Unit 2.2:
How Does Democracy Work
in Africa?

Handout

Scenario

Questions:

Democracy in traditional societies
In non-centralised state systems in pre-colonial Africa, political, administrative and judicial authority was vested in councils of elders. Decision making was democratic, in the sense that it was through consultation and discussion among the elders before decisions on public issues were reached….
 

Different types of government

 

Government in the colonial era

 

Governments in the post-Independence era
The political parties that had led their people to Independence and won the post-Independence elections sooner or later turned their countries into de facto or de jure one-party states that ended up using authoritarian and paternalistic methods similar to those used by their former colonial masters.

 

 

 

 

 
Background Information

 

Introduction: A short history of decision making

The family may be the basic unit of modern society, but human history, as far as we know, is the history of societies – that is, of organised groups. When the first humans emerged on the East African savannah, they were already organised into hunting bands whose members co-operated with each other in tool-making, hunting and gathering food, processing/cooking that food, finding and building shelter, and so on. Food, tools and shelter were ‘produced’ by the collective efforts of the group, and shared among the group.

Such groups, dependent on each other for survival in a hostile environment, constantly needed to make decisions binding on the group – day to day decisions such as where to hunt, where to camp, how to respond to external threats, disease and so on; and longer-term decisions such as who did what and how food and other group assets were shared.

Major decisions affecting the whole group and dispute settlement would have been more or less shared – democratic – but with ‘leaders’ in various activities making most day-to-day decisions. Leadership would tend to be a function of skill and experience, with the most experienced hunters taking leadership in the field, and older women providing leadership on issues of domestic organisation. In the sharing of food and other assets, one can imagine that women, with their long-term child-rearing responsibilities, would have been the ones to ensure that surplus food, grain, etc. was put aside and not wasted. Many nomadic people in Africa still practise age-old methods of food storage – for example, sun-drying or salting meat to preserve it for long periods.

With advances in technology, and especially the advent of agriculture, food production became more stabilised and societies more settled, with larger populations. This usually meant that leadership structures became more rigid, with chiefs becoming more powerful and land inheritance encouraging patriarchal systems that shut women out of major decision-making roles. Hereditary chieftaincies led on to hereditary monarchies in larger societies. However, in East Africa the availability of land and the kinship structures of most societies meant that disputes over land or other internal conflicts saw frequent minor migrations within the region, even after the major waves of migration that gave the region its overall character – a ‘true melting pot of micro-nations’ as we called it in Unit 1. As a result, as we again saw in Unit 1, before the advent of colonialism, there were two types of state systems in Kenya: centralised and  non-centralised. In centralised state systems, power and administrative responsibilities were vested in an executive head and his retinue of advisors or ‘cabinet’ – for example, the Wanga Kingdom of western Kenya, ruled by the Nabongo. Mumia was the last Nabongo. Members of the royal family inherited the position of the king, queen or chief. Among the Bantu, both women and men could be heads of the ethnic group.

In non-centralised state systems, political, administrative and judicial authority was vested in councils of elders. Decision-making was more democratic, with consultations and discussions among the elders before decisions on public issues were reached. Pastoralist groups tended to be non-centralised – even though groups such as the Maasai, Nandi, Samburu, had traditional paramount chiefs in the shape of laibons, orkoiyots and others – while agricultural societies, interestingly, had both types of government – probably because many were the products of recent migrations, pioneer groups united in solidarity against the ‘tyranny’ they had left behind, and so tending to form egalitarian social structures.

 

Different types of government

Before we discuss the evolution of governments in Africa, it may be useful to look at a few general ways in which different types of modern government may be defined:

Unitary or centralised governments vs federal governments
A unitary government is one in which governmental authority is concentrated in a single central body. The central government exercises ‘centralised’ control over all other units.

For administrative purposes, the state may be divided into different units such as districts and provinces, but the authority of these units is derived from the central government and can be taken away. It can also be increased or decreased – in other words, these units are not independent. The laws, policies and administrative structures of government are the same for all units.

Federal governments divide power between the different geographical units (regions or territories) that make up the state. The equal standing of the different units is the first rule of federalism. Each federal unit is independent of the other regions. Both the central government and the federal units have the area in which they work clearly defined in the constitution, and any changes in their powers must be in line with the constitution.

By forming a union, the different units do not lose their identity. They remain independent in character but are not, however, sovereign. The central government has sovereign power and the final authority over and responsibility for matters at the national and international level. The federal units deal with matters of local importance.

Finally, a federal government does not evolve by itself. It is the result of a deliberate effort by different regions to form a union because they see that there is strength in unity.

Nigeria is Africa’s foremost example of a federal government, with powers shared between the national government and 36 federal units. Each of these units has a Legislature, Executive and a Judiciary to carry out government business in their respective areas.

Presidential vs parliamentary governments
A presidential government is one in which the presidency is the most important institution for control and decision-making in the state. The head of state, or the President, is also the head of the government. The term of office of a President ends after a period of time set by the constitution.

A parliamentary government is one in which the real power of the government lies with Parliament; the Legislature thus has supreme authority. Cabinet ministers in charge of the various branches of the Executive are responsible to Parliament and remain in office only so long as they have the confidence of Parliament. The Legislature can and may overrule the executive in matters of policy and law.
 
