A first timer’s visit to Mali brought to fore a lot of interesting issues through an article. According to the article, the writer expressed how deeply impressed he was with the resilience and fortitude of a ‘people who live in one of the poorest places on earth’, and who are also justifiably proud of their success at maintaining an electoral democracy over the past two and a half decades, among other things.
Online clips of Mali’s November 2013 parliamentary election made one thing certain: it was quite an achievement after two years of turmoil. This is including a separatist rebellion in the North and a military coup that eliminated democratic governance for a time.
Further research about the Malians shows that when you chat with folks in Bamako, Mali’s capital, you hear lots of disgruntled talk about the problems of the political class. Most of those complaints are clearly justified. The people who are elected into high office in Mali generally come from a small circle of a few dozen well-established families. The ruling elite are deeply corrupt, and those who challenge its authority are often co-opted into its ranks with promises of a share in the loot.
The country’s young people are disillusioned by the pace of change. I thought about the problem of corruption and how it can be fought. I thought of the problems of development in a country where many people still do not have enough food, schooling, or protection from infectious disease.
However, what is surprising is a write up by a Malian blogger who said, “The biggest problem of democracy is the absence of the Malian citizen.” The people of his country, he said, are still hobbled by lack of education, the everyday struggle for survival, and alienation from the political process. Many of them still vote, but many of those who do are not sure whom they are voting for or why.
“I want to see citizens become more active,” the blogger said. “I want to see them demand more of their leaders.”
The blogger was selling a line. He’s right: You can have all the elections you want, but they won’t be worth the paper the ballots are printed on unless you have a citizenry that actually wants democracy. Yes, Malians voted again. Nevertheless, back in March 2012, when disgruntled army officers chased the president out of office (and ultimately into exile), no one in the country took to the streets to support their elected government. Instead, there was one big collective yawn. How strong is Malian democracy if its people do not really care about its fate?
It is suspected that Mali will be in the back of my mind this year as we watch the next indications of democratic change around the world.
Here in Africa, Algeria is billed to go to the polls by April 17; Malawi May 20; Libya in February; Guinea Bissau March 16 so also is Congo, Niger, Namibia and Egypt. These are a lot of ballots, though the elections are to be conducted for different levels of government, depending on the country.
But how much will the results tell us about the actual state of democracy in these countries? They’ll certainly reveal something. Elections are the bedrock of any genuine democracy; it is hard to imagine a democracy that is run by leaders who were not chosen by their own people. But elections aren’t enough on their own.
First, the quality of elections matter. There are plenty of tyrants (Hitler, Stalin) who use votes to create the appearance of popular legitimacy. “Soft” authoritarian states often use elections as alibi for continued rule.
Second, elections are not an end unto themselves. They are supposed to result in transparent, accountable, and effective government. If they do not, it is likely that trouble is on the way somewhere down the road.
If elections are not the only ingredient in the democratic recipe, what are the others? Democracy is scarcely viable in the absence of genuinely democratic institutions such as an independent judiciary, relatively free media, and organised groups that reflect the varied needs and interests of community. Moreover, you probably will not have sufficiently strong institutions unless there is a critical mass of engaged citizenry who are willing to fight for them.
There it is again, that word “citizen.” In Egypt, three elections are set to take place in 2014, all of them under the sheltering hand of a vicious new military government that has dismissed all members of the Muslim Brotherhood as “terrorists.” For the military, members of the Islamist party almost do not count as Egyptian citizens.
When Mohamed Morsi and his fellow Muslim Brothers were on top, though, their actions suggested that they viewed Egyptians above all through the lens of faith: those who did not share the religious ideas of the Brotherhood were left virtually without a say in the construction of the new, post-revolutionary state. Being a citizen was less important than being a believer.
Egypt is not the only African Muslim country facing potentially turbulent elections this year.
The big surprises for democracy will come in the places where citizens manage to mobilise effectively despite the odds. It is doubtful to think that 2014 will see a triumph of democratic culture in Russia or China. However, It will not be completely astonishing to see dramatic changes in Sudan, where bouts of unrest over the past two years have shaken the rule of President Omar al-Bashir. That is the funny thing about democracy: It has a knack for breaking out where you least expect.
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