"Participation Builds Unity"
"MADE IN AFRICA - FOR AFRICA"
"Participation Builds Unity"
"MADE IN AFRICA - FOR AFRICA"
PRESENTS
Democracy, Governance and Leadership
Towards an African Renewal
Dr Denis Venter
**********************************
Africa Consultancy & Research, Pretoria, South Africa
30 October 2003
Democracy, Governance and Leadership
As Africa is entering the new millennium, there is a profound sense of hope being frustrated, of stereotypes being reaffirmed, once again of a country (this time Zimbabwe) embarrassing the African continent. The most common perception is that of democratic government under siege, of constitutional governance being undermined, of the rule of law being flagrantly disregarded. This situation presents itself not because of ‘biased media coverage’, ‘racial prejudice’, the ‘arrogance of Western powers’, or ‘an un-African response’ to a particular problem; rather, it is because there is no binding commitment to democratic governance and the consequences that flow from such a commitment.1
This contribution begins by briefly positing the theoretical tenets underlying liberal democracy and good governance. It then looks in rather more detail at how the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) and the 2002 African Union (AU) ‘Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic, and Corporate Governance’ intend to give effect to the principles of democracy and good political governance, safeguard human rights, and achieve compliance with the codes and standards of good economic and corporate governance. Next, it analyses the efficacy of a proposed African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which is supposed to promote adherence to, and fulfilment of, these commitments – the mechanism being a self-monitoring instrument, voluntarily acceded to by member states of the AU. Furthermore, it reviews, in some detail, aspects of the theory and practice of leadership in Africa: a largely incompetent political leadership that has failed the continent’s mostly dysfunctional states. Finally, it asks -- in the light of the foregoing -- what prospects there are for an African renewal or renaissance, in spite of the road map to an African regeneration presented by the 1991 Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Co-operation (CSSDCA).
Democracy and Governance: Some Theoretical Perspectives
Democratisation in Africa is primarily focused on political reform. Many African leaders fear such a situation: as they are being pushed by internal societal pressures, some resist energetically, others stall, and still others play charades with both internal and external critics.2 Moreover, the emphasis on governance is designed to address the corrupt, capricious and arbitrary practices, which seem to afflict Africa’s politicians and bureaucrats.3 Efforts to create an economically enabling environment and build administrative and other capacities will be wasted if the political context is not favourable; ultimately, better governance requires political renewal and a concerted attack on corruption. This can be done by strengthening the transparency and accountability of representative bodies (inter alia, by free elections in a multiparty system), by encouraging public debate, by nurturing press freedom and civil society organisations, and by maintaining the rule of law and an independent judiciary.4 However, for all their sermonising on governance, donor countries and agencies remain rather reluctant to translate their verbal sabre-rattling into any sort of action and apply the yardsticks of political conditionality: Kamuzu Banda’s Malawi, Daniel arap Moi’s Kenya, Charles Taylor’s Liberia, and – still, in a very limited sense -- Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe being among the few exceptions. Then there is the aid lobby’s argument that it is wrong to punish a country’s poor and underprivileged for the misdeeds of its government. This argument is unconvincing, since there are many ways in which aid can be provided to a country in a manner that expressly demonstrates disapproval of the ruling regime.5 But, clearly, both bilateral and multilateral aid donors will have to walk a very dangerous tightrope between nudging African leaders towards democracy, and assuring them that politically dangerous reforms will be rewarded in the short to medium term.6
Liberal Democracy: A Compelling Necessity
Almost imperceptibly, the narrower concerns of governance have shifted to the more expansive notion of democracy; but without stable and reasonably developed economies and some degree of industrialisation, a literate and educated citizenry, a sophisticated communications network, and a relatively homogenous civic culture, it is difficult to see how democracy will ever truly flourish in Africa.7 This is not to suggest that it is impossible for democracy to take root in African countries; political elites will just have to work much harder at it. Critically important is the political will to uphold the basic principles of democracy, as well as to create the necessary enabling environment for democracy to thrive. No longer pre-occupied with national security considerations, Western donor countries are pushing aggressively for ‘democracy’ and ‘good governance’;8 a Western consensus developed that, in Africa and elsewhere, democracy had to be the human rights issue of the 1990s and beyond.9 Although one might wish to argue that the decline of ideology inaugurates an era in which each nation can follow its own path to development and democracy, unfortunately this is not likely to be realised in practice. The open resort to political conditionality may well pre-empt distinctive local paths to democracy.10 However, whatever its merits, political conditionality has proved particularly controversial and unpopular in Africa. Western efforts to dictate the form and speed of democratisation in Africa (to usurp, in other words, the role of determining local political change), while overlapping to some degree with the aspirations of democratic movements, have come into conflict with local sentiment. The final product of these transitions, therefore, in spite of the attempts of external forces to read their own agenda into them, may yet take distinctive national forms.11 Moreover, the pro-democracy changes that have taken place all over the continent will take time to consolidate and stabilise. And Africans should also not take these moves towards liberalisation and reform for granted: rather, they should seek to institutionalise change, and prevent retrogression and a return to the past.12
What, then, are the prospects that these changes might lead to the consolidation or sustainability of reasonably fair and enduring multiparty democracies in at least an appreciable number of African countries? It may be necessary to use a broad definition of multiparty democracy to mean any system in which opposition parties are allowed to form and peacefully contest elections – even if, in practice, there is only one dominant party whose electoral victory can almost be taken for granted: in Botswana, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) until 1994; and in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) until 2000. But is there any reason to believe that the newly installed democracies will prove to be longer lasting than their post-independence predecessors? – in Zambia, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) replaced the United National Independence Party (UNIP) in 1991; and, in Malawi, the United Democratic Front (UDF) ousted the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) in 1994. In both cases, the authoritarian tendencies of the incumbent governments, manifested in unconstitutional and undemocratic conduct, served to galvanise lethargic civil society organisations into action: loose coalitions of influential civic organisations -- particularly churches, trade unions, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) -- played pivotal roles in enabling pro-democracy forces to come to power by ensuring that the outgoing presidents and the then ruling parties caved in and allowed political liberalisation and mainly ‘free and fair’ elections. Nevertheless, the dismal record of democracy in Africa raises the question of whether there is anything about Africa that makes it inherently difficult to sustain democracy – as the conduct of both the MMD in Zambia and the UDF in Malawi has subsequently attested to.13
The political argument against democracy suggests that, in what are essentially artificial African states, democracy must inevitably lead to the mobilisation of ethnic identities, which will then, in turn, split the state into its constituent ethnic communities and render impossible any form of government based on popular consent. Evidence, however, strongly indicates that multiparty democracy is much more likely to promote national unity than destroy it -- whereas, conversely, those regimes which have nearly destroyed the unity (Sani Abacha’s Nigeria, Hassan al-Bashir’s Sudan, and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe) or even the existence of their states (Samuel Doe’s Liberia, and Siyad Barre’s Somalia) have all been autocratic.14 But if democracy in African countries is to be strengthened and eventually sustained, it is imperative that African economies – which are in their most desperate state ever – be resuscitated, otherwise a backlash and, possibly, a reversal of the democratisation process is almost inevitable (note the earlier return of Didier Ratsiraka in Madagascar and Mathieu Kérékou in Benin, through the ballot box, and Denis Sassou-Nguesso in the Congo, by way of what was essentially an Angolan-backed coup). Africans feel that multiparty systems are in place, with democratically elected governments (sometimes fraudulently), and unrealistically they want to see immediate benefits: new jobs, transformed education, improved housing, new health-care facilities, increased disposable income. Economic growth and sustained development are, therefore, of the essence in supporting Africa’s fledgling democracies and preventing further tragic relapse into despotism and authoritarianism. Democracy has to be carefully nurtured, because democratic values (especially, political tolerance) cannot be inculcated in African societies overnight; and relatively sound economies (to provide basic human needs) seem to be essential ingredients for the ultimate success of a democratic order in Africa.15
Therefore, democracy should be made, and should be seen, to work. This is particularly important in a situation where the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum concludes that there is “inadequate commitment to multiparty democracy and politics among SADC leaders and politicians ... [who] talk democracy, but use undemocratic means to remain in power”.16 It calls on governments to commit them to ‘upholding the values and practices’ inherent in democracy and multiparty politics, to be tolerant of opposing political viewpoints, and to harmoniously co-exist with political opponents. Furthermore, it stresses that the date for elections should be set ‘in good time’ so as not to catch opposition parties unawares and unprepared -- this has been one of the many causes of election conflict, often leading to opposition parties boycotting elections.17 Ruling parties often contend, also in a situation where proportional representation is part of the equation, that members to be elected under the ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system should be able to form a two-thirds majority necessary to amend the constitution. This leaves the lingering suspicion that the election of constituency-based members could remain open to manipulation. Why the obsession with a magical ‘two-thirds majority’ -- or is it merely a wish to exercise brute majoritarianism?
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s contention that there is ‘an African variant of democracy’ (although he is not the first African leader to make such an assertion) is quite disconcerting, especially in a context where, throughout the 1990s, there has been a disturbing phenomenon in international life: the rise of illiberal democracy, also in Africa. Beyond any doubt, the values inherent in democracy are universal: democracy is liberal because it emphasises individual liberty; it is constitutional because it rests on the rule of law. As a political system, democracy is marked not only by ‘free and fair’, multiparty elections -- a rather ‘mechanistic’ conception, so prevalent in the pseudo-democracies in Africa and elsewhere, and fuelled by the fad of ‘event-focused’ election monitoring and observation -- but also by what might be termed constitutional liberalism: the rule of law, a separation of powers, and protection of the basic civil liberties of freedom of speech, assembly and religion, as well as the right to property.18 Indeed, there is far more to a free society than multiparty elections.19 But, very often, the arduous task of inculcating democratic values in society is widely being neglected; and today, the two strands of liberal democracy are coming apart: democracy, seen in the context of multiparty elections and rule by the majority, is flourishing -- constitutional liberalism is not.20 It is, perhaps, salutary to note that constitutional liberalism is about the limitation of power -- democracy, in its over-simplified form, about the accumulation and use, or misuse (even abuse), of power.21 One should be mindful of the Actonian dictum that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Therefore, democracy stripped of constitutional liberalism is not simply inadequate, but dangerous.22 Clearly, as Woodrow Wilson said in a different context, the challenge for this millennium is not ‘to make the world safe for democracy’, but ‘to make democracy safe for the world’. As with the state-sponsored and ‘war veterans’-instigated terror in Zimbabwe, it would serve Africans well to realise, as a Zambian human rights activist recently lamented, that “tyranny is evil because it de-humanises the personality by its brutality; it thrives on a stupendous folly: that a process of indiscriminate terror and savagery can thwart the human will to freedom and liberty”.
