How one of Africa’s distinguished scholars has been misled to become hostile to a government that should be his natural ally
Prof.
George Ayittey is one of the most thoughtful and influential
intellectuals on contemporary Africa. He has been consistent in his
condemnation of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame specifically and the
Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) led government generally often referring to
it as a dictatorship. In a recent tweet, which has motivated this
column, Ayittey argued that Rwanda under Kagame is repeating the
monopolisation of power by one ethnic group as the regime it overthrew.
By any
measure, post-genocide Rwanda has set itself apart from most of Africa
as a model reformer in nearly every field. Any judgement has to take
into account reforms and political practices that directly or indirectly
enhance or impede the cause of freedom. This is especially so given
that democratisation is a journey, not a destination; its realisation is
a process, not an event. In other words, democracy is not a discrete or
dichotomous variable whose existence can be expressed as “yes” or “no”.
Rather, it is a continuous variable we can only express as “more” or
“less”.
For
example, when did the United States become democratic? Was it when it
issued the rights of man in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) or
when it extended the vote from property-owning white males to universal
white male adult suffrage? Was it when it emancipated slaves (1865) or
when it extended the vote to women (1920) or when it passed the voting
rights bill (1965) that removed the last barriers to blacks voting? It
is fair to say that each of these reforms improved on the democracy.
Rwanda’s
democratic journey is also characterised by these tentative hold-ups
even though it has made many advances forward. Even I often get
frustrated by reckless actions by some Rwanda government officials
towards regime critics. Yet there have been many deliberate reforms
towards democracy in Rwanda: The empowerment of women, the creation of
local councils from the village to the district where ordinary people
manage their own affairs and impact public policy, the registration of
political parties and allowing them freedom to open branches up to the
village level, the National Dialogue which is an open forum where
citizens hold leaders to account etc.
Rwanda has
built the largest network of fibre optic cables of any country in the
Third World. This has reduced the cost while increasing access to the
internet. With its One-Laptop-Per-Child program, the government of
Kagame – perhaps inadvertently – is building one of the most promising
platforms of democratic expression. One has to laugh at the futility of
some Rwanda government officials suspending physical newspapers that are
read by a few hundred people when millions of Rwandans get their
information from the internet. Rwanda has not even bothered (and cannot
succeed even if it tried) to block the million and one websites,
micro-sites, blogs and social media where most debate takes place.
Democracy,
Robert Dahl observed, has two elements: contestation and participation.
Contestation refers to how freely the political opposition contest the
rulers; participation, how many groups participate in politics to
determine who the rulers should be. Contestation is about liberalisation
of the political dispensation; participation about inclusiveness. Each
of these variables will play out differently in each country.
While
political participation is high in Rwanda (because of local councils,
the national dialogue and internet spread and access), contestation is
low. Yet this is a deliberate constitutional design that does not reduce
the value of its steps, however tentative, towards democracy. The
constitution entrenches power sharing. For instance, no political party
can hold more than 51 percent of cabinet; and the president of the
republic and the speaker of parliament cannot come from the same
political party. Yet Ayittey argued that power in Rwanda is monopolised.
This
constitutional design discourages the polarisation that produces heat
and gives colour to political contests. But it does not diminish the
content of the contest; it only changes it – the incentive structure
encourages cooperation over confrontation. Every political party in
Rwanda knows that regardless of its numerical strength in any election,
it has to work with others in a government of national unity; hence the
better not to be too belligerent lest you alienate potential colleagues
in cabinet.
Rwanda’s
situation is not very different from Malaysia – a consociational-type
democracy where participation is high but contestation is limited
between political parties by consensus. But unlike Malaysia where
political competition is designed around ethnic groups, Rwanda prohibits
ethnicity as a platform for political organisation. In Rwanda, the
platform for democratic organisation is the political party. This is
understandable in a country where ethnic polarisation led to genocide.
The
fundamental beef most Hutu and Tutsi critics have against Kagame is that
he has resisted their attempts to make themselves politically
indispensable through control of particular ethnic constituencies.
Kagame has resisted the politics of elite cooptation (appointing a few
powerful Hutu personalities as the bridge to Hutu masses). Indeed, elite
cooptation is the main (not only) basis of legitimacy of governments in
most Africa because it shows “inclusion.” Once elites are “included” in
powerful positions, then they can rally their co-ethnics to support the
sitting regime.
Kagame has
predicated his presidency on performance by his government. Hence, the
delivery of public goods and services to all its citizens regardless of
their station in life is the main source of his legitimacy. It explains
the high quality of service delivery in the country. It is Kagame’s
political genius and greatest achievement and is unrivalled in
post-independence Africa. But equally it is the greatest source of
frustration among elites. But while this delivers for the ordinary
people, it takes away the power of elites to control particular groups
and hold the system hostage. These frustrated elites find sympathy in
Ayittey’s writings on Rwanda.
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