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Democracy and development

Five steps for success:

•Democracy and development are indivisible. Democratic government represents the interests of the general population, and not just an elite.

•The bouts of stability that authoritarians can bring must be viewed sceptically, given the superior global economic performance and stability of democratic governments over the long term.

•Democracies must be crafted to address the particular political, economic and demographic challenges that countries face.

•Democracy is vital to the empowerment of cities because only democratic leaders are able to devolve power.

•A ‘democracy playbook’ is necessary to meet the threats to democratic elections and institutions.

Challenges and opportunities: The fundamental challenge to improving African economies is to develop structures and incentives that promote private-sector growth and the enrichment of the population. Correspondingly, the interests and considerations of elites across the continent must be devalued. Democratic systems, broadly defined, are best able to enrich whole societies because they are driven by the voters and their interests. Empirical evidence shows that democracies tend to govern better. It is the accountability of institutions – the hallmark of democracy – that promotes both political participation and good economic governance. Yet democratic progress, and even consolidation, appears to have stalled or even gone backwards in parts of the continent.

Key statistics: Despite the challenge of building institutional democracies, and the uneven progress in this domain across the continent, 70 per cent of Africans in 34 countries surveyed preferred democracy to ‘other kinds of government’ by 2013. The number of African electoral democracies increased from just two in 1980 to more than 40 a quarter of a century later. But the number of countries that are considered ‘not free’ outnumbers those considered ‘partly free’. Although the continent has the youngest population in the world, with a median age of 19.5 years,1 the average age of the 10 oldest African leaders is 78.5, compared to 52 for leaders of the world’s 10 most developed economies. By 2016, Africa’s five longest-serving presidents had been in power for between 29 and 36 years.

‘One of the asymmetries of history,’ wrote Henry Kissinger of Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, ‘is the lack of correspondence between the abilities of some leaders and the power of their countries.’ Kissinger’s one-time boss, Richard Nixon, was even more flattering. He speculated that, had Lee lived in another time and another place, he might have ‘attained the world stature of a Churchill, a Disraeli, or a Gladstone’.2

Singapore has been used an excuse not to fully democratise by Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, among others. It is the case that the island nation’s economic success is inextricably tied to Lee’s style of rule. However, superficial references to Singapore as an alternative to democracy miss some important truths.

Like other nations in East Asia – including South Korea, China, Indonesia and Taiwan – Singapore modernised under a system of rigid political control. Nevertheless, the island state has enjoyed extraordinary freedom of individual choice and economic openness, a gentle autocracy quite distinct from sometimes violent and corrupt African eras of authoritarian rule, of which Lee himself was critical. Moreover, while some dictators might like Lee’s ‘big man’ image, the reality of Singapore was far more than reliance on one person; it was fundamentally about reliance on institutions, and improvements in policy and governance in the pursuit of development.

Although Lee presented the articulate public face and adroitly managed the politics and personalities, his was a formidable team. Lee’s memoir, From Third World to First, is testament to how highly he regarded the opinion of his colleagues and how often there were differences of outlook within government on key issues.3 Differences of opinion were tolerated, the competition of ideas producing an improved outcome.

Additionally, Singapore made sure that the best and brightest were attracted, that they were paid properly, and they were given full support by leadership to do their job. As Lee observed, ‘[W]e stand a better chance of not failing if we abide by the basic principles that have helped us progress: social cohesion through the sharing of the benefits of progress, equal opportunities for all and meritocracy, with the best man or woman for the job, especially in leaders in government.’4

In contrast to the xenophobia and identity politics suffered in certain African countries embracing ethnic diversity and attracting global talent is another key factor in Singapore’s success. The country had a population of a little over 1 million when it gained independence. Out of Singapore’s current population of 5.3 million, around 1.5 million are expatriates, permanent residents or migrant workers. The injection of immigrants has been part of a strategy to maintain GDP targets, and this syncs with Singapore’s need for continuous innovation and efficiency.

All this has been underpinned by Singapore’s determination to globalise rather than nationalise. African goeverments routinely make it difficult to move goods in and out of their countries and are inherently suspicious of the motives of foreign investors. In contrast, Singapore has capitalised on its strategic geographic location by matching it with policies and the focus of institutions. There is a zero tariff on imported goods, low tax rates, a range of free-trade agreements, and vigorous trade and export promotion, with nearly 40 000 international corporations on the island, including 7 000 multinationals. Singapore has avoided trying to buck the markets or the needs and sensitivities of multinational companies and international finance. In fact, it has always acted to strengthen regulatory institutions to negate any perception of developing country risk.

The argument in favour of more authoritarian rule would have it that a combination of low literacy levels, the distraction and financial cost of regular domestic election cycles and the lack of strong, capable alternative leaders makes Western-style democracy ineffective in Africa. Proponents of this argument state a preference for a tough figure, presumably like Lee, ‘who can just get things done’ over the long term – a form of benevolent dictatorship.