How democracy is visualised and defined varies from situation to situation; and nowhere is this more of a truism than in Africa. However, in almost all circumstances, democracy is conceived of as involving social justice, governmental accountability, and human freedoms. Certainly, liberal democracy involves the procedural minimum of contestation for political office and policy choices, popular participation in elections and other elements of political decision-making, and the accountability of elected public officials under the rule of law. All this must take place within a culture in which fundamental human rights and political freedoms are guaranteed.23 To this inventory should be added military accountability to civilian authority for, throughout Africa, the military has demonstrated that it is not averse to stepping into the political arena whenever the politicians ‘mess up’.24 Moreover, democratic values should be more effectively internalised by Africans; this is not to suggest that they are a priori hostile to liberal values, but in order for such values to make sense they have to be related to ‘something in African society’. Making democracy more authentic, therefore, implies a more flexible and open-ended approach that takes into account not only the liberal paradigm but also ‘African values and institutions’ that can be used to foster a local sense of democracy.25 Furthermore, as John Dryzek26 has pointed out, democracy can be pursued on different fronts simultaneously. Besides democratisation of the state (formal institutions, such as the judiciary, the public service, and the electoral system), democratisation against the state (social movements, and other forms of protest), and democratisation apart from the state (in the workplace, in the community, and in the private sphere) are all integral parts of the overall objective of introducing more stable forms of democratic governance. Perhaps the time has come to acknowledge that the values of liberal democracy are spreading universally, especially among the growing ranks of the educated middle classes, also in Africa. Prominent African intellectuals like Claude Ake27 and Peter Anyang’Nyong’o28 vigorously espouse the advantages of core democratic principles over the indeterminate, and possibly second best, forms of governance based on so-called ‘authentic culture’.29
Throughout the 1990s there has been a clear weakening of a number of authoritarian regimes in Africa and a halting, but discernible, movement towards increased pluralism and political competition. For a variety of reasons (a backdrop of economic malaise, indignation over internal repression, corruption, and austerity, resentment over the state’s unresponsiveness to popular demands, the Eastern European ‘demonstration effect’, and various donor pressures for political reform) the issue of governance has surged into full public view. In part, the desire for greater openness and accountability is buttressed by a new awareness of the linkages between economic development and democratic practices.30 As Achille Mbembe contends: “There cannot be a transition to a market logic if, alongside structural adjustment programmes, no attempt is made to reduce the weight of authoritarian institutions on society -- the one-party system, censorship, state violence, limited civil liberties, intellectual ossification, and cultural stagnation”.31 Political liberalisation, then, is perceived as not only contributing to a people’s yearning for participation, representativeness, equality, and accountability, but also to their ability to deal more effectively with the economic problems facing them.32 However, in Africa, a “partial liberalisation of authoritarian regimes” occurred in the 1990s that “[did] not amount to a transition to democracy”.33
In the final analysis, one should be extremely cautious about the prospects, in the short to medium term at least, for full-blown democratic practices in Africa, because there are three constraints in the present domestic and international environments: continuing economic hardship, the limited impact of the external diffusion effect, and the ruling elite’s organisational advantages and superior access to political and economic resources.34 Moreover, at least two further explanations might be added to this list: the uncertainty that political and social conflict can be bounded and regularised and, consequently, that multiparty democracy will lead to over-politicisation and a damaging ‘winner-takes-all philosophy’;35 and, because a number of African leaders view ethnic politics as zero-sum encounters, the related fear that multiparty politics will undermine stability as political parties will mobilise around ethnic symbols and identities, leading to intense conflict and an unwillingness to engage in the ‘politics of reconciliation’.36 It is, therefore, not surprising that some African intellectuals have cautioned against moves towards so-called ‘unbridled democracy’, arguing that African societies lack social cohesion, contending that “open democratic politics can be divisive and destabilising”, and putting forward a case for the adoption of an alternative, hybrid form of governance, referred to as ‘minimalist democracy’.37
Good Governance: An Elusive Commodity
Governance has strong normative overtones: it is the practice of good government,38 and it remains, essentially, a fragile process that depends on the restraint of the ruler and the tolerance of the ruled.39 The concept of governance is not new; it has been around in both political and academic discourse for a long time, referring in a generic sense to the task of running a government or any other appropriate entity, for example, a professional organisation or a business. More recently, it has gained particular significance in the context of African development as a result, among other things, of the World Bank40 identifying the crisis on the continent as one of governance. More specifically, the Bank refers to such phenomena as the extensive personalisation of power, the denial of fundamental human rights, widespread corruption, and the prevalence of un-elected and unaccountable government. Implicit, if not explicit, in this perspective, is a call for liberalisation and democratisation: development will take place only if political leaders abandon their authoritarian practices. Certainly, ‘governance’ is a more useful concept than ‘government’ or ‘leadership’, mainly because it does not prejudge the locus or character of real decision-making:41 for example, it does not imply, as ‘government’ does, that real political authority is vested somewhere within the formal-legal institutions of the state; nor does it imply, as the term ‘leadership’ does, that political control necessarily rests with the head of state and government, or official political elites.42
In Africa, it is often the ‘public realm’ (not just the state) that is weak. Individuals see nothing wrong in using public resources for private or communal purposes, and this attitude extends to a wider set of institutions than those that are officially known as the ‘state’. The notion of the public realm encompasses both state and society, and draws the line instead between private and public. What is of interest here is the extent to which there is a civic public realm and how it is being managed and sustained by political actors, some in the state, and others in civil society. There should also be respect for rules that protect the public realm: what is called the ‘regime’ is the explicit and implicit rules that determine the formal and informal organisation of the centre of political power (who are the relevant political actors, and who has access to political power), and this power centre’s relations with the broader political community (how those who are in power deal with those who are not).43 A regime is, therefore, not a set of political actors (although regimes often get associated with specific leaders), but rather a set of fundamental rules about the organisation of the public realm. Governance, then, is also the conscious management of regime structures with a view to enhancing the legitimacy of the public realm.44 Legitimacy, on the other hand, is the dependent variable produced by effective governance, but it also translates into what is known as ‘social capital’.45
Hyden46 suggests the existence of a ‘governance realm’ and lists four properties that may be seen as prerequisites for effective governance, as measured in terms of legitimacy generated for a regime -- the more of these properties that are present, the stronger the probability of effective governance; the less of these variables, the stronger the possibility of regime collapse. The four properties that are identified as particularly important to good politics are:
· authority or power -- effective, rules-based leadership that is perceived to be legitimate, and is the voluntary acceptance of an asymmetrical relationship;
Defined as regime management, governance is concerned with how rules (or structures) affect political action and the prospect of solving given societal problems. For much of the time, governance means the mere sustenance of the regime, but the real test of governance comes in situations where regime changes are needed to meet new demands or deal with new problems. Governance, then, involves the identification of the conditions that facilitate good governance and, by implication, effective problem-solving. Again, Hyden47 suggests that these conditions are:
· citizen influence and oversight: political participation -- the means by which individual citizens can participate in the political process, and thereby express their preferences about public policy; preference aggregation -- how well these preferences are aggregated for effective policy-making; and public accountability -- what means exist of holding the governors accountable for their decisions and actions;
· responsive and responsible leadership: the attitudes of political leaders towards their role as public trustees --
A basic distinction can be made between ‘libertarian’, ‘statist’, ‘communitarian’, and ‘corporatist’ regimes. Communitarian regimes are most likely to face problems of governance, with statist regimes in close pursuit; but neither libertarian (structural fragmentation) nor corporatist (structural patronage) regimes escape the risk of governance crises, although they may not be as deep and serious as those facing the other two types. Communitarian regimes are likely to encounter more fundamental problems because of their lack of autonomy from other structures in society (structural embeddedness). The notion of a civic public realm is difficult to develop and institutionalise, and governance structures tend to be informal and formal associational life weak. As a result, community interests are typically articulated in a ‘raw’ fashion, making the task of aggregating preferences particularly difficult. Governance crises tend to occur because of the incompatibility of unprocessed community demands on the one hand, and limited public resources on the other. In the light of a weak social capital base, regimes find it difficult to cope with these pressures, thus making effective governance hard, if not impossible. In the statist regime, where power is concentrated in the state, the most probable cause of a governance crisis stems from the alienating effects of such a monopolisation of power (structural monopoly). By ignoring the citizen-control dimension, leaders become increasingly arrogant and unresponsive, thus seriously deprecating available social capital. Most states in sub-Saharan Africa fall into the quadrant between communitarian and statist regimes, although closer to the communitarian type.48
Also, governance is performance-oriented: it examines how well a polity is capable of mobilising and managing social capital, both fixed and movable, so as to strengthen the civic public realm; and it treats regime, the organisation of political relations, as essential for social and economic progress. Governance offers a meaningful way of relating to the ongoing efforts in the African continent to reverse autocracy and build democracy; in fact, the prime contemporary challenge in African politics is how to restore the civic public realm. However, the trend in post-independence politics in most African countries has been to disintegrate the civic public realm inherited from the colonial powers and replace it with rivalling communal or primordial realms, all following their own informal rules. The result has been at least four major shortcomings, which are the cause of ‘bad governance’ in Africa:49
· Personalised rule – this means not only that public policy-making lacks the logic and empirical content that typically characterises such an activity in other contexts, but also that governance structures are largely informal and subject to arbitrary change. There is ample evidence that this type of rule has had dire consequences for development in Africa:50 for example, it encourages clientelist relations that may generate trust on a dyadic or two-person basis, but discourages the growth of new forms of trust and reciprocity that transcend such rudimentary and narrow relations.
· Frequent violations of human rights – initially, Africans saw human rights as communitarian or group-based;
· Lack of delegation of authority by central institutions – a prominent feature of African post-independence rule has been the tendency to curb any independent political activity outside an institutional network controlled by a ruling party-state.52
· Tendency of withdrawal from politics – individuals evade rather than engage the political authorities. The shrinking of the civic public realm has limited the opportunities for citizens to use their ‘voice option’:53 they have been reluctant to speak out for fear of being jailed or maltreated in other ways. Instead, they have become increasingly dependent on their ‘exit option’: their ability to vote with their feet to escape political control.
