African Politics: A real change is needed towards Democracy!

João Dias

If we question people about the evolution of world politics in recent years, we often observe uneven and diffuse responses. Yet, there's already clear evidence that the populisms, exacerbated nationalisms and extremisms concerning different issues, have won a growing and worrying prominence in democracies that seemed to possess all the precepts and attributes unwavering until very recently

The so-called Western-type democracies that have been gaining ground at the expense of communist regimes, especially in the Cold War period, have seen considerable setbacks in the globalized world, contrary to what many analysts and political commentators would expect. Italy, Hungary, Austria, and even the United States, for example, have followed the populist way, which is considered by several analysts as a scenario that begins to equate with the period of the 20s and 30s of the twentieth century with right and left extremists movements.

The African situation, on the other hand, already seems totally different; autocratic and tyrannical regimes have been proliferating after independence with a greater or lesser tendency to tread the path of democracy, but have we really witnessed a democratic evolution?

Slowly, and somehow discreetly we have witnessed a wave of unprecedented change in countries where their leaders have been in power for quite a long time.

We have, for example, the Angola affair (José Eduardo dos Santos replaced by João Lourenço after leading the country for 39 years), Zimbabwe (Robert Mugabe after a long "reign" when it seemed that he would become President for life, ended up being overthrown by his own party, though controlled by his former vice-president, Emerson Mnangagwa, who was configured as the new president of former Rhodesia), South Africa (Jacob Zuma, long controversial leader, resigned after being accused of being involved in alleged corruption schemes), Gambia (with more than 22 years leading the destinies of this small state, Jammeh ended up accepting to resign the post of President, not before having declared the elections of 2016 invalid, leading to a "muscular" ECOWAS intervention) and Ethiopia (former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn unexpectedly resigned and was recently replaced by Abiy Ahmed, a young and ambitious politician who promises to "shake" the country politically and economically).

In other words, some changes have indeed occurred in the leadership of African countries, especially this last year, holding in abeyance dictatorial governments that lasted, in some cases for decades.

The various debates that have traced the processes of democratization in Africa have focused on four interrelated issues: the relative roles of internal and external factors, historical and contemporary dynamics, structural and contingent factors, and economic and goverrnance dimension policies.

On the first factor, proponents of this argument emphasize the strength of internal political protests and pro-democracy movements generated by development failures, the economic crises of the 1980s and 1990s, and the disintegration of the legitimacy of the postcolonial state. As for external issues, we had the decisive impact of the end of the Cold War, and subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, which led to the imposition of structural adjustment programs and political conditionalities on the part of bilateral and multilateral financial institutions of the West. However, some analysts have always questioned the West's real commitment to promoting democracy in Africa, arguing that it is more rhetorical than real.

Correlated with these two views, several approaches tend to place the transitions from Africa to democracy in different historical contexts, whether in terms of global waves of democracy or in the context of African stories of freedom struggles.

Where we also do not verify unanimity concerns the nature of democratization: is it a product of structural factors or is it generated through individual actions and events? The proponents of the second hypothesis extol the role of specific leaders, closely following the flow of events, and adjust their interpretations accordingly. On the other hand, structuralist analyzes, highlight the structural conditions that impeded or facilitated and could sustain or frustrate democratization. In this regard, the colonial legacies, the levels of economic development and education, the nature of civil society and other elements linked to structural causes are already taken into account.

Finally, the discussion on democracy in Africa is also divided on the degree of importance attached to economic or political aspects. The first aspect examines the role played by the failures of postcolonial development and particularly the economic crisis during the 1980s, which were exacerbated by structural adjustment programs imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which generated widespread opposition from several social groups policies. The political factor focuses on the political crisis of the postcolonial state, particularly its inability to manage the centrifugal forces of postcolonial societies, especially ethnicities.

In any case, in the postcolonial period what we have been observing has been the proliferation of contemporary authoritarian regimes that have assumed several forms -general models of single-party systems, personal dictatorships, and military regimes. The postcolonial trend toward single-party systems has been "fed" for a number of reasons, including the alleged tradition of a single uncontested leader, the idea of ​​a single-party democratic majority, and the need for unity due to ethnic issues , linguistic and cultural differences.

As we have already suggested, new "winds of change are blowing" on the African continent, however, one verifies that the factors mentioned previously in the democratization process have faced serious obstacles to the establishment or democratic consolidation.

A mere change of leaders  can mean more of the same, although we have an increasingly alert and intervening civil society.

Democratic developments on the African continent have been largely structural or constitutional. And its transition process has been long and painful. As we have seen, a lot of success will depend on the quality of leadership at all levels during the transition to democracy. Fine words  or simple "cosmetic" changes are not enough.

The latest resignations we are watching are significant, as they are examples of regime changes achieved without the drama of violent upheaval or street protests, as happened in the "Arab Spring." Some critics have sought to minimize these developments by associating them with a power dynamics among elites. On the other hand, these changes also show that these elites can check their erratic partners and use institutions as a driving force for change.

We begin to remark some positive signs that is encouraging a broader participation in political institutions from civil society . However, let us not be naive, the change will follow its course, but it will be slow and tortuous, with the typical advancing and retreating that characterize this kind of issues.