The power-sharing deal between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe has kicked off a raging debate about the impact of hurriedly negotiated power sharing arrangements on democracy in Africa.
The Zimbabwe deal came hot on the heels of a similar arrangement in Kenya where President Mwai Kibaki agreed to share power with opposition leader Raila Odinga, following the disputed December 27 general elections.
Several questions arise over this emerging trend: Are African politicians retreating from the path to democracy and multi-partyism which they fought for in the early 1990s and reverting to this monolithic arrangements in the name of power-sharing coalitions?
Analysts are warning that the Kenyan and Zimbabwean examples could discourage entrenched African leaders some incumbent presidents in Africa from accepting free and fair elections in the hope of sharing power with their opponents.
Although power-sharing pacts are signed in the name of national reconciliation, the impact has been to undermine the functioning of parliamentary opposition parties on the continent.
This same debate has been raging in Uganda, where immediately after Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga signed the power sharing accord in February, opponents of President Yoweri Museveni started putting pressure on the government to follow the Kenyan example and to adopt a more inclusive administration in ostensibly to bring about harmony between the government and the opposition.
In a conversation with The EastAfrican, South African retired judge, Johann Kriegler — who is leading an independent commission investigating the integrity of Kenya’s 2007 elections — maintained that the trend towards power sharing pacts was dangerous arguing that competitive elections, though costly, are cheaper than civil war.
“The winner-take-all nature of politics in sub-Saharan Africa makes elections more volatile, bitter and intensive, with candidates tending to incline towards shortcuts, violence, intimidation and bribery. But to say that coalition governments are a better option, is like saying that a cow has mastitis so we better shoot it to cure it,” said Kriegler.
He added that Africa must come to terms with the fact that the only way to change governments without bloodshed, is through elections.
In Kenya, the post-election crisis would appear to have convinced the political elite that the way out of the winner-take-all mentality is a new constitutional dispensation that promotes the practices of inclusion.
In Burundi, there is pressure on President Pierre Nkurunzinza to incorporate the Palepehutu-FNL rebels into the government, as a way of ensuring that the cease-fire agreement signed in June, holds till the 2010 elections.
In the past, power-sharing arrangements in Africa were confined to countries that has experienced civil war and were were part of cease-fire arrangements.
A recent example is that of the Democratic Republic of Congo between Joseph Kabila and former rebel chiefs Jean Pierre Bemba.
Another is that of Sudan where the former rebels of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) agreed to form a government of national unity with the government in Khartoum.
But the Kenyan and Zimbabwe examples stand out as those of recalcitrant incumbents who are not willing to give up power.
However, the main cause of worry is that the power-sharing trend could follow the scenario of post-independent Africa, where founding presidents adopted the “one country one party” chorus that later plunged virtually the entire continent under dictatorship.
The clamour for multi-party democracy in Africa started like a wave in 1989, following the end of the Cold War. Power-sharing as a political solution could just follow the same path.
Dr Ben Sihanya, a Constitutional Law lecturer at the University of Nairobi, noted that it is worrying that Africa seems to be running away from free and competitive elections in what he call the Kibaki/Mugabe principle.
“It is worrying that one day we could be confounded by an incumbent who will cling to power with the knowledge that he could still be the chief executive and at worst, share power. It is also worrying that the international community is warming up to the idea on the premise that opposition is a luxury Africans cannot afford in such circumstances,” said Dr Sihanya.
But judge Kriegler would hear none of it, arguing that elections in Africa are hard to live with but much worse to live without. He maintains that Africa must make multiparty democracy work because it is a reality.
“If the people are entitled to have a say in the government of their country, they have got to have a say in the choice of that government. The only way to keep governments on their toes, it is for people to have the right to tell the government, ‘get out, we have had enough of you.’”
Judge Kriegler has extensive experience in African affairs having planned and supervised elections in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Sudan, besides being part an election Commission of Inquiry in Uganda. He has also lectured in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and Namibia.
He emphasises that when incumbents steal elections or try to disqualify their most likely opponent on bogus grounds such as that his grandfather was not born in the country, it is the people who suffer.
“Most people would wrongly believe that you are cooking your opponent. But the victims of that fraud are the citizens, who are entitled to a fair, informed choice of government,” he said.
He is of the opinion that Africans, just like any other people, have inherent human dignity that entitles them to have a say in the governance of their countries as enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights which was also borrowed by the African Union Constitutive Act.