Finally, governance is particularly relevant for African societies who, in the rapid rush to decolonisation and the crystallisation of post-colonial authoritarianism, have rarely enjoyed the opportunity to legislate a form of government rightfully their own. It is an affirmation of a people’s right to self-determination, to participate fully in political affairs, and to make their rulers accountable to them for their actions.54 Also of particular significance is that African governments, for budgetary reasons, have been forced to contract their activities: the state simply does not reach out into society as it used to do. Some believe that this vacuum creates opportunities for civil society to grow,55 and state contraction may, therefore, pave the way for stronger governance structures.56
Democracy and Governance: The Practicalities
The South African government won the approval of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU)/African Union (AU) July 2001 summit in Lusaka to present the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, Italy with South African President Thabo Mbeki’s Millennium Africa Recovery Plan (MAP), now merged with President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal’s Omega Plan, but first conceived in 2000 as the so-called ‘Marshall Plan for Africa’, and then mutating into the New African Initiative (NAI).
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad)
MAP’s final version, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) project, provides for a development partnership between Africa and the world’s richer nations, the G8 (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the United States), with the condition that countries on the continent root out corruption and practice good governance.57 Although actively promoted by Mbeki, the philosophy behind, and objectives of, Nepad is co-sponsored by Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Following the presentation in Genoa, it was agreed to establish a high-level liaison office to work with committed African leaders to develop a concrete and more detailed plan of action to be presented to the G8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada in June 2002.
Nepad is meant to confound ‘Afro-pessimism’, and what The Economist famously called ‘The Hopeless Continent’; or what is more generally known as the ‘African condition’, and what General Obasanjo, as a private citizen, almost a decade-and-a-half ago depicted as the continent of ‘drought, debt, desertification, disease, and death’.58 The plan argues that Africa needs to involve itself much more closely in the global economy, and to achieve this it needs to implement a series of reforms, which will be supported by the G8 through a combination of external debt relief and improved access to markets in the developed world, in particular by ending agricultural subsidies. Increased financial aid is mentioned, but is deliberately downplayed in Nepad in order to emphasise that much of the thinking behind the plan is that the onus for change should lie with African leaders. The key reforms proposed under Nepad include:59
· the establishment of civil order and more democratic government;
A central tenet of the plan is that while none of the abovementioned is new ideas or concepts, African governments would not think of them as having been imposed by donor countries, but instead as the basic rules of the new global economy. Not surprisingly, scepticism about Nepad abounds. In particular, the key factor that is supposed to drive it forward is peer pressure based on clearly agreed timetables and targets that are drawn up by African governments. The idea that this will encourage many older and essentially autocratic African leaders, such as the presidents of Gabon, Togo, and Zimbabwe, to implement reform is probably fanciful. However, that should not consign the plan to failure. Mbeki has constantly stressed that, although the goals may be ambitious, there is still a strong moral obligation to push such ideas forward and to keep striving to promote African development. Moreover, though many African governments may be recalcitrant, if some pivotal countries do adopt Nepad and start to grow rapidly these will serve as a trailblazer for others to follow; they could then act in mutual support of each other, promote African issues on the global agenda, and be able to talk to other African leaders from a much stronger political and economic base.60
In reviewing the report on Nepad at the inaugural summit of the heads of state and government of the AU in Durban, South Africa in July 2002, and in accepting the Durban Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic, and Corporate Governance (2002), African leaders were once again reminded that successive OAU summits have taken decisions aimed at ensuring stability, peace and security, promoting closer economic integration, ending unconstitutional changes of government, supporting human rights, and upholding the rule of law and good governance. The most recent among these are: the African Charter for Popular Participation in Development (1990); the Abuja Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community – AEC (1991); the Cairo Declaration Establishing the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution (1993); the Protocol on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1998); the Grand Bay Declaration and Plan of Action for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (1999); the Framework for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government (2000); the Declaration on the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Co-operation – CSSDCA (2000); the Constitutive Act of the African Union – AU (2000); and the Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa (2002). Consequently, African leaders acknowledge that the continent “faces grave challenges and the most urgent of these are, in particular, the eradication of poverty and the fostering of socio-economic development, through democracy and good governance”. It is to the achievement of these twin objectives that the Nepad process is principally directed.61
African leaders also reaffirm their “commitment to the promotion of democracy and its core values” in their respective countries by:62
· upholding the rule of law;
Because they believe in “just, honest, transparent, accountable, and participatory government”, as well as “probity in public life”, they undertake “to combat and eradicate corruption”, which both “retard economic development and undermine the moral fabric of society”. They also express their determination “[to restore] stability, peace and security in the African continent”, as these are “essential conditions for sustainable development, alongside democracy, good governance, human rights, social development, [the] protection of the environment, and sound economic management”.63 In the light of Africa’s recent history, “respect for human rights has … [acquired] an importance and urgency of its own … the quality of a democracy is judged … [by] the protection it provides for each individual citizen and for the vulnerable and disadvantaged groups” in society. Leaders, therefore, undertake “to do more to advance the cause of human rights in Africa generally and, specifically, to end the moral shame exemplified by the plight of women, children, disabled, and ethnic minorities in conflict situations in Africa”.64 Consequently, initiatives will also be directed at capacity building to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts on the African continent.
In support of democracy, good governance, and human rights, African leaders agree to:65
· ensure that national constitutions reflect the democratic ethos, and provide for demonstrably accountable governance;
· safeguard the independence of the judicial system in order to prevent corruption and the abuse of power;
In welcoming the strong international interest in, and support for, Nepad, and working on the assumption that ‘Africa’s prosperity will be a multiplier in world prosperity’, African leaders intend to work with their development partners and the wider international community to:66
· forge new forms of international co-operation in which the benefits of globalisation are more evenly shared;
The Africa Action Plan (AAP), adopted at the Kananaskis G8 meeting, constitutes an exciting and critically important step towards the renewal of Africa. This initial response of the G8 to Nepad commits the North to at least 120 specific actions to advance the Nepad agenda. The response encompasses eight spheres of social activity, ranging from peace and security, through economic growth, to human resource development, gender equality, and the fight against HIV/AIDS. Because of the seriousness with which it views the implementation of the AAP, the G8 meeting agreed that the 2003 summit in Evian, France would review progress made with the action plan. Much detailed work will, therefore, have to be done during the next year in order to begin to implement the extensive programme agreed between Africa and the G8. In one of his weekly letters in ANC Today on the African National Congress website, Mbeki cautions: “We must avoid the danger that, rather than engaging the positive development challenges the [Africa] Action Plan poses, we are drawn [in]to a counter-productive campaign against the governments and institutions of the developed North. We must balance the necessary exercise of our right and duty to protest against an unjust world order, with the need practically to engage our development partners in the Nepad partnership. We must also understand that this is the first time that the developed North has adopted a comprehensive, integrated programme for African development, based exclusively on the express wishes of Africa.”67
Mbeki laments the persistent effort to present the relationship Africa is seeking to build with the North as one between hapless African recipients of aid and benevolent donors because it is precisely this mould that Nepad seeks to break. Because of this demeaning view of Africans, many of the comments made about the success or otherwise of G8 summits have been predicated on how much aid would flow to Africa. These observations have also completely ignored the commitment that Africa has made as Africans to enter into its own partnership and utilise its own resources, however limited, to implement the Nepad agenda. “According to the traditional paradigm”, says Mbeki, “the incorrect proposition is made that Africa will only succeed if the North increases charitable donor assistance to fill the African begging bowl. Fortunately, the G8 has understood Africa’s rejection of this relationship.”68 Consequently, the G8 has taken a number of specific decisions in response to Nepad, backed by the requisite resource commitments -- these must be provided individually by each G8 member state, because the G8 is a consultative forum, not an organisation such as the European Union (EU):69
· develop a joint plan by 2003 for building African capacity in peace-support operations at regional and continental levels;
These are only some of the decisions contained in the AAP; Mbeki then concludes: “We must ensure that these decisions are translated into concrete actions that will end the pessimism about the future of Africa. Our practical response to Nepad and the supporting G8 Africa Action Plan will test our commitment to the objective of a better life for all. Africa’s better tomorrow will depend on what we, as Africans, do and not what we say.”70
Clearly, Nepad is Mbeki’s brain?child, although it represents the collective vision of African leaders. Broadly, the goals of Nepad include:71
· restoring peace and security in Africa;
The most important millennium development goal (MDG) is to reduce the rate of the African population suffering under conditions of extreme poverty (living on less than US$1 per day) by half by 2015. But to achieve this goal, a minimum average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 7%, on a sustained basis, is required for the entire African continent.72 When compared with an average GDP growth rate of 2,1% over the decade of the 1990s, and an annual average population growth rate of 2,8%, which would double in 25 years, achieving this goal by the target date will be a Herculean task. It has been calculated that an amount of at least US$64 billion in additional resources each year would be needed to meet the poverty-reduction goal by 2015; and, under present conditions, the continent cannot hope to meet this target, unless the situation improves considerably under Nepad. Resource mobilisation, therefore, becomes a key challenge under the plan.73 Meanwhile, Mbeki sees “very definite progress towards democratic systems”; he is pressing all African governments to join Nepad, which includes a peer review mechanism to monitor future good governance -- and the appeal for US$64 billion annually in global assistance for investment and trade into Africa is predicated on a promise by African leaders to break with the past record of economic decline, corruption and authoritarianism, and make a collective commitment to multiparty democracy and the rule of law.74
But there are definite obstacles to Nepad’s success:75
· The institutional capacity and political will on which the review mechanism will depend are missing.
The ‘Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic, and Corporate Governance’ is rather brief on ‘economic and corporate governance’ – and, strangely, in this particular section it does not mention the word ‘corruption’ once (although in the previous section on ‘democracy and good political governance’ it is referred to on three separate occasions). Surely, constant efforts to combat corruption are central to good economic and corporate governance. Nevertheless, the declaration makes it clear that “good economic and corporate governance, including transparency in financial management, are essential prerequisites for promoting economic growth and reducing poverty … [and] enhancing sustainable development”. Nepad has, therefore, approved some 11 prioritised (internationally, regionally, and domestically accepted) codes and standards that all African countries “should strive to observe … [and] need to … [comply] with as a minimum requirement, given a country’s capacity to do so”. These codes and standards have the potential to promote market efficiency, control wasteful spending, consolidate democracy, and encourage private financial flows; and these have been developed by a number of international organisations through consultative processes that involved the active participation of, and endorsement by, African countries.77 These instruments are:78
· Code of Good Practices on Transparency in Monetary and Financial Policies.
