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The meeting was convened at SOAS by Ayan Mahamoud MBE, head of the Somaliland Mission to the UK, and was chaired by Edward Paice, ARI’s director.

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Fadumo Dayib – former presidential candidate and anti-corruption activist – Somalia

• Decision to run: I was always aware that we needed change in Somalia, but I thought that it would come from elsewhere, or from someone else. However, after waiting for almost 26 years, I realised that maybe I could be that person. In September 2014 I decided to declare my candidacy for president. I knew that from that moment my life would never be the same again.
• My experience as a woman: We have a proverb in Somalia that a woman’s place is either at home or in the grave. I was trying to negotiate a space between the two and some people were adamant that it would expedite my journey to the grave. I received a lot of death threats; an experience not shared by the male candidates in the race. These threats were very specific and on some occasions targeted my children. This was shocking and traumatising for me as a mother, knowing that what I was doing was going to impact on my children and perhaps put them at risk. Despite the threats I do not regret coming forward.
• Corruption: Corruption was the biggest challenge. Whenever I spoke to people in politics or power the first thing they would ask was “What do you have for us?”, “How much money do you have?” or “How much can you pay?” They were not interested in my vision for Somalia. This was very frustrating. How can you come into elected office through unconstitutional means and then demand that the citizens adhere to the rule of law when you yourself have not done so?
• Clan system: I declared my candidacy with the understanding that Somalia’s elections were going to take place under a one-person-one-vote system. However, 18 months later the government reverted back to the 4.5 clan-based system. This formula segregates Somalis in a way that is akin to apartheid. It supports the notion that the four major clans are ethnically pure, while the remainder – the 0.5 – are marginalised. It is unconstitutional.
• Towards 2020: In 2020, when we will hopefully have democratic elections, I will be running again. I truly believe 12 million Somalis deserve peace, dignity, prosperity and leaders who walk the talk and set a good example. Until then I will work independently in civil society to promote transparency and human rights, to make sure that we begin the process of bringing democratic accountability to Somalia.

George Bob-Milliar – senior lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology – Ghana

• A model for the continent? 28 August 2013 was the day nine Supreme Court justices returned their verdict on an electoral petition raised by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) about the conduct of the previous year’s election. In the preceding eight months, Ghanaians had been hooked, watching or listening to the litigation in court. At the end we were all convinced that there was something wrong with our electoral system. For example, it became obvious that there were systematic discrepancies between the results being returned at polling centres and those being returned at collation centres. This was happening on both sides of the political spectrum and it was clear these practices been going on in previous elections. The Supreme Court’s report exposed the myth that Ghana’s democracy was a model for the rest of Africa.
• Key campaign issues: The 2016 election was the first time that a sitting incumbent has lost an election in Ghana. Some commentators said that although John Mahama had served only one elected term his party had been in power for eight years, and that this historically has always resulted in a party being ousted. However, poor electricity supply and rising costs, a lack of job opportunities for young people and rising inflation meant that it was largely the economy that put paid to Mahama’s bid for a second elected term. Social welfare – the lack thereof – was also an important campaign issue. During their time in power the National Democratic Congress (NDC) invested a lot in infrastructural development, but they failed to address the welfare components of those structures; people still could not afford or access health insurance. The NPP campaigned to improve social welfare provision and on a promise to radically transform Ghana’s economy through industrialisation. But their election promise of setting up factories in all 271 districts in the country may prove difficult to deliver.
• State capture: In Ghana, whenever there is transition between the NPP and NDC, party footsoldiers view it as a coup d’état. Transition is improving at the level of national politics, but at the grassroots there is still a very strong winner-takes-all mentality. People see anything that is associated with the state as being owned by the party in power, and in the aftermath of elections in which power changes hands these footsoldiers seize control of state assets like public toilets and road toll booths. This way they ensure the revenue collected goes directly to themselves and not to central government.
• Room for improvement: Ghana has successfully consolidated its electoral democracy, but it is not perfect. Several challenges remain: the legislature is weak, the judiciary has problems and the economy is not producing the dividends that democracy was expected to bring.

Robtel Neajai Pailey – Liberian academic, activist and author

• Pseudo-incumbency: October’s election will be the first democratic transition in Liberia between two heads of state in recent memory. There will be no incumbent in this election as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will step aside having served her constitutionally allotted 12 years. But Vice-President Joseph Boakai is almost a “pseudo-incumbent”. Being in a position of power, he has access to state resources that can be employed to give him an edge over his rivals.
• New faces: There are a lot of the usual suspects – the seasoned politicians – who will run for the presidency, but what is fascinating is the number of new aspirants with more technocratic or entrepreneurial backgrounds. These include Alex Cummings, the former chief administrative officer at Coca-Cola; Mills Jones, the former Governor of the Central Bank; and John Morlu, the former Auditor General, who is a viewed as an anti-corruption “messiah” in many parts of the country. So far these candidates have shown signs they can gather support in urban and rural areas. The 2017 election is shaping up to be an issues race in Liberia – it is not about the cult of the personality. Voters are asking questions like “What is your track record?”, “What have you actually delivered in the last 6-12 years?”, and “Why should we trust you?”
• Coalition building: Several political party leaders have realised that they cannot win this election in the first round. Coalition-building is necessary and at the moment the most powerful looks to be the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), fronted by George Weah with Jewel Howard Taylor as his running mate. The CDC promises to be a “hot ticket” as it brings together voters from outside their respective ethno-regional bases and the early indications are that it can do well in areas won by Johnson Sirleaf in 2011 that are less supportive of her Unity Party successor, Joseph Boakai.
• Law enforcement: The enforcement of certain laws, or lack thereof, will be worth keeping an eye on. First, a residency clause explicitly states that if you have not resided in Liberia for ten consecutive years you are not eligible to run for president. This clause was not applied in the 2011 election, but a decision taken then by Supreme Court promised that it would be in 2017. There has not been much discussion about it so far, but if it does come up it may cause problems for the candidatures of Alex Cummings and John Morlu. Secondly, Liberia does not recognise dual citizenship. The suggestion is that several of the candidates, including Weah, who stood in 2011, would be affected if this is enforced. Finally, in 2014 a civil service code of conduct law was introduced that states anyone who is intending to run for elected office, either in the legislature or the presidency, must resign two years before the polls. There are a number of people vying for the presidency and seats in the House of Representatives who have not done so. If these three laws are raised and discussed it could lead to a constitutional quagmire.
• Women in politics: In 2006, just after Sirleaf was elected president she had five women with strong technocratic qualifications in her cabinet. There were five female superintendents, who represent the president in the 15 counties, and 13 female senators. In 2017, there are only two superintendents, three senators and three women in the cabinet. Of those cabinet officials one is the gender minister, which is a bit tokenistic, and the other heads up the National Investment Commission, a non-ministerial position.
• Sirleaf’s mixed legacy for women: Efforts to improve equality have struggled to make progress in the political sphere. A Gender Equity in Politics Bill put forward by the women’s legislative caucus in 2010 proposed a quota system, but Sirleaf was noticeably silent on it initially; even when she did express support, it was with no great enthusiasm. The bill was not passed and the fact that a female president would not openly champion a measure to give women an edge has filtered down to voters and shaped their attitudes against the need for these types of measures in the future. On a more positive note, Sirleaf, at least initially, tried to bring a lot of younger women into her political inner circle and she has done a great job improving market women’s access to entrepreneurial opportunities, in particular, and supporting efforts to improve financial autonomy. But whilst in the economic sphere there has been progress, in the political sphere Sirleaf has not done enough. The question a lot of young Liberian women are asking is “What about us?” “Is the glass ceiling so high that our president, who is a woman, has not completely shattered it?” “If so, why not?”

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Municipal elections have had a brief and unremarkable history in post-apartheid South Africa. However, the polls on 3 August are expected to be the most fiercely contested of any to date. South Africa’s demography is changing rapidly and with it the political landscape. The eight largest city councils – known as metropolitan municipalities, or “metros” – are home to some 40% of the population, where the share of the vote held by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is in decline.

Amid the clamour for votes, ANC infighting and heated rhetoric, little attention has been paid to the state of the country’s municipalities. Local governments are responsible for R250 billion of expenditure a year, equivalent to 8% of GDP.[1] Their impact on the daily lives of most citizens is far greater than that of the national administration. The ANC may well lose control of one or more of the seven metros it holds. In the absence of a clear winner, coalitions may be required to govern four of them. Yet, in pursuit of radically different electoral constituencies, the country’s three main political parties have adopted seemingly incompatible approaches to governance. This Briefing Note examines the backdrop to an election that is likely to be a watershed in South Africa’s democratic development.

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• The struggle (to be heard)
• Comrades for the council
• Shifting constituencies
• Technocrats in the town hall
• Left out
• Revolutionary councillors
• Crossing the Rubicon
• Sources

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The struggle (to be heard)
On 3 August, 26.3 million citizens will be eligible to vote – 42.5% more than registered for municipal elections in 2000. However, participation in electoral politics has declined: 18.7 million South Africans cast ballots in the 2014 national and provincial polls, equivalent to 57% of the voting age population, down from 72% in 1999.[2]

A remarkable 48.6% of the electorate have come of age since the end of apartheid in 1994, but young people remain disproportionately under-represented. While 93% of South Africans over 40 are registered to vote in local elections, this figure falls to 79% among those aged 30–39, and to 55% for those aged 20–29.

The diminishing appeal of electoral politics can in part be explained by the dominance of the ANC, seemingly invincible with more than 60% of the vote in 2014. Flagging support for the party’s leader, Jacob Zuma, is another factor. The president has been embroiled in a succession of corruption scandals, and the compatibility of his style of leadership with the tenets of a constitutional democracy is widely – and volubly – questioned. Justice Malala, a prominent political commentator, recently cast Zuma as “a sexist, homophobic, crass, incapable and shameless man who has handed over important and prominent cabinet posts to his friends… With him have come patronage and mediocrity.”[3]

Lack of accountability has also caused disillusionment and apathy. South Africans do not directly elect the head of state, who is appointed by parliamentary ballot. The legislature is elected by proportional representation (PR), with the result that members of parliament (MPs) serve at the behest of powerful parties, owing their position to a ranking on a PR list. In the case of municipal government, voters cast ballots for both a ward councillor and a party; yet parties can recall councillors in both categories. In a 2015 survey, two-thirds of voters stated that they had no access to ward councillors or knew how to reach them.[4] Radical activism is eclipsing electoral politics.

In 2014, 218 “service delivery protests” were recorded in South African municipalities, ranging from the blockading of roads to destruction of government buildings.[5] Received wisdom has it that such protests tend to peak in non-election years, and dissipate when MPs and councillors attempt to resolve community grievances in return for support at the ballot box. However, violent protest linked to political battles within the ANC have marked June and July 2016. Electoral competition is becoming ever fiercer.

Comrades for the council
With over one-quarter of South Africans unemployed, and many more having given up looking for work, election to municipal office is a prized opportunity. Such roles “can mean the difference between being middle class and being unemployed”, asserts Steven Friedman, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg.[6] They are also lucrative. A part-time representative in the smallest municipality (grade 1) can be paid as much as R207,455 a year. A full-time committee chair in a grade 1 municipality could earn R482,357, while in a grade 6 council, this could rise to R877,968. The mayors of the eight metros are entitled to up to R1,242,409 – more than the starting salary of an MP.[7]

Councillors are entrusted with access to resources, power and influence. They are responsible for determining how contracts are awarded. “Tenderpreneurs” use political connections to obtain contracts, often in return for a kickback to the party or individuals. Paul Graham, southern Africa director at Freedom House, a democracy and rights watchdog, told ARI that “using public office for personal gain has become normalised under the Zuma administration”. The practice of “cadre deployment” – providing the politically connected with salaried positions in government – is commonplace.

ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe has admitted that the battle for patronage and competition between “tender beneficiaries” contributed to pre-election violence in Tshwane, a Gauteng province metro which encompasses the administrative capital Pretoria.[8] A factional conflict between supporters of incumbent mayor Kgosientso “Sputla” Ramokgopa and ANC Deputy Chair for Tshwane Mapiti Matsena could not be resolved and risked derailing the party’s campaign in the metro. The ANC’s decision to parachute in Thoko Didiza – a figure disconnected from local politics – exposed the priority afforded to internal dispute resolution.[9]

Tshwane also highlighted the shortcomings of ANC “slates”. This form of block voting has been standard practice since the party’s Polokwane conference in December 2007, which hastened the recall of Thabo Mbeki as president of South Africa. The zero-sum nature of factional battles has precipitated an increase in the use of violence. In KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Mpumalanga provinces individuals overlooked in candidate selection have orchestrated political assassinations, with the intention of forcing a by-election or moving up a PR list.

An estimated 450 political assassinations occurred in KZN between 1994 and 2014.[10] During the past two years, 64 people have been killed at Glebelands Hostel in Durban, in what “started as a fight over the allocation of beds but has escalated into an intra-ANC strife”.[11] Twelve ruling party cadres were executed in KZN in June-July 2016.[12] The alarming statistics for Zuma’s home province raise questions about the ANC’s ability – and desire – to maintain law and order there.

In Mpumalanga, violence has also become a feature of politics. An ANC deputy chairman, Michael “Zane” Phelembe, was shot dead outside his home in May. He had opposed plans regarding the award of lucrative local infrastructure deals. As violent contestation has escalated, ideological divides within the ruling party have seemingly disappeared. Raymond Suttner, a former anti-apartheid activist who now lectures at Rhodes University, contends that there has been “a broader depoliticisation of the ANC as the drive for spoils displaces political ideas.”[13]

Shifting constituencies
Policy debates may be a thing of the past, but the ANC knows how to put on a show for voters. The party enlists prominent musicians to play at “car washes” where election candidates dispense T-shirts, posters and alcohol before touring local shebeens and hairdressers. In economically marginalised areas, the opportunity to receive handouts is attractive. While nationally only one in four South Africans say they attended an election campaign rally in 2014, in Mpumalanga the figure was 48%. The ANC received 78.8% of the provincial vote.

This type of electioneering comes at a cost. South Africans have come to expect an increase in corruption ahead of elections as state coffers are looted by those charged with fundraising. During a May 2016 visit to London, Dr Zweli Mkhize,  ANC national treasurer and KZN “kingmaker”, joked that he was looking for donations as “the cost per vote keeps going up!”. In a 2015 Afrobarometer survey, the majority of respondents agreed with the statement that “voters are bribed”, with 27% feeling this occurred invariably and 28% occasionally.[14]

Besides its access to resources, the ANC has a trump card: identity politics. In April 2016, Zuma told a rally in Melmouth, KZN, “We have a problem as black people. Some people don’t even go out there and vote. Every elderly white person goes out there to vote because they know how important voting is.”[15] Ebrahim Fakir, manager of governance institutions and processes at the Electoral Institute for the Sustainable of Democracy in Africa, told ARI that “playing the race card may provide the ANC with a quick win, but this tactic is not sustainable in the long term.”
 
In the meantime, ANC figures at all levels routinely refer to its major opponent, the Democratic Alliance (DA), as a “white party”. The threat posed by the DA has increased since it began targeting the black middle class. The party’s share of the vote in urban areas increased from 17.9% in 2004 to 30.2% in 2014, largely thanks to support from young professionals. StatsSA estimates that the proportion of South Africans living in towns and cities is 62% and rising. While rural turnout decreased from 77.6% in 2004 to 69.9% in 2014, in urban areas it marginally increased.[16]

Urban workers played an instrumental role in bringing the ANC to power, through the United Democratic Front. This incorporated the labour movement, churches, civil society and student activists, and adopted the ANC’s Freedom Charter, co-operating with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the underground South African Communist Party (SACP). However, the ANC’s share of the urban vote has declined significantly, from 66.8% in 2004 to 55.8% in 2014. In a 2015 opinion poll, only 42% of city dwellers said they would vote for the ruling party.[17]

Conscious of its declining national support, the ANC moved to capture a political constituency held by the Inkatha Freedom Party in KZN.[18] In 1999, only 11% of the ANC’s national vote came from the province, compared to 24% from Gauteng. In 2014, KZN and Gauteng both accounted for 22% of the party’s national vote. The ANC also controls every municipality in the predominantly rural provinces of Free State, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. Prof. Ivor Chipkin, executive director of the Public Affairs Research Institute has observed that, “The ANC is becoming a regional, ethnic party.”[19]
 
To that charge, can be added one of systemic corruption. Irregular expenditure by South Africa’s municipalities more than doubled between 2010-11 and 2014-15, when it reached R14.75 billion. During the same period, fruitless and wasteful expenditure increased from R273 million to R1.34 billion.^[20] The auditor general only has the power to report on the worsening situation, not to remedy it. That responsibility falls to elected officials, but even where the political will exists, municipalities often suffer a skills shortage. In 2014, the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs reported that 170 of 278 municipal chief financial officers did not hold qualifications appropriate for their role.[21]
 

Technocrats in the town hall

Exploiting these failings, the DA has promised “honest government”. Its campaign has stressed the party’s record in Western Cape, where it runs the province and the City of Cape Town, and governs two-thirds of the municipalities. In 2014-15, 73% of Western Cape municipalities were awarded clean audits. The DA cultivates a reputation for “doing things by the book”. The party runs, either alone or in coalition, nine of the 10 top-ranked municipalities in the Government Performance Index.[22]

Through “Blue the Network”, the DA has appealed to “young professionals wanting to bring about meaningful change in South Africa”. This has enabled it to recruit new members and a pool of prospective candidates with experience of business and finance. Applicants are interviewed and tested prior to selection, then provided with relevant training. This focus on skills contrasts with the fierce – and sometimes physically violent – competition that characterises ANC primaries.

However, the DA remains hamstrung by its perceived lack of diversity. Although technically the most representative of South Africa’s political parties, the shortage of older black males in the party leadership is notable. The party’s Young Leaders Programme promotes diversity across the DA, and has introduced under-35s from all racial backgrounds into party structures, local and provincial government, and parliament – but it will take time to change entrenched perceptions.

The DA has put up candidates for the 2016 municipal elections in every single ward in the country, a feat unmatched by the ANC. However, 45% of its representatives are standing for multiple positions, despite election to one office alone being permissible by law. The DA is also accused of an urban bias. Nkanyiso Gumede of the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) has observed that the party’s manifesto contains “absolutely nothing on agriculture, rural development, land reform or farm workers, raising the question of whether or not the DA recognises that there is a large rural constituency.”[23]

Mmusi Maimane, the DA’s 36-year-old leader, is a gifted orator and “media savvy”. His decision to refer government maladministration to the public protector (an ombudsman) and the courts has proved effective. But sustained attempts to call a vote of no confidence in Zuma, despite the ANC’s huge parliamentary majority, attest to an interest in seeking headlines. Appeals to the government to raise social grants – a range of welfare payments that the ANC initiated – at a time when the national budget is under intense pressure, displays a degree of political opportunism. The enthusiasm for the social grant system and the party’s endorsement of the National Development Plan has prompted debate about whether the DA is merely “ANC Lite”. Winning a metro in Gauteng, or Nelson Mandela Bay in Eastern Cape, would put this suggestion to the test.

Left out
The ANC, COSATU and the SACP maintain a “Tripartite Alliance”, but this is fracturing amid controversy over Zuma’s clientelism. The Communist Party has talked up “state capture” and promised a “mass action” campaign against members of the Gupta family, who have allegedly profited from personal ties to Zuma, but has stopped short of directly criticising the head of state. Ranjeni Munusamy, associate editor at the Daily Maverick, told ARI that the Young Communist League wants the SACP to field its own candidates in future elections.

In public, COSATU endorses the ANC but its credibility is diminished. “COSATU has lost muscle”, Munusamy told ARI, stressing its declining membership amid a shift away from the shop floor and towards public sector jobs. The mining sector used to constitute the labour federation’s largest affiliate until more urgent, radical voices eclipsed ANC-linked unions. Wildcat strikes in August 2012, and the massacre of striking workers at the Lonmin mine in Marikana, saw the rise of the independent Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union at the expense of the National Union of Mineworkers.

In November 2014, in another significant development, COSATU expelled the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). When Zwelinzima Vavi, then COSATU’s general secretary, spoke out against the expulsion, he too was dismissed. Vavi and NUMSA’s general secretary, Irvin Jim, plan to form a new labour federation, unionising hitherto marginalised workers and appealing to those in the informal sector.

That Vavi and Jim have not yet made their move is testament to the growing presence of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) since the party’s formation in July 2013. Although the EFF achieved only 6.4% of the national vote in April 2014, it won representation in all nine provinces and became the official opposition in two provincial legislatures, Limpopo and North West. The party is untested at local level, but its widely anticipated success could be the headline of the 2016 municipal elections.
 

Revolutionary councillors
The rise of the EFF can be attributed to the personality of its leader and the appeal of his populist narrative and dress code. Julius Malema, the party’s “commander-in-chief”, is a former ANC Youth League leader who once pledged to die for Zuma. Malema has since become a thorn in Zuma’s side, describing him as “an illegitimate president”, “morally and politically compromised”, and calling for his “immediate removal” in response to the 2016 state of the nation address. [24]

Malema has branded the EFF as a party of the working class, the neglected and the marginalised. It has gained a foothold in constituencies disaffected with the ANC, including the “unhitched” labourers whose precarious existence has not changed since the apartheid era. The party’s powerful, racially charged discourse on land appeals to those living in townships and backyard shacks. Its uniform – red overalls and hardhats, interchanged with military fatigues and red berets, or pinafores – is distinctive, and its conduct calculated to attract attention. Numerous EFF MPs have been forcibly removed from the parliamentary chamber for rambunctious behaviour. The EFF has also tapped into the spirit of rebellion among black students at South Africa’s universities. Party activists buttressed the #RhodesMustFall movement, and subsequently #FeesMustFall, wrong-footing the ANC Youth League.

Casual labourers are unlikely foot soldiers for an election campaign, but the party has actively sought to represent their interests nevertheless. The EFF manifesto demands that all companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange pay a minimum wage of R4,500. Those employed in specific manual roles would be entitled to additional salaries. Mineworkers would receive R12,500 per month; private security guards, R7,500; builders, R7,000; factory workers, R6,500; and petrol attendants, cashiers and farm labourers, R5,000.[25] The manifesto also promises to “expropriate and allocate land equitably to all residents of the municipality”. Africa Check found this proposal to be unworkable in the absence of ministerial approval and funds for compensation.[26] Similarly impractical is a pledge that half of all goods sold in the municipality would be produced locally.

The EFF finds itself at a critical juncture. It must now decide whether it is to be an entertaining  protest movement or a party willing and able to govern. If it has sufficient councillors to hold the balance of power in a municipality, it will be presented with an opportunity to access paid positions and influence resource distribution. Should it refuse to join a coalition, it could lose support and be portrayed as politically irrelevant. If it accepts, the EFF will be expected to dispense more than populist bombast.

Malema has done all he can to distance himself from the party that spawned him. In June, he told a crowd in Bushbuckridge, Mpumalanga, “You are in an abusive relationship with the ANC. It beats you up and you go back and say you love it.”[27] Despite his claims that the EFF “will never work with the ANC”, some suspect Malema of planning a return to the  fold once he has shown his ability to garner more than 10% of the vote.

