When Kenya lurched into political crisis on 30th December, optimism over Africa's democratic future took a heavy dent. African states have made considerable progress along the path back to plural politics over the last two decades, but Kenya's troubles remind us that there is still a very long way to go, and that the rockiest part of the journey may yet lie ahead.
Elections have become the acid test of Africa's democracy. With each poll, an army of international observers sweeps in to urge the democratic wave along. When they declare elections to be "free and fair," observers give legitimacy to incoming regimes. But "free and fair" has too often been interpreted in a subjective way; electoral violence, the buying of votes and a degree of ballot-rigging have all been tolerated in the interest of higher political goals.
This tolerance has sometimes verged upon complacency. African politicians come to understand just how far they need to go to gain approval: with each election, the autocrats have got better at playing this game, bending the rules where they can.
But even before the EU observer team called foul on Kenya's December election, there were signs that patience was wearing thin with these "democrats of convenience." The collapse of the electoral process in DR Congo in 2006, amid violence, intimidation and rigging, was fully acknowledged by international observers, and no one tried to pretend that Nigeria's recent election was anything other than deeply fraudulent. However, Kenya's fall from grace is a democratic failure of far greater significance. Kenya had come to be seen as the flagship for transitional democracy across the continent. Having endured the rigours of two difficult elections in the 1990s, Kenyans finally rallied to remove the corrupt and inept regime of Daniel arap Moi in 2002. With a thriving civil society, bolstered by a lively media, Kenya appeared to encapsulate the African surge toward participatory and inclusive politics.
After the degradations of the Moi years, Kenyans had reason to feel optimistic. Since 2002, Mwai Kibaki's government had overseen a thriving economy and had been a bastion of stability in this troubled part of the world—supporting interventions in Somalia and assisting in the brokering of peace in southern Sudan. Analysts had even begun to talk of Kenya emerging as the region's first "mature democracy."
It has all now gone horribly wrong. And the reasons are clear enough. In the months leading up to the December poll, it became apparent that it would be closely fought. The two main parties, Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) and Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), each laid their plans with this in mind. It was a dirty campaign, with each side smearing the other and openly suggesting that election fraud was likely. The funding of the campaigns was also shrouded in secrecy.
In the event, money talked. Voters were paid, party officials and returning officers bribed, and even the integrity of the electoral commission was undermined. And where there wasn't enough cash to sway things, sterner measures were resorted to. Intimidation and violence were widespread in the campaign and on polling day. In the most dramatic abuse of all, a candidate in the Nairobi constituency of Kamukunji who saw the vote turn against him simply let loose his thugs to chase away the officials and burn the ballot boxes: this in the capital city of Africa's most "mature democracy."
The institutional frailties that made all of this possible cannot be ignored. There is far more to democracy than regular elections. The collapse of the electoral commission of Kenya was critical, presidential interference with its membership undermining both its credibility and its functioning.
And then there is the judiciary. In the face of the outcry against his stealing of the election, President Kibaki has suggested that there should be a judicial review—safe in the knowledge that the four high court judges and two appellate court judges he sneakily appointed to the bench on Christmas eve are likely to be sympathetic to the government's position.
But the weakest institution of all is parliament itself. The shortage of funding for African parliaments, the lack of functioning committees and the desperate inexperience of the opposition parties are features of the democratic transition across Africa. And in Kenya the parliament is barely any better than anywhere else.
In the excitement of African election fever, the dull importance of constitutional reform and the development of institutions have been sorely neglected. It is telling that the failure of the Kibaki government to reform the constitution has emerged as a critical issue. Along with virtually every other African country that came to independence in the 1960s, Kenya inherited a colonial mode of government that preserved a high degree of executive power for the president under the constitution. African presidents were the analogues of colonial governors, with draconian powers over daily administration.
In Kenya, the president controls an influential structure of provincial and district commissioners—a kind of parallel government that sits alongside elected parliamentarians. Just by picking up the telephone, the president can influence political events in any constituency in the country, instructing local administrators to disrupt the work of opposition politicians or deal with a troublesome MP.
These failings have proved more threatening now, at Kenya's fourth multi-party election, than they did at the first back in 1992. This is to do with the slow and fragile gestation of party politics. In Kenya, more than 100 parties registered candidates in the recent election, and in a situation where none of the larger parties was able to command an overall majority, the influence of the smaller parties was naturally enhanced. Kenya, along with many other African countries, is entering a phase where coalitions are necessary to secure power. Kibaki came to power in 2002 at the head of a coalition that fractured two years later, amid disputes over the division of state offices.
In the 2007 campaign, the same coalition imperatives held sway, for both Kibaki's PNU and Raila's ODM. The need to build coalitions has opened the door to old autocrats, who can creep back into power through alliance with stronger partners. PNU, in particular, brokered deals with smaller parties run by politicians tainted by past corruption: the Moi family brought the Kanu party into Kibaki's fold, and there was a deal with Kamlesh Pattni, a disgraced financier.
We can see a similar coalition politics emerging in other African countries, most obviously Zambia and Malawi. There are also signs of it developing in Nigeria, as the larger parties there begin to fracture, and it is likely in Uganda, where President Museveni will eventually be forced to hold multi-party elections. By keeping the old autocrats in the frame, and by giving real power to smaller parties, coalition-building slows the pace of democratic transition, and weakens the ability of elected governments to bring about the institutional reforms so badly needed.
This is likely to be Africa's future. The pace of democratic change will be slowed by the compromises of coalition politics. Wherever elections are closely fought—and there will be many more such cases to come—we are likely to see a resurgence of malpractice. It will not always end in violence, but it will surely lead to instability and political uncertainty.
Some people want to blame Africa's "artificial," colonial-era nation states for this instability. But it has not been a big factor, at least in Kenya—in a country with more than 40 ethnic groups, the nation trumps the tribe for most people. Good Texans can also be good Americans, just as a good Kikuyu can also be a good Kenyan.
Africa's democratic transition was never going to be easy. After 20 years there is still a long road ahead. The first phase of that journey—getting elections into the frame—was the easy bit. Bringing about the institutional reforms that will allow democratic politics to take firm root is much harder.
