Since The End Of The 1980

Definition of democracy Democracy may be considered as the process whereby people or their elected representatives provide orientation to their government, or as people’s rights to fully participate in the discussions and decisions that affect their lives. In 1947 Winston Churchill was quoted as stating that democracy is about citizens and states organizing through an institutional core in a common effort for societal betterment and justice1. Democracy implies the existence of ethical values in an enabling environment such as freedom, human rights, organized dialogues, and the exercise of citizenship. People as well as institutions are important elements in democratization processes.

The end of the 1980’s The end of 1980’s marked an important phase for all Africans. Several changes marked the life of the Africans in terms of the economy and the way politics is organized in the continent. For the purpose of this assignment, a set of case studies covering a diverse range of African states will be used in order to identify the major causes of recent change, the progress made so far and what the prospects for the future might be. While changes in the global political situation have been important, the greatest impetus towards democracy has been for some counties the result on internal factors and while for others, external factors. For all over African continent, specific domestic, social, economic, and political conditions are seen as vitally important.

Democracy as a new social movement: Zambian case study Democracy in this sphere is termed as a ‘new social movement’ because of its nature and its proportionality that has been questioned. Independence for most countries of Africa has not been a rosy one as compared to a few others. In sub Saharan Africa for instance, Independence for Zambia can be questioned. Is independence a direct meaning to freedom for the people of Zambia? This issue is very debatable. For instance, Kenneth Kaunda the first president of Zambia who led the country free from colonialism ruled for 27 years which is unpopular in a normal democracy like Mauritius for instance. In presidential elections since 1968, the only candidate who was allowed to run was supposed to be the one duly elected by the Central Committee of UNIP (Kaunda’s party). Even if elections were between the members of UNIP, it was always the nomination of Kaunda which was unfair an undemocratic. Figures below show how Kaunda was unopposed during presidential elections: December 1968, presidential elections, the number of registered voters were not available as well as the number of total votes but Kenneth Kaunda was elected. December 1973, presidential elections, the number of registered voters were not available and total votes assumed as 40% and some valid votes were likely to be 654,395 among which the percentage of yes votes for Kaunda was 88.8% and no votes was 11.2% December 1988, presidential elections, again registered votes and total votes were not available and the percentage of yes votes for Kaunda was 95.5%

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Though elections were regular in Zambia, which is a positive feature of a democracy the elections were not as fair as it should be as shown above through the figures. During the rule of Kaunda, there were many constitutional excesses. He abused the constitution in several ways. As from 1972, a new constitution enacted in 1973 banned all political parties except UNIP and were even persecuted. This constitution framed a system of one party participatory democracy. Government would be associated to UNIP and vice versa. The constitution was amended to provide for a more powerful president for example Kaunda had the power to detain without trial and even sentence to death penalty. Disenchantment with Kaunda was widespread even then, however, and it grew as the 1980s progressed. The Zambian economy deteriorated until the nation became one of Africa's poorest. Kaunda's efforts to ease government subsidies on foodstuffs led to runaway inflation and food riots in the major cities. As Zambia accumulated a foreign debt in excess of $7 billion, some opposition leaders accused Kaunda and the UNIP of corruption. One of those who leveled the charges was Lieutenant-General Christon Tembo, a former highranking Zambian official who was jailed after claiming that Kaunda himself held more than $3 billion in personal Swiss bank. An attempted coup d'etat and widespread rioting in the summer of 1990 led Kaunda to promise that he would reform the nation's constitution and make possible a multiparty election. The constitutional reforms were enacted early in 1991, and an election was set for October 31st of that year. Kaunda confidently predicted that he would win, and he toured the country urging voters to support him. "Let us make these people who are now hiding behind empty multiparty slogans and shielding behind false accusations of oppression by UNIP sit down and think what it is like to run a real political party," he said in one speech, quoted in Africa Report. "I am more than ready to lead UNIP in an election against any party or parties in this country." Kaunda lost the closely-supervised election to Frederick Chiluba, leader of both the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and the powerful Zambia Congress of Trade Unions. Chiluba--who has been described in Africa Report as "Zambia's Lech Walesa"--concentrated on the multiparty issue in his campaign. "No leader, no matter how professional or intelligent, can be the only brain in the country, because there is no human being who is infallible," Chiluba told Africa Report. "There must be checks and balances built into the system to stop that free rein." Indeed, the rules of the game have changed from a single party democracy to a multi- party democracy. However the credentials of Chiluba have also been questioned. He came as a champion of democracy but he had the same political culture of Kaunda. He used religion to re-enforce his power and he considered his rule to be one according to god’s will. This new social movement of democracy indeed brought about several positive features linked to the way politics is being organized over Africa. Firstly genuine completive elections are more prevalent. Some have already experienced it such as Mauritius, Namibia while some others are experiencing it. Secondly, politics has been liberalized in most countries of Africa and has been extended far beyond the phenomena of parties and elections. Thirdly, Media which is an important concept of a democracy has played a crucial role and is playing a crucial role in constructing reality of politics in Africa. Fourthly, it can be noticed that civil society

