making wave is the French word DÉGAGE. The peacekeeping operations in Mali are considered a failure. So, by the word “dégage,” which literally means CLEAR, it is currently used in political parlance in Mali as slang to mean ‘get lost’. As an interjection, it can specifically be used by the French people when they are annoyed with someone and want them to leave. It could thus mean that Mali is making a bold statement to part ways with France.

How these various actions affect or influence democracies in African countries under review in coming years will be interesting to observe. Based on the unfolding events and likely outcomes, democracy may only exist in name and not in real practice in those countries and probably many others in coming years. Should this be of concern for the African Union and the various regional economic communities? It really should. Those who have not got it right up till now, but have only propped up leaders that destroy rather than build would have used the idea of democracy in the worst forms. The people will continue to be the worst for it except a definite positive change takes place. Africans deserve a fairer share of their nations’ governments and, if democracy is unable to deliver such benefits, then the future of governance in the continent does not look promising.

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