Coalition building, voter turnout can sway vote

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  • This article looks at several lessons that can be learnt from recent elections in other countries. This analysis is far from exhaustive, but instead serves as a reminder of the insights that can be gained from cross-country comparisons.

Kenya’s next general election, which is scheduled for August 8, is fast approaching.

It is currently unclear whether the opposition will agree on a single presidential candidate and come together in the mooted National Super Alliance. Whether the opposition will agree to the electoral commission using a manual system to back up the electronic voter identification devices. And whether heightened tension over competition for national level seats — together with increased competition over county level seats — will fuel violence in certain parts of the country.

Given such uncertainty and the potential for political problems in Kenya that are likely to affect the whole region, this article looks at several lessons that can be learnt from recent elections in other countries. This analysis is far from exhaustive, but instead serves as a reminder of the insights that can be gained from cross-country comparisons.

Politics is expensive

First, elections in Uganda and Ghana in February and December 2016 respectively remind us that politics is an expensive game. Candidates need mobilisers who at the very least require some facilitation. They need to advertise their candidacy and display their seriousness, through posters, T-shirts and other campaign materials and to respond to local demands.

Such expenditure is widely accepted and even demanded. As part of a broader project on the impact of elections in Africa, Nic Cheeseman, Justin Willis and I surveyed Ghanaians in September 2015 and Ugandans in December 2015.

We found that 43 per cent of Ghanaians and 41 per cent of Ugandans thought that bribing voters was either “not wrong at all” or was “wrong but should not be punished.” Similarly, 76 per cent of Ghanaians and 72 per cent of Ugandans felt that politicians should not be punished for directing development projects towards areas that support them. The implication is that many politicians and voters do not consider giving gifts to voters as illegitimate.

Huge spending may not win popular vote

At the same time, these elections remind us that the candidate who spends the most does not necessarily win — either at the local or national level.

This was evident in Ghana where the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) spent much more than the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), but the incumbent president nevertheless lost in the first round with 44-54 per cent of the popular vote.

Recent polls also remind us of the extent to which presidential elections tend to be a two-horse race in which an incumbent, or establishment candidate, is pitted against a prominent opposition leader.

This was evident in Zambia in August 2016, when President Edgar Lungu of the ruling PF and Hakainde Hichilema of the UPND won 50.03 per cent and 47.67 per cent of the vote respectively, while the third candidate, Edith Nawakwi, secured a pitiful 0.65 per cent of the popular vote.

A similar picture emerged in Ghana in December last year when the NDC and NPP secured 98 per cent of the popular vote, and the third candidate received only 1 per cent.

While in Uganda, President Museveni was returned with 60.62 per cent of the popular vote; veteran opposition politician Kizza Besigye secured 35.61 per cent; and the third candidate, Amama Mbabazi, won a mere 1.39 per cent.

Coalitions

Another lesson is that, outside contexts with an established two-party system, opposition candidates often increase their chances of winning if they come together in a pre-election coalition.

For many, this is largely about electoral maths where the benefits of an opposition coalition is linked to the size of politician’s key support bases.

However, coalitions also have a demonstration effect. In short, many citizens across the continent believe that politicians are simply hungry for power, and that opposition leaders are likely be little different to the current government.

In turn, a single platform helps to undermine a burgeoning sense of political scepticism and apathy. This can help foster a sense that the opposition could win, which can increase voter turnout in opposition areas.

This is a critical issue since recent elections also show that the difference between victory and loss for the two front-runners often depends on turnout. Thus, in Ghana, for example, while the NPP managed to repeat or improve the number of votes it won in 2012, the NDC saw its numbers fall drastically.

A similar dynamic was at work in the US where, ultimately, a weakened Democratic Party lost last year’s election. Thus, while retired president Barack Obama and Mitt Romney secured 65.9 million and 60.9 million votes respectively in 2012, Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump secured 59.3 million and 59.1 million votes last November.

This means that, while the number of Republican votes decreased by 1.8 million, the number of people who voted for the Democratic candidate decreased by a massive 6.6 million votes between 2012 and 2016.

Using technology

Finally, recent elections also provide important lessons regarding the use of technology. Thus — and as Nic Cheeseman noted in last week’s Sunday Nation — voter registration software has been fairly successful in many countries across the country. This “is important, because many election registers in Africa are bloated, featuring high numbers of dead voters and in some cases thousands of citizens who are too young to vote.”

However, and as Cheeseman goes on to argue, “other forms of election technology have not worked as well” most notably, biometric identification kits. Indeed, “partly because the technology is prone to breaking down, few countries have legislated against the use of manual systems.”

While “the use of digital verification was not a legal requirement in any of the three countries — Gambia, Ghana, and Nigeria — in which presidents have recently been defeated at the ballot box.”

In the recent elections in Ghana, both the ruling NDC and opposition NPP recognised that computer systems can potentially be hacked and that there are people — who have their own political preferences, and who may be swayed by bribes or intimidation — behind every machine.

As a result, both parties opted to spend a considerable amount of time and money on ensuring a comprehensive system of party agents. This ultimately allowed the opposition to claim victory fairly early on in the process, which led to pressure on the incumbent to concede defeat and on the Electoral Commission to announce an NPP victory.

This stood in stark contrast to my experience in Uganda in February 2016, when I observed the elections in Gulu. In that election, the voting and counting proceeded fairly smoothly, but confusion emerged during the tallying process.

However, opposition politicians were unable to support their claims that figures had been changed, since their agents were either not given a copy of the polling station declaration forms or had signed the forms before the results had actually been filled in.

Collectively, these lessons remind us that beyond the all-important issue of the evenness of the playing field going into an election parties and alliances play a key role.

Gabrielle Lynch, associate professor of comparative politics at the University of Warwick, UK ([email protected]; @GabrielleLynch6)