Until now the problem with such a model is that many African states have already experienced such one-party or one-man leadership, and it has worked less like Lee’s Singapore than a caricature of a tin-pot and often extremely brutal dictatorship. In Africa, but also farther afield, dictatorships tend not to be benevolent. Just as they use repression to keep their citizens in check, they also often end violently. The problem has been that the African authoritarians have not adopted the laser focus on economic growth, the emphasis on talent and the global perspective that were critical aspects of the Singapore miracle.

We, therefore, believe that long-term economic success depends on African countries becoming more democratic. That is the only way that will force governments to create institutions that benefit the majority. Depending on the goodwill and wisdom of a small elite has failed for decades in dozens of countries. Without the imperative to be re-elected, there is no obvious system that will force African leaders to encourage the private sector and create jobs in the face of Africa’s extraordinary population growth.

African democratic progress

During the Cold War, much of Africa was locked into systems of single-party or authoritarian rule, which by their very nature suppressed competition of ideas and systems.

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, only two countries had what could be considered institutionalised democratic systems: Botswana and Mauritius.5 Then, as superpower competition fell away, along with the military and economic aid that had sustained many African dictators, between 1990 and 2005 the number of countries that held regular, competitive multi-party elections increased dramatically to over 40. Ivory Coast had a multi-party poll in 1990; Benin and Zambia followed in 1991; Kenya in 1992; and Tanzania in 1995. Ghana and Nigeria reverted to civilian rule with multi-party elections in 1996 and 1999, respectively. Since 1991 there have been 36 peaceful transfers of power from incumbents at the ballot box in sub-Saharan Africa.6

During this time there was a nearly fourfold increase – to 11 – in the number of African countries judged as ‘free’ by US think tank Freedom House.7 Arguably, the bigger shift was marked by countries labelled ‘not free’, which represented 70 per cent of the continent in 1990 but only 33 per cent by 2005. Most of the countries that moved out of this category migrated to the ‘partly free’ category, which grew from 24 per cent to 44 per cent in 2005.

The major surprise in the decade from 2005 to 2014, however, is seen in the limited progress – and arguably regression – when it comes to political reform. The number of countries rated as ‘free’ in 2014 is one fewer than in 2005 and there have been some significant disappointments, especially Mali. Perhaps even more notable is that, after a decade when the ‘partly free’ category outnumbered those in the ‘not free’ category, the number of countries that are considered ‘not free’ now clearly outnumbers those that are considered ‘partly free’ (21 to 18).

Of course, African regime transitions tend to be fluid. Of those where progress has stalled, including those reversions mentioned above, 80 per cent get back on the democratic path typically within three years, some countries more than once. These regimes involve often complex changing coalitions, with institutional as well as ethnic partnerships, sometimes including the military. Of the 91 presidents and prime ministers to have held office on the continent in civilian regimes since 1989, nearly half (45 per cent) either served in the armed forces or were once guerrillas.8

The threats to democracy in Africa vary from relationships with outsiders who are more interested in short-term profits, including revenue derived from minerals and oil, than in helping develop the institutions of governance, to deep-rooted problems of weak institutions, faltering nationalism and enduring poverty, which can result in votes being bought for a meal or a T-shirt.9 Democratic institutions (i.e. parliaments, courts and public prosecutors) have often been nascent and weak, simply because it is very hard to create such resilient structures. Financial probity and transparency invariably improve, too, with such institutions, as is suggested by the growth rate differential indicated in the next section, though the relationship between governance and democracy is not linear. Electoral threats manifest in various ways. The 2002 African Union (AU) Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa highlights some of the challenges in calling for elections to be organised by ‘impartial, all-inclusive, competent, and accountable national electoral bodies’. It also calls on member states to prevent fraud, rigging and other illegal practices.10

Compounding these challenges has been an apparent change in the engagement of the international community in its role in promoting democracy. Since the early 2000s, the focus appears to have shifted to preventing the spread of radicalisation and terrorism across the continent. The response of the US to the 2016 elections in Uganda was to temper its criticism because of the need to maintain Ugandan troops in the AU Mission in Somalia. Acknowledging the difficulties faced by the Ugandan opposition in the face of evidence of government rigging, harassment and lack of transparency in the East African nation’s February 2016 election, Zambia’s 2016 presidential candidate Hakainde Hichilema remarked, ‘We can only help ourselves.’11 Or, as Raila Odinga, the Kenyan opposition leader and former prime minister, put it in 2016, ‘There is an assault on democracy on the continent. Elections are now held as rituals designed to perpetuate the rule of the incumbent, a predetermined constitutional requirement.’ Odinga says this is down to ‘the emergence of China as a dominant economic player. The US was once the defender of democracy on the continent, but now it is reluctant to play this role. Perhaps,’ he suggest, ‘it is operating in its strategic self-interest, out of fear of being dislodged by China.’12

