This year’s “super cycle” of elections that will see voters go to the polls in 20 African countries will boost governance across the continent in spite of the potential for temporary instability and a pause in reforms, experts believe.
Billionaire investor Mo Ibrahim hailed the progress achieved in recent years. “The investment climate is improving all the time,” he told Emerging Markets. “Africa used to have one of the worst records but things are changing now. That’s a great push forward.”
However former Botswana president Festus Mogae said the process was still painstakingly slow. “Good governance and democracy in Africa are progressing very slowly - sometimes too slowly. It’s making progress, but not as fast as it should,” he told Emerging Markets.
A record number of 28 elections are due to take place this year in 20 African countries following Southern Sudan’s January referendum in favour of separation from Northern Sudan.
Last year 13 elections were held on the continent, including what the African Development Bank describes as “significant milestones” in Guinea - with the election of Alpha Condé at the presidency - and Kenya, where a constitutional referendum took place.
In spite of the fighting that flared up in Cote d’Ivoire, AfDB said in its annual Africa Economic Outlook that 2010 was a “year of decreasing violence that pointed to a positive trend of more peaceful and democratic expressions of demands that bodes well for African development”.
Nevertheless, not all elections are democratic and transparent. In Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré, who seized power in 1987, is now facing mounting protests after being re-elected with 80.2% of the vote last year, “almost exactly the same result as five years earlier”, the bank noted.
“Elections are one of the improvements that are taking place. At least now we don’t have one party states,” said Mogae, who now heads the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDa), a pan-African think tank which advocates greater transparency across the continent.
“Elections by themselves are not democracy but they are a component of democracy. The quality and fairness of some of them may still be in question, but it is a welcome development.”
Meanwhile, recent episodes where the outcome of elections was contested are also a cause for concern. “Governance is improving,” said Todd Moss, an Africa expert from the Washington-based Center for Global Development.
“But the worrying trend is that the credibility of elections are being eroded by repeated disputes in Cote d’Ivoire, Zimbabwe or Kenya”, he said, pointing to the refusal of the incumbent to step down even after losing elections.
In Cote d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara only assumed power after a joint military operation from the United Nations and France led to the arrest of the Laurent Gbabgo, who refused to acknowledge the results of last November’s elections.
Some 3,000 deaths were reported in the business capital Abidjan alone. “But there will be no foreign troops in Zimbabwe [which prepares for elections next year] as in Cote d’Ivoire. If we think the African Union is going to enforce elections, we are in a difficult position,” Moss said.