Nepad believes that poverty can only be effectively tackled through the promotion of democracy, good governance, peace and security; the development of human and physical resources; gender equality; openness to international trade and investment; the allocation of appropriate funds to the social sector; and new partnerships between governments and the private sector -- and with civil society.79 Furthermore, it reaffirms the conviction that “the development of Africa is ultimately the responsibility of Africans themselves”. This begins with the enhancement of human resources through the provision of more and better education and training, especially in information and communications technology (ICT) and other skills central to a globalising environment; and better health care, with priority attention to addressing HIV/AIDS and other pandemic diseases. Nepad will ensure the full and effective integration of women in political and socio-economic development, and will foster new partnerships in which the private sector will be the veritable engine of economic growth, while governments concentrate on the development of infrastructure and the creation of a conducive, macro-economic environment. This includes the appropriate institutional framework to guide the formulation and execution of economic policy.80
As Nepad is founded on a business-like assessment of the political and socio-economic realities in Africa today, it does not underestimate the challenges involved in achieving its objectives.81 One such challenge is the combating of corruption, of which the example of Zambia is, perhaps, instructive. Underlying Zambia’s post-independence politics has been an indigenous society without control of capital or skills, without a developed middle class, or the institutions to govern such a society. This gave centrality to the role of the post-independence state: the state was important not only for what it could do in the form of growth and development, but also for what could be done with it -- as a mechanism for ensuring upward mobility or patronage, and private access to public resources or corruption.82 In such circumstances, the apparatus of the state primarily became the means for an elite to acquire wealth, rather than serving as a corrective mechanism to promote social justice and economic development.83 Moreover, politics in Zambia has always been concerned, to a significant extent, with the management of spoils, of patronage and corruption, within the political system. However, corruption, while widespread and seemingly on the increase, is not, and has not been, endemic. While the ‘face’ of corruption and its forms has been modified by political change, the phenomenon itself has not been significantly contained or reduced. Although concepts of honest and dishonest governance survive and figure in political debate, what political reform would seem not to have been able to do is to alter the fundamental structural determinants of corruption that have remained largely unaffected by the progress of reform.84 If anything, liberalisation may have increased rather than decreased the scope of corruption. Clientelism has proved difficult to eradicate, liberalisation has weakened the regulatory capacity of the state, privatisation has afforded opportunities for the political elite to acquire public assets cheaply or fraudulently, and market forces have not measurably reduced the charging of gate-keeping rents or bribes.85 Despite the initial hopes of the ruling MMD, development policy remains, too often, contingent upon how government plans overlap with personal enrichment projects.
Where foreign donor pressures for anti-corruption policies have intruded too deeply on particularistic political imperatives, government and donors have come into conflict and the government has even been prepared to forego aid rather than give way. Consequently, Zambia has had aid suspended since mid-1996 because of donor anger over alleged corruption, electoral fraud, and government suppression of the opposition.86 Indeed, Zambia regularly comes under the international spotlight: the Paris Consultative Group of Zambia’s main international donors annually discusses the country’s governance record in areas such as human rights and corruption within the ruling MMD; London-based Amnesty International focuses on the police force, providing evidence of an increase in extra-judicial shootings and torture, as well as rising political interference including the active recruitment of MMD supporters into the police force; while New York-based Human Rights Watch reports cases of torture, and give examples of government harassment of the independent press and opposition parties. Clearly, post-1991 political change in Zambia has not managed to reduce the levels of factional conflict and the corruption associated with it, despite the fact that the management of these forces was one of the objectives that change was intended to achieve. The new politics managed to change the forms that corruption took, to limit its incidence in certain ways, and to make Zambians conscious of the problem. However, like water seeking its level, clientelism, factional competition and corruption flourished -- if not in one way, then in another. There is, therefore, a need to develop strategies that uncouple private accumulation through corruption from access to public office through politics.87
The 2002 global corruption survey of the Berlin-based NGO, Transparency International (TI), ranks countries on a Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and is based on several independently conducted surveys.88 It rates Zambia as the third most corrupt country in southern Africa – the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Mozambique, and Swaziland are not listed, either because of the lack of a minimum of three surveys available for ranking, or because there were not sufficiently reliable data. Zambia is also the sixth most corrupt country of the 20 African countries listed -- a situation that could lead to renewed donor pressure for increased transparency in government. In fact, Zambia is ranked 77th out of the 102 countries surveyed worldwide: this ranking (2,6) confirms that the country is regarded as a place where corruption in public and business life is widespread; of the listed countries, only Uganda (93rd -- 2,1), Angola and Madagascar (98th -- 1,7), and Nigeria (101st -- 1,6) are ranked lower.89 Corruption is defined as the abuse of public office for private gain -- for example, bribe taking by public officials in public procurement -- and no distinction is made between administrative and political corruption.90 The CPI builds awareness of the corruption issue, and it adds to pressure on governments to directly address the problem and the damaged image of their country that low rankings in the index reflect.91
Corruption Perceptions Index 2002: African Countries Surveyed
Rank Country CPI Score# Surveys Used‡ Standard Deviation? High-Low Range?
24
Botswana
6,4
5
1,5
5,3
– 8,9
Source: Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2002, pp 4, 5 & 6.
* Main Nepad sponsors -- Algeria was not included, either because of the lack of a minimum of three surveys available for ranking, or because there were not sufficiently reliable data.
Peter Eigen, Chairman of TI, speaking at the launch of the CPI 2002, said that “… [in] the past year, we have seen setbacks to the credibility of democratic rule … [politicians] increasingly pay lip-service to the fight against corruption, but they fail to act on the clear message of … [the index]: that they must clamp down on corruption to break the vicious circle of poverty and graft … [In fact,] good governance and transparency are essential to sustainable development”.92 He was supported by the Tunku
Seven out of every ten countries score less than 5 out of a clean score of 10 in the CPI 2002, which reflects perceptions of business people and country risk analysts of levels of corruption among politicians and public officials; corruption is perceived to be rampant in Nigeria, Madagascar, Angola, and Kenya, countries with a score of less than 2. The index draws on 15 surveys from 9 independent institutions; a rolling survey of polls taken between 2000 and 2002, the CPI includes only those countries that feature in at least three surveys -- unfortunately, there is not sufficient data on other countries, many of which are likely to be very corrupt.94 While the main Nepad sponsor countries all score below 5 on the index:
South Africa (36th -- 4,8),
All the G8 countries, the main backers of Nepad, score above 5:
Canada (7th – 9,0),
It is, therefore, self-evident that Africa still has a great deal to do as far as fighting corruption is concerned.
An African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)
The Kananaskis G8 meeting ended with world leaders signing a development deal with Africa on the basis of the Nepad commitment to clean government; in other words, governments that meet certain criteria of democratic rule will be able to benefit from the G8 plan. But who will define these criteria? The new AU is an all-inclusive body of African governments that were members of the OAU; their leaders include unsavoury characters, their countries becoming members by default, not by qualification. Nepad must not be another club of all-African leaders, but only those who meet the criteria of clean and democratic government. It must be the home of leaders who buy into the philosophy of ‘peer review’ -- the latest lexicon on the African continent. Nepad must be the place where good leaders are promoted to membership. That way, the new momentum will not be smothered by the bad elements that still populate many an African government office. This is the challenge for the AU, for Nepad, and for African leaders. For if they say, as they have done, that Madagascar cannot attend an AU summit because there is an indeterminable government in Antananarivo,95 why allow Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and his never-ending machinations to perpetuate his rule? Where do you draw the line in peer review?96
At the AU summit meeting in Durban, African leaders agreed to establish an African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) by 1 April 2003, ‘voluntarily acceded to’ by any member state of the AU as an African self-monitoring instrument. The mechanism outlines the institutions and processes that will guide future peer reviews, and its mandate is “to ensure that the policies and practices of participating states conform to the [mutually] agreed … values, codes and standards contained in the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic, and Corporate Governance”. The APRM, therefore, seeks “to promote adherence to, and fulfilment of, the commitments” made in this declaration. The primary purpose of the mechanism is “to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development, and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration” through the sharing of experiences and the reinforcement of successful and best practice, including identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs for capacity building. Every peer review exercise carried out under the auspices of the APRM must be “technically competent, credible, and free of political manipulation”. Any AU member state wishing to participate in the APRM must notify the Nepad Heads-of-State-and-Government Implementation Committee, and this notification will entail an undertaking to submit to periodic peer reviews, as well as to facilitate such reviews, and “to be guided by agreed parameters for good political, economic and corporate governance”.97 Funding for the peer review mechanism will come from assessed contributions by participating member states; and, in order to enhance its dynamism, the conference of participating countries will review the APRM once every five years.98
The operations of the APRM are to be directed and managed by a 5 to 7-member Eminent Persons’ Panel, to be appointed by the heads of state and government (HsSG) of the participating countries, and will serve for a period of up to 4 years, retiring on rotation. Members of the panel must be Africans who have distinguished themselves in careers that are considered relevant to the work of the mechanism – in other words, they must have expertise in the areas of political governance, macro-economic and public financial management, and corporate governance -- must be “persons of high moral stature”, and must have “demonstrated commitment to the ideals of Pan-Africanism”. The composition of the panel must, however, “also reflect [a] broad regional balance, gender equity, and cultural diversity”. The HsSG of the participating countries will appoint one of the members of the panel as chairperson, who will serve a maximum period of 5 years, and who (besides the criteria mentioned above) will be a person with a proven leadership record in one of the areas of government, the public sector, development activity, or private business. The panel will have an ‘oversight function’ over the review process, its mission and duties to be outlined in a charter, which will not only spell out the reporting arrangements to the HsSG of the participating countries, but also ensure “the independence, objectivity, and integrity” of the process. The panel will be supported by a secretariat that has “both the technical capacity to undertake the analytical work that underpins the review process, and [whose expertise] also conforms to the principles of the APRM”. The secretariat will, therefore, maintain extensive database information on political and economic developments in all participating countries, prepare background documents for the peer review teams, propose performance indicators, and track the performance record of individual countries. With the approval of the panel, the secretariat may engage the services of African experts and institutions that it considers competent and appropriate to act as its agents in the peer review process.99
At the point of formally acceding to the peer review process, each AU member state clearly defines a time-bound Programme of Action for implementing the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic, and Corporate Governance, including periodic reviews. This process will entail reviews of the policies and practices of participating countries to ascertain progress being made towards “achieving mutually accepted goals and compliance with agreed political, economic and corporate governance values, codes and standards”.100 There will be four types of review:101
· The first review is the base review that is carried out within eighteen months of a country becoming a member of the APRM process.
The peer review process should spur countries “to consider seriously the impact of domestic policies, not only on internal political stability and economic growth, but also on neighbouring countries” – 102 it will promote ‘mutual accountability’, as well as ‘compliance with best practice’. Bearing in mind that African countries are at different levels of development, on joining the APRM process, a country will be assessed (the base review) and a timetable (programme of action) for affecting progress towards achieving the agreed standards and goals will be drawn up by the country in question, taking into account the particular circumstances of that country.103 The peer review process will consist of five stages:104
· Stage One will involve a study of the political, economic and corporate governance, and development environment in the country to be reviewed, based principally on up-to-date background documentation prepared by the APRM secretariat, and material provided by national, sub-regional, continental and international institutions.