Many countries in Africa, including Kenya, have a mixture of the two types, with an elected Parliament that makes the laws but an executive President who has, in effect, veto powers over Parliament and the authority to rule by decree, bypassing Parliament.  The movement that gave rise to Kenya’s recent constitutional review, and the review exercise itself, were in one sense a struggle between the principles of ‘presidential supremacy’ and ‘parliamentary supremacy’.

Military vs civilian governments
A military government is one in which the armed forces or the military exercise power over the state, having captured that power by force in a coup d’etat. World opinion is now generally against military governments.

A civilian government is one whose leadership is made up of representatives of the general citizenry and not the military. However, although many civilian governments arise from the consent of the country’s citizens (especially through elections), a civilian government is no guarantee of democracy. Some civilian leaders have dictatorial tendencies and block citizens’ participation in the decision-making processes. The leadership assumes control of the government and stops the people from taking part in public affairs or in deciding how they want to be governed.

Most governments in the world today – including Kenya – are civilian governments. They are usually formed through elections in which people make choices about who should be their representatives.

Coalition governments
A coalition government is a system in which political parties share positions in the government. Where a political party wins most of the seats in Parliament, it usually forms the government (the Executive) on its own, appoints ministers and their assistants from its own ranks, in a ‘winner-takes-all’ system. Where no party has a clear majority, a number of political parties may get together and agree on forming the government. The Executive is then made up of ministers and assistant ministers from the different parties in the coalition. A coalition government may also be formed where political parties have similar policies or positions in general, or they share positions on specific issues.

Transitional governments
A transitional government is a temporary government formed to manage major changes in a country’s system of government. Its purpose is to enable the changes to be put in place so that a more permanent and stable government can take over. An example of a transitional government is the one formed in South Africa when it was moving from the system of racial discrimination and segregation known as apartheid to a new constitutional system where all citizens have equal rights. Another, not very successful, example of a transitional government formed for Somalia in Djibouti in 2001 before the current government was ‘elected’ (but has yet to really take over).

Governments of national unity
A government of national unity comprises different political parties representing different interests. The purpose of such a government, especially in a politically divided society, is to bring different groups into the government; it seeks to include all political parties in the management of public affairs. The government formed is usually made up of all political parties and as many political interest groups as possible. This gives both majority and minority parties a stake in the government. In some cases, a government of national unity is formed when there is a national political crisis such as the breakdown of the state and state institutions. Whereas a coalition government seeks control, a government of national unity seeks the participation of all political parties or interest groups.

Monarchies
A monarchy is a system of government where the highest authority is a king, queen, emperor or empress — usually called a monarch. Power is vested in one person.
The monarch’s authority is passed down from one holder of office to another person within the family. A monarchy can be either absolute or constitutional.
In an absolute monarchy, the monarch exercises supreme powers; the monarch’s authority is final. A constitutional monarchy is one where the constitution controls the powers and authority of the monarch. A constitutional monarchy can be found in democratic states in which the monarch’s role is largely ceremonial. Examples of monarchical governments in Africa include Swaziland (an absolute monarchy), Lesotho and Morocco.

 

Government in the colonial era

During the colonial era, governments in most European colonies were a straightforward exercise of power by the ‘mother country’ and so were the opposite of democratic. It is true that many colonial administrators saw themselves as enlightened, benevolent protectors of the ‘natives,’ helping them make the transition to the modern world and acting in their best interests – although, unfortunately, many of the ‘natives’ did not themselves seem to know what was best for them. But ‘native’ political activity and participation in government decision-making were either explicitly banned or actively discouraged, though most colonies witnessed the creation of powerful trade unions by Africans shut out from formal political activity.

This paternalistic rule and the concept of a ‘civilising mission’ that justified it may, in hindsight, be deeply infuriating for modern Africans and appear ludicrous to most other people. But it must be remembered that the colonial administration introduced and managed a modern infrastructure and a market economy where none had existed before and so felt justified in assuming that they had a natural right to run things. The important thing from our point of view is that they also introduced two of the three arms of government – the Executive and the Judiciary, which were retained more or less wholesale after Independence, together with many of the laws promulgated by the colonial regimes (including many explicitly anti-democratic and repressive ones, as we have seen with the history of the laws on subversion and the Chief’s Act in Kenya). Moreover, the rank and file of the colonial Executive, the bureaucrats and civil servants, had come to be increasingly made up of Africans even under colonial rule. The fact that colonial administrations were kept on tight budgets by treasuries in the colonial metropolis meant that they had a vested interest in ‘native’ economic activity and even prosperity – to the extent that it supplied the tax revenues they needed to run the colonial state.

A more unsavoury legacy of this situation was the practice among colonial administrators of encouraging (or turning a blind eye to) the African rank and file of the administration to supplement their meagre salaries through informal taxation – that is, by extorting bribes for services to the public. And this is, perhaps, one of the factors that has contributed to the culture of corruption that has crippled the economies of so many post-Independence states.

