The Fear of Elections’ Illiberal Ends

As the Kenyan Election Commission throws itself all over the place to issue the results of the 2007 General Elections and as ominous political tensions unfold, the familiar story of the predicament of Africa’s democratic transition is being retold. Some Western pundits and African commentators dubbed it a great African experimentation which needs to be emulated by others. I beg to differ.

Odinga’s victory should not be over interpreted. A defeat of incumbency is often wrongly used as gauge of testing the depth of democracy. Accordingly any election outcome which ratifies the continuation of an incumbency is considered suspect. Opposition political parties are invariably promoted as champions of democracy and constitutionalism, without seriously considering whether indeed their political programs and activities promote constitutionalism and rule of law. Printing of private newspapers or existence of NGOs was taken as scaling indexes of democratic performance.

Some of the reasons explaining the West’s obsession with others’ struggle with such wrong-headed electioneering has nothing to do with democracy itself. The Muslim world has shown to the West how democracy may be used for an illiberal agenda. No one in the West now seriously considers pushing Saudi Arabia, Algeria or Egypt towards a Western style election. Why not? Whereas pro-democracy foreign policy may not promote the Western interest in the Muslim world, it perfectly works well in this part of our world. Nothing scares some as the coming of big and powerful political machines in Africa. Chaotic electoral systems are best suited to penetrate and bring outside influence to bear. Consider the Western anxiety over the election outcome within ANC in South Africa. Many of them would have been happy to see a more chaotic, fragmented political scene in South Africa where the power base is decentred and fragmented.

Is there any lesson one can take from Kenya’s election? Not anything significant. It simply forces us to hang on to our tentative conclusion that Western style electioneering is not the best guarantor of stability, transparency and even respect for human rights. The so called private media uses freedom of expression as a means of propagating norms and values that undermine democracy itself. As evidenced during the 2005 federal and parliamentary elections in Ethiopia, opposition political parties may use democratic platforms for political programs that question fundamental constitutional playing fields. ‘Civil Society organisations’ are often appendages of foreign interests often run by people who are ready to do anything for a decent pay.

The chief challenge for liberal democracy has come from big and economically growing countries such as China and Russia. The increasing influence of these countries at the global stage is giving a space, al bit limited, for smaller and even poorer countries to be relived from extreme pressure to adopt western-style political processes which end up resulting in unintended consequences such as political tensions, violations of human rights, lack of focus on economic development and etc.