· In Stage Two, the review team will visit the country concerned where its priority order of business will be to carry out the widest possible range of consultations with the government, the public service, political parties, parliamentarians, and representatives of CSOs, including the media, academe, the trade union movement, the business community, and professional associations.
· In Stage Three, the review team’s report is prepared on the basis of the background documentation and briefing material gathered in Stage One, and the information provided in-country by official and unofficial sources during the wide-ranging consultations and interactions with all stakeholders in Stage Two. The report must be measured against the applicable political, economic and corporate governance commitments made by, and the programme of action of, the country in question:
· In Stage Four, the review team’s report is submitted to the participating HsSG, through the APRM secretariat, for their consideration and adoption, including any decision they might wish to take. The duration of the review process per country should not be longer than 6 months from the date of commencement of Stage One up to the date the report is submitted for consideration by the HsSG in Stage Four.
· In Stage Five, the review report is formally and publicly tabled in key continental and sub-regional structures, such as the Pan-African Parliament, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the AU’s envisaged Peace and Security Council (PSC), and Economic, Social and Cultural Council (Ecosoc). This final stage of the review process takes place 6 months after the HsSG of participating member countries had considered the review report.
If the government of the country in question shows a demonstrable will to rectify identified shortcomings, then it will be incumbent upon participating governments in the APRM process to provide what support they can, as well as to urge donor governments and agencies to also come to the assistance of the country under review. However, if the necessary political will is not forthcoming from the government concerned, the participating states should first do everything practicable to engage it in “constructive dialogue”, offering in the process technical and other appropriate assistance. If dialogue proves unavailing, the participating HsSG “may wish to put the government on notice of their collective intention to proceed with appropriate measures by a given date”. The interval should concentrate the mind of the government and provide a further opportunity for addressing the identified shortcomings under a process of constructive dialogue. All considered such measures should always be utilised as a last resort.105 Although the jury is still out, so to speak, the ‘voluntary [nature of] accession’ to the APRM, and the weak enforcement regime suggested by the wording that the HsSG ‘may wish to put the [offending] government on notice’, could lead to the emasculation of the peer review system almost from inception.
When African leaders go to G8 meetings to plead Africa’s cause, it is the face of war and starvation that the world sees: from Sierra Leone and Liberia, to the DRC and Angola, to Rwanda and Burundi, and on to Zimbabwe. And it is correct that the world sees that, for governments cannot expect to be congratulated for doing the right thing – that is what they are in office for. When they fail to rule justly, as many leaders on the African continent are doing, they should expect to be chastised. It is here that peer review comes in. Who will tell President Mugabe of Zimbabwe that he has gone totally off the rails, or King Mswati III of Swaziland that he should allow his citizens to have a say in how they are ruled? Clearly, the peer review mechanism is about African leaders telling each other where one of them is going wrong.106 But the very concept of peer review is a discomfiting one, and the fact that most governments seemed to have given it the nod should also raise suspicion. The wording is very clever, further testimony to President Mbeki’s astuteness and creativity as a diplomat to add to his reinvention of ‘quiet diplomacy’, and use of ‘ambiguity’ – some would say ‘schizophrenia’ – to save the face of his African peers, and reassure Western governments about his bona fides. Assumptions of the word ‘peer’, already gives any errant leader an advantage: it raises him to the same level as his putative accusers. Likewise, ‘review’ places any action firmly in the aftermath of a hypothetical abuse of power. One of the main arguments of the SADC for endorsing President Mugabe’s regime is that his controversial land-seizure programme in Zimbabwe has progressed beyond the point of no return. So, it can be reviewed, but since it is water under the bridge, it becomes an academic exercise.107 On the other hand, such language is typically diplomatic, and could equally point to a determination to institute an ongoing behind-the-scenes discourse on ‘good governance’, done in accordance with ‘African needs, customs, and history’. Indeed, this is the prime philosophy behind Nepad, to empower Africa ‘to find African solutions to African problems’; and -- so the argument goes -- even if mistakes were made, these would always be productive ones, in the sense that they would contribute to the evolution of ‘Afro-democracy’.108
Doing things in the open is the Western way, as an historical result of the Enlightenment, which placed a high premium on public knowledge accessible to all. It is a cornerstone of democracy, expressed in the loose set of doctrines called ‘human rights’, according to the influential contemporary French political philosopher Claude Lefort.109 Human rights, in his view, set itself up as an alternative to state power, without sabotaging it or revolting against it. People who invoke human rights are not only victims of abuses of such rights, but are also in the legal driving seat, in the sense that they simultaneously define what those rights are. Anyone who has had exposure to human rights law will testify to its fluidity -- and constant mutability. Not only is there a plethora of treaties, charters and codes, but the relevance of these to particular cases often form the bulk of legal proceedings. This is the weakness of human rights law – one needs lawyers, and one needs time and money. Campaigns aiming to highlight rights abuses are always at a disadvantage, because governments can without much legal manoeuvring relegate them to non-urgency, subject to the vagaries of court schedules and meticulous ‘judgery’. So, governments generally have little to fear from human rights activists, as they are never really in a position to directly threaten the state’s power. But politicians understand that this process happens away from parliaments and executive power centres, and that it severs their command and control lines -- disabuses them of their prerogatives. Human rights, says Lefort, devolves power to such an extent that it becomes ‘empty’; or to put it in layman’s terms: politicians begin to feel ignored, or the victims of boring processes such as the third reading of obscure legislation in barely quorumed parliaments. Of course, such devolution of power can only promote democratic practices. Bringing rights abuses into the spotlight of a public court allows minority sections of society to argue and theorise about such rights. This is what modern parliaments also do, but the difference is that in court it leads to enforceable actions and not just wasted verbiage. The danger with a peer review mechanism is that it will allow the state to usurp this process. Instead of victims remaining in the driving seat and determining, with the help of clever lawyers, what exactly their abusers did wrong, their non-peers (politicians aiming to stay in power) will now determine the shape and form of such rights. It might just turn out to be a credible way to get rid of, or dilute the influence of troublesome civil-society sectors. Most politicians prefer that their own sort, with similar ambitions, worldviews, and Machiavellian desires judge their actions.110
In early July 2002, despots, monarchs, and ‘democratically elected’ leaders from across Africa came to take a seat at the birth of the AU in Durban, South Africa. Before inaugurating the new union, President Mbeki said at the 38th and final summit meeting of the OAU: “Africa’s continuing underdevelopment and global marginalisation demand that the continent makes a new beginning. We have to overcome the debilitating effect of inertia, which makes us act in the old ways to which we are accustomed, to do things as we have always done …”.111 And, indeed, there are two opposing worldviews represented in the new AU: the one, a vision of an ordered, democratic, and accountable Africa, in partnership with itself and the rest of the world in a mutually beneficial economic relationship; the other, represented in its most extreme form by leaders such as Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who symbolise a system of unaccountability and rule by impulse -- boosted by a large gathering of leaders who are, in the main, unaccountable, while they know that the game is changing but, nevertheless, feel little sense of urgency. At the launch of the AU there was an array of personalities representing Africa’s ruling elite, from the reprobates to the respected, from the heroes to the villains, and from the eccentrics to the demagogues. The drivers of Nepad and other advocates of an African revival have been sharply criticised for not excluding from the start leaders such as Gaddafi and Mugabe, who represent values which run counter to Nepad and the AU Constitutive Act – leaders who rule over essentially dysfunctional states, and who peddle ‘creative interpretations’ of what democracy really means. But the AU is, by definition, an inclusive body and the voluntary mechanism of Nepad and the peer review system will, in theory, ultimately exclude those who do not abide by the rules of the game.112
Clearly, Durban 2002 was the first step in launching the AU, getting leaders to embrace Nepad, paving the way for a 15-member African peace and security council, discussing comprehensive electoral monitoring machinery, and broaching the far-reaching concept of a continent-wide non-aggression pact by African nations. Mbeki, as first chairman of the AU, set the tone when he envisioned how the destiny of Africans would be redefined as the union sets its sights on achieving sustainable development, peace, and respect for human rights, as well as defeating poverty, disease, and ignorance: “Through our actions, let us proclaim to the world that … [Africa] is a continent of democracy, a continent of democratic institutions and culture -- indeed, a continent of good governance, where the people participate and the rule of law is upheld.” His mission is to create a band of like-minded African democrats who share his goals of competitive markets, technological advancement, progressing economies, and industrious populations. To him, the AU is the framework and Nepad the mechanism to systematically break down the until-now-prevailing political and social order and replace it with a functional network. Moreover, some observers feel that there are compelling reasons why the AU can work. Its structure is such that it removes total control from the heads of state and government, as was the case under the OAU. A great deal of power will be devolved to the Commission -- the administrative structure which will run the organisation in-between summits. There will be a Peace and Security Council, authorised to intervene in countries that violate the core principles of the organisation. And there will be an African Parliament, tasked with connecting the AU to the sentiments of the people that national legislatures represent. Roles for civil society have been crafted into the AU’s Constitutive Act, so that it does not degenerate into the ‘old boys’ club’ that the OAU became.113
Under Nepad (as an integral component of the AU), in return for increased aid, trade access, and debt relief, African governments will commit themselves to standards of good governance and democracy through a system of peer review. But without upholding these core principles, donors and business will be loath to invest. Yet translating governance buzzwords into reality require considerable institutional capacity and the sort of political will hitherto lacking in Africa. Business and civil society have a key role to play in holding leadership to these promises, often made abroad but seldom kept at home, though their relationship with African governments is typically too close or too contested. Whether the developed world is prepared to offer more than the US$6 billion pledged at the Kananaskis G8 meeting depends on Africans providing proof of their intent to crack down on deviant states like Zimbabwe. Africa also needs to choose its flag-bearers with care; Nepad is spearheaded by Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa, not all examples of democracy, good governance, and human rights.114 An editorial in the Washington Post (Washington, DC), noting that this “could be the year [2002] when the rich world focuses on Africa”, advised African leaders to demonstrate that they mean to live up to their Nepad rhetoric – “Zimbabwe suggests that they may not”.115 The implications of Mugabe’s reign of terror in Zimbabwe are taking time to sink in, but the critical question is: how badly have Africa, and South Africa, damaged their relations with the West? The unwanted service Mugabe performed for Africa was to bring its relationship with the developed world under critical review and, without doubt, Nepad finds itself at a critical testing point.116