Partially as a result of these changes in the international appetite for democracy, Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, has observed that ‘after an initial period of genuine change, rulers learned that elections did not necessarily have to mean democracy: elections could be gamed to remain in power, sometimes indefinitely.’ The result, he says, is that ‘some elections are merely the lip service that undemocratic leaders pay to democracy’, in the process confusing ‘legality with legitimacy’ even if courts certify the results. The consequence of ‘repression with stability’, particularly in the long run, and of ‘an electoral mandate with a blank cheque’ is the closing of the political space. ‘Healthy societies rest on three pillars: peace and security; sustainable development; and human rights and the rule of law,’ Annan writes. ‘Many states today believe they can have the first two without the third, which includes elections with integrity. They are wrong.’13

What emerged from both the 2016 Ugandan and Zambian elections, as will be seen below, is a template for incumbents to manage an election process in their favour: close down the democratic space, run interference, misuse state resources, control the diet of information and, if necessary, alter the numbers.

These events demonstrate that holding elections is in itself insufficient to claim a democracy. Indeed, they may even reinforce authoritarianism if they permit the subversion of democratic process through electoral malpractice.

In recent years this has been shown by numerous ‘constitutional coups’, whereby leaders consolidate their power by means of elections. For instance, Sam Nujoma, Namibia’s founding president, introduced in 1998 a bill allowing him to serve a third term despite a constitutionally mandated two-term limit.14 Zambia and Malawi followed suit in 2001 and 2003, respectively, though the incumbents, Frederick Chiluba and Bakili Muluzi, failed to secure their bids. Referenda changed the constitutions in Chad, Guinea and Niger. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni combined the scrapping of term limits with the promise of a return to multi-party democracy in 2005.15 In December 2015 the Rwandan constitution was changed, by a referendum, to allow Paul Kagame to extend his rule. He had already effectively ruled since 1994. Until that amendment, Kagame was ineligible to run for the office of president in 2017 because the Rwandan constitution limited the president to two terms. A referendum approved the change with a majority of 98.3 per cent, thus freeing Kagame to run for an additional seven-year term and then two further five-year terms, potentially until 2034, by which time he would have spent 40 years in office.

It is habitually the practice of authoritarian rulers to make themselves indispensable. Kagame’s answer to the question, ‘Why pursue a third term?’ – asked by former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2016 – elicited the response that he was simply respecting the wish of the Rwandan people. ‘I didn’t ask for this thing,’ Kagame said. ‘I said, maybe you need to take a risk with someone else. But they kept saying, no, we want you to stay.’16

Yet, by comparison, the average tenure of the CEOs of America’s largest 500 companies is 4.9 years, about the length of a single presidential term. The average duration of all CEOs is 8.1 years.17 Although there are exceptions to this, companies tend to fear the role of the ‘imperial’ CEO.

A democracy that helps with the economic empowerment of the citizenry must, therefore, be more than just an electoral moment. It is about ensuring a separation of powers between the judiciary, legislature and executive. It is about guaranteeing meritocratic appointments across government, but especially in key governance watchdog institutions; it is about the need for procurement reform to ensure contracts are clean; and, within all of this, a free and vigorous media. It requires politicians to focus on policy choices, not identity politics. Where institutions lack teeth or independence, and governance is weak, the stage is set for the ‘capture’ of state institutions and the resultant redistribution of favours, jobs and contracts.18

Sub-Saharan Africa’s capital cities can in this regard be expected to become larger than those in other countries due to the need for the appropriation of government largesse, or rents, stemming from such resources. By contrast, non-capital cities in Africa exhibit not only reduced population concentration, but higher rates of growth.19 The nature of the political system can also influence urbanisation. One study published in the 1990s found that dictatorships had 50 per cent larger cities than those found in democracies.20 The reasons for this relative level of concentration were given as high external tariffs, high costs of internal trade and low levels of international trade. Even more clearly, the study notes that politics, such as the degree of instability, ‘determines urban primacy’.

The strength of a democracy is not just about the nature of the public institutions but also extends to the manner in which government engages with those institutions and with political opposition.

Three reasons why democracy is important to Africa’s economic future

The first reason for supporting democracy in Africa is that the continent’s democracies have typically posted economic growth rates that are one-third faster than its autocracies. They are, therefore, better equipped to create the numbers of jobs required as their populations expand.