Crossing the Rubicon
South Africa’s political landscape is increasingly pluralistic. Each election now brings a more concerted challenge to the unrivalled supremacy that the ANC has enjoyed since 1994. The 2016 municipal elections will confirm as much. Fewer than one in three South Africans of voting age are likely to turn out to support the ANC on 3 August. Traditional supporters may engage in tactical voting – splitting their votes across ballots for ward and PR councillors – in the hope of electing a candidate with the inclination to fix dilapidated local infrastructure and the nous to improve municipal finances.

Should the ANC lose control of one – or more – of its seven metros, there will be immediate and intense speculation about the party’s ability to dominate the April 2019 national and provincial elections. There is already conjecture that, faced with the prospect of losing Gauteng province in 2019, the ANC may “self-correct”, recalling the president at the next national conference in December 2017. But Zuma’s grip on power is entrenched. All the provincial premiers remain loyal to him, and many others depend on his patronage. Against the backdrop of rapidly changing demography, some regard his close ties with rural constituencies as an electoral bulwark rather than an existential threat to the ANC.

Political pluralism, at least in South Africa’s cities, is synonymous with increasing divergence. The character and approach of the parties being watched most closely – the ANC, DA and EFF – could not be more different. Where coalitions become necessary after 3 August, they will have to be negotiated and fashioned by those advancing disparate and incompatible policy prescriptions to local and national issues. This process will produce important insights into the near-term development of democracy in South Africa.

At the 2011 municipal elections, when 57.6% of registered voters turned out, the DA was the major beneficiary of a heightened interest in local politics.[28] In 2016, the EFF may profit from widespread frustration at the state of government. It remains to be seen whether technocrats and revolutionaries can collaborate in government, but the opportunity to revitalise South Africa’s maligned municipalities is theirs for the taking.

Interviews were conducted in April 2016. Africa Research Institute and Nick Branson would like to express their gratitude to those who contributed.

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[1] At the time of publication, 100 South African Rand was equivalent to US$7

[2] Collette Schulz-Herzenberg, “Trends in electoral participation and party support: 1994-2014”, Institute for Strategic Studies, www.issafrica.org/uploads/Electoral-Trends-Collette-Schulz-Herzenberg.pdf

[3] Justice Malala, “The Big Read: Lousy Hlaudi, get off TV”, The Times, 4 July 2016, www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2016/07/04/The-Big-Read-Lousy-Hlaudi-get-off-TV

[4] “‘We will see them when it is election time’”, Africa in Fact (Issue 36; March–April 2016), p.110

[5] Derek Powell, Michael O’Donovan and Jaap de Visser, “Civic Protests Barometer 2007-2014”, Multi-Level Government Initiative, University of the Western Cape, February 2015, http://dullahomarinstitute.org.za/multilevel-govt/mlgi/civic-protests-barometer-2007-2014/view

[6] Troye Lund, “Local government reform: Pravin’s big challenge”, Financial Mail, 11 December 2014, www.financialmail.co.za/coverstory/2014/12/11/local-government-reform-pravins-big-challenge

[7] “Determinations of upper limits of salaries, allowances and benefits of Members of Municipal Councils”, Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office-Bearers, 21 December 2015, www.remcommission.gov.za/pebble.asp?relid=4381

[8] Krista Mahr, “Violent South Africa protests expose ANC internal rifts”, Financial Times, 22 June 2016, www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce8382f6-388c-11e6-9a05-82a9b15a8ee7.html#ixzz4CQW5s3EG

[9] Natasha Marrian, “How the ANC is balancing factions and competence”, Business Day, 21 June 2016, www.bdlive.co.za/national/2016/06/21/news-analysis-civic-choices-show-anc-balancing-factions-and-competence

[10] David Bruce, “Political killings in South Africa”, Policy Brief 64, October 2014, Institute for Security Studies, https://www.issafrica.org/uploads/PolBrief64.pdf

[11] Nce Mkhize, “The hostel where locals feel like refugees”, Business Day, 30 June 2016, www.bdlive.co.za/national/2016/06/30/the-hostel-where-locals-feel-like-refugees

[12] Genevieve Quintal, “Another ANC KwaZulu-Natal leader killed, bringing death toll to 12”, Rand Daily Mail, 19 July 2016, www.rdm.co.za/politics/2016/07/19/another-anc-kwazulu-natal-leader-killed-bringing-death-toll-to-12

[13]  Raymond Suttner, “Op-Ed: Tshwane’s flames and disintegration of ANC’s authority”, Daily Maverick, 29 June 2016, www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-06-29-op-ed-tshwanes-flames-and-disintegration-of-ancs-authority

[14] Sibusiso Nkomo and Jamy Felton, “As South Africa’s local elections approach, public confidence underpins system in turmoil”, Afrobarometer, 17 May 2016, http://afrobarometer.org/publications/ad89-south-africas-local-elections-approach-public-confidence-underpins-system-turmoil

[15] “I am your president and shepherd, let me lead you – Zuma”, News 24, 3 April 2016, www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/i-am-your-president-and-shepherd-let-me-lead-you-zuma-20160403

[16] Jonathan Faull, “Slicing and Dicing the 2014 Election Data: What are the implications for the ANC, DA and EFF?”, Institute for Security Studies, 29 May 2014, www.issafrica.org/uploads/2014-Election-Data-Judith-Februrary.pdf

[17] Sibusiso Nkomo and Jamy Felton, “As South Africa’s local elections approach, public confidence underpins system in turmoil”, Afrobarometer, 17 May 2016, http://afrobarometer.org/publications/ad89-south-africas-local-elections-approach-public-confidence-underpins-system-turmoil

[18] Nick Branson, “Land, Law and Traditional Leadership in South Africa”, Briefing Note, Africa Research Institute, 17 June 2016, http://bit.ly/SALandLaw

[19] Ivor Chipkin, “Once-invincible ANC takes on regional, ethnic colours”, Sunday Times, 15 May 2016, www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/opinion/2016/05/15/Once-invincible-ANC-takes-on-regional-ethnic-colours

[20] Paul Berkowitz, “Local government audits 2013-14: how well are we doing with Clean Audit 2014?”, 3 June 2015, http://paulberkowitz.co.za/local-government-audits-2013-14-how-well-are-we-doing-with-clean-audit-2014/

[21] Lukhona Mnguni, “Grassroots grievances”, Africa in Fact (Issue 36; March-April 2016), p.67

[22] “GGA Government Performance Index 2016”, ibid., p.91

[23] Nkanyiso Gumede, “Scramble for votes: Are rural votes vital in the upcoming local government elections?” PLAAS, 12 May 2016, http://www.plaas.org.za/blog/scramble-votes-are-rural-votes-vital-upcoming-local-government-elections

[24] “SONA: Transcript of Julius Malema’s speech”, PoliticsWeb, 24 February 2016, www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/sona-transcript-of-julius-malemas-speech

[25] Economic Freedom Fighters, “EFF memorandum to Johannesburg Stock Exchange”, 27 October 2015, http://effighters.org.za/eff-memorandum-to-johannesburg-stock-exchange-27-october-2015/

[26] Kate Wilkinson and Masutane Modjadji, “Is the EFF your ‘last hope for service delivery’? We evaluate their manifesto”, Africa Check, 26 May 2016, https://africacheck.org/reports/is-the-eff-your-last-hope-for-service-delivery-we-evaluate-their-manifesto/

[27] Sam Mkokeli, “Exclusive: Inside the mind of Julius Malema”, Financial Mail, 15 June 2016, www.financialmail.co.za/coverstory/2016/06/15/exclusive-inside-the-mind-of-julius-malema

[28] Ebrahim Fakir and Waseem Holland, “Changing voting patterns?” Journal of Public Administration (Volume 46, Number 3.1), September 2011

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The post South Africa’s watershed elections: Awry, the Beloved Country? appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

The federal system of governance in Nigeria is failing to provide the basic welfare for all citizens that the 1999 Constitution prescribes. On the first anniversary of the election victory of President Muhammadu Buhari, ARI published a Briefing Note that examines the origins and purpose of the federation, state governments’ financial management and responsibilities, governors’ arbitrary power, and the need to increase internally generated state revenue.

On  28 April 2016, ARI invited three speakers to draw upon their experiences and expertise in order to discuss the state of state governments in Nigeria:

 ‘Dapo Oyewole

 Podcast

YouTube

The post The State of State Governments in Nigeria appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

March 2016

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In Nigeria’s March 2015 presidential election, the incumbent peacefully conceded defeat and transferred power to an opposition party for the first time since the end of military rule in 1999. Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa, generating about 20% of the continent’s total GDP, and transfers a far greater proportion of resources to sub-national government than any other country. Yet standards of governance remain extremely low, public services are among the worst in Africa and economic growth has exacerbated inequality rather than creating jobs. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, two out of three Nigerians live in poverty.

The federal system of governance in Nigeria is failing to provide the basic welfare for all citizens that the 1999 Constitution prescribes. On the first anniversary of the election victory of President Muhammadu Buhari, this Briefing Note examines the origins and purpose of the federation, state governments’ financial management and responsibilities, governors’ arbitrary power, and the need to increase internally generated state revenue. It suggests practicable reforms that could help change state governments from elected autocracies to agents of social and economic development.

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• A federation for peace
•  Fiscal profligacy
• The governor’s domain
• Lagos: a state of exception?
• Detached states
• Sources

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A federation for peace

Nigeria’s three-tier system of government – federal, state and local government area (LGA) – was born out of military rule. At independence in 1960, Nigeria had elected governments in its three regions – northern, western and eastern – and at federal level.¹ The regions were autonomous and broadly self-sufficient, but prone to intense rivalry between their dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Ibo, respectively. After two military coups and the eastern region’s failed bid for secession, which triggered the Biafran War (1967–70), Gen. Yakubu Gowon’s regime replaced the regions with 12 states. The purpose of this “military federalism”² was to prevent Nigeria breaking apart.

In theory, by concentrating power and wealth centrally, the Federal Government could distribute resources to the states and balance the many ethnic, religious and other interest groups’ competing demands. Successive military rulers periodically created more states. By 1976, there were 19; two more were added in 1987, and a further 15 in 1996, as well as the Federal Capital Territory, which contained the national capital Abuja. The number of states has remained unaltered for two decades, but the creation of LGAs in 1979 established a third tier of government that has progressively expanded.

A federal structure, whose prime objective was to maintain security by curbing regional and ethnic influence, does not foster development. Despite receiving about half the national revenue – a sum of N2.7 trillion in 2014 (US$13.5 billion at current official exchange rate) – state governments fail to provide the services that could materially improve the lives of tens of millions of Nigerians. The 2015 United Nations Human Development Index ranked Nigeria 152nd out of 187 countries. State authorities are not accountable to citizens, state institutions are weak and corruption is endemic. The 774 LGAs – the most proximate form of government for most Nigerians – have all but ceased to function. Furthermore, groups armed by or linked to state governors have been responsible for the most deadly outbreaks of violence of the past decade: ethnic clashes in Plateau state, conflict in the Niger Delta and the Boko Haram insurgency.

Fiscal profligacy

The 1999 Constitution imposed by the outgoing military government, the fourth since independence, increased states’ responsibility to provide social services and infrastructure. Intended as an interim document, the constitution was deliberately vague about demarcation. A new constitution has never been forthcoming. Overlap and ambiguity regarding federal, state and LGA responsibilities persist, with intense debate and confusion about which tier of government is responsible for what. For example, responsibility for education is split across the three levels, but the collapse of primary and secondary schools nominally run by LGAs or states forced the Federal Government to intervene through the Universal Basic Education programme to reduce illiteracy.