Peer Review, Nepad, and Zimbabwe: The Litmus Test
Already there are signs that African governments are backing away from independent review of their political performance record. South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad astonished, shocked, confused and dismayed diplomats by declaring that the APRM will “not review the political governance of African nations, but … [will] only monitor codes of economic and corporate governance”; the responsibility for “[monitoring] the code of political governance [will fall to] other African institutions”, functioning under the auspices of the AU.117 Although this interpretation confounded South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma and surprised Wiseman Nkuhlu, the head of the Nepad Secretariat, it was confirmed by President Mbeki, who said that the APRM “will not review the political governance of African countries, as this was the task of African Union watchdog institutions” – the proposed AU Peace and Security Council, the to-be-formed Pan-African Parliament, a new AU election monitoring body, and the African Commission for Peoples’ and Human Rights.118 Mbeki continued his obfuscation on this issue by arguing that the AU Constitutive Act already “binds all member states of the AU to its provisions. With regard to matters relating to political governance, the Act … will promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation, and good governance”.119 The term ‘promote’ again points to terminological weakness; and the track record of African states over a period of 39 years of OAU history suggests that African leaders honour any ‘commitment’ of this kind in the breach, rather than otherwise. It now “really looks as though Africa’s leaders have balked at the bold new idea of … independent experts telling them where they are going wrong”. If this is the case, “Africa can kiss Nepad … goodbye. Nepad lives or dies by peer review”.120 Clearly, Mbeki’s volte-face has dented his international image even further, besides the fact that Nepad’s credibility has been seriously battered: “People are talking about … [Nepad] less and less because they don’t believe it will amount to much. The US Administration agrees in principle with Nepad’s goals. But the inaction over Zimbabwe’s persistent breaches of human rights, the inclusion of some very strange people on the Nepad steering committee, and Mbeki’s statement that political criteria are not part of the peer review system give rise to scepticism; the interest level in Nepad wanes as its credibility drops”.121 And, quite pointedly, Canadian Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew warned that G8 financial support to Africa was conditional on political peer review under Nepad.122
Spelling out some of the international implications of Mugabe’s running riot in Zimbabwe, Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic (Washington, DC), advanced the theory that the post?cold war era in the West began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and ended on 11 September 2001, when the twin towers in New York were destroyed in a terrorist attack; similarly, the post-cold war era began in Africa in February 1990 when Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and ended in mid?March 2002 when Mugabe stunted the struggle for freedom in Zimbabwe – and African governments closed ranks in solidarity. Beinart’s argument is that, in both situations, the era’s defining assumption is that democracy is universal. Some countries had progressed further than others, but none had rejected democracy as its ultimate aspiration. In Africa, the end of apartheid coincided with a parallel collapse as dictators from Benin to Zambia gave way to free?market democrats. But, says Beinart, the era of democratic consensus in Africa ended with the decision by the continent’s leaders to bless Mugabe’s rigged election: “That decision demolishes the pretence that Africa’s governments -- even those elected democratically … -- view liberal democracy as the continent’s ultimate aspiration. It doesn’t change the West’s obligations to Africa’s suffering people[s]. But it ends whatever claim Africa’s leaders had on the conscience of the world.”123 Mbeki, according to Beinart, mocked the compact that African governments would dedicate themselves to democracy in return for billions of dollars in foreign assistance through Nepad. The South African president, he says, revealed that the only compact that really mattered was the one African leaders had been making with each other since independence: ‘We won’t criticise your tyranny, if you don’t criticise ours’.124
After Zimbabwe’s rigged elections, former British cabinet minister Peter Mandelson wrote that Nepad depended on the world’s commitment and goodwill, and that Mbeki “will be throwing away any chance of Nepad being taken seriously by G8 members if he does not move towards world opinion over Mugabe. The choice is as raw as that … [He] and his country will come off worse than Britain if Mugabe remains unchecked and the world shrugs and turns away from Africa for another generation”.125 However, Mandelson’s message did not get through. Africa, with few exceptions, nodded assent to the blatantly fraudulent election in Zimbabwe, and Mbeki himself accepted the majority view of the South African Observer Mission (SAOM) that the Zimbabwean election results had been ‘legitimate’,126 and that of a separate South African Parliamentary Observer Team that the poll had been ‘credible’. For good measure, a member of the SAOM remarked that the notion of a ‘free and fair election’ was “a product of Western liberal processes”.127 In stark contrast, the SADC Parliamentary Forum came to the conclusion that the electoral process “did not comply with the norms and standards for elections in the SADC region”;128 and a member of that forum struck a resonating note when he said: “Fraternal cover-ups will only serve to undermine the cause of democracy and hard-won liberation in the region.”129 Furthermore, Canada’s contention, through its High Commissioner to Pretoria, that Nepad had weathered the turmoil over Zimbabwe seem to be “extraordinary nonsense” but, should this reflect a consensus in the G8, Mbeki has succeeded in twisting the West’s arm: ‘Walk away from Africa at your own peril’.130 On this, the Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) commented quite succinctly: “The Canadian statement … signals that collective self?deception about peer review has become the official line. Zimbabwe as a topic will be quarantined so its contagion does not infect the Nepad process, even though the Zimbabwe crisis itself is demonstrably infecting the region. Statements following Mbeki’s visits to Oslo and London … [during the week of 13 to 17 May 2002] confirm that nothing will be allowed to get in the way of the Nepad judgment. The West wants an African success story and Nepad, they hope, is it.”131
The feedback from Mbeki’s inner circle to international criticism of South Africa’s ‘quiet diplomacy’ stance on the Zimbabwean issue – what, with apologies to Chester Crocker, can be called ‘unconstructive non-engagement’ -- is that the presidency is not at all fazed. Mbeki’s aides all sing from the same hymn sheet: the commotion over Zimbabwe will pass, the West is having one of its transient moral spasms and will be back on course before long, and Mbeki will then stand even taller -- these are the inner circle’s ipsissima verba. Thus the Mbeki presidency is unable to see the fundamental principle over which Africa came to the edge of formally separating itself from a shared global view on democracy. Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad, in his jabbering innocence, confirms this by saying that ‘Nepad must be judged on its own merit and not [by] what happens in any one country’; in other words, Mbeki’s position on Zimbabwe has nothing to do with Nepad. In that case, what is the point of a peer review mechanism under the umbrella of Nepad to monitor good governance?132 Also, recently, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s foreign policy guru, Robert Cooper, put down a marker: in the global community, eventually everyone’s business will be everyone else’s business; and Mandela once remarked, rather more bluntly, that tyrants should not be allowed to shelter behind ‘national sovereignty’.133
In a revealing article in Focus, R W Johnson claimed there was a ‘submerged motif’ behind the Zimbabwean crisis. Since the start of the crisis in February 2000, when Mugabe was defeated in a constitutional referendum, there had been repeated summit meetings of the southern African region’s national liberation movements (NLMs); they were strictly secret -- no media, no interviews, no communiqués.134 Johnson writes that “… NLMs -- whatever venial sins they may commit -- are [regarded as] the righteous; they not merely represent the masses but in a sense they are the masses, and as such they cannot … be wrong … No further group can succeed them, for that would mean that the … forces of racism and colonialism … had regrouped and launched a counter?attack. Thus it follows that having won, an NLM should stay in power …”.135 This was the ‘common theology’ of NLMs, and it reached a terminal condition in Zimbabwe first, which is why other NLMs were rushing to resurrect it. But the same inevitable decline would face them all, Johnson believes, and they will then claim that ‘apartheid’, ‘colonialism’ or ‘imperialism’ is trying to make a comeback. This would justify the use of all means, ‘foul or fair’, in order to “defend the gains of liberation”. He continues: “This is what gives the Zimbabwe crisis its huge historic importance: it could yet see that country’s liberation from the NLM culture and the rooting of real democracy in Africa”; also, “Mugabe’s defeat [in the constitutional referendum of February 2000] opened up the prospect that a ruling NLM might actually lose power … Immediately, Mugabe’s struggle to stay in power became a struggle for … [other NLM leaders’] own survival too”.136 It is this perspective which explains why Mbeki has been unwavering in his insistence that ZANU?PF must retain power in Zimbabwe; and it is why the ANC is so wholly unmoved by all the killings, torture, beatings and rape inflicted on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe: “such things happen in the struggle against imperialism” and the only acceptable outcome is “the final triumph of national liberation”. Therefore, election observers sent by Mbeki for the March 2002 presidential poll had really gone on a mission of solidarity with Mugabe and ZANU-PF, not as impartial observers. Their mission was to help cement him back in power, and to describe the result as ‘legitimate’.137 In effect, what Mbeki communicated is that elections should be as ‘free and fair’ as is consistent with returning the ruling party to power.138 This also explains the quixotic approach and conspiratorial mentality to continuously accuse Western powers of a perceived “strategy to weaken governments and parties of the former national liberation movements in southern Africa”.139
One cannot but agree with Johnson’s analysis; but what is significant is that the solidarity meetings of NLMs started even earlier than February 2000. In fact, in October 1998 two meetings of profound longer-term importance for the southern African region took place. The first, in Luanda, Angola, was a meeting of the SADC’s Inter?State Defence and Security Committee (ISDSC) which declared that any threat to a member of the 14?nation community could justify intervention by its allies: an allusion to backing for the DRC by Angolan, Zimbabwean and Namibian troops to help the Kabila regime against an internal rebellion, and incursions by Rwandan and Ugandan forces; and the deployment in Lesotho of soldiers from South Africa and Botswana, under a thinly disguised SADC mandate, to quell an anticipated army mutiny related to disputed general election results.140 These events point to moves to transform the SADC, almost by stealth, into a ‘collective security’ arrangement. But the second, more ominous, meeting was held in Pretoria, South Africa, also in October 1998, and it brought together all the NLM governments in southern Africa – the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) of Angola, the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) of Namibia, the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo) of Mozambique, and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) of Zimbabwe. And, what was the meeting about? -- to devise ways and means of keeping NLM governments in power in their respective countries. This confirms the validity of Johnson’s analysis, but puts the commencement of this strategy some fifteen months earlier.