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in Africa like trade unions grew afresh reacting harshly to the situation in their respective countries and became active participants in the political process.

The freedom house survey Since early 1990s, direct multiparty elections have been held in more than 40 sub-Saharan African countries. In many of them, the elections were the first post independence multiparty elections. However, according to the Freedom House survey, many African countries (Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo-Kinshasa, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Mauritania, and Rwanda) are still not free and some (Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Gabon) are only partly free. Only a small number of countries (Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia, and South Africa) are designated as free based on the degree of political freedoms and civil liberties. This Freedom House survey implies that African countries are at the various stages of political transition. In fact, the status of transition in sub-Saharan Africa has varied from one country to the next. While it has been linear in some countries, it has broken down and reversed in some other countries. If so, what causes such breakdown and reversal? Why is democratic transition linear in some countries, but why not in others? Several internal as well as external factors account for this. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a Rip Van Winkle awakening in 2009 will find sub-Saharan Africa's political landscape profoundly changed. Many more Africans now enjoy basic political rights, and a clear yet partial move toward accountable governance offers a better platform for tackling the region's steep challenges of economic development and poverty reduction. When the Cold War ended, most of Africa was ruled by a mixed bag of single-party, military, and other personalized “big man” regimes. According to the Washington-based Freedom House, in 1989 the region (south of the Sahara and excluding island microstates) was home to only three “electoral democracies”— Botswana, Gambia, and Mauritius—with a combined population of less than 3.5 million. By this count, less than one in every hundred Africans lived in countries that met minimum standards of free and fair electoral competition. The most recent ratings, for 2007, paint a very different picture. The number of sub-Saharan democracies has swelled to 20, accounting for more than a quarter of the region's population. Two decades ago, Africa's economic and military powerhouse—South Africa—was ruled by a white minority government that regularly destabilized its neighbors, while its most populous country—Nigeria—was suffering under a series of corrupt military dictatorships. More recently, these same two countries have been at the forefront of initiatives to promote regional peace and development. They helped launch a new African Union (AU), whose founding principles reflect growing commitment to “good governance” among political leaders. For example, when a military coup followed the death of Guinea's long-time president late last year, the country's AU membership was immediately suspended. Despite these promising trends, major tragedies of the past 20 years have highlighted obstacles to democracy and development in the region. Perhaps most destabilizing was a sharp spike in violent conflict during the mid-1990s, with the Central African Great Lakes region especially hard hit. Following the horrors of the Rwandan genocide, a civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) spilled over the borders into neighboring countries. According to the International Rescue Committee, the conflict has directly and indirectly claimed more than five million lives since 1998. This by some reckonings makes it the most deadly international conflict since World War II.

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Meanwhile, the death toll due to HIV/AIDS in Africa rivals that of the region's wars. The pandemic was still in its infancy in the late 1980s. Though estimates are subject to considerable uncertainty, in recent years it appears that the disease has been killing at a rate of approximately one and a half million annually in Africa. To put this figure in perspective, it means that more Africans are dying of HIV/AIDS every day than died in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Any useful assessment of Africa's challenges must account for the dynamism and diversity of the region. For example, considerable international assistance has helped the Democratic Republic of Congo emerge from civil war. Meanwhile, public policy responses to HIV/AIDS have improved considerably, particularly in South Africa, which has the largest HIV-positive population in the world. And while crises like Zimbabwe's free-fall—combining state repression with inflation rates running into the trillions—grab international headlines, directly next door Botswana has quietly maintained one of the world's most impressive records of sustained economic growth.