Transparency in sub-national government is as lacking as clear definitions of responsibilities. No state government has issued audited accounts for a year more recent than 2013; Katsina’s most recent are for 2012. There is little public scrutiny of state revenues and expenditure. It is widely believed that many governors gain power through fraud or bribery and pack state assemblies with supporters who will not hold them to account.

The federal allocation is meant to supplement the revenue states generate from taxes on personal income, property and other sources. However, in more than three-quarters of states, the federal allocation provides more than 80% of total revenue. States’ internally generated revenue (IGR) falls well short of even covering personnel costs. Furthermore, IGR usually relies on sources that require the least tax effort such as PAYE – income tax automatically deducted at source from salaries. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, two-thirds of states make at least half their IGR from this source.

Akwa Ibom, the state that produces the most oil, derives almost all of its N462 billion (US$2.3 billion) budget from the federal “handout”. It covers only a fraction of its recurrent costs with local revenue and routinely accrues substantial bank debts and salary arrears. The example may be extreme, but when receipts from the federal revenue pool in the first nine months of 2015 halved compared to the previous year, due to the collapse in global oil prices, most states rapidly became insolvent. One of Buhari’s first decisions as president was to authorise a bailout fund for 27 indebted states endowed with N338 billion (US$1.7 billion) of federal government funds – a sum substantially larger than the annual budget of the Ministry of Health or the budget for defence and the armed forces. In addition, the Debt Management Office converted N324 billion (US$1.6 billion) of state debt to long term bonds.

“If everyone in the states had budgeted correctly there would have been no need for this [bailout],” a former state finance commissioner told ARI. “Even when the oil price was high, virtually all the states were spending more than they earned”. Whether the bailout was to stave off a potential collapse of banks that had lent large sums to state governments or was politically motivated is unclear. But the finance commissioner regards the decision as a missed opportunity. “[Buhari] could have imposed conditions – revenue and spending targets – on the states before agreeing to bail out their debts and approve new money”. The Federal Government has in effect refunded the costs of state mismanagement and profligacy.

The governor’s domain

A governor’s character and intentions are the most important factors in determining a state government’s performance. This seldom works to the people’s advantage. According to Yusuf Tuggar, a candidate for the governorship of Bauchi in 2011:

“Many elected governors have no programme or blueprint at the start of their tenure and instead of working out a few priorities that the state can afford, they set up expensive projects which they pass on to the [Federal Government] to fund, or abandon them when the funding runs out. In my state, this involved roads and airports that we don’t need and for which some of the expenditure can be diverted into political funding.”
Misconceived or abandoned state-funded projects are found throughout the country, from Cross River’s grand plan to rival Dubai as a tourist attraction to a former governor of Jigawa’s scheme to turn his Sahelian state into an IT hub. The government of Katsina, Buhari’s home state in the far north-west, built a school in a different country – Niger.

State elections seldom hold anyone to account. Poor provision of health care, housing, education and infrastructure or lack of support for agriculture does not prevent the corrupt or ineffective from securing re-election. Electoral fraud is commonplace. “A governor is usually voted in because the political ‘godfather’ decided he should be,” explains Jibrin Ibrahim, professor of political science at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria. The state administers LGA elections, which are typically either rigged or not held at all. “It’s very rare that a candidate from a party in opposition to the governor wins an LGA seat,” says Prof. Ibrahim.

Winning an election is an expensive business. Financial backers and supporters expect a payback within the maximum of two four-year terms a governor can serve. But the rewards are lucrative. By law, governors in many states receive their salary for life and keep perks from their time in office such as official houses, cars and furniture. Furthermore, many aspire to move further up the political ladder; for example, to a seat in the Federal Senate, where they can count on total remuneration of more than US$1.5 million a year. Short-term personal gain trumps concerted attempts at state management and development.

The marginal significance in most states of IGR further undermines representative government and accountability. State governments do not depend on the citizens they govern for revenue, so the citizens have little or no leverage. “As long as they receive a handout each month from the centre, governors can rig state election[s] and the constituents have no say in who governs them,” says Chidi Odinkalu, a senior lawyer and chair of the National Human Rights Commission. However, the oil price collapse is a warning against undue indifference among state governments. The Federal Government cannot afford repeated bailouts. According to the DFID-funded State Partnership for Accountability, Responsiveness and Capability (SPARC) programme:

“If oil were at US$20 a barrel, at 2014 budget levels only three states would be able to cover their recurrent costs with recurrent revenues: Lagos, because it generates substantial revenues internally and depends less on federal transfers; Kano, because of the amount the state receives in federal transfers due to the large number of local government areas; and Katsina, because the overhead and personnel costs are very low compared to other states”.

The nature of state governorship varies regionally. In the mainly Muslim north, where “cash and carry politics” is the norm according to one candidate in the recent state elections, imams and other religious leaders exert a powerful influence over state governments. The decision by almost all state governors in the north who took office in 1999 to adopt sharia law in the criminal code subordinated development objectives to religious observance. In the southern states, the political “godfathers” – former governors and their business backers – hold sway. Only in the south-west is there “a stronger culture of protecting the mandate of the electorate, so the popular pressure on the governors to perform is much higher than in most other parts of the country”, says Prof. Ibrahim. “But in general state governors are so powerful that they can choose to do whatever they want, which includes doing nothing.”
Improving governance is far from straightforward. A detailed study by SPARC of 10 states, rating each for governance systems and processes, found that Jigawa, in the far north, and Lagos had the greatest capacity to deliver realistic budgets, decentralise cash control, deliver improved procurement, account for LGA finances, manage staff for performance and
provide the public with better access to information.³ However, when Jigawa was advised to invest in corporate planning to improve its efficiency and quality of staffing, the state refused in favour of continuing to fund five emirate councils run by politically influential imams.

Lagos: a state of exception?

Lagos is frequently cited as setting the standard for improved state governance. It is the smallest by area but wealthiest state, home to Nigeria’s commercial capital, and has an abundance of well-qualified people. A decisive factor, however, in changing state administration was having its federal funding cut off in the early 2000s during a dispute between then President Olusegun Obasanjo and state governor Bola Tinubu, over Tinubu’s decision to create new LGAs in his domain. Shortage of funds forced the governor to assess what could be done to maximise the state’s IGR. But to raise tax revenues from various sources, including property, required a promise of benefits; and to make it sustainable those benefits had to be delivered to taxpayers. Federal funding resumed in 2007, but taxes still produce 60% of Lagos’s revenue. Its IGR, about N300 billion (US$1.5 billion) in 2014, is equivalent to the combined IGR of 32 of Nigeria’s 35 other states.⁴

Reliance on IGR made the Lagos state government more accountable to its electorate, who in turn became more aware of their right to judge its performance. Under Tinubu’s protégé and successor, Babatunde Fashola, crime was reduced, the environment improved, roads were built and the transport system expanded. Prompt action to contain a possible outbreak of Ebola in 2014 demonstrated governmental competence. Now that Fashola is a federal minister, many expect Nasir el-Rufai in Kaduna state, in the north-west, to earn the reputation as Nigeria’s most praiseworthy state governor. Elected in 2015, el-Rufai moved quickly to close the state’s commercial bank accounts; eliminate “ghost workers” from the payroll by introducing digital ID for the civil service; concentrate resources on infrastructure, transport and public services; and ensure that LGAs receive their correct share of funding.
While the marked improvement in the administration and revenue collection in Lagos state are commendable, admiration needs to be tempered. As a former state commissioner told ARI:

“Lagos could achieve far more. The state piled up huge debts to fund infrastructure on the wealthy islands, but we could have done better if more had been spent on housing and new towns on the mainland and the outer reaches of Lagos, which would have reduced congestion and created jobs. There was no emphasis on taking care of the less well-off. Lagos state since 1999 has done nothing for the under-privileged and low-income earners that make up about 90% of the population”.

The nature of politics and corruption has not altered. The same party – the Action Congress of Nigeria, now part of the All Progressives Congress national coalition – has controlled Lagos since 1999, which ensures that political patronage strongly influences investment decisions. Contract inflation is rife and transparency poor. As one donor official put it, “Lagos looks shiny from a distance, but not when you look closely”.

Detached states

Government in Nigeria “is detached from its people at every level of the federation”, says Chidi Odinkalu. The restoration of elected civilian government in 1999 has done little to invigorate state or local governments. The failure to promote transparent, accountable sub-national government as the engine for local development is a result of weak institutional capacity and lack of political will. Although most states appear to have been set up to fail economically, demands to create more continue. As a Nigerian political commentator put it to ARI, “people on a gravy train don’t ask to stop the train”.

Nigeria’s crude oil earnings declined by 40% in 2015. Low oil prices mean that states cannot rely on the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee to increase their diminished monthly payments. A process of “structural adjustment” is required. African Development Bank country director for Nigeria Ousmane Dore told ARI “we are very worried about state governments’ finances”.⁵ Some states will try to borrow their way out of difficulty rather than focusing on what, according to Dore, is “the main problem”: the lack of IGR. In the short term, the Federal Government needs to be clear that it will not reward profligacy with further bailouts. This would force state governors to live within their means, controlling expenditure and augmenting income by raising revenues, and providing services in return.

In the longer term, solutions abound that look effective and straightforward on paper. The federal allocation formula could be altered to reward better governance. The number of states could be reduced to create more economically sustainable units. The overlap in responsibilities between tiers of government could be eliminated. However, many such measures would require constitutional amendments that are extremely unlikely or well-nigh impossible to implement within Nigeria’s political economy for other reasons.

Less ambitious reforms may be possible. The prudent guidelines on government spending and debt that the Fiscal Responsibility Act requires are only binding on the Federal Government. The same limits and guidelines should apply to state governments to prevent a recurrence of the recent insolvency and bailout. The Debt Management Office should also have increased powers over state government borrowing. Stricter requirements for disclosure of revenue and spending, and the imposition of conditions, would improve state financial management; as would timely, independent audits of state-owned enterprises and the gradual privatisation of such companies. A new initiative, BudgIT (yourbudgit.com), is already making headway in providing the public with budgetary information that enables citizens to monitor the performance of their elected representatives.

The 1999 Constitution Alteration Bill passed by the National Assembly in 2015 included a provision securing the financial autonomy of state assemblies. This would have strengthened the authority of state legislatures over the executive, but other provisions in the Bill led to it being blocked by the outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan. Legislation is urgently required to ensure that state assemblies cease to be mere appendages of governors.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) won praise for its conduct of the 2015 presidential election. Biometric identification was used effectively and the commission succeeded in maintaining its independence and integrity under the most testing circumstances. More credible state government elections would make it harder for state governors and their “godfathers” to secure power by fraudulent means.

The abolition of the state electoral commissions appointed by governors would be a step towards improving the autonomy of LGAs. Prof. Ibrahim, a member of the late president Yar’Adua’s Electoral Reform Commission, told ARI that “in every part of the country the commission visited, everyone wanted the LGAs to be elected fairly and democratically because that is the branch of government closest to everyone’s lives”. The task of organising LGA elections should be assigned to INEC. If elected, as opposed to selected, LGAs could be held to account by local voters, demand their federal allocation from state governments and do what they are mandated to do: deliver basic services at grassroots level.
Nigeria’s states are in crisis. But modest improvements in IGR, financial management, conduct of elections, the autonomy of state assemblies and LGAs, and service delivery are readily achievable and would improve the lives of millions of Nigerians.

