Come election time in Africa, people worry
Ghana goes to the polls on December 7 with much apprehension. Its people saw Kenya’s 2007 election year blow up in an ethnic storm. They saw Zimbabweans flee a country whose leader was determined to hold onto power by any means necessary.
Democracy, coming to Africa after an era of military and civilian dictatorships was supposed to herald hope. Instead, it seems to have become the toxic formula for causing political institutions to implode on their people.
There are some differences though when it comes to Ghana. And they are worth noting for anyone who wants to make sense out of Africa’s emerging democratic mosaic. As the first country on the continent to gain its independence in 1957, it has had more than its fair share of civilian and military dictatorships.
However their first President, Kwame Nkurumah, gave them an ideological imperative for showing Africa how democracy in Africa should grow. He noted that for as long as we stay in our colonial configurations defined by national boundaries, exploitation of African resources by former colonizers would continue even as independent political institutions erode.
To counter this syndrome Nkurumah asked for a united African state which could wrest control of its wealth from outsiders so as to benefit the development its people. If he came back today, he would probably know what to say about the state of political unrest.
In appreciation of his wisdom, Ghanaians are saying it for him. This election, journalists noted at a media election workshop held in the Volta Region recently, should be work in progress towards Nkurumah’s dream. Unlike Kenya where politics is defined by what tribe you belong to Nkrumah encouraged political candidates from one ethnic group to contest for parliamentary seats in other tribal regions.
So too did Gerry Rawlings when he was Ghanaian President. It was in that way that they toned down Kenya’s tribal curse. It is said that if, as in Kenya, tribalism defined access to wealth, the problem would lie with the Ashanti – the richest tribe in Ghana.
However, as with other tribes, the Ashanti have a history of affiliating politically along ideological lines. That history serves as reassurance against the likelihood of ethnic strife. Former Tanzanian President, Julius Nyerere achieved the same effect with his Ujamaa philosophy. Indeed, the last elections in Tanzania were conducted with minimum disruption and polarization of issues.
In Zambia, transitions from President Fredrick Chiluba to late President Levi Mwanawaza and then Rupiah Banda also went smoothly. In that country, tribalism was down played and overrun by Kaunda’s philosophy entitled “humanism”.
The rise of ethnicity in South Africa is however worrying in a way that suggests that Africa may not be out of the woods with philosophies per se. Veterans of the anti-apartheid resistance are talking. While delivering the fifth annual Ashley Kriel Memorial Youth lecture at the University of Western Cape in July, one of the founders of the United Democratic Front (UDF), Allan Boesak, accused the African National Congress (ANC) of recreating apartheid’s system of racial and ethnic categorization, demeaning colored citizens “ruthlessly and thoughtlessly”.
Policy analysts Peter Kagwanja and Ernest Waititu in an article entitled “Split in ANC inevitable as ethnic tensions reach an all time high in South Africa”, noted that
ethnic nationalism is fast replacing civic nationalism and solidarity, which gave the nation a common rallying point against the ethno-centricism of the apartheid era.
Ethnic orientation has been a fundamental feature in the ANC since its founding, but the escalation of the Thabo Mbeki-Jacob Zuma tussle which saw the former resign as the nation’s president, has given the ethnic question new meaning, they say. “The clash between the two major political players, and by extension their ethnic groups, has turned ethno-nationalism into the axis around which politics in South Africa is increasingly coming to rotate.”
For a country that goes to the election polls next year, it is worrying to see Mbeki allies led by former security minister Mr. Lekota breaking away from the ANC to form a splinter party. It is still getting over a bad bout of xenophobia. That bout victimized and killed many so called foreigners who were deemed guilty of taking jobs away from South African.
In that bout, there was little thinking around on how the bulk of the economy remains in the hands of a white minority that benefited by the same apartheid system ANC fought to overthrow. Today, little thought is given to the fact that although political structures have changed, economic structures reinforce old sets of ethnic and racial relationships.
South Africa has done well economically by global standards. However, as Nkurumah noted in the 1960s, ownership issues ultimately define political stability. That is where Kaunda and Nyerere may have got it right. Ownership is a serious election fever issue.
