Perfidious donors betray Africa's democrats

Perfidious donors betray Africa’s democrats

9 August, 2010 | By William Wallis (Financial Times)
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There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful about sub-Saharan Africa.
Progress towards more democratic rule, however, is no longer among
them.

Anyone persuaded otherwise needs to take a hard look at recent
elections and revisit history for a reminder of the costs of stolen ballots
and stifled ambition. These can be heavy in countries where, for all the
talk of an expanding African middle class, people still tend to vote on
the basis of their ethnic identity.

Rwanda, which held

elections on Monday,

is a special case. It

was

always debatable

how much the outside

world should push for

political freedom in a

country recovering

from genocide.

Western donors, led

by the US and Britain,

have mollycoddled

President Paul

Kagame, encouraging

the notion that Rwanda’s stability rests on him. They have relied on his
good will to get the timing right, in the hope that political space will
gradually open.

It should come as no surprise that the reverse is taking place. There are
few precedents of authoritarian rulers becoming more benign after 15
years in power. Like other guerrilla leaders whose path to the
presidency went through the bush, Mr Kagame has proved ruthlessly
effective in stabilising and rebuilding his country. His credentials for
presiding over the more liberal environment needed if tensions are to be
contained are less evident.

In this kind of instance outside pressure has proved necessary in the
past. Western pressure on client regimes played a central role after the
cold war in lending momentum to Africa’s political transition. Indeed, if
democracy could be measured by the number of elections taking place
now then there would be cause to celebrate already. This year voting
will take place in 12 of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 states.

In this context it is tempting to think that even the most entrenched
autocracies are being cajoled into more liberal behaviour. Undoubtedly,
in the age of mobile phones and internet, it is harder to silence critics
and rob the central bank.

Yet far from reinforcing a virtuous circle of more accountable rule, a
run of recent polls, Rwanda’s among them, have instead challenged a
commonly held assumption: that the more elections taking place, the
more democratic and stable the continent becomes.

The arrival of China as a major influence in Africa, and with other
emerging nations, a source of finance and trade, has certainly diluted
western leverage. But western strategic considerations, in an era of
international terrorism and stiffening competition for markets and
resources, have also seen electoral fair play drop down the agenda.

The rhetoric has not followed, however, leading to a policy that looks
perfidious and silly. With one hand the US, the EU and other donors
encourage and finance elections. With the other, they routinely accept
the outcome regardless of how dubious the manner in which it is
achieved.

In many cases voting simply adds trappings of legitimacy to a
contemporary form of one-party rule, in which incumbents use
patronage, oppression and control of electoral machinery to maintain
power.

No doubt in Rwanda, where counting is under way, the process will be
hailed as orderly even though there was no competition. Mr Kagame’s
real opponents have either fled, been barred from standing or are lying
low.

The results of earlier elections in Ethiopia, in which the opposition were
evicted from all but two seats in the 545-seat parliament, were no less
pre-ordained.

In both countries, as in much of Africa, western donors justify
continued support on the basis of their development record. In Rwanda
this is exemplary. The question is whether it will be sustainable as
popular frustration at the closed political environment grows.

In Ethiopia, the same is almost true but with a disturbing caveat. It is an
open secret that the double-digit growth of recent years is supported by
dubious statistics. Yet the same figures are bandied around by
development experts arguing that a trade-off between growth and civil
liberties is inevitable.

That sounds worryingly familiar to the case used to justify western
support for cold war clients. Are African desires for more accountable
leadership becoming subordinate again to the opinion of western donors
and the commercial and strategic interests of foreign businesses and
powers? It is to be hoped that pressure from electorates will ensure that
if this is so, it is only temporary. But it is a dangerous time for
democracy in Africa.

In the past two decades, electoral transformations in countries such as
South Africa, Ghana and Senegal encouraged positive momentum
across the board. The opposite is true today. Before Rwanda this year,
Sudan, Burundi and Ethiopia all hosted deeply flawed elections with little
or no consequence for their relations with the outside world.

The leadership in other African countries where polls are looming will
all have taken note: going through electoral motions remains a
prerequisite for international acceptance. But there is no need to offer
the real thing.

The writer is the FT’s Africa editor

Courtesy