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1. A fourth region, Mid-Western, was created shortly before the outbreak of the 1967-70 civil war

2. Rotimi Suberu, “Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria”, United States Institute of Peace Press, 2001

3. SPARC also set up a state peer-review mechanism under the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), which reviewed Anambra and Ekiti states before the NGF suspended its meetings in 2013. Independent reviewers found that neither state had held LGA elections or raised adequate IGR, but rated them quite highly otherwise

4. See BudgIT, “The State of States”, 2015, p.63

5. The states have received substantial loans from the AfDB and World Bank

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Dr Nic Cheeseman, associate professor of African politics, University of Oxford; author of Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform

• The Afro-pessimists: For Afro-pessimists, the regular holding of elections not only hides authoritarian regimes but provides them with a degree of international legitimacy. The most stable regimes in the world are where an authoritarian leader runs very tightly controlled elections. Afro-pessimists argue that democratic regimes are no better at representing women; that elections generate periodic violence; that the quality of civil liberties across the continent has declined as the number of multi-party systems has increased; and that there is no clear correlation between free elections and political freedoms.
• The Afro-positivists: Afro-positivists, on the other hand, argue that the holding of elections entrenches democratic traditions and values. They point to studies that show support for democracy is high amongst African citizens and that term limits are starting to bite. When respected once, term limits have never been subsequently rejected on the continent. Enforcing term limits also provides opportunities for the political opposition: when a ruling party fields a new candidate, rather than the incumbent, its chance of victory drops from 85% to 50%.
• Three Africas: There are three different camps of democratic development in Africa. The first is racing ahead. In countries like Benin, Senegal and Ghana democratic values have been consolidated over time with transfers of power, a trajectory that is likely to continue. The second is in a turbulent middle ground where low incentives to give up power have created an environment in which elections have often been conflictual and skewed in favour of the ruling party. Examples include Zimbabwe and Kenya. The third is stuck in an authoritarian backwater, ruled by military leaders in civilian clothes. In places like Rwanda and Ethiopia elections are used as a means of control and political legitimation. The trajectory of democracy on the continent is not one of convergence but of divergence.
• A role for the international community: Developing political institutions is an area where international actors can have a significant impact on democratisation. But geopolitics are also at play. Western powers provide unwavering support to regimes due to natural resources and security considerations, which in turn often undermine efforts to promote democracy. China’s arrival makes the politics more complicated, but the basic rules have not changed. Ultimately, outside processes can only do so much; domestic factors shape the success of democratisation.

Prof. Ibrahim Lipumba, former national chairman, Civic United Front (CUF); four-time presidential candidate in Tanzania

• One nation, two governments: The United Republic exhibits a significant contrast between mainland Tanzania and the Isles of Zanzibar. The mainland does not have a strong history of political opposition because of the principles espoused by the first president, Julius Nyerere. Until the introduction of multi-party politics in 1992, political competition was limited to the confines of the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM). Even after five elections, CCM continues to exert its dominance. In Zanzibar, political opposition has a long history that pre-dates independence. The most contentious elections took place in 1995, when the Civic United Front (CUF) emerged victorious only to see the decision reversed.
• Polls in Zanzibar: With a history of closely contested polls in Zanzibar, in 2010 an agreement was reached – and enshrined in the constitution – that parties securing more than 5% of the vote would be included in a government of national unity. This stipulation was designed to reduce electoral contestation and prevent violence. But in 2015 the chairman of the Zanzibar Electoral Commission unilaterally annulled the election results, despite lacking the legal mandate to do so. This occurred as CUF took half of the seats in the House of Representatives – and presented evidence of having won the presidential vote. Currently the Isles are without a functioning government. However, Professor Lipumba said “I remain optimistic regarding Tanzania’s democratic development; I believe we can reach a solution on Zanzibar”.
• Two terms: Term limits are a respected part of Tanzanian democracy. They are important because in a second term the president can push harder for political reforms, knowing he will not compete again. In 2015, the outgoing president, Jakaya Kikwete, tried to push for constitutional reforms. Even though political pressure eventually meant that he failed to hold a referendum on the Warioba draft constitution, he reopened a debate on the manner in which the nation is governed.
• Valuing democracy: Democracy is not a cultural imposition but a universal value. Africans prefer a democratic system of government. Democracy is so omnipresent that even coup-makers claim to carry out their actions to preserve democratic principles.

Vera Kwakofi, current affairs editor, BBC Africa

• The voice of citizens: The media can play a role in entrenching democratic principles. But in 2015 conventional media had to play “catch up” with the sentiments of people on the ground. WhatsApp is revolutionising politics in Africa. It has been transformed from a social tool to a political organising platform and a pseudo-medium for sharing news content. Because of its encryption it is harder to censor, meaning it has put the power of communication into the hands of citizens.
• Investigative journalism: The investigation into the judiciary in Ghana by Anas Aremeyaw Anas provides an inspiring example for the continent. Anas exposed wide-scale corruption in an institution that holds historic importance in Ghana, and which has always been seen as non-politicised. 20 judges have already been sacked and over 180 judges and court officials are still under investigation. The media should hold politicians to account, but journalists are not doing enough of this in Africa. More attention should be given to examining the institutions of state and interrogating how effective they are and what they are really doing.
• An African Fourth Estate: There is more at stake for local media than international media. Its primary role must be as educators – to explain the actions of actors, functions of government and processes of democracy as independently as possible. By detailing how the state works, local media can empower citizens to make informed choices. The international media should be observers of society and portray events to the rest of the world. However international media too often performs the function of local media. African media houses and journalists are better placed to understand local cultures and histories; however, the lack of a supportive environment prevents them from doing so.

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Interview with Prof.Ibrahim Lipumba

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The post The State of Democracy in Africa 2015 appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

October 2015

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Tanzania’s fifth multi-party elections on 25 October 2015 could mark a watershed in national politics. Former prime minister Edward Lowassa is the flagbearer for Ukawa, an opposition alliance forged during a heated contest over constitutional reform and the structure of the Union. After two terms in office the incumbent president, Jakaya Kikwete, is standing down. While opinion polls indicate that his successor John Magufuli and CCM, the ruling party since 1977, are clear favourites, uncertainty about the intentions of the huge number of young voters and the level of turnout make predictions hazardous. Despite the unresolved battle over constitutional reform, campaigning has eschewed issues of importance to all Tanzanians in favour of an emphasis on personalities, and small-scale promises. This Briefing Note considers the variables in what is likely to be the most keenly contested poll since the first multi-party elections in 1995.

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• The katiba controversy
• Enter the ‘big man’
• The fall-out
• CCM’s safe pair of hands
• What’s in it for me?
• Who will vote?
• CCM’s partial eclipse?
• Sources

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The katiba controversy

Between July and December 2012, Tanzania’s Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) visited all districts in the United Republic, held 1,773 meetings and received the opinions of 1.4 million citizens, as well as civil society organisations and international experts.¹; The consultation process rekindled nationwide discussion about the degree of autonomy afforded to Zanzibar, land ownership, citizenship, and human rights. Issues, rather than personalities or party politics, were to the fore.

Two drafts of a new katiba, or constitution, were vigorously debated by a constituent assembly in the capital Dodoma during 2014. The main stumbling block – as in the previous two constitutional reviews – was the structure of the Union. Delegates from Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), the ruling party since 1977, steadfastly defended the status quo. Opposition party delegates supported the CRC’s recommendation for a three-tier federal arrangement, adding a new government for the mainland to the existing ones for the Union and the Zanzibar Isles. Despite a boycott by opposition delegates, a draft constitution was narrowly approved by the constituent assembly in October 2014. But a popular referendum on the new katiba scheduled for April 2015 was postponed until after the general election. High politicking supplanted the deliberation of weighty matters that affect the daily lives of all Tanzanians.²

The heavy-handed conduct of CCM in the constituent assembly divided the nation; the decision to defer the referendum left it in constitutional limbo. Four opposition parties found common cause during the katiba review, uniting under the banner of Umoja wa katiba ya Wananchi (Coalition of Defenders of the People’s Constitution) or Ukawa. The alliance has survived the indefinite postponement of a resolution to the constitutional issue.

Despite seemingly incompatible ideological positions, Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), which was established as a pro-business platform and draws its support from northern Tanzania and Dar es Salaam; the Civic United Front (CUF), a liberal party with strong support in Zanzibar and pockets of the coast; the National Convention for Construction and Reform (NCCR-Mageuzi), popular on the shores of Lake Tanganyika; and the National League for Democracy (NLD) have agreed a joint manifesto and endorsed a common list of candidates for the general election. The endurance of Ukawa suggests that the poll will be the most keenly contested since the first multi-party elections in 1995.

Enter the “big man”

Ukawa’s electoral prospects were transformed in July 2015. Former prime minister Edward Lowassa defected from CCM to Chadema, the largest opposition party, after failing to secure CCM’s nomination as its presidential candidate. Lowassa’s exclusion by the ruling party’s Security and Ethics Committee came as a surprise to many. A political heavyweight from Arusha, he is influential, well-connected and able to draw on substantial backing from Asian and Arab businessmen. But his relationship with CCM seldom ran smoothly.

Older Tanzanians recall that Lowassa failed to secure the CCM presidential nomination once before. In 1995 his candidacy was widely thought to have been vetoed by Julius Nyerere himself, founding president of the republic. Benjamin Mkapa, the victor on that occasion, did not offer Lowassa a cabinet post during his first term and only conferred a slot at the Ministry of Water and Livestock in his second. In 2005 Lowassa supported Jakaya Kikwete’s successful bid for the presidency on the tacit – and ultimately mistaken – understanding that the favour would be returned in 2015.

[quote]51% of those surveyed believe that “corruption cannot be controlled at all” in Tanzania[/quote]

For all his charisma and influence, Lowassa was seemingly considered unsafe by CCM elders. He was tainted by his association with the Richmond Development Company energy corruption scandal that occurred when he was premier and prompted his resignation in 2008. While Lowassa was never prosecuted for any wrongdoing, the episode inspired the nicknames Lo-Rushwa and Fisadi-in-Chief, derived from the Swahili for “bribe” and “corrupt” respectively. His close association with certain businessmen prompts frequent and widespread speculation. “One wonders why he is the ‘magnet’ that attracts such money. More significantly, what if there is ‘pay back time’ if he wins the elections?” asked one commentator in June.³

Chadema’s leader and Ukawa co-chair Freeman Mbowe appeared unperturbed by such questions when courting Lowassa, and speedily ensured that his prize was confirmed as Ukawa’s presidential candidate. The recruitment of Lowassa has entailed compromise. Ukawa was forged to promote ambitious principles and progressive values during the battle to introduce a new constitution. But the coalition is equally determined to win the presidential election and has judged the former prime minister to be the man to deliver victory, despite mutterings of an “integrity deficit”⁴.

Lowassa has proved adaptable. He toed the CCM party line over the katiba as it sought to stymie support for radical changes to the structure of the Union, which might have loosened its grip on power. However, when presented as Ukawa’s candidate he called for the constitutional debate to be reopened. Lowassa’s campaign rallies across the country have drawn vast crowds, partly because he arrives by helicopter. He is presented by Chadema as independently wealthy, a man who has no need of a position in government to enrich himself. This may not matter to voters: 51% of those surveyed by civil society organisation Twaweza in June 2014 asserted that “corruption cannot be controlled at all” in Tanzania.⁵ But for all his apparent popularity, Lowassa’s transfer to Chadema and Ukawa has threatened to fracture the coalition.

The fall-out

Lowassa’s arrival in their midst proved too much for some of Ukawa’s leading figures. CUF national chairman and Ukawa co-chair Prof. Ibrahim Lipumba and Chadema secretary-general Dr Wilbrod Slaa resigned. Both stood for the presidency in 2010 and retained ambitions to occupy the Ikulu, or State House. The two men also have reputations as principled individuals with a strong grasp of policy. Their departure from the election campaign heralded a shift away from programmatic politics, while Lowassa’s ascendancy brought a greater focus on personality.