Pressures for Political and Economic Reform Though the wave of democratization in Africa did not gain momentum until after the Cold War ended, in the 1980s critics inside and out began asking tough questions about the performance of the region's authoritarian governments. Dragged down by global economic shocks and domestic policy failures, from the 1970s the region was falling sharply behind developing economies elsewhere. By the late 1980s, nearly every African country had formally adopted a market-oriented reform agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. For cash-strapped governments, these agreements unlocked much-needed financial assistance, but with major strings attached. Recipients were required to reduce budget deficits substantially, devalue their currencies, and more generally scale back state intervention in their economies. Whatever the economic merits of these controversial reforms, they struck directly at the political foundations of African governments. Expenditures that the IMF and World Bank wanted cut were central to patronage networks that helped keep incumbents in power, while existing patterns of state intervention helped shield politically pivotal groups from the full brunt of the economic crisis. Squeezed between the policy demands of international financial institutions and the domestic imperatives of political survival, governments typically responded with varying degrees of “partial reform”—delivering enough policy change to keep external donors at bay, while dragging their feet on the most politically sensitive items. Through the end of the 1980s, most governments maintained this balancing act, though doing so exposed them to mounting criticism from both sides. Highly urbanized countries with strong trade-union movements faced particularly stiff domestic political opposition to policies that scaled back public-sector employment and raised the cost of living. From its side, the World Bank released a landmark 1989 report arguing that a “crisis of governance” was at the heart of Africa's economic problems, calling for institutional changes to enable fuller and more effective implementation of market reforms. The collapse of the Soviet Union quickly expanded the agenda of governance reform in Africa. Superpower rivalry had previously discouraged Western powers from linking bilateral, government-to-government aid to democratization. Now a division of labor emerged in which the IMF and World Bank continued to make their funds conditional on “apolitical” policy and institutional changes, while bilateral donors like the United States added what came to be known informally as “political conditionality.” African governments seeking to

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maintain flows of external financial assistance confronted increasingly strong pressures toward establishing open and competitive political regimes. This environment emboldened domestic opposition groups who, like their Eastern European counterparts, mobilized behind the banner of “civil society” in demanding democratic reform. Events outside the region were a crucial catalyst for Africa's wave of democratization. But the speed of the wave reflected existing tensions within the region, which were related to the ways authoritarian governments handled the economic difficulties of the 1980s.

Doubts about Democracy No shortage of skepticism greeted Africa's new democracies. Many analysts questioned whether they would last—and, if so, whether they would make any significant contribution to economic recovery and poverty reduction. One set of doubts stemmed from the absence of structural “requisites” observed in established democracies. A key premise here was that democratization has historically been part of a broader social transformation— encompassing processes like industrialization, mass education, the ascendancy of a large middle class, and at least a clear sense of national identity. Many African countries remain at low levels of socioeconomic development and are highly ethnically fragmented, raising concerns about the structural bases for stable democracy. A related set of doubts sprang from the perception that Africa's political transition was externally driven, while questioning post-Cold War faith in the inherent compatibility of markets and democracy. Tensions within Africa during the late 1980s revealed a messier reality. Domestic opposition typically emanated from groups who claimed that market reforms had gone too far, while the World Bank's own views about a “crisis of governance” implied that they had not gone far enough. In this view, democratization seemed likely to have the effect of empowering the opponents of market-oriented policies, while successful market reform would require benevolent “developmental states” insulated from the cut and thrust of democratic politics. In general, skeptics have interpreted Africa's wave of democracy as almost a “historical accident”—the product of wily rulers' responses to an external reform agenda and lacking structural foundations in African societies. Just as African leaders managed to sidestep economic conditionality in the 1980s, they were now dodging the substance of political conditionality. By staging periodic elections they created a facade of democratic legitimacy and kept donor funds flowing. But even where the facade was maintained, any genuine developmental benefits of democracy seemed unlikely to materialize.

Prospects for Democracy and Development Two decades of hindsight offer an empirical basis for greater optimism about the durability and performance of democracy in Africa. The wave of democratization in the region is partial and potentially reversible, and skeptics have identified important vulnerabilities. Yet Africa's democracies have lasted longer and performed better than initially expected.

