Democracy and Elections in Africa

3. Elections in Africa over Time

chapter three Elections in Africa over Time Political liberalization in Africa has been interpreted in many ways since the world entered the post–Cold War era. Most scholarly accounts from the early 1990s triumphantly proclaimed a new era of democracy in Africa. Given the many significant changes that followed almost 30 years of gloom and stagnation, a certain euphoria was understandable. Except for Botswana, Gambia, Mauritius, and Zimbabwe, and to some extent Senegal, nondemocratic civilian or military regimes had ruled countries in Africa for much of the period since the 1960s. Economic failure, illustrated by always -low GDPs per capita, slumped further during the 1980s (van de Walle 2001). Corruption and embezzlement became rife, and in response societies disengaged from the state and the public realm and deepened their informal and personal ties, reviving social networks and extended family systems (e.g., Chabal and Daloz 1999), leaving rentier African states suspended in mid-air (Hyden 1980, 2000; Young, 1982). Ethnic fragmentation fanned by identity politics entrepreneurs ensued (Mamdani 1996), contributing to the implosion of states, including Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and later Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and to a lesser extent Comoros and the Republic of Congo (RoC). Over a couple of years, political liberalization was introduced in more than half of the African states, and the rapid displacement of authoritarian regimes, like those in Benin and Zambia, as early as 1991 was heralded as a “second liberation” and a complete political renewal (e.g., Ayittey 1992, Hyden and Bratton 1992, Joseph 1992, cf. Bratton and van de Walle 1997). Within a few years half of the continent had held multiparty elections, giving credence to Huntington’s assertion (1991, 174) that “elections are not only the life of democracy, they are also the death of dictatorship.” This was the age of widespread Afro-optimism. Several developments soon turned the tide. Dispute over elections in regionally important countries, like those in Kenya and Ghana in 1992, halted processes in Togo and Cameroon, and events in Nigeria caused concern. The failure even to initiate political transformation in Chad and the DRC, for example, fed these growing concerns. Zambia’s second election, on 18 November 1996, was a disappointing contrast to its “best-in-class” first election, in 1991; while outright breakdowns of the democratization process in several countries, including Nigeria in 1993, Angola in 1992, and Gambia in 1994, served only to deepen this pervasive feeling that Africa was once again backtracking. Gambia’s 1994 military coup was a special case in point. A relatively stable and prosperous democracy since 1982, the military overthrow of the government by General Jammah in 1994 was a particularly unexpected and devastating blow.1 While scholars like Bratton (1998) argued that Africa had returned to neopatrimonial politics, others saw a continuation of disorder and destructive politics (Chabal and Daloz 1999), no change at all (Akinrinade 1998), political closure (Joseph 1998), semiauthoritarianism (Carothers 1997), or elections without democracy (van de Walle 2002). Several students of comparative African politics sought to moderate the debate “between the extremes” (Chege 1996) and provide descriptions of the mixture of events taking African states in several directions simultaneously (Mbembe 1995). Cowen and Laakso’s examination of 17 country case studies is a recent addition in this vein (Cowen and Laakso 2002). The single most influential comparative contribution , Bratton and van de Walle’s 1997 study, was also an effort to provide an account of the multifaceted political developments in Africa while at the same time offering empirical generalizations. Their conclusion that African regimes had entered highly divergent paths of political development (1997, 98) still dominates the study of African politics.2 I have investigated the robustness of their claims in a few preliminary analyses (Lindberg 2002, 2004a), and we must revisit them, because much of what is believed about contemporary African politics still relies on Bratton and van de Walle’s analysis of events in a 5-year period, from 1990 to 1994. Using a 13-year time frame, from 1990 to 2003, and reflecting on events up to 1989 in selected countries, more robust conclusions can be drawn. This chapter sifts through several hypotheses and lays a foundation for a more re- fined analysis in the later chapters. First, this chapter extends Bratton and colleagues’ empirical research chronicling African elections and their democratic qualities.3 The study of Africa is still suffering from a severe lack of empirical data and a lot still remains to be done...