For Lipumba, the identity of Lowassa’s running mate also touched a nerve. The National Elections Act (2010) requires that candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency come from the same party, with one from the mainland and one from the Isles. Because Ukawa is not formally registered as a political party, Juma Duni Haji – Lipumba’s Zanzibari running mate in the 2005 presidential elections – resigned as CUF’s deputy chair to join Lowassa on the Chadema ticket.

The departure of Lipumba and Duni leaves CUF very much in Chadema’s shadow. Meanwhile, Lowassa and Duni make an unlikely pairing. Duni made his reputation as a vociferous campaigner against CCM hegemony on Zanzibar. His incarceration following a by-election victory in 1997 led to him being listed as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International; Lowassa has never been unduly concerned with tensions in the Isles.

At his departing press conference, broadcast live across Tanzania, Slaa launched an uncompromising attack on Lowassa and those thought to be his backers. The former Catholic priest has campaigned tirelessly against corruption and named Lowassa on a “list of shame” in September 2007. Slaa emphasised Lowassa’s failure to honour promises: “I had been told that he was crossing over with about 50 members of parliament and 22 regional party chairmen. In the end, this did not materialise.”⁶ The tirade made headlines for days. It was not the only controversy. The way that Lowassa asked a Lutheran congregation in Tabora to pray for him because the country has never had a president from this protestant denomination has also caused unease in a nation where religion and politics have largely been kept apart.⁷

CCM’s safe pair of hands

Dr John Magufuli may be low profile, but he has never been embroiled in a corruption scandal and, as minister of works, has earned a reputation for being a sound – if occasionally demanding – technocrat, with a detailed knowledge of his brief. Dubbed tingatinga (“bulldozer”) by Kikwete, Magufuli was the safe choice for CCM.

Despite 20 years in government, Magufuli is attempting to position himself as the change candidate, rather than the executor of Kikwete’s legacy. His campaign billboards display only a small CCM logo, in contrast to the green and gold banners that Kikwete used in 2005 and 2010. In at least one respect, Magufuli does represent a break with the status quo. Born in what is now Geita Region, south of Lake Victoria, he is the first CCM presidential candidate from the interior since Nyerere.

Magufuli appears to have more in common with his running mate, Samia Hassan Suluhu, than Lowassa has with Duni. Suluhu is MP for the Zanzibar constituency of Makunduchi and the first female vice-presidential candidate in CCM’s history. As Minister of State for Union Affairs, she personified CCM orthodoxy over Zanzibar; and as deputy chair of the constituent assembly during the katiba review, she frequently attracted the wrath of Ukawa delegates.

CCM has pushed through a flurry of legislation in the run-up to the election, including bills relating to the management of Tanzania’s future, potentially substantial, hydrocarbon revenues. New infrastructure initiatives have been announced. Ukawa, in contrast, has no track record and no access to the machinery of government.

In a June 2015 poll conducted by Twaweza, 46% of respondents listed “policy ideas” as the most important criteria they considered when electing a president.⁸ However, neither the media – with the notable exception of the televised debate series MkikiMkiki – nor campaign rallies carry much meaningful discussion of policy or feasible solutions to widespread poverty, power and infrastructure deficits, and overloaded social services. “The election campaign has been short of serious debate about how to tackle important issues”, Deus Kibamba, the chair of Jukwaa La katiba Tanzania (Constitutional Forum), told ARI.⁹

What’s in it for me?

Whatever people say to pollsters, personalities and party loyalty will inevitably trump policy and issues in the elections. It has always been thus. Magufuli and Suluhu face a tougher campaign on that score than any of their predecessors in CCM. Their public profile was negligible before the campaign started compared to that of their opponents.

What young Tanzanians make of the personalities on show and how they cast their votes will be of critical importance in determining the outcome of this election – and many more to come. The August 2012 census indicates that approximately 55% of Tanzanians were aged 19 or under. Of voters registered for October’s elections, over 60% are under 35 and nearly 80% are under 45.¹⁰ Magufuli is 55 years old, Lowassa 62. Fewer than one in ten Tanzanians are, like them, old enough to remember the formation of the Union in 1964.

[quote]Over 60% of registered voters are under 35 years of age[/quote]

On the campaign trail, CCM and opposition parties have made promises to improve local roads and water supply.¹¹ Pecuniary inducements are commonplace during elections. But voters do not forget. In a Twaweza poll conducted in July/August 2015, two-thirds of those surveyed said they were aware of promises made by their MP during the last election, mostly relating to the provision of local infrastructure; nearly half of them indicated that none of the promises had been fulfilled.¹² Voting an MP out of office remains all but impossible in the majority of mainland constituencies due to the clear ascendancy of one party or another. But in 2015, for the first time ever, a united opposition offers voters a presidential candidate with a chance of success.

Twaweza’s July/August 2015 opinion poll refutes the possibility of an opposition victory. About a quarter of respondents said they intended to vote for Lowassa, as opposed to almost two-thirds (65%) for Magufuli. Lowassa’s strongest showing was among urban, young, male and more educated respondents.¹³ Although the poll did not include Zanzibar, and could therefore underestimate support for the opposition, Lowassa’s score was comparable to Slaa’s 25% share of the vote in the 2010 presidential election. It is far short of the 37% polled by all opposition candidates in that contest. This suggests that Lowassa may not be all that non-CCM voters were hoping for from Ukawa. Again, the voting behaviour of the potentially substantial number of first-time voters will be of critical importance. So, too, is turnout.

Who will vote?

Turnout almost halved for presidential elections between 2000 and 2010, falling from 84% to 43% of registered voters. In the same period the size of the electorate doubled from 10 million to 20 million. The figures speak either of immense – and growing – antipathy to a formal political scene dominated by CCM, a failure on the part of CCM to attract new voters, or a combination of the two.

Despite declining turnout, CCM increased its number of votes in presidential elections by 1.2 million between 1995 and 2010 – double the 635,000 combined increase recorded by opposition parties. The ruling party is experienced and skilled at mobilising grassroots structures in rural areas untouched by the opposition. CCM’s past victories, it has been said, “can be attributed more to the regime’s broad social base and organisational power than to the popularity of its policies or the performance of the government.”¹⁴ Kikwete was keenly aware of the need to nurture rural voters, launching a series of agricultural development programmes during his time in office. Three-quarters of Tanzanians derive a livelihood from agriculture. The party’s secretary-general, Abdulrahman Kinana, has carefully cultivated an image of agrarian activity, to differentiate CCM from opposition “city types”.

[quote]Turnout almost halved for presidential elections between 2000 and 2010, falling from 84% to 43% of registered voters[/quote]

The opposition share of the presidential vote has fluctuated since 1995 but the 37% achieved in 2010 was similar to the first multi-party elections. Whatever recent polls indicate, the presence of Lowassa as Ukawa’s presidential candidate could plausibly provide a 5% boost by attracting new voters to the opposition. If he and Ukawa can “get out the vote” – by mobilising a large number of young, hitherto disaffected voters – a 10% swing might be achievable, and with it a convincing bid for the presidency. However, a substantial turnout among youth voters is as difficult to achieve in Tanzania as elsewhere.

Ukawa’s appeal to young voters might have been greater had Chadema not expelled Zitto Kabwe, an energetic and plain speaking former chair of the parliamentary accounts committee. Being below the age of 40, Kabwe was ineligible to stand for the presidency under Tanzania’s 1977 constitution, but he founded his own party hoping that a new constitution might enable him to compete. Lacking established grassroots structures, Kabwe’s Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT-Wazalendo) is unlikely to gain much traction.

CCM’s partial eclipse?

CCM is the clear favourite in the elections. The constituency map is likely to resemble a crescent moon. Seats adjacent to Lake Tanganyika will be split between CCM, NCCR-Mageuzi and ACT-Wazalendo; those in the densely-populated area around Lake Victoria will be shared by Chadema and CCM. Much of the Northern Zone will fall to Chadema, which will also see its vote surge in Dar es Salaam. CUF should take half the seats in Zanzibar, while making inroads in some coastal constituencies. CCM will successfully defend its hegemony in the southern highlands and central zone. The encroachment of the opposition on CCM’s agrarian heartland in previous elections continues.

The fate of Tanzania’s draft constitution, and the future of the coalition that was formed to defend it, is more uncertain. Assuming Ukawa survives the election intact, its leaders and members may not have the inclination or stamina to fight again for radical reform of the katiba. The departure of Lipumba and Slaa has left CUF and Chadema significantly weakened, while NCCR-Mageuzi and NLD may suffer from their electoral association with bigger parties and more prominent political figures.

If Lowassa proves costly to Ukawa in terms of credibility and support, recriminations within the alliance will be vociferous and bitter. To many, an election campaign grounded on points of principle and common grievance about constitutional reform would, with hindsight, appear to have been the shrewd long-term strategy as opposed to an over-ambitious, opportunistic tilt at power entailing erosion of Ukawa’s raison d’être. As Deus Kibamba told ARI, “politicians crossing the floor to join Ukawa did not augur well with the coalition taking a serious position on the constitutional project. Had Professor Lipumba and Dr Slaa remained at the helm, Ukawa’s campaign would have placed a much greater emphasis on the values which united its member parties at the constituent assembly.”¹⁵

Katiba reform appears to be dead and buried. Given Magufuli’s desire to distance himself from Kikwete, one cannot see a plausible reason for him to expend valuable political capital on a constitutional referendum which might only serve to fuel the opposition. He will surely follow the lead of previous residents of the Ikulu, each of whom set aside pursuing the constitutional legacy of their predecessors and started the process anew in their own good time.

For further analysis of the party manifestos, see “Manifestos for Change? 12 observations on the CCM and Chadema documents” and for legislative elections, see “How will Tanzanians vote on Sunday 25 October?” [forthcoming]

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1. Report of East African Consultative Theme on the Tanzania Constitutional Review Process, Kituo Cha Katiba: Eastern Africa Centre for Constitutional Development, Kampala, 2013, pp. 21-22

2. For further details, see Nick Branson, “Party rules: Consolidating power through constitutional reform in Tanzania”, Briefing Note, Africa Research Institute, London, March 2015

3. Chambi Chachage, “Edward Lowassa and the politics of rumour and endorsement”, African Arguments, 5 June 2015

4. Kitila Mkumbo, “Edward Ngoyai Lowassa: Mchapa kazi mwenye nakisi ya uadilifu na falsafa”, Raia Mwema, Dar es Salaam, 17 September 2014

5. “Have more laws, agencies and commitments against corruption made a difference? People’s perceptions of corruption in Tanzania”, Sauti za Wananchi Brief No. 14, Twaweza, Dar es Salaam, August 2014 p. 9

6. Jenerali Ulimwengu, “Wilbroad Slaa throws spanners, Ukawa wheels untouched”, The East African, Nairobi, 5 September 2015

7. Anne Robi, “Lowassa spurned on divisive view”, Daily News, Dar es Salaam, 9 September 2015

8. “Do they know? Data on voter knowledge”, Sauti za Wananchi Brief No. 26, Twaweza, Dar es Salaam, September 2015, p. 2

9. Conversation with the author, 21 September 2015. For further details, see Nick Branson, “Manifestos for Change? 12 observations on the CCM and Chadema documents”, Africa Research Institute website, 1 October 2015

10. “Basic Demographic and Socio-Economic Profile”, National Bureau of Statistics – Tanzania and Office of Chief Government Statistician – Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, April 2014

11. Nick Branson, “How will Tanzanians vote on Sunday 25 October?”, Africa Research Institute website, [forthcoming]

12. “Let the people speak: Citizens’ views on political leadership”, Sauti za Wananchi Brief No. 27, Twaweza, Dar es Salaam, September 2015, p. 4

13. Ibid. pp. 12-14

14. Tim Kelsall, Business, Politics and the State in Africa: Challenging the Orthodoxies on Growth and Transformation, Zed Books, London, 2013, p. 60

15. Conversation with the author, 21 September 2015
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The post What’s in it for me? Personalities, enticements and party loyalties in Tanzania’s 2015 elections appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Michael Walls is a senior lecturer at the Development Planning Unit at University College London. He co-organised international election observation missions in Somaliland in 2005, 2010 and 2012 and has written extensively about Somaliland, Puntland and Somalia.

