Presidential polls: Will he or will he not stand?

Watch out: its election time in Africa! It sounds like a warning, doesn’t it? According to emerging reports from across the continent and particularly in our Great Lakes Region, there is trepidation everywhere as countries get ready to hold presidential elections. Except for Kenya, which held its presidential elections last year, the rest of the countries that make up the core of the Great Lakes Region (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda) will be heading to the polls between next year and 2017. Except for Uganda, which doesn’t have term limits in its constitution, the rest of these countries have such restrictions for incumbent presidents. More than anything else, this is the source of the orgy of excitement for local, regional and international media. As a result, the media is shaping presidential term limits to be the overriding issue of our time with the question: Will he or wont he stand? Moreover, as is usually the case, the media is tying the elections in general, and the question of term limits in particular, to people’s anxiety. In their haste, however, media practitioners have constructed the issue of term limits as a significant indicator of democratic progress. Is it? Of course not, because some of the mature democracies in Europe such as Great Britain, France, and Italy do not have presidential term limits in their political systems. In the United States, the amendment to insert term limits in the constitution was only passed in 1947. This amendment became necessary after Franklin D. Roosevelt broke tradition, serving four terms from 1933 till his death in office in 1945. To be fair, those who argue that this cannot be equated to the situation in Africa argue that their political systems have inbuilt corrective measures that ensure that incumbent presidents don’t rule for more than 10 years – the equivalent of two terms – regardless of whether this is specified in the constitution or not. Examples are given about the shifts in government between the Labour and Conservative parties in Britain and the Liberal and Conservative parties in France, for instance. But the point remains. The choice of whether to have presidential term limits or not is more of an outcome of a society’s elite consensus than it is about democracy, per se. If tradition can dictate political behaviour, what is wrong with African? The position taken by experts is that African countries belong to the category of ‘fragile’ societies. And that this affects political organisation where the majority of states are yet to form a political culture around a set of agreed principles. And that this makes the rules of the (political) game subject to contention. As a result, experts observe, the outcome of such political disarticulation is usually violence, which often follows elections. In other words, the violence is simply one of the ways in which the contentious political culture manifests itself, which then also informs a conflictual social milieu. The prescription, therefore, is term limits. These, it is noted, have the potential to lessen conflict as contenders for the highest offices in the land focus their attention away from the incumbent towards time. For this reason, it is argued, fragile societies have to be treated to a different standard than the more stable societies. In other words, the double standard is justifiable. Analytical deficiency While on the surface the above argument has merit, a problem arises from the tendency to lump together countries with diverse political and socio-economic circumstances. It is as if such differences would count for nothing. And that all countries are expected to behave the same way due to one intervening indicator: elections. It is for this analytical deficiency that some were quick to conclude that the fall of the Burkinabe strongman Blaise Compaore would lead to the implosion of sub-Saharan Africa in a “Black Fall” akin to the “Arab Spring.” And so, the story is quickly shaping up of the dangers –or violence to be specific – that is forthcoming as a result of the elections and the likelihood that some countries in the region will change term limits. But the dangers cannot be the same due to the political and socio-economic diversity and varying historical experiences of the countries involved. As such, it is not likely that these countries will respond in the same way due to a single intervening factor. It appears that a typology that explains this diversity would be useful. It would sort out the differences and similarities in the countries involved and the likely response from the elections. It should be sensible that indicators with a direct impact on the lives of ordinary people (health, education, water and electricity, and so on) would be insightful as the absence of such would imply state neglect and generalised popular disenchantment directed towards the incumbent regime. It would point to leadership with a tendency towards private accumulation and contrast it against one that delivers public goods. And so on. Such a conversation would also bring to our knowledge which leaders have a legitimate clamor for the removal of term limits and those who have no business even thinking about it.

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Presidential polls: Will he or will he not stand?