This matches what has been seen globally and over a longer time frame. For example, as the work by Joseph Siegle and colleagues illustrates,21 since the end of the Cold War, only nine out of 85 autocracies worldwide have realised sustained economic growth. Moreover, 48 of these autocracies had at least one episode of disastrous economic experience (defined as an annual contraction in per capita GDP of at least 10 per cent) during this period. There is a link between democratic and economic performance in this regard. Of the top 47 countries in the UN’s Human Development Index – i.e. those classified as having ‘very high human development’ – 41 are deemed as ‘free’; two (Singapore and Seychelles) as ‘partly free’; and just four (Brunei, Hong Kong,22 UAE and Qatar) as ‘not free’.

Figure 2.1: The state of Africa’s freedom, 2016

Source: Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2016, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2016/table-scores

Analysis by Nicolas van de Walle and Takaaki Masaki substantiates further the link between democracy and growth.23 In scrutinising 43 (out of 49) countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1982 to 2012, the authors found ‘strong evidence that democracy is positively associated with economic growth’, and that this ‘democratic advantage’ is more pronounced for those African countries that have been democratic for longer periods of time.

Figure 2.2, which is calculated on the basis of the Freedom House classifications, shows that GDP growth in those countries classified as ‘free’ is substantially higher than growth in the ‘partly’ and ‘not free’ categories.

As can be seen, the performance of the ‘not free’ group is considerably worse if the oil-producing states (Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Gabon and DRC) are omitted. Although, in the short term, commodity endowments can push up growth rates, over the medium to long term, the quality of governance becomes more important because commodity prices are cyclical and good governance is necessary to garner investment.

Figure 2.2: Sub-Saharan African GDP per capita sorted by freedom indicators

Source: Based on classifications that used Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Report (https://freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world) as well as GDP data from the World Development Indicators (World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National Accounts data files)

Not only do democratic regimes improve accountability, but the great asset of democracy is that it also enables a test of philosophies in the marketplace of the political consumer. One of the inherent strengths of democratic systems is their flexibility and pragmatism. They enable consensus – that aid is no longer a panacea, that regional integration needs to be promoted, that investing in education and skills is essential – to be implemented and institutions to work.24 Democracy makes politics and policies more competitive, something particularly lacking under autocratic regimes and, to be successful, businesses and economies need a competitive edge. Thus, a ‘benevolent dictatorship’ comes with a cost to potential economic growth.

This argument is reinforced by the poor performance of military regimes. Since the end of the Cold War, the number of military regimes and the frequency of coups have significantly declined. Even though there has been a revisionist literature on the impact of ‘good coups’ in Africa,25 the record of economic management and political violence of the coup era speaks for itself, as African militaries have been worse at managing countries than their civilian counterparts.

Figure 2.3 illustrates the difference in economic performance between those governments in sub-Saharan Africa where the military has abstained from a role in politics (Botswana, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia), and those elsewhere where it has been involved since independence.

Figure 2.3: Economic performance of sub-Saharan Africa’s militarisers versus non-militarisers (GDP per capita in constant 2000 $), 1981–2011

Source: World Bank Databank, http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators&preview=on#

Autocracies are typically three times more likely to have sharp economic declines leading to regular periods of crisis. This volatility is partly, though not entirely, due to autocracies’ greater reliance on revenues from natural resources. Moreover, analysis shows that autocracies are more likely to recede in periods of economic stagnation (i.e. when there is per capita growth of less than 1 per cent). Indeed, this matches a wider pattern – globally, the degree of fluctuation of growth in autocratic regimes is substantially higher. The coefficient of variation (standard deviation over mean) for the autocratic growth rate since 2000 is 4.28; for mixed regimes it is 2.11; and for democracies it is 1.48. In other words, democratic growth has been about three times less volatile than that of autocracies. In practical terms, this means that autocracies vary far more widely from year to year and among one another in their growth than do democracies. Consistency matters in growth and development; such volatility undermines the compounding impact of steady growth.26

As noted above, a key component in democratic reform is the role played by the private sector. Where this is weak, it limits economic opportunity and the potential for job creation needed to help turn around a stagnating economy.27 These periods challenge autocracies’ claims of ‘performance legitimacy’ – or, essentially, legitimacy through delivery despite an absence of human rights – and can lead to more abrupt transitions.

Democracies are more peaceful

The second reason for supporting democracy is that, historically, democracies have proved to be much more effective at resolving tensions and conflict within societies peacefully. Therefore, paradoxically, it is entirely in the self-interest of the leaders of authoritarian regimes to move towards democracy because authoritarian regimes often end violently, with serious consequences for the incumbent. Peace and stability, or lack of it, have economic as well as social consequences, as outlined above.

Before 1990, sub-Saharan Africa had experienced 19 democratic elections, 14 undemocratic or contested elections and 77 incidences of undemocratic regime change. Seventeen heads of state died violent deaths in office or shortly after having been deposed in a coup. The post-1990 reality of the continent is starkly different. Since then there have been significantly more elections. By 2016 there had been 118 democratic elections, 77 undemocratic or contested elections and 34 undemocratic regime changes. Eleven leaders suffered violent deaths in office. When the data is further disaggregated into the most recent Freedom House categories of free, partly free and not free countries, it’s possible to see how different trajectories of regime change affect the levels of freedom within a country.

