Discuss Elections as a legitimating tool for incumbent African leaders

For the majority of African states that embraced liberal democracy, their constitutions were
elaborate on political pluralism and regular general elections as a legitimate process of handing over power from one regime to the other. However, in the first decade of independence, African states that had professed to nurture liberal democracy deliberately reviewed their constitutions to scrap off political pluralism but retained the aspect of regular general elections. These African one political party states such as; Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia to name a few, adhered to the constitutional requirement of periodic general elections and thus organized and conducted general elections. Thus if general elections could be the only
indicator of liberal democracy, then many African countries will be classified as having
democratic governments. Never the less, a number of scholars do observe that general elections
has been embraced only as a tool for gaining legitimacy which African regimes desperately
require to get credibility in North America and Western Europe. Since the 1990’s USA,
Canada, France, Britain, Germany, Italy among other developed countries do insist that
bilateral aid be given to African countries that have put in place basic structures of achieving liberal democracy. Consequently, general elections are often used by African regimes to argue their case and proof their progress to achieving liberal democracy in order to access
development aid. (Bience Gawanas, 1977:43)
However, African regimes are not interested in using elections to nurture democracy. For them,
elections only legitimize their regime in order to get credibility from the international
community which is essential for these regimes to access foreign aid. The ruling regime has to
manipulate the electoral process in its favour. Garlene J. Eddie has used democracy in the
Gambia as a case study to show how weaknesses in political institutions are exploited by the
ruling regime to influence electoral process in its favour. She observed that in Africa the
electoral system of representation is based on the winner take it all principal, a narrow
distribution of power, suppression of the opposition political parties, absence of strong civil
society movement, failure to make the military answerable to the interests of citizens and a
development strategy that favours domestic elite and external interests. Since the independence
period the electoral process favours the incumbent regime by giving opportunity to the regime
to utilize sate resources to out manoeuvre the opposition. The ruling government uses its
access to state resources to buy votes and opposition leaders, thus rendering the opposition
political party weak and powerless. Garlene pointed out that the regime of Jawara in Gambia
used these tactics to remain in power for over three decades (Garlene Eddie 2000: 193)
Michael Cowen and Liisa Loaska reiterated this point by emphasizing that since 1990 general
elections in Africa have been multi-party, where African governing regimes have deliberately
used state institutions and resources to weaken opposition political parties. These two scholars have noted that incumbent regimes manipulate the electoral process including giving financial and material incentives to voters. This is because the same regime does not trust the voters to vote as intended by the government. The regimes in power keep on changing rules of the electoral process to win elections. (Michael Cowen & Liisa Loasko 2002:17).
Michael Bratton and Nicolai Van De Walle(1997) used illustrations of Kenya, Zambia and
Togo to emphasize how incumbent governments used fraudulent elections to claim victories in
the 1990s. In 1992 the President of Kenya Daniel Arap Moi spent $100 million on election
campaign to influence the outcome of the vote in his favour. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda the
incumbent president declared a state of emergency to contain the campaign of the opposition
political party. In Togo military forces loyal to Eyadama gunned down participants in pro
democracy campaign rallies. In the first wave of multi-party elections incumbent presidents
who suddenly faced an electoral challenge used state funds, army and police to influence
outcome of elections to their advantage (Michael Bratton & Nicolai De Walle1997: 204).
These illustrations do confirm that whereas holding elections is a decisive element that defines liberal democracy, it is vulnerable to abuse in political systems where institutions like the judiciary, Electoral Commission and National Assembly do not enjoy autonomy from the chief executive. This explains why elections have been part and parcel of Africa’s political process in the colonial and independence era and yet the elections have not resulted in the growth of liberal democratic culture.

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Titany answered the question on October 28, 2021 at 12:09