• North and south, success and disillusionment
• Democracy, a messy business
• Transition, not exceptionalism
• A history of Somali state-building
• Somaliland, a Somali nation state
• Federalism, autonomy and the prospects for representative transition
• Future Somaliland
• Notes and map

North and south, success and disillusionment

Increasing numbers of non-Somalis are taking notice of Somaliland. In part, this has come about through involvement with, or awareness of, events such as the International Book Fair in Hargeysa, capital of the internationally unrecognised republic. An essential ingredient has been the support of businesses and non-Somali donors for one of the most vibrant cultural events in East Africa. Their contributions make it possible to stage the festival annually – and for free. Huge crowds are drawn, none more so than for the recitals of the renowned Somali poet Mohamed Ibrahim Warsame “Hadraawi”. The Somali Horn of Africa is one of the few places where a poet is able to attain the cultural status elsewhere reserved for rock stars and footballers.

The festival and a new Somali Cultural Centre in Hargeysa are not simply indications of cultural tolerance and vibrancy. In the eyes of many Somalilanders and visitors their success is representative of the dynamic and stable political environment in Somaliland.

There is a strong temptation to
romanticise Somaliland’s stability

International perceptions of Somaliland are usually influenced by – or contrasted with – the ebbs and flows of political dysfunction in southern Somalia. Since the start of 2014, two major military offensives from AMISOM, the African Union force in Somalia, have pushed militant Islamist group al-Shabaab out of all major towns in the south. A US drone attack on September 1st killed the group’s leader, Ahmed Abdi “Godane”. These events have fuelled hope that the government in Muqdisho (Mogadishu) can consolidate its position and start to build the legitimacy its predecessors in the past two decades so sorely lacked. The political challenges remain daunting – and changeable. Military advances do not easily translate into social or political stability.

Amongst those who do retain an interest in the northern Somali Horn, there is a strong temptation to romanticise Somaliland’s stability – built, as it has been for more than two decades, on a deep popular commitment to the avoidance of violence. This narrative glosses over numerous difficulties and shortcomings. Somaliland’s relative success is not unalloyed. Politics is as riven by clan patronage and division as it has ever been. Major challenges lie ahead in registering voters, holding parliamentary and presidential elections, and determining an electoral system for the upper house or Guurti. Women and minority groups are excluded from most formal political participation apart from voting, and some Somalilanders are growing increasingly disillusioned with a secessionist “project” that remains incomplete and fragile.

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Democracy, a messy business

No society can sustain the high hopes of those who prefer to see only the positive. One of the key failings of many observers, both Somali and foreign, has been a cavalier willingness to adopt rhetoric that embraces only those aspects of Somali history and culture that either add conveniently to a narrative of unique success and stability, or are seemingly evidence of the binary opposite – chaos and disorder. If we are to offer effective support to Somalis committed to building a reasonably inclusive and prosperous future in the Horn, it is vital that we recognise both the challenges and the foundations on which such success is built.

No society can sustain the high hopes of
those who prefer to see only the positive

Politics is always a messy business, but it remains essential despite its persistent failure to satisfy idealistic – or simply unrealistic – yearnings. Building on success tends to be slow, painstaking, erratic and unpredictable. Of these characteristics, only the last two are applicable to the charged dynamism and breakneck speed of political change in southern Somalia. In Somaliland’s case, there is a tendency to depict the territory’s political trajectory as having started in earnest in 1991. This reading takes the fall of General Mohamed Siyaad Barre’s government in Muqdisho as the starting point, with that regime’s egregious abuse of human rights, and most particularly the wholesale destruction of Somaliland’s two biggest cities, as the prima facie justification for the unilateral restoration of the sovereignty that Somaliland enjoyed for five days in 1960.

While each of these facts about Somaliland is correct, and the brutality of the Siyaad Barre regime genuinely horrific, collectively they tell only half the story. Importantly, selective and simplistic historicising does not fundamentally challenge one of the key tropes used to describe Somali political development: that of a people “addicted to congenital egalitarian anarchy”.¹ In leaving that presumption somehow unchallenged, Somaliland is presented as exceptional rather than as the latest example of Somali political stability grounded in compromise, conflict and accommodation in the context of a complex set of socio-cultural institutions.

For adherents to this incomplete narrative, Somaliland is remarkable as the first Somali territory to establish a state that is widely accepted as providing, in principle and practice, approximately legitimate democratic government evidenced, in particular, by periodic and largely successful elections. Conversely, sceptics castigate the territory for failing to meet the exacting standards of the perfectly representative state. Dissatisfaction amongst some regarding its legitimacy is advanced as proof of the argument.

Somaliland’s progress has been impressive in many ways. Successive governments in Hargeysa have had to build legitimacy through a series of clan-based conferences held since late 1990. Those governments gradually consolidated their hold on power, but remained sufficiently weak that each needed to secure the support of a substantial portion of the population in order to remain in office. Elections for local councils have been held twice (in 2002 and 2012), as has a popular vote for the president (in 2003 and 2010) and for parliamentary seats (in 2005). One of the presidential elections which resulted in defeat for the incumbent by the narrowest of margins was followed by a peaceful handover of power within the constitutionally stipulated timeframe.²

There were snags with some of these elections. The local council election in 2012, for example, was accompanied by widespread multiple and underage voting.³ But each achieved the objective of providing a mechanism for political contestation in an environment that was largely peaceful. That is a major achievement by any standard. The shortcoming of the exceptionalist narrative is not that Somaliland’s progress is disputed. It lies in misapprehensions about the political process itself and the common inclination to equate the term “democratisation” with elections.

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Transition, not exceptionalism

Somali society is conspicuously democratic. Adult Somali males are used to a consensus-based system that allows them full participation in decision-making on all key issues. That system is both highly inclusive – for men – and slow and cumbersome. It is not dissimilar to the type of discursive democracy practised in the city states of ancient Athens. While this form of political participation is rightly criticised for excluding women, and for being crisis driven – it takes a crisis to get everyone together and focused on the problem at hand – it cannot reasonably be described as undemocratic. Unless, of course, our definition of democracy is so idealised as to apply only when all problems of exclusion have first been resolved.

Somaliland’s laudable success is
not one of democratisation at all

In fact, Somaliland’s laudable success is not one of democratisation at all. It is one in which most adult males are being asked to relinquish some of their traditional right to participate in decision-making to allow for a system of representation that permits greater responsiveness and speed, while also holding out the possibility of meaningful inclusion of women and of clan groups who have customarily been excluded. This process is not unnecessary or undesirable. If Somalis are to operate effectively in a globally connected world of nation states, multinational corporations and powerful international lobbies and agencies, they need a system of representative politics that confers the agility and strength to negotiate and participate effectively. If the benefits of engagement with the institutions and representatives of international trade and finance are to be shared reasonably equitably, then it is also vital that inclusive politics provides opportunities for Somali citizens to select their representatives – and remove those who are ineffective.

While elections are therefore instrumentally important, so is an understanding of the established, discursive system of democracy. This helps to explain why it has been very hard to find a way for Somali women, so vigorously active in business and all other spheres of Somali life, to participate fully in politics. It also explains why Somalilanders, no less than other Somalis, are quick to become disillusioned with their politicians. People whom they would once have called to account frequently are now installed in office for five years at a time – or longer when inevitable electoral extensions occur.

In one of the key Somaliland peace conferences – that held in Booraame (Borama) town in 1993 – the chair was noted for urging delegates that “voting is fighting; let’s opt for consensus”.⁴ For many Somalis, consensus-based politics remains the baseline that informs often unspoken understandings of the ideal nature of democracy. It is unsurprising that the representative politics of the nation state – internationally recognised or not – frequently falls far short of that standard.

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A history of Somali state-building

A highly selective application of history is also deployed by sceptics to justify the view that Somalis are ill equipped to operate within the confines set by a system of state. Somaliland has achieved a great deal in consolidating governmental institutions that enjoy broad, if qualified, support. Yet it is not the first successful Somali state, and it is incorrect to view Somali society as naturally inclined to anarchy or chaos.

Throughout the past millennium, the Somali Horn of Africa has had vibrant trading ports that periodically spawned or supported systems of government. By the mid-14th century, there were a number of successful and stable trading cities on the long Somali coast, marking the start of a period of at least 200 years of considerable prosperity. One account identifies at least 20 such towns on the Gulf of Aden coast and in the immediate northern hinterland alone.⁵

Several notable empires were founded on the wealth of coastal trading centres. In the north, the Walashma dynasty built the powerful and long-lived Adal Sultanate, with Seylac its commercial heart and a settlement close to Harar, in today’s eastern Ethiopia, its political centre. Although the sultanate was identified primarily as a Muslim rather than a Somali empire, there is little doubt that Somalis comprised a significant proportion of its population. The 16th-century Adal military leader Ahmed Ibrahim al-Ghazi “Gurey” is still revered amongst many Somalis as the first great Somali nationalist.

It is incorrect to view Somali society as naturally inclined to anarchy or chaos

It is certain, despite a dearth of authoritative documentation of the period, that the Adal Sultanate enjoyed great wealth and considerable territorial control for at least three centuries. Initially it lived at peace with its highland Ethiopian neighbours, with whom it enjoyed extensive trading links, but the relationship grew tense as both sides developed aggressive territorial ambitions. A long period of intermittent trade links and conflict saw huge territorial fluctuations as the Adal Sultanate seized or lost ground to successive highland rulers. Only when the Ethiopian emperor Galawdewos secured the support of the Portuguese, as “fellow Christians”, against Ahmed Gury, who received some backing from the Ottoman empire in what was explicitly framed by both sides as a struggle between Islamic and Christian armies, did the balance of power alter decisively. The Adal forces were roundly defeated on the shores of Lake Tana in 1542, forcing the sultanate into a period of terminal decline.

The Adal Sultanate was one of the most famous of early Somali states, but by no means the only one. The Ajuuraan and Geledi Sultanates in southern Somalia are other prominent examples of distinctively or predominantly Somali governance enduring over long periods of time.

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Somaliland, a Somali nation state

Somaliland enjoys neither the territorial expanse nor the longevity of most of the earlier Somali states. Its uniqueness therefore lies not in its novelty as a resilient Somali state, nor in its democracy, but in its success in building a durable and broadly representative system of government within the borders of a contemporary nation state.

During the colonial era in the 20th century, Somali “states” did not allow the involvement of Somalis in governance. Colonial territories could not by any stretch be described as Somali nation states. The representative democracy ushered in by independence in 1960 and the exuberance of reunification of the British Somaliland Protectorate and Somalia Italiana was lively and vital. It was also chaotic and riven by clan division and dispute. The first attempted coup occurred 18 months later. A mere nine years on, Siyaad Barre’s coup was greeted with relief by a population already disillusioned by the winner-takes-all nature of elections and representative politics.