The exception to the above form of government was in the various settler colonies, in East and Southern Africa, where the settlers insisted on political influence, leading to the establishment of legislatures initially restricted to the representatives of white settlers (as in the Legislative Council or ‘Legco’ in Kenya) and eventually admitting a few African and Asian members. These states, then, had democratic government restricted to a particular section of the population, what we may half-jokingly call Greek-style democracies, as in Ancient Athens, where only free men who were taxpayers could vote. The mostly futile attempt to be represented on these legislative bodies led directly on to the struggle for independence and was a valuable education in the workings of the modern state. In any event, the nationalist movements in most African countries clearly anticipated that, after independence, the colonial state and its administrative structure could be adapted to serve a democratic government, one that truly represented ‘rule by the people.’

Unfortunately, things were not to prove so straightforward.

 

Single-party states, Big Men and democracy: Government in the post-Independence era

Independence throughout Africa was accompanied by democratic elections, with different parties contesting and the whole population having the right to vote. But this ‘multi-party politics’ soon ran into trouble. As we have seen with Kenya, after the Kenya African National Union had won the first post-independence elections, the multi-party political system lasted only a year before the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) was dissolved in 1964 to ‘foster national unity’, and its members joined the ruling party, KANU. In 1965/66 another political party, the Kenya People’s Union (KPU), was formed following internal disagreements within the ruling party. In 1969 the government banned the KPU. From then on and until 1982, although no law was passed preventing other political parties from operating, Kenya had only one political party in practice. In 1982, a law was enacted making KANU the only legal political party. And so Kenya became a one-party state.

This pattern was repeated around Africa. The parties that had led their people to independence and won the post-independence elections sooner or later turned their countries into de facto or de jure one-party states that mostly ended up being just as authoritarian and paternalistic as their colonial forebears.

In some cases, this led to military coups and/or civil wars that further killed off democratic aspirations. Around Kenya, military coups and armed seizures of power were the order of the day – in Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Tanzania became a one-party state after the Tanganyika African National Union and the Afro-Shirazi party of Zanzibar merged to form the Chama cha Mapinduzi (Party of Revolution). In Congo, the first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was assassinated and the country became practically a one-man state after Mobutu Sese Seko seized power. In Malawi, Kamuzu Banda declared himself ‘President for Life.’ In Zambia, the one-party state was secured by a 25-year-long state of emergency. In the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa crowned himself ‘Emperor’; his downfall touched off a train of military coups (for the past few decades, the only news that ever reaches the outside world from that unfortunate country is of yet another coup). In West Africa, Nigeria became bogged down in civil war and coup after coup, while the one-party regimes of its neighbours threw up some of the longest-ruling presidents in the history of the world – Omar Bongo of Gabon, Paul Biya of Cameroon (both of them still in the saddle), Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo and Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast. It was the era of the Big Man in Africa. Of the last four colonies to gain independence, Angola and Mozambique became mired in civil wars instigated by apartheid South Africa, while Namibia and Zimbabwe threw up their own Big Men in the persons of Sam Nujoma and Robert Mugabe

Much has been written and said in the attempt to understand why the one-party state was such a pervasive phenomenon in Africa in the second half of the 20th century. Most one-party regimes, nevertheless, claimed to be democracies and held regular elections to Parliament, justifying this state of affairs by invoking the danger of the ‘tribal warfare’ that would erupt under multi-party systems. The argument essentially was that, since the boundaries drawn up during the colonial era were arbitrary, forcing ethnic groups with different histories and cultures to belong to the same state, their interests would prove irreconcilable under competitive political systems, leading to violent conflict, so that peace and national unity could only be secured under a one-party state. Vague notions of African Socialism were floated, as well as theories about African culture and character that were strangely reminiscent of the racist notions of the colonial era.

Ironically, many one-party states, with the notable exception of Tanzania, soon became vehicles for the domination of one ethnic group or another. Though even then the co-operation of other ethnic groups was sought to be ensured through a system of patronage that saw government positions, development and infrastructure spending, being doled out among various ethnic groups and areas in a delicate balancing act. This meant that not only did the lines between corruption and governance become blurred, but that politics became frozen in an ethnic equation that was often overtly acknowledged. The predictable result was that, as happened in Kenya, the reintroduction of multi-party politics saw the emergence of ethnic-based political parties – just as the one-party theorists had warned.

The revival of multi-party politics across Africa, starting with Zambia in 1991, saw a few upsets but in general did not at first shake the grip on power of the entrenched ruling parties of the one-party era. Kenya saw the ruling party, KANU, win two multiparty elections in the 1990s; nevertheless, the ‘90s saw a considerable widening of what is called the democratic space, alongside the liberalisation of the economy. The historic elections of 2002, which saw the exit of KANU and the coming to power of the present NARC government, seemed to confirm that the trend towards democracy in most of Africa was irreversible. Though Kenya’s political parties continue to be seen as representing different ethnic groups, decision-making has come to be hotly debated by increasingly larger sections of the population, and most substantive public discourse is issues-based rather than ethnically-polarised. The challenge now is how to address genuine group grievances while building a national politics that transcends ethnic divisions.

Let us now look at the details of how democracy works in Kenya.