So, amid Zimbabwe’s slide into political and economic oblivion, the brethren leaders of the African continent closed ranks in solidarity and publicly defended their virtual complicity in the systematic retrogression of the country into an ‘Orwellian-style’, totalitarian state. The Mugabe regime proceeded to consolidate its grip on power by destroying the institutions of democracy: what was left of a free press, an independent judiciary, and bipartisan civil society organisations. It overstepped all the rules of decent practice: manipulating the state-owned media to demonise its political opponents and promote the ruling party, harassing its opponents by giving the police the right to ban rallies and jailing their leadership on trumped-up treason charges, and bullying the judiciary by overturning court rulings. But, most crucially, it used violence – intimidation, abduction, assault and torture, even murder – by the security forces, so-called ‘war veterans’, and ZANU-PF militias in an attempt to cow its opponents into submission. This runs the risk of encouraging a pessimistic investment world to stop taking issues of good governance and democracy in Africa seriously, with negative repercussions for the entire continent and for Nepad. While the US and the EU have broadened the ‘smart sanctions’ that they already had in place against Mugabe and his major henchmen, the Commonwealth troika of John Howard of Australia, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa decided to suspend Zimbabwe for a period of one year, but not to impose economic and other sanctions. Unfortunately, none of these actions is likely to be a major constraint, or have any persuasive effect whatsoever, on the Mugabe regime.141
Leadership in Africa: Success and Failure
Leadership study in mainstream political science has been shunted to the margins of the discipline, largely because of only sporadic interest.142 In theory, leadership is a political and relational concept involving the rulers and the ruled. The grist for the mill of politics is the distribution of values and resources among the rulers and the ruled, and the task of leadership is to referee or guide actions between these two groups of people through the intervention of various institutions and techniques. Politics in a very real sense, therefore, is about leadership -- and, conversely, leadership is a critical dimension of everyday political life.143 Leaders must have the charisma to provide their people with a national vision and purpose -- and the ability to galvanise their efforts towards, and to sustain their enthusiasm in, the pursuit of those objectives. Leadership is essential in all human activity: social, economic, or political. Successful leadership assumes the achievement of set objectives: indeed, the successful ‘management’ of organised efforts. It denotes the ability to define problems, assess options, make decisions, and implement them in a way that is conducive to achieving the desired results. In all leadership situations, success presupposes efforts to develop unifying objectives that enable leader and follower to have a common vision and purpose.144
The Theory of Leadership
In Western societies there is a peculiar cultural orientation regarding the attitude of society towards democratic politics: this removes the leader from any pedestal of being ‘special’ and, as a consequence, there tends to be a social reluctance to acknowledge the very central role leaders play as catalysts of, or causes in, the occurrence of events. Societal attitudes towards leaders are ambiguous at best, fickle at worst. On the one hand, societies tend to view their leaders as ordinary persons whose motives for assuming and exercising high authority in the state must be suspect, given the power which the leadership position confers and the concomitant potential for corruption and self-aggrandisement. On the other hand, on occasion there tends to be outpourings of societal adulation for leaders who just appear to engender confidence, and seem able to solve problems and deliver benefits. In both cases, the perpetual tension in democratic societies between individual freedom and the authority of the state provides the explanation.145 In the tradition of Western democratic politics, societies value and respect the laws of the land and the institutional arrangements, practices, and traditions in which they are enshrined and guaranteed – such values and respect, inform and tone societal adulation of leaders. Thus, people are generally able to counter-balance inevitable rascality on the part of leaders with pride and confidence in the political system. Put another way, the view of society is more one of ‘here is a leader who can make our cherished institutions and “rules of the game” work’; a sentiment radically different from the African societal outlook of ‘here is our cherished leader’.146 The general perception is that Africa needs strong, dedicated, and self-confident leaders who must be creators of great ideas, command the loyalty of their people, and be totally committed to the development of their countries. Skilful leadership is the key to the reforms Africa need and the policy actions that are required for the development of the continent;147 and a true leader must have the courage and ability to communicate reality to his followers.148 In fact, in order to build the new AU, ‘visionary and capable leadership’ is an absolute requirement at the national level.149
Leadership differences among African states are considerable and are usually manifested quite sharply, or more subtly, depending on a factor such as the basis for leadership legitimacy. Another distinguishing feature is a consideration of where such states lie on a continuum spanning closed hegemonies and polyarchies (à la Robert Dahl),150 and including military and one-party rule, other forms of dictatorship, and fledgling democracies. However, in spite of these varieties of leadership system, a core of common compelling concerns persists. Thus, the functioning of African political leadership is most usefully understood as both initiator and part captive of a set of interlocking environmental constants that include issues of development and change, performance imperatives, ideological disunity, and loose institutional arrangements:151
· The task or function of leadership in a society that is characterised by the constant of development and change is not to maintain status quo arrangements but to institute fundamental change, often of a revolutionary type, through the pursuit and attainment of development in whatever form finally conceived by the particular society’s leadership. Here, ‘revolution’ does not necessarily mean violence; it connotes instead both long and short-term radical change; and it captures, in the paraphrased words of Sigmund Neumann,152 a loose or elaborate strategy for fundamentally different modes of organisation, economic property control, social structures, and for breaking the myth of a predominant social order. In sum, it indicates an arresting of, and a major rupture in, the accustomed way in which society functions. Julius Nyerere’s Tanzania, where non-violence was emphasised in search of change, provided perhaps the best example of the completed process. Leadership here also tends to launch intense propaganda and agitation campaigns, and regularly exhorts huge mass mobilisation exercises for purposes of inculcating political awareness and orienting the population to sacrifices necessary in the service of development. Mobilisation on such a scale relates more to societies in which violent revolution has occurred such as Eduardo dos Santos’ Angola and Samora Machel’s Mozambique.
Not all African leaders are really concerned with development; some are pointedly focused on rapaciousness and survival strategies. There are, for example, the exploits of the Central African Republic’s Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Uganda’s Idi Amin Dada, Somalia’s Siyad Barre, Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. But, upon closer look, the evidence suggests that in the early years of their rule these leaders were seized with a vision of development they wished to realise; as the efforts to achieve it became more difficult and exacted tensions on their leadership, they increasingly tended to concentrate almost exclusively on securing their personal survival. Given the extraordinary powers they wielded, these leaders employed sharper authoritarian methods and twinned their personal survival interests with the overall national interest -- thus they embraced an ‘end-justifies-all-means’ mentality. This warped view, which was also common among messianic-type leaders like Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere and Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda, led to increased difficulties with, and the sidelining or failure of, development efforts, intensive institutionalisation of fear and sycophancy, and the predictable consequence of corruption.
· Belief in the inevitability of change, usually with some ideological underpinning, combined with a general societal perception that the task of leadership is to ensure change in a beneficial and non-disruptive manner, applies constant pressure on political leadership to perform -- to alleviate immediate hardships, and fulfil promises and expectations. Indeed, the harsh conditions often evident in underdeveloped African societies create an ever-present crisis orientation, which itself is further fuelled and intensified by raised expectations (an unwillingness to accept the existing state of affairs, including familiar kinds of socio-economic dislocation and backwardness), an upsurge of fierce nationalism, and divisive conflict among the political elites, and may in extreme cases lead to pervasive system instability. But, in essence, the performance imperative emphasises and quickens the pursuit of development and fundamental change. The task of leadership, then, is to perform by making some provision for aspects of modernisation that yield both short and long-term benefits, while causing minimal socio-economic and cultural dislocation or turmoil.
· Political leadership in African societies usually functions in a context of marked ideological disunity. In some cases, there are competing dominant ideologies, as different political factions seek to fill a power vacuum; or, in other cases, there is an official ideology propagated by the leadership in power to which, however, only lip-service is paid since, often, the tenets of the ideology clash either with dominant cultural values or social practices, or both. Leadership functioning is further complicated by the practice of African societies to often liberally borrow ideological tenets from other polities and, while decrying practices to which these are clearly more complementary, seek nonetheless to adopt them, either in a wholesale manner or with some re-tinkering to the needs of a particular African society. A fine example of this feature of leadership politics was the fascination among African leaders with ‘one-party democracy’ (Kamuzu Banda’s Malawi), and ‘African socialism’ (Kenneth Kaunda’s Zambia). Another example is the ‘dominant party system’ which emerged in a society like Seretse Khama’s Botswana; there, the odd marriage of ‘Western’ to indigenous values and conditions have intensified the need for, and importance of, skilful political leadership manoeuvring.
· In African societies, political leadership functions under rules of contestation and participation that can be characterised as rather loose institutional arrangements. In some cases, where the rules are elaborately enshrined in both constitution and law, they are not followed by the ruling leadership nor are they institutionalised, but depend instead upon the exigencies of the given moment for convenient interpretation or ignoring, as exemplified by the exploits in Jerry Rawlings’ Ghana. Indeed, the common orientation that imbues leadership in African countries is the notion that ‘end justifies means’ – and, perhaps, the most common indicator of this are the many instances of rigged elections (Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Daniel arap Moi’s Kenya, and Levy Mwanawasa’s Zambia, to name a few). Sometimes, leadership is imbued with a high sense of political messianism, the best example of which was Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana. This leadership usually co-exists with soft institutional arrangements that are supposed to guarantee individual freedoms. The result of loose institutional arrangements is usually widespread and pervasive corruption from the highest to the lowest levels of society. This is partly because political leaders use weak bureaucracies as instruments of personal power, partly to serve corrupt ends and partly to exercise vigorous authority in pursuit of a reform agenda. Loose institutional arrangements also contribute to entrenched systematised corruption, because the inertia and weakness of the bureaucracy spawn informal and widely valued ways around the ‘problem’. Thus corruption becomes part of the normal way of doing business outside of official codes and regulations, which are usually ignored (Frederick Chiluba’s Zambia, and Benjamin Mkapa’s Tanzania).
Political leadership in Africa operates in an arena often seeded with acrimonious debate: the entire environment is usually pregnant with adversity and dissatisfaction; it is a context where very direct leadership interaction with the people is critical, not only for garnering immediate support but also for keeping track with the temper, tone, spirit, and pulse of dominant sentiments in a fragmented society – sentiments subject to mercurial, unpredictable change. Although leadership is influenced by a set of interlocking constants outlined above (development and change, the performance imperative, ideological disunity, and loose institutional arrangements), it is rarely, if at all, the full captive of any. Indeed, a remarkable peculiarity of African political leadership is the vigour with which it functions in any society, and the ability of leaders to push the boundaries of fragile political systems at will and in whatever direction sanctioned by that leadership – often ignoring individual and civil liberties and, in fact, constraining freedoms over time. The abuse of power and free reign of terror in Idi Amin Dada’s Uganda is a useful example. Political leadership can, therefore, either imbue hope by excellent performance, or sow despair and precipitate more hardship by ineptitude and corruption. It can unite societies and move peoples to positive action, or it can engender apathy and phlegmaticism, hinder the pursuit of development and change, and trigger further crises.153 Its role is always pivotal, never marginal or unimportant; and regardless of what it finally accomplishes, the crucial factor for leadership is the need to interact with the people, set, pursue, and achieve goals, and appear to offer committed performance that can yield clear benefits.154
A summary of the role, function, and context of political leadership in Africa is useful:155
· Leadership functions to found a society by initiating a new order, and making provision for its maintenance, growth, and sustenance.