Siyaad Barre’s government began with a surge of reforming zeal. Clans were symbolically abolished and women were encouraged to play a full part in politics. Again, dissatisfaction followed in short order and, in an effort to retain power, the general was forced to exploit the very clan affiliations he had denounced. Desperate to keep his government in place, in 1977–8 he used a war against Ethiopia to rally his population. Defeat left him with few other options, and he steadily lost power even as he resorted to increasingly brutal repression in an effort to retain it. The insurrection that finally ended his rule started not in Somaliland, but amongst the Majerteen of what is now Puntland.

This series of events underscores the point that while Somaliland is not the first successful Somali state, and did not introduce democratisation to the region, it is the first successfully to combine electoral democracy with nation state government. That is no mean feat, albeit neither the unqualified success nor unacceptable imposition of centralised and clan-based hegemony that are the dichotomous opposites frequently suggested by observers.

The establishment of any nation state is inevitably accompanied by debate and dissatisfaction over critical issues such as citizenship. Not all who reside within a state’s borders will be happy to be regarded as citizens. In some areas of what was once British Somaliland, particularly the easternmost, a significant proportion of the population is emphatically unwilling to be classified as Somaliland citizens. This is certainly not a trivial objection, and it remains to be seen how it will be resolved. But it barely detracts from the importance of Somaliland’s success in other respects.

Often derided by critics as a one-clan state, Somaliland is in fact far from that. Although dominated by the large Isaaq clan, this is a clan grouping rather than a single, united lineage. The socio-political system requires support from a number of non-Isaaq clans: for example to bolster constituencies within the divided Isaaq group. Indeed, it was when the Isaaq clans started fighting each other in the early 1990s, once the unifying spectre of the Muqdisho autocracy had vanished, that many other clans gained confidence that Somaliland would not turn out to be an Isaaq hegemony.

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Federalism, autonomy and the prospects for representative transition

If Somaliland’s transition is not one of democratisation, then, but of progression from a patriarchal, discursive democracy to a more inclusive, representative one, that is a transition which could usefully be replicated elsewhere in the region. It is precisely what is currently being negotiated in Puntland, albeit with less success to date. Southern Somalis too are being urged in a similar direction by a heavily invested group of international donors, diplomats and major NGOs.

There is little hope that Puntland will achieve a planned return to electoral politics, following the cancellation of its first popular election – for local council representatives – in mid-2013, unless there is a greater understanding of precisely the transition that is required. There is even less prospect that the ambitious roadmap for the south, which anticipates a constitutional referendum in 2015 followed by full elections in 2016, will succeed in the absence of a more nuanced understanding.

“Federalism” means so many wildly divergent
things to Somalis and non-Somalis alike that it is in effect a meaningless term

Many Somali observers have for years been calling for a return to the sort of local peace-building that worked so well in Somaliland. That process does not necessarily need to replace completely the Muqdisho-centred efforts that have dominated for some time. But the ejection of al-Shabaab from most southern Somali towns and villages provides a real opportunity to transfer some of the ample investment in top-down federal reconstruction to a more localised reconciliation process that allows Somalis throughout Somalia to make the critical decisions about their political future. If the rhetoric from donors about providing support for “Somali-led solutions” is to carry any meaning, it is in precisely this kind of shift.

The difficulty is that this approach will be slow and the results unpredictable – as has been the case in Somaliland. However, without the kinds of local agreements generated by such a process, there is little hope that the always heated and often hysterical debates on federalism and elections will lead to the establishment of durable political systems.

“Federalism” means so many wildly divergent things to Somalis and non-Somalis alike that it is in effect a meaningless term. Puntland’s leaders argue for a version that accords so much autonomy to the constituent parts of the Somali state they hope even Somaliland might be tempted back into the fold.⁶ Their federal Somalia would look more like a multi-state free trade zone than a single nation. President Hassan Sheikh, meanwhile, has modified his centralising inclinations only slightly, still preferring a far stronger Muqdisho government than many outside the capital are willing to countenance.

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Future Somaliland

If it is to be peaceable and to consolidate progress, Somaliland’s own future will require agreement on some deeply contentious issues. Parliamentary elections are five years late, and now scheduled to be held in the middle of 2015 – at which stage a presidential election is also due. Before any elections can take place, a much delayed process of registering voters must be completed in tandem with a civil registration. The last attempt at voter registration, in 2008-9, was so deeply divisive that it brought the country to the brink of conflict.⁷

If we bear in mind the transition that Somaliland is making, it is not surprising that it has proved extremely difficult to count voters. The last Somali census was conducted in the final years of Siyaad Barre’s regime, and so threatened to upset the balance of clan power that the results were never released. The Somaliland count carried the same risk of endangering established agreements on clan representation, and it is inevitable that a new effort at registration will be fraught with similar dangers. It is possible that the experience of the 2012 local elections – which prompted widespread recognition that the lack of an electoral register was a key factor in enabling multiple voting on a massive scale – has focused minds in a way that will permit the exercise to be conducted without provoking a crisis this time round. But caution, patience and sensitivity aplenty will be required.

Somaliland’s own future will require agreement on some deeply contentious issues

The situation in the east of Somaliland also seems to be heading steadily towards some sort of denouement. In the areas around Buuhoodle town and throughout most of Sool region, the competition between Somaliland, Puntland and the nascent, Dhulbahante-based regional state, Khaatumo, is becoming increasingly intense. To date, a systematised ambiguity has operated in which each of the interested parties has simultaneously laid claim to the area and operated more or less as though that claim had substance. It is not inconceivable that this ambiguity could be maintained, but it seems less and less likely. For one thing, there are hopes that commercial quantities of oil will be found in the Nugaal Valley, which runs through Sool. Everyone wants to lay unambiguous claim to that.

It is imperative that those wishing to support continued political development in Somaliland and throughout the region take full cognisance of looming threats as well as past successes. An appreciation of the historical and cultural context in which recent political development has occurred is equally essential. This, of course, applies just as much to non-Somalis in diplomatic, donor and development communities as it does to diaspora Somalis and those in the Somali Horn.

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NOTES

1 Samatar, Said S., “Genius as Madness: King Tewodros of Ethiopia and Sayyid Muhammad of Somalia in Comparative Perspective”, Northeast African Studies 10, No. 3 (2003), p. 29.

2 Walls, M. and Kibble, S., “Somaliland: Change and Continuity”, Report by International Election Observers on the June 2010 presidential elections in Somaliland, Progressio, London, 2011.

3 Kibble, S. and Walls, M., “Swerves on the Road”, Report by International Election Observers on the 2012 local elections in Somaliland, Progressio, London, 2013.

4 Walls, M., A Somali Nation-State: History, Culture and Somaliland’s Political Transition, Ponte Invisibile/ redsea-online.com, Pisa, 2014, p. 178.

5 Lewis, I.M., A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa, James Currey, Oxford, 4th edition, 2002, p.27.

6 Ali, Abdiweli M., “Solidifying the Somali State: Puntland’s Position and Key Priorities”, talk at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), London, 24 October 2014.

7 Farah, Mohamed, “A Constitutional Solution to the Political Crisis in Somaliland”, unpublished paper, Academy for Peace and Development, Hargeysa, 2009.

 

Recording of launch event

The post Statebuilding in the Somali Horn – Michael Walls appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Michael emphasised that his perspective of Somaliland was that of an academic and outsider, striving to be objective and to place contemporary politics in its proper historical and cultural context. The importance of understanding Somali culture and the history of the Horn of Africa was thus quickly established as a central theme of the evening’s discussion.

Disagreeing with Somali scholar Said Samatar’s pronouncement that Somalis are “addicted to congenital egalitarian anarchy”, Michael instead described Somali society as deeply democratic, albeit in a form which may not be immediately familiar to outsiders. Somali governance has historically been grounded in consensus, with adult males eligible to participate in decision-making on all key issues. Over the past two decades, Somaliland has also taken steps towards representative democracy, establishing a House of Representatives and electing local councillors. The country’s transition is less one of democratisation than from a primarily discursive form of democracy to a more representative form. This shift might be perceived as representing a diminution of democracy, as adult males are called upon to cede power to a representative between elections. Once this erosion of influence is understood, it becomes clearer why elections have proved so contentious in the Somali Horn.

Somaliland is usually the subject of two conflicting narratives. One presents the Somali Horn as a region perpetually inhospitable to the development of nation states; the other romanticises Somaliland as a home-grown success story, exhibiting a unique degree of stability, with external support notably absent. Michael contests both of these accounts. Somaliland is by no means the first functional Somali state, nor should it be thought of as an isolated arrangement borne solely out of local efforts. Over the past thousand years, there have been a series of long-lived, very successful, relatively centralised Somali states – the Adal Sultanate for example. Michael also noted that Somaliland has not been entirely ignored by the international community. Instead, in a region with a history of city-states and tribal administrations, what makes Somaliland unique is the unprecedented progress it has made in establishing a bordered nation state.

Despite Somaliland’s achievements, significant challenges still remain. Tensions in the eastern districts, forthcoming elections, the Guurti and the absence of women in representative institutions all need to be addressed.  The likelihood of oil and gas discoveries in the Nugaal Valley seems to be heightening tensions.

Iqbal Jhazbhay, South Africa’s Ambassador to Eritrea, responded to Michael’s presentation. With regards to the quest for international recognition, HE Jhazbhay highlighted its importance as a disciplining and galvanising force – but also pointed out that Somaliland has failed to capitalise on opportunities, despite an arguably strong case under public international law. For example, the African National Congress (ANC) responded positively to the case for recognition when Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was South African foreign minister, but Somalilanders failed to capitalise on her support. Dlamini-Zuma is now Chair of the African Union Commission, which provides an opportunity for renewed dialogue. The importance of the formal acceptance of Somaliland by the international community should not be overstated. The ambassador was careful to stress that nation-building efforts will only be successful if they are locally-driven. Furthermore, a tacit recognition of the state of Somaliland is increasingly evident.

Questions

Q: Fred Amonya, Lyciar: Is the lesson from Somaliland that an inclusive and consultative approach to policymaking can demonstrate better results than the prescriptions of the international community?

MW is in favour of a more evolutionary approach to development in general. One of the problems with the field is that it has been “technicalised”, which explains why development professionals develop areas of expertise which are assumed to be universally applicable. Technical expertise typically overrides indigenous cultural knowledge. This relationship should be reversed, even where there is a genuine need for technical expertise, as is the case with building infrastructure.

Q: Mark Lister, Progressio: What will help Somalilander women become more active participants in a complicated and delicate political process?

MW began by stating that women play a huge role in every sector of Somali society – except for formal politics. The invisibility of women in politics is a big problem but one with a clearly identifiable cause. Uncertainty as to whether women will represent the clan of their husband or their father has continually posed a barrier to inclusion. There is no easy solution to this problem but quotas, as advocated for by women’s groups like the Nagaad Network, might help to establish formal roles for Somali women.

Q: Yacin Yusuf, Impact Minority Association: What role will clans play in the next elections?

MW responded that clan will play an important role throughout the election period and will help structure both pre- and post-results negotiations. Looking back at the 2012 elections, he thought the decision to use an open voting list was a big mistake. Having every candidate stand for themselves created an environment whereby candidates went first to their clans and second to their party for support. Resources were mobilised and voters organised along clan lines; candidates would even change party if their clan wanted them to. Closed lists, on the other hand, would have helped strengthen parties rather than further fuel clan tensions.

Amaani Hoddoon, DfE: How important is central planning to a successful Somaliland?

MW finds it difficult to see how a strong central planning government could exist in Somaliland, given past difficulties. Nation states in the Somali Horn, whatever shape they take, are likely to be darlings of free marketeers, through being home to highly deregulated markets orientated towards internal and external trade. Governments are likely to be relatively weak in this context and clans will probably continue to play a significant role in social structure, as a means of crisis management.

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