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International factors have played an important role in supporting African democracy. Since the end of the Cold War, the global climate has become decidedly more uncomfortable for non democratic governments, which are increasingly deprived of legitimacy and resources, and trends within Africa have reinforced this. South Africa's own political transition has given the region a dominant power whose ideals and strategic interests both are served by promoting democracy and human rights. The launch of the AU and its adoption of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)—an initiative that identifies “good governance” as an essential “condition for sustainable development”—embody the thrust of South Africa's regional policy. While the Zimbabwean crisis starkly illustrates how difficult it is to dislodge a skillful and intransigent dictator, democratic norms are much more influential in Africa than they were two decades ago. Meanwhile, emerging evidence seems to confirm that, in African countries where democracy has been established, states have tended to perform better as agents of economic development. These effects seem to hinge on the benefits of imposing institutional checks on leaders' discretionary authority, backed by the ability to remove governments that fail to improve the well-being of their people. By contrast, the region's most catastrophic developmental failures—including Zimbabwe's current plunge—have only spun out of control when constitutional checks and balances have been absent or dismantled. Democratically elected governments have no monopoly on economic insight, but under democratic regimes “bad economics” eventually becomes “bad politics,” giving government's strong incentives to change course. In light of Africa's diversity, any sweeping generalization about prospects for democracy and development would be misleading. Four bellwether countries that are particularly worth tracking in the coming months and years can be examined. First, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a crucial case of post conflict peace building. Like Sierra Leone and Liberia before it, it has benefited from considerable assistance from the United Nations and regional organizations. Credible but technically flawed presidential elections in 2006 reinforced a fragile political settlement of civil war. The country is plagued by complex political divisions and extremely weak infrastructure and does not currently meet accepted standards of electoral democracy (despite its name). Even very modest progress would boost regional development, but a collapse of the relative peace now prevailing could again destabilize Central Africa. Second, Nigeria is a country that slipped out of the club of electoral democracies following 2007 presidential elections plagued by massive fraud and violence. The victory of the current president, Umaru Yar’Adua, survived lengthy legal appeals, and Yar’Adua has promised electoral reforms. A common weakness of Africa's democracies is that few have yet combined intense party competition with effective electoral administration. In Nigeria, a hotly contested election put the administrative machinery under strain it could not withstand. As one of the region's leading powers, Nigeria's next round of national elections will be closely scrutinized. Third, South Africa faces a somewhat different challenge to its young democracy. Though the country's record of electoral administration has been exemplary, its first three general elections have seen the ruling African National Congress (ANC) win large and increasing majorities—its 2004 vote share approaching 70 percent. However, the party's decision to “recall” President Thabo Mbeki before the end of his term has prompted an internal split. The breakaway Congress of the People (COPE), though very unlikely to overtake the ANC in a general election in mid-2009, poses the greatest challenge so far to the ruling party's dominance.

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More important than the final vote count is how the added dose of political contestation affects the conduct of the campaign and election. Finally, the most positive recent development among Africa's democracies was Ghana's December 2008 presidential election. The opposition party's candidate, John Atta-Mills, won a run-off over Nana Akufo-Addo by a razor-thin margin of thirty thousand votes, out of over nine million cast. When Akufo-Addo conceded and Atta-Mills was inaugurated, it marked the second time power had changed hands constitutionally since the country's 1992 democratic transition. Ghana thus became the largest African country ever to pass the “two-turnover test” of democratic consolidation. The achievement was widely reported and praised throughout the region, clearly demonstrating the possibilities of democratic practice in Africa.

Conclusion Since the end of the 1980’s the political systems of African states have undergone a quite remarkable and unprecedented transformation. At the beginning of 1989 there were just a handful of African states that were operating relatively democratic, competitive multi party systems whilst the majority was ruled by authoritarianism of single party and military regimes. However, though the picture was mixed, nobody could deny that Africa as a whole had made substantial strides in the direction of democracy during this period. By 1995, the vast majority of African states had held genuinely competitive elections. In most cases, these elections were the first for a very long time to involve opposition parties competing for the support of the voters. Hence it can be concluded from the above discussion that democracy indeed is a very important concept directly related to freedom and such a movement is being described as new in not only Sub-Saharan Africa but in Africa as a whole because of the changes that have been noticed in the several case studied used. This indeed revealed that the rules of the game of ruling for life or an enduring pattern of political culture of one man/party rule is changing to a multi-party democracy and major reforms major reforms brought to the way politics is being organized. There are new reasons for the prospects and consolidation of democracy in Africa at large.

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