This should not be surprising. ‘Democracies,’ notes Annan, ‘have far lower levels of internal violence than non-democracies. In an era when more than 90 per cent of wars take place within, not between, states, the import of this finding for conflict prevention should be obvious.’28 Democracy produces orderly changes of leadership. It enables people to be patient for their turn, rather than revert to a coup. In this regard, the 1991 Organisation of African Unity Conference on Security, Development, and Co-operation in Africa identified lack of inclusive democracy as the primary cause of insecurity on the continent.29

A viable democratic dispensation offers the possibility of alternative government, and avoids government complacency.

Finally, and probably the foremost good reason for having a democratic system of government in Africa is that it’s the style of government that the citizens favour. The Afrobarometer Index of Demand for Democracy climbed 15 points in 16 countries surveyed between 2002 and 2012, from 36% to 51%. Seven out of 10 Africans in 34 countries surveyed preferred democracy to ‘other kinds of government’ by 2013. The demand for democracy is strongest in West Africa. Africans also see elections as the best sign of a democratic regime.30 There are good examples, too, where democracy has worked in spite of a difficult inheritance.

Ending coups: A personal reflection on Nigeria, by Olusegun Obasanjo, former Nigerian head of state

The military’s intervention in Nigerian politics in January 1966 went on like musical chairs for 33 years, fouling the political air, causing instability and uncertainty, causing destruction of lives and properties, resulting in a civil war and leaving the country divided internally and isolated externally. This peaked when General Sani Abacha ruthlessly and recklessly pursued his programme of self-succession and life-presidency. Nigeria was impoverished economically, politically, intellectually and culturally. It became a pariah state. Nigerians deserted in droves and sought refuge all over the world. Nigeria was left prostrate. Those who raised their voices were either assassinated or put in jail, myself and my second-in-command as military head of state, Shehu Yar’Adua, included. We were arrested for a phantom coup and sentenced to long imprisonment. But for international intervention, we would have been killed. All the same, Chief M.K.O. Abiola, who was considered the winner of the aborted election of 12 June 1993, died in jail.

The sudden death of Abacha was providential, opening the gates of prisons and political reform, reversing the exodus out of Nigeria. General Abubakar Abdulsalami, who succeeded Abacha, lost no time in releasing political prisoners and created a conducive atmosphere for Nigerian exiles to return home. He also opened the way for another attempt at democratic dispensation. It was in this new democratic experiment that I was persuaded to contest for the presidency of Nigeria.

I joined one of the three political parties, the People’s Democratic Party. Since the advent of the military in the political life of Nigeria, there had been debate on how to put an end to the recurrence and persistence of coups d’état. Coups had become more and more destructive and destabilising. No matter the excuses, they had a major negative impact on democracy, governance and unity of the country. Nigeria needed to put an end to its perpetual coups.

The often prescribed solution of specifically putting a ban on coups in the constitution was not the answer. A coup is treason punishable by death only if it fails, and yet it puts the plotter in the State House if it succeeds. It was a destructive and destabilising practice, wasteful for the military itself, and undermining in terms of discipline, good order and military conduct. A junior officer takes a gun and looks at his political boss and senior officers through its sights, bumps them off and puts himself in the State House. He instantly becomes superior and senior to all political and military officers. Such was the situation existing in Nigeria between 1966 and 1999.

On assuming office as president, I decided to put an end to these incessant coups. I asked the military to submit the list of all officers who had either participated in coups in the past or benefited in the dividends of coups by being appointed to political office as governors or ministers. Not knowing what the list was meant for, the military faithfully compiled it and submitted it to me as the commander-in-chief and chairman of council of each of the arms of service. Ninety-three officers in all were given six hours’ notice of retirement on a Friday, and ordered not to spend the Friday night in uniform or in barracks to prevent adverse reaction. The following Monday, the service councils met to ratify the retirement of all the officers. From my vantage position and background as a battle-tested and war-victorious general, I knew that an officer out of uniform and barracks is like a fish out of water, and their power and influence would be greatly diminished.

The retirement of these 93 officers all in one day was salutary. It meant that taking part in a coup or benefiting from one could catch up with you, no matter how long it would take, and for as long as you are alive. Their retirement did not stand in the way of any of them entering public life or making progress in it. Some of them later entered politics and became elected governors; some went into parliament; others got appointed as ministers or ambassadors. The idea was not to punish them for life but to exclude them from positions in the military where they could be coup planners, coup plotters, coups executors or coup beneficiaries. And once an officer has tasted the trappings of a political life, of living in a government house, with free food and so on, he would easily look for excuses to want more if he is in a position to make it happen.

