| BOOK REVIEW TITLE: VOTING FOR DEMOCRACY
Watershed Elections in Contemporary Anglophone Africa
EDITED BY: JOHN DANIEL, ROGER SOUTHALL and MORRIS SZEFTEL
PUBLISHER: ASHGATE PUBLISHING LIMITED; Gower House, Croft Road
Aldershot, Hampshire, GU 11 3HR, England www.ashgate.com
1999
PAGES: 260
PRICE: US$68.95
REVIEWER: KOFI AKOSAH-SARPONG in Ottawa, Canada.
Whether looked at from Africa’s native political systems, as
Dr. Osabu-Kle would let us know, or from the Western imposed system, Africans are by
nature and practice very, very democratic in all their dealings, from the cottage to the
village to the towns and to the nation-states.
It is wrong-headed people, including the colonialists who did not
understand a bit of Africa’s native political values, and Africans’ aping the
colonialists, who since independence took up power who disregarded Africa’s original
native democratic values.
This book reveals that elections held in the first of the 1990s show
how democratic Africans are giving the chance to vote, deliberate about their problems and
search for solutions to what troubles them. The book deals specifically with English
speaking Africa but it reveals the true nature of the Africans when it comes to democracy,
elections and general decision making.
The book is made up of papers presented variously by contributors.
It has eleven chapters written by nine social scientists both Africans and non-Africans.
It has lists tables on such democratic developments like the Namibian Constituent Assembly
results 1989-total votes and seats for each party. And a good bibliography and index.
Africa is stuffed with all kind of alien political system, from
authoritarian rule to military dictatorship to one-party-state to racial oligarchies to
presidential rule. Africans moved for changes to pluralist parliamentary politics. This
brought down the fall of several authoritarian regimes and forced others to go the way of
multiparty politics.
The book sees the first cycle of these changes occurring in Namibia
in 1989, that brought South Africa’s 70-years rule to an end and the last being the
South African ‘liberation election’ of 1994, that ended racial domination and
African exclusion.
In-between these ends a number of Anglophone countries held
elections, says the contributors, to restore the earlier pluralist parliamentary
established by the British which were "progressively undermined by factional conflict
and political instability and ultimately abrogated in favour of military or one-party
regimes. Now, with the restoration of competitive elections and the re-establishment of
the right to organise political parties, there was a return to this earlier legacy,"
writes Morris Szeftel in chapter one entitled Political Crisis and Democratic Renewal
in Africa.
Szeftel do recognise that not all elections and democratic reforms
proved realistic. But he fails to indicate that the so-called British parliamentary legacy
weren’t grounded in African culture and history. In fact despite their pretensions
the British, from the way they imposed their system in their areas of rule, reveal lack of
understanding of Africa’s political values, hence the factional conflicts, political
instability and the Babangidas, Mobutus and Abachas scattered across Africa’s
political landscape.
Democratic elections in Anglophone states were more confined to the
southern and eastern parts of Africa than western Africa, which the Szeftel says fared
less. Despite its international coincidence democratic reforms in Africa were largely
internal matter.
Szeftel offers that the root of anglophone Africa’s political
crisis and authoritarian rule was the subverting British political legacy. He cites the
case of Ghana where the British pluralist parliamentary legacy was replaced by the
one-party system. The collapse of one-party systems and rapid flows democratic elections
shows greater support for liberal democratic values and the recasting of constitutional
order especially in South Africa.
In chapter two Roger Southall, writing on Electoral Systems and
Democratisation in Africa, looks at constitutions and constitutionalism in Africa. He
draws cases from Nigeria, Kenya, Lesotho, Zambia, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa to
demonstrate the various degrees of democratisation.
And as demonstrated variously by other contributors the round of
elections indicate a shift towards democracy, set against the alternative political
scenarios of predatory elite, despite the inauspicious nature of some of the democratic
elections. But what is important in all these democratic elections is Africans’ right
and desire to choose their own leaders, renewed "appreciation of the importance of
institutions for engineering and maintaining domestic political peace."
The democratic elections reveal shift from utopianism amongst
intellectuals towards a more pragmatic assessment of the purposes of politics, contrary to
Afro-pessimismists who inclined to argue that Africa must ape East Asian authoritarianism,
we argue a likely positive association between democracy and development.
Each in turn enhances the other. And despite arguments that
democracy wont works in Africa because of the fragmented nature of so many states, the
contributors say what is "basic is the commitment to democracy by elite as their
least-worst option," citing South Africa as the most advanced case of an ‘elite
pact’ in Africa.
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