Competent Leadership: A Sought-After Property
In practice, many observers believe that only drastic measures and radical changes in leadership can arrest the deteriorating economic and social conditions in Africa. In fact, the internal obstacles to development in Africa can be seen as symptoms of poorly designed and non-viable institutions and laws, and of poor leadership. The post-independence political economy in most African countries came to be increasingly characterised by high levels of political, bureaucratic, and economic corruption.156 John Mbaku is of the opinion that Africans are being offered “an opportunity to
Towards an African Renewal
· reciprocity or exchange, a mutually rewarding and beneficial relationship -- the quality of the social interaction among members of a political community;
· trust or compliance, sustained by socialisation into ‘the rules of the game’ -- a normative consensus on the limits of action present in a political community; and
· accountability, innovative role-playing in applying specific rules -- the effectiveness with which the governed can exercise influence over their governors.
respect for the sanctity of the civic public realm, the openness of public policy-making or the readiness to share information with citizens, and adherence to the rule of law; and
· social reciprocities: political equality -- the extent to which citizens or groups of citizens treat each other in an equal fashion; inter-group tolerance -- how far such groups demonstrate tolerance of each other in the pursuit of politics; and inclusiveness in associational membership – how far voluntary associations are capable of transcending the boundaries of such primary social organisations as kinship, ethnicity, or race.
individual human rights were regarded as a Western concept. But following the widespread abuse of human rights by such rulers as Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic (Empire), and Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Africans gradually began to recognise their significance and a more open debate ensued about the importance of civil and political rights for development in Africa. As a result, governments in the continent can no longer and at will, by invoking the demand for national unity, violate the human rights of their citizens.51
There was, therefore, a reluctance to decentralise authority to independent institutions of local governance, and to marginalise civil society structures. By curbing associational life, African regimes have fostered blind compliance and a lack of concern for a strong civic public realm.
· the prevention and reduction of conflict throughout Africa;
· wider respect for human rights;
· increasing investment in human resources, especially in the health and education sectors;
· policies aimed at diversifying African economies and boosting trade with the rest of the world; and
· ensuring that Africa is in a position to adopt new technologies and able to combat the range of diseases that afflicts the continent, from HIV/AIDS to malaria.
· adhering to a governmental separation of powers, including an independent judiciary and an effective parliament (legislature);
· promoting the equality of all citizens before the law, including equality of opportunity for all;
· safeguarding individual liberties and collective freedoms, including the right to form and join political parties and trade unions (in conformity with the constitution); and
· acknowledging the inalienable right of the individual to participate, by means of free, credible and democratic processes, in periodically electing leaders for a fixed term of office.
· promote political representation, thus providing for all citizens to participate in the political process in a free and fair political environment;
· enforce strict adherence to the position of the AU on unconstitutional changes of government, and other AU decisions aimed at promoting democracy, good governance, and peace and security;
· strengthen and, where necessary, establish an appropriate electoral administration and oversight bodies
(electoral commissions), and provide the necessary resources and capacity to conduct elections which are free, fair, and credible;
· reassess and, where necessary, strengthen the AU and sub-regional election monitoring mechanisms and procedures;
· heighten public awareness of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, especially in educational institutions;
· adopt clear codes, standards and indicators of good governance at the national, sub-regional and continental levels;
· develop accountable, efficient and effective civil service institutions;
· ensure the effective functioning of parliaments (legislatures) and other accountability institutions, including parliamentary oversight committees and anti-corruption bodies;
· facilitate the development of vibrant civil society organisations (CSOs), including strengthening human rights institutions at the national, sub-regional and continental levels;
· support the Charter, Commission, and Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights as important instruments for ensuring the promotion, protection and observance of human rights, including the strengthening of co-operation with the UN High Commission for Human Rights; and
· ensure responsible free expression, including the freedom of the press.
· create a stable international economic environment in which African countries can achieve growth through greater market
access for their exports, and the removal of trade barriers, especially non-tariff barriers, and other forms of protectionism;
· increase flows of foreign direct investment (FDI);
· negotiate debt cancellation;
· achieve a meaningful increase in official development assistance (ODA); and
· work towards the diversification of their economies.
· help to strengthen the institutional capacity to ensure that African countries are able to discharge their responsibilities as ‘democratic, developmental states’;
· assist in generating larger inflows of FDI into Africa, including the use of public funds and the resources of multilateral institutions to leverage access to private capital;
· help to increase agricultural production and productivity, affecting all areas of this vital sector, to ensure food security and international competitiveness;
· assist in building Africa’s capacity to develop infrastructure project proposals, to create the possibility to access existing and other infrastructure investment funds that remain unutilised;
· help to increase funding to expedite the process of debt relief, while also bringing medium-income countries into the fold of debt relief;
· assist in ensuring the availability of affordable pharmaceutical drugs and medicines, as well as the building of an adequate health infrastructure;
· help to increase the availability of clean water and sanitation, and proper water resource management; and
· pending the conclusion of trade negotiations within the Doha Development Round, the use of existing instruments to further open G8 markets to African products.
· eradicating widespread poverty, severe underdevelopment, and acute income discrepancy between rich and poor;
· promoting accelerated growth and sustainable development; and
· halting the marginalisation of Africa in the globalisation process – Africa is accounting for only 1,7% of world trade, 2% of world exports, and 0,9% of global FDI.
· Business, civil society, NGOs and trade unions are not involved in the Nepad process -- they are expected to ‘buy in’ rather than to be part of the design team.
· There is a question mark over why an African aid package should succeed now, when some US$500 billion spent on development aid in the continent over the years has been largely “counter-productive”.
· A governance culture, as opposed simply to guidelines, is crucial, but it must involve civil society and “a sophisticated, not a sycophantic, media”.76
· There must be clear timeframes to which African leaders can be held accountable.
· Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency.
· Best Practices for Budget Transparency.
· Guidelines for Public Debt Management.
· Principles of Corporate Governance.
· International Accounting Standards.
· International Standards on Auditing.
· Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision.
· Principles for Payment Systems.
· Recommendations on Anti-Money Laundering.
· Core Principles for Securities and Insurance Supervision and Regulation.
28
Namibia
5,7
5
2,2
3,6
– 8,9
36
South Africa*
4,8
11
0,5
3,9
– 5,5
??
Tunisia
4,8
5
0,8
3,6
– 5,6
40
Mauritius
4,5
6
0,8
3,5
– 5,5
50
Ghana
3,9
4
1,4
2,7
– 5,9
52
Morocco
3,7
4
1,8
1,7
– 5,5
59
Ethiopia
3,5
3
0,5
3,0
– 4,0
62
Egypt*
3,4
7
1,3
1,7
– 5,3
66
Senegal*
3,1
4
1,7
1,7
– 5,5
68
Malawi
2,9
4
0,9
2,0
– 4,0
71
Côte d’Ivoire
2,7
4
0,8
2,0
– 3,4
??
Tanzania
2,7
4
0,7
2,0
– 3,4
??
Zimbabwe
2,7
6
0,5
2,0
– 3,3
77
Zambia
2,6
4
0,5
2,0
– 3,2
93
Uganda
2,1
4
0,3
1,9
– 2,6
96
Kenya
1,9
5
0,3
1,7
– 2,5
98
Angola
1,7
3
0,2
1,6
– 2,0
??
Madagascar
1,7
3
0,7
1,3
– 2,5
101
Nigeria*
1,6
6
0,6
0,9
– 2,5
# Ranking ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt), and relates to the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians; surveys poll business people and country risk analysts, including residents (both local and expatriate); the index provides a snap-shot of the views of decision-makers, who take key decisions on investment and trade, and focuses on corruption in the public sector.
‡ Refers to the number of surveys that were used to assess a country’s performance.
? Indicate differences in the values of the sources: the greater the standard deviation, the greater the differences of perceptions of a country among the sources.
? Provide the highest and lowest values of the different sources.
Abdul Aziz, TI Vice-Chairman, who declared that corruption “continues to deny the poor, the marginalised, and the least-educated members of … society the social, economic, and political benefits that should properly accrue to them -- benefits that are taken for granted in societies that have managed to shake off the yoke of corruption”.93
Egypt (62nd -- 3,4),
Senegal (66th – 3,1),
Nigeria (101st – 1,6),
with Algeria (unlisted)
the United Kingdom (10th – 8,7),
the United States (16th – 7,7),
Germany (18th – 7,3),
Japan (20th – 7,1),
France (25th – 6,3),
Italy (31st – 5,2),
with only Russia below that benchmark at 2,7 and a ranking of 71st.
· Then, there is a periodic review that takes place every 2 to 4 years.
· In addition to these, a member country can, for its own reasons, ask for a review that is not part of the periodically mandated reviews.
· Early signs of impending political or economic crisis in a member country would also be sufficient cause for instituting a review, to be called by participating HsSG.
o The review team’s draft report is first discussed with the government concerned -- discussions designed to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in the report, and to provide the government with the opportunity both to react to the review team’s findings and to put forward its own views on how the identified shortcomings (if any) may be addressed. Government responses will be appended to the review team’s report.
o The review team’s report will need to be clear on a number of points in instances where problems are identified. Is there the will on the part of the government concerned to take the necessary steps and decisions to put right what is identified to be amiss? What resources are necessary to take corrective action? How much of these can the government itself provide, and how much is to come from external sources? Given the necessary resources, how long will the process of rectification take?
· There is a very high degree of personal interaction between the leadership and the people; partly for this reason, the role and function of leadership is almost always of critical importance, never marginal.
· Leadership is usually engaged in great and often violent debate (quiet or public) over ideology, the character of the political system, development objectives, strategies, and tactics.
· Leadership functions in societies where, because of the well-known imperatives of underdevelopment (including weak institutional arrangements), there is almost always a crisis present or imminent, and the compulsion to perform always paramount; here, too, official policy tends to be expressed in anti-free enterprise rhetoric but not necessarily in corresponding action.
· Leadership in many such societies usually initiates spectacular mass mobilisation campaigns as a crucial part of some inspired socialisation process (often, to create the so-called ‘new man’).
· Political messianism often characterises leadership in these polities and invariably serves to validate the emphasis on authority over individual freedom; thus, there tend to be rather loosely defined rules for political contestation by the people, as well as for their participation in the formulation of national policy.
· By their power and role, political leaders influence the shape of certain environmental constants (development and change, the performance imperative, ideological disunity, and loose institutional arrangements) as much as these constants, in turn, influence them.