The fact that since 1999 there has not been a coup or an attempted coup in Nigeria speaks of the effectiveness of the measures taken to put an end to the destabilising influence of coups on the political life and dispensation of Nigeria. Before 1999, and since independence, the longest that a democratic dispensation had lasted was six years – from 1960 to 1966.

It has neither been easy nor perfect, but there are improvements and evidence of learning among the political class. Any bad signs and misconduct would have to be carefully monitored. For those countries with similar experiences to Nigeria’s, there is a need to find an effective and relatively painless way of curbing the incidence of coups and corruption by the military.

Preventing civilian coups, developing a democracy playbook

There is a meaningful debate to be had about the value of democracy to African countries and their leaders as they wrestle with the serious development challenges that face the continent. This is moot, given that we are seeing a pause in democratic progress and consolidation, as evidenced by Freedom House data, including how constitutions have been changed to allow incumbent leaders to serve for longer and increasing allegations of rigged elections.

One argument used to delay democracy is that it distracts from difficult development decisions but that, over time, with increased national income, it becomes a luxury that can be afforded. Put differently, this is sometimes rendered as the view that dictatorship can be optimal for poor countries until they reach a particular development benchmark, sometimes registered in terms of per capita wealth.31 However, econometric analysis does not support the view that ‘democracy becomes a hindrance to economic growth below a certain threshold of development’.32 Neither does this argument explain why Africa has slipped towards increasing authoritarianism despite more than a decade of high economic growth.

The slide towards authoritarianism is less about a binary choice, as noted above, between autocracy and democracy, but entails more subtle interventions to change the course of an election or institutional process. Such interventions are seldom considered significant enough by the international community to warrant censure, let alone intervention. But usurping the democratic process has become an art form in Africa, where the losers and victims have little voice and, in the words of former Zambian president Guy Scott after his country’s controversial 2016 election, can ‘be picked off one by one’.33

In that election, for example, an external team was brought in to audit the voters’ roll for discrepancies. But the audit happened much later than initially scheduled, giving rise to suspicions that it had been delayed to prevent inspection by the opposition and any legal challenge regarding its integrity. Although the process was supposed to take place at the Electoral Commission of Zambia’s headquarters, the official audit, and the laptop containing it, were reportedly moved under the direction of the Office of the President and taken to a safe house around the corner from the electoral commission and given to consultants working for the Office of the President. The opposition, the United Party for National Development (UPND), said: ‘The government’s objective was to access to the main Electoral Commission of Zambia server room and to insert favourable numbers during the counting process based on the information from the electoral roll.’

The UPND learnt about this scheme through an informant, who provided them with pictures from within the safe house. One option considered by the opposition was to raid the house and destroy the equipment. This, however, would have put the UPND source in considerable danger while providing the ‘auditors’ enough time to relocate to another safe house. The UPND team also thought about releasing the images to the international media, but realised the likelihood of a tepid response, while it too would have compromised their sources. Instead, the UPND identified the route of the underground cables from the safe house to the electoral commission building and, without anyone knowing, had the wires cut just as the counting process began. ‘This gave them no more time to move,’ recalls the UPND officer, ‘and eliminated incorrect numbers being put into the system. In a panic, one of the consultants [to the Office of the President] tried to enter the ECZ building in an attempt to fix the problem by entering numbers manually. He was spotted by one of the UPND members and wrestled to the ground before being arrested.’34 After the failure of this plan, the Patriotic Front apparently resorted to more basic, but no less effective tactics, including deploying armed thugs at various polling stations to hound out UPND agents.

What is emerging from Zambia’s and other African elections, including those in 2016 in Uganda and Gabon (where a claimed 99.9 per cent turnout in President Ali Bongo’s stronghold, the province of Haut-Ogooué, just tipped the balance in his favour by 5 000 votes) is a winning template for incumbents: close down the democratic space, run interference, misuse state resources, control the diet of information and, if necessary, don’t let the numbers stand in your way.

In the build-up to Zambia’s election day, no media were available to disseminate pro-opposition news, despite the fact major sums of money and international subsidies were paid to the state broadcaster, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), to assist its programming. This created an environment where only pro-government broadcasting was heard. The International Press Institute found that hindering opposition media cast a ‘shadow’ over Zambia’s democracy.35

The ZNBC refused to air favourable opposition coverage, including Hichilema’s UPND political campaign documentary, until ordered to do so by the High Court days before the election.36 The documentary was aired once, well outside of prime time. Following the court ruling that it should be aired, the ZNBC claimed that there were no programming slots left. When The Post newspaper, MUVI Television and Komboni FM continued to cover the opposition, they had their offices raided and staff were attacked. They were forced to close. Limitations were placed on the opposition’s public rallies and restrictions were enforced to curtail the free movement of opposition leaders.37 These restrictions were a huge blow to the opposition given that so much of African political campaigning is about meeting the candidates and receiving memorabilia.

