In many cases, we have been told that the perfect way to lead a country in the modern era is through Democracy.
Any country world over, which doesn’t practice the basics of Democracy is labeled dictatorial, brutal, and all sorts of things along that line. Some countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia have oftentimes come under the spotlight for not being democratic enough, especially in ways that countries in Europe and America would like them to be.
Therefore, many presidents of developing countries have constantly forged ways to carve out a semblance of ‘Democracy’ in their respective countries. This is not done in the real sense of having a democratic nation, but rather to escape being labeled “Dictatorial, despotic, etc as leaders.
Describe democracy.
The Oxford Advanced Dictionary defines DEMOCRACY as a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. In most cases, if people are allowed to vote, then that is considered a democratic process. However, I believe that if the whole process of the election is fraudulent, then we have no Democracy at all because it has now been arm twisted to suit the interest of an individual, political party, or group of people.
If we are to measure Democracy by only using the yardstick of merely casting votes and declaring winners, then that is a joke because if people have been beaten, candidates arrested, some voters forbidden from voting, and sometimes killed, then there isn’t democracy but rather dictatorship dressed in another suit, which brings me back to the topic of this piece; The two faces of Democracy in a developing country.
Many people have attempted to find out which form of governance is the best, from a “Theocracy” which is the leadership of a country by religious institutions such as in Iran to a Monarchy – which is leadership by a cultural institution such as the case of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, Democracy which is leadership by the majority and many others. However former British wartime leader Sir. Winston Churchill noted that most forms of governance are littered with inconsistencies but he would rather pick Democracy as a preferred form of governance, unlike the others.
Since the onset of Independence in Africa, many countries were advised by European powers to be democratic and have continued to be ordered to do so. The idea of democracy has been appreciated by many people especially those who are waiting to take over power. However, since most African societies were organized around other forms of governance such as Monarchies, since pre-colonial times, African leaders have struggled to fully practice democracy and the result has been the invention of something closely related to democracy but not necessarily democracy itself.
Due to the pressure from Western powers on African leaders to practice democracy in their nations, many African presidents are both democratic and dictatorial at the same time. When it is convenient, an election will be organized and the “winner” announced, and then that country will be labeled democratic because elections are organized regularly.
Whether they are free, fair, and credible, is a discussion for another day. This then leaves the citizens with a very incompetent leader, who is imposed on them by a chairman of an electoral commission, who announced results in the favor of an incumbent president just to keep his job, and sometimes life, secure. The consequences have been people rioting on the streets, property destroyed and lives lost, endless court petitions, etc all in the name of practicing Democracy.
Some countries have decided to do away with organizing elections and they just reach agreements on how to share positions in government. An example is South Sudan which has never held a Presidential election since its independence in 2011, but somehow they are moving on. When you look at the problems facing South Sudan which doesn’t hold presidential elections and the Democratic Republic of Congo which is a democracy, they are almost similar, so one wonders whether Democracy is a direct
ticket to a country’s development as some powers outside Africa would want to indirectly portray it.
Many countries in Africa are divided along tribal and religious lines and because many of them swore to be democratic, new forms of Democracy have been invented. A country will present a candidate of a particular tribe as president but with an unwritten law that the next president in line will come from a different tribe from the incumbent, just to ease tribal tensions, and so you will hear statements such as, “It is now our time to eat” meaning that it is time for people from a different tribe to take over leadership.
A country like Kenya serves this example well. Other countries are divided by religious beliefs. In Nigeria, the unwritten law is that if a Christian president is voted for this time, the next one should be a Muslim from the North. In all this, on the surface, it will appear as if these countries are democratic but behind the periodical, elections lie tribal, religious, political, financial divisions, Mafia gangs, etc which inform the choices at the top, which in most cases means that the ordinary people aren’t the ones who decide who their leaders should be.
However, some countries in Africa such as Botswana, Ghana, South Africa, and recently Kenya, have practiced democracy well to the extent that others use them as yardsticks of what a democracy should
be especially here in Africa.
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