On December 01 the President of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, lost
an election and went on television and conceded defeat. He also called the
victor, Adama Barrow, and congratulated him saying he has no ill will and will
be pleased to help him in any way. Having taken power by a military coup and
ruled that tiny West African nation for 22 years, no one expected Jammeh to
concede gracefully.
However, the leader of the opposition coalition – who is not
the president-elect, announced they were going to prosecute Jammeh for crimes
he committed while in office. A week after conceding Jammeh reversed his
position, said elections had been rigged called for a fresh vote. This
turnaround has been widely condemned and may push that country into violent
conflict.
We are likely not going to hear the inside story of what
happened. Across the board, the argument will likely be personal to Jammeh:
that he is a weird character and that he is a power hungry megalomaniac. But
over the years I have learnt that these accusations that are entirely based on
the personalities of our leaders often tend to obscure rather than illuminate
our understanding of our politics.
With the sole exception of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela,
the Western media and its cheer leaders in Africa (including old ole me) have
accused almost every president in Africa of being power hungry. But why is it
the 54 nations of Africa that produce power hungry leaders? Why doesn’t Norway,
or Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
Austria, UK, France or Germany – also produce a power hungry leader once in a
while who amends the constitution to remove term limits or stages a military
coup?
There is something all the nations I have mentioned in
Western Europe, North America and Australia share – they have all been
industrialised and institutionalised over centuries, and are urbanised with a
high per capita income and standards of living. There is also something the
nations of Africa share. They are largely agrarian societies, with low levels
of institutionalisation of power, limited urbanisation, low per capita income,
and low standards of living.
Therefore, I suspect that our nations’ politics is not
dysfunctional. It is a reflection of poverty and low levels of
institutionalisation of power. Indeed, all too often power has changed hands by
military coups, elections, armed struggle, popular insurrections, death or
retirement of an incumbent president. Yet with the sole exception of post
genocide Rwanda, there has not been any fundamental change in governance in
spite of many changes in government.
Over the years, I have developed a suspicion that Africa is
going through a phase of development and what we are seeing as governance
dysfunctions are inevitable aspects of political development. It does make
sense to blame a child for behaving like an infant. This argument does not sit
well with missionary politics that hold that leaders should just behave
themselves regardless of the circumstances.
We have witnessed how post genocide Rwanda, defying all the
odds of a poor agrarian nation with very low per capita income, has structured
power to serve broader social goals.
Then the question becomes: how do you structure power in
poor agrarian societies to avoid some of the adverse effects of political
participation and contestation? The current answer has been to model the
structure of governance along what we see in the rich Western World – have a
liberal, multi party political system, term limits, etc. with an accompanying
regime of rights. I am suspicious of this recommendation in large part because
what we see in the West today are consequences not causes of its development
process.
There are some nations in Africa, which defying their
condition of poverty, have made good progress at domesticating political power.
In Zambia, Malawi, Ghana, Benin and Senegal, we have seen an opposition party
candidate defeat a ruling party or an incumbent president at least twice and
power changes hands peacefully. In Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia and
Mozambique we have witnessed a regular smooth transfer or power from one
president to another about three times. These are encouraging signs but we can
never be sure how enduring they will be.
This brings me back to The Gambia. It is possible Jammeh
conceded in a moment of excitement after which his colleagues; especially in the
army came and told him to stay put. Someone whispered to me that the defeat of
President John Mahama in Ghana altered the geostrategic calculations in Gambia.
Apparently, the presidents of Nigeria and Senegal hate Jammeh. Mahama was the
guarantor of his safe retirement. With Mahama defeated, Jammeh felt exposed and
changed his mind on retirement.
Maybe Jammeh changed his mind because the leader of the
opposition coalition threatened to prosecute him? Remember Barrow has not been
in politics. He is a businessman. He did not have many quarrels with Jammeh who
had not jailed and beaten him and his supporters. May be this is the reason
Jammeh felt confident to concede to such a man as opposed to his perennial
enemies who he had so terrorised that they are boiling with revenge.
There could be a lesson here for Uganda as well. That to
create conditions for Museveni to feel confident to retire, the opposition may
need leaders who have not been beaten and jailed the way Kizza Besigye has
been. If you are Museveni and those closest to him, you are likely to fear
Besigye because your conscience tells you he will seek revenge. So whenever
Beigye runs, Museveni and his supporters cannot leave anything to chance.
Presidents, we should remember, are human and have both public and private
needs.
It is possible that a candidate like Mugisha Muntu may not
stimulate the kind of cult-like following that Besigye ignites in those who
want Museveni to go. But it is also possible that such lack of enthusiasm in
opposition campaigns can lull Museveni’s system to relax their vigilance during
the balloting process and calm their nerves in the event of defeat. If this
reasoning holds water, then it means a cool candidate like Muntu could be
savior the opposition needs.
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amwenda@independent.co.ug
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editor@independent.co.ug
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