From the opposition’s perspective, police intimidation and violence were also far more apparent during the 2016 poll than any previous elections in Zambia’s history. Opposition supporters were killed, many others were beaten by hired thugs in full view of the police, and women were assaulted and stripped. The apparent purpose was widespread intimidation. The arrest of opposition leaders on suspect charges was commonplace throughout the campaign, its aim to cause disruption. According to the opposition, extra ballot papers were printed before the election. Registration of foreign voters on the electoral roll also became an issue, with a high number of these voting in key border towns. There was little the opposition could do, however, given that access to the voters’ roll was denied them until the 11th hour. On the actual day of the election, 11 August 2016, the voting process went smoothly in most areas. Afterwards the UPND claimed that ballots had been binned, and that there had been widespread intimidation, tampered results and systematic bias in counting. The opposition alleged that the ‘Gen 12’ forms – those that certified the outcome of the count at every polling station with agents and representatives from all parties present signing – were withheld from UPND agents, so that they were not able to verify the results. The delay, they say, enabled the Patriotic Front to fiddle with the numbers, notably in the capital, Lusaka, where nearly one in six of registered voters resided. Certainly, the vote counting and the issuing of results slowed over the weekend following the election, despite being expected much earlier, a tell-tale sign of a fix.

Despite – or because of all this – the Patriotic Front achieved its 50.1 per cent winning margin by only 5 000 votes out of nearly 3.8 million cast.38 Even if all the allegations of election malfeasance are discounted, the margin to avoid a run-off was suspiciously small, just 0.13 per cent.

These events demonstrate that holding elections is by itself insufficient to claim a democracy. Indeed, elections may even reinforce authoritarianism if they permit the subjugation of democratic process through electoral fraud.

Even before the results were made public, various international observer teams found the voting and counting process, in the words of the Commonwealth report, ‘credible and transparent’. The European Union Election Observation Mission said ‘voting was peaceful and generally well administered’ despite being ‘marred by systematic bias in the state media and restrictions on the [opposition] campaign’. There were other international missions from the Carter Centre, the AU, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa.39

With their eye on preventing violence, the international community encouraged the UPND to seek legal recourse rather than take to the streets. ‘Any challenges to the process at any level, from the president right down to district level, should be taken through legal means to the courts, with evidence, not to the streets,’ said Janet Rogan, head of the UN resident office in Zambia, shortly after the final results had been announced.40 Hichilema’s party petitioned the results to the courts within the prescribed seven-day period. They were then given 14 days to compile and present their case to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that the hearing would start on 2 September 2016. Thereupon the full bench (which had been nominated by President Lungu) decided that the hearing would continue on Monday 5 September. On the Monday, three of the five judges decided that the 14 days stipulated by the constitution for an election petition hearing had expired on 2 September and therefore threw the case out.41

It would be tempting for international observers and outside governments – and investors likewise – to believe that their interests are best served in such fractious circumstances by doing nothing, a cliché-ridden policy choice of ‘keeping your head down’, ‘not rocking the boat’, ‘letting them get on with things’, and ‘waiting and seeing’. The benchmark for a successful election is set very low by international observers: it is about preventing violence more than anything else, even if the books are obviously cooked. And their unwillingness to shake the system has a strategic competitive aspect, since other international actors are unlikely to do so, and may profit from any bilateral upset. There is a need to develop a ‘democracy playbook’ for elections.

To counter fraud and intimidation, opposition forces have to generate their own sophisticated processes of election monitoring, including parallel voter tabulation, and ensure their results are tallied and published before those of the government agency. This is something that the victorious campaign of Muhammadu Buhari managed to do in Nigeria in 2015 when up against the huge resources behind Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign. Here, the spread of digital technology in Africa presents a paradox. Technology offers the means to quickly mobilise mass movements, especially in cities. At the same time, it can be used, in the absence of institutional norms, and checks and balances, to spread outrageous propaganda and the government can turn off communications at the flick of a (cellular) switch.

Countering these trends requires vigilance, but also alternative media outlets, free from government interference, and an opposition capable of advertising on radio, television, print and the social media. It demands extensive – and expensive – polling to assess and target such messaging. It requires the free movement of party campaigners, canvassers and election monitors alike.

All this requires funding – lots of it. It is estimated, for example, that the Zambian presidential candidates had, before the 2016 contest, spent as much as $15 million each on their earlier 2011 and 2015 campaigns. Jonathan’s failed attempt to retain the election in Nigeria in 2015 is rumoured to have cost more than a billion US dollars. The eventual winner Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign was closer to $200 million. The Buhari victory shows that money is not everything, however, and can be countered by clever alliance politics and electoral tactics.

Hichilema says that international observers were ‘absolutely useless’ in supporting the democratic process in his country.42 However well meaning they may be, their role might instead be pernicious, since they are unlikely, by their mere presence, to accept that they have presided over a fraudulent event. For many of them, that would be an inconvenient truth. Of course, they could play a more useful role. For example, rather than allowing an incumbent to facilitate their supply from Dubai, why not provide ballot papers that can’t be tampered with; rather than paying for observers to live it up at the Intercontinental, why not finance private-security companies to secure polling stations? That’s how observers can be useful and taxpayers’ money can be used to good effect.

If they lack political teeth, or resources, or both, observers would do better in such cases by not pretending, and just staying away.

Even so, history shows that the keys to domestic political power, like peace, are held by local actors, not foreign, whether from Africa or farther afield. For example, African governments established the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) in 2003 as a voluntary self-assessment of countries’ governance. To date, there are 34 members, while 18 countries had, by November 2016, completed the assessment process.43 Although it started well, like other institutions, the APRM fell afoul of a ‘laundry list’ approach, setting a lengthy list of governance priorities without the necessary means or will to address them. This was compounded by a lack of political will ‘by African leaders, especially following the exit of presidents Mbeki and Obasanjo,’ explains one official, who worked in the secretariat, and following the demise of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.44

This failure of African governments – and investors – to take the APRM seriously and the lack of tough engagement around elections are indicative of a difficulty in changing domestic political dynamics, of generating leverage over the elites and their ways of doing things. As a result, the record of outsiders improving governance and democracy in Africa is poor, not least because African leaders routinely resist such ‘conditionality’ on external assistance. Donors have consequently soft-pedalled on democracy and rule-of-law interventions, preferring less controversial initiatives, such as infrastructure assistance and the development of skills. But being firmer and more outspoken on democracy is the right thing to do, for reasons of long-term economic growth and because it means taking the side of the majority of Africans.

Conclusion: The need for institutions and urgency

Frustration with the pace of African economic reform can encourage populism and excuse authoritarianism in the interest of ‘getting things done’.

But democracy is not only about results. It is about fair results and fair process. The latter includes open elections, inclusive governance and respect for the rule of law. The problem, as Nic Cheeseman reminds us, with populist politicians is that they rarely follow due process.45 Rather than building up institutions, they break down old barriers to achieve their goals. Because they shake things up, they often receive immediate high praise for making changes. But their refusal to follow institutional rules and adhere to accepted norms leads, invariably, to the hollowing out of already weak systems, the erosion of checks and balances, and their substitution by political theatre and personality cults. This creates even greater space for abuse. It often starts with the corruption of the electoral system, and the harassment and persecution of the opposition. Over time, as it becomes more difficult to maintain momentum, authoritarianism inevitably creeps in.

Democracy and development are not a trade-off of one against the other. ‘In the long-run,’ Cheeseman says, ‘efforts to promote development and fight corruption will not be successful unless they strengthen the institutions of the state.’46 Ad hoc efforts to stop corruption may attract attention and look effective, but by being highly personalised, they only serve to compound the problem. The aim of governance is, after all, to allow for less personal discretion, not more. And it’s not a question of whether individual leaders steal that defines the political economy, even though their example can be morally important. It’s about whether their actions serve to strengthen or undermine institutions and their checks and balances. As Cheeseman says, what populists tend to do is rarely sustaining for either democracy or development.

There is one other aspect worth highlighting for those regimes unreceptive to their citizens’ needs and demands, those happy with muddling along, serving the interests primarily of elites. The Arab Spring and, subsequently, Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump teach of the removal of previous barriers to politics, especially of money and access to traditional media. Tweeting 10 million followers, after all, costs nothing. Blogging and the internet are also powerful tools, free from traditional media-house filters. This is a trend that African electorates are exposed to through ever increasing mobile-connectivity rates. The possibility of greater political upheaval may also reflect the stake younger generations perceive they have in this status quo.47 Of course, the use of technology is not one way – on the contrary, sophisticated media messaging by the Russian government and the manipulation of internet access by certain African governments illustrate that the authorities also understand, and know how to harness, the power of digital technology.

The population growth forecast for sub-Saharan African countries presents an enormous challenge, and stresses the need for urgency. To manage it, countries need to rapidly create jobs, while controlling the social tensions that such growth will produce. A democratic system of government with strong institutions has historically proven to be the most effective style of government for dealing with these challenges, and it is what African people want. Ultimately, truly strong leaders are comfortable with the challenge, competition and accountability that democracy brings. They do not need to suppress opposition with force or election fiddling: they win with better, more effective policies, underpinned with a track record of delivery.