The U.S. Elections, Political System and
Africa
By Cassandra R. Veney and Paul Tiyambe
Zeleza
The U.S. Elections, Political System and
Africa
By Cassandra R. Veney and Paul Tiyambe
Zeleza
Special to USAfricaonline.com
NigeriaCentral.com
The
Black Business Journal
The American people and many other people throughout the world have
been on a political roller coaster following the 2000 U.S.
presidential election and after more than two weeks later, there had
been no declared winner. What have Americans learned from this
important component of democracy and what can Africa learn from this
as many countries continue on their roads toward achieving
sustainable democracies? There are several lessons that both groups
can learn from the other.
First, it is important for American
s
to realize and understand that America was never meant to be a true
democracy by the founding fathers. If it were, they would have not
found it necessary to create the electoral college. Democracy to
these few wealthy, white, educated, elite males was for them and them
alone. They never intended the masses of people, e.g., white women,
slaves, Native Americans, and white men who did not own property to
participate in their democracy. Therefore, the first important lesson
to learn from this is that America has been moving toward
establishing a democracy for all of its people following the
ratification of the constitution in 1789. The masses of Americans who
we witnessed participating in the election and their subsequent
protests surrounding the ballot counts in Florida were events that
the founding fathers could never have fathomed.
What was the most satisfying and reaffirming aspect of the
election and its aftermath is the visibility and participation of all
Americans in the process in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, and
class, although of course the candidacies themselves were bankrolled
by the rich and powerful. The fact that America has come a long way
from 1789 was manifested by the difference African American voters
made in many closely contested constituencies including Florida. So
critical was this vote that in such cities as Chicago African
American funeral directors donated their cars to transport voters to
the polls. Even the homeless people in Milwaukee who were provided
transportation to the polls, regardless of the alleged free cigarette
inducement provided by the Democrats, are a testament that many
previously disenfranchised people are hungry for democracy in this
country. The point is that the establishment and implementation of
democracy do not happen overnight. In all societies these are ongoing
processes marked by divisions and cleavages and the emergence of
factions. Often, these factions will look out for their own interests
and any attempt by others to participate in democracy is viewed as a
threat to their interests. Therefore, they will attempt to 
prevent
any effort by the disenfranchised to participate in democracy,
especially in terms of voting.
There has been a number of reported irregularities in the presidential election which can neither be ignored nor minimized. Any substantiated evidence of tampering with ballots, miscounting ballots, or not allowing qualified voters from casting their ballots is not just wrong, it is unconstitutional and should not be tolerated. Putting the reported irregularities aside, states no longer engage in the use of poll taxes, the grandfather clause, citizenship tests, literacy tests, and blatant violence and intimidation to prevent some of their citizens from voting. We should bear in mind that as late as 1965, the majority of African Americans could not register to vote because they disproportinately lived in the south where most states still used these structural barriers to prevent them from voting. It was never the federal government that prevented African Americans and members of other racial minority groups from voting. It was the states that made these structural barriers a part of their constitutions. Because of Congressional legislation and Supreme Court decisions, these "discretionary" powers have been taken from the states.
This leads us to another observation from the election. Although the federal government has gained considerable leverage over the states in recent years in terms of providing federal funds to states for schools, highways, and other infrastructure and in several Supreme Court rulings that provide for one person, one vote, the federal nature of the government and the power of the states were made clearer to the average person. The controversy over the Florida ballot is an illustration that the voting machinery is still left entirely up to the states which means that something like the convoluted butterfly ballot in Florida which apparently caused many voters so much confusion may withstand constitutional scrutiny. The Board of Canvassing (electoral commission) in Florida, the deadline for the receipt and counting of absentee ballots, and the certification of ballot counts by the Florida Secretary of State are all demonstrations that states still have power in this federal system concerning presidential elections, although the Supreme Court has judicial review over all state laws.
Finally, perhaps one of the most interesting observations from the election is that America and Americans do have one political culture despite the existence of numerous sub-political cultures found throughout the country which exist for many reasons. For example, it makes sense that some groups in society who experienced discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, and language will have different attitudes, values, beliefs, and orientations toward parts of the political system or the role of the political system. The core political culture has been most evident in terms of respecting the rule of law. The Democrats and Republicans have taken to the streets and airwaves to hurl insults at each other, but no violence has occurred. There has been no fundamental discussion of violently dismantling the entire system and starting from scratch, although there has been much debate and discussion over the utility of the electoral college. There has been no discussion of allowing President Clinton to continue in office if the popular vote does not match the electoral vote. There is no speculation that President Clinton will annul the election results if Vice President Gore does not win Florida. Most importantly, there has never been any mention of the military assuming power &endash; it is a part of the political culture that the military is subservient to civil authority. When all is said and written about the 2000 Presidential election, it is hoped that the Americans' unwillingness to engage in violence regardless of who wins the election, their respect for the rule of law, and their patience in waiting for the final outcome, which demonstrates their belief and faith in an imperfect system, will be what is remembered most about this election.
Africans have alternately been baffled, bemused, and beguiled by this apparently inconclusive election. The sight of a supposedly democratic and technological superpower unable to count votes properly has been a source of both ridicule and relief, incomprehension, and concern. As one African paper put it, both friends and foes of the United States have found it difficult to resist poking fun at the Hollywood-style confusion in the world's self-appointed beacon of democratic elections and orderly transitions. The tales of missing ballot boxes, intimidated voters, endless legal challenges, and accusations of stealing the presidency sounded eerily familiar to weary voters in many of Africa's fledgling democracies. Everybody could recognize the script: the self-declared winner, the rather lackluster son of a man who was both former president and head of the intelligence police and who had been dethroned by a close ally of his son's opponent some years before, received fewer votes nationally than his opponent but claimed victory because he won a few hundred more votes in a province run by his younger brother!
Thus the fact that winning the popular vote was not enough for Gore to capture the presidency was hardly news, except perhaps many Africans heard of the arcane powers of the electoral college for the first time. What was news was that Chad was no longer just an African country, but a mysterious object on the ballot paper that came in various forms &endash; dimpled, pregnant, hanging, swinging &endash; on whose shape hung the presidency. Gleeful cartoonists and editorialists have cheekily suggested that African governments, so experienced in matters of electoral muddle and manipulation, send election observers to help sort out the electoral mess in the Sunshine State of Florida, the home of Mickey Mouse as a Nigerian paper reminded its readers.
While most African leaders have refrained from commenting directly and publicly on this electrifying electoral drama, for some not even protocol has been enough to suppress their derision. Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda observed that Americans "have always sent to Africa former presidents like Jimmy carter as election monitors. Perhaps it is time for Africa also to send former presidents like myself to monitor the process." More ruefully, Jonathan Moyo, the official prevaricator of Zimbabwe's embattled government which rigged its 2000 elections through pre-election violence, claimed in a BBC radio interview that in comparison with the US, Zimbabwe's elections were exemplary. "Maybe it's time for Americans to learn from us. Does it make sense to win a popular vote but lose an election?" The pro-government media in Côte d'Ivoire, another country with a violently disputed election in 2000 also found cause for rejoicing, proclaiming in the words of Fraternite Matin: "Since the United States has failed to set a bright example of a good ballot counting system, it is exciting to note that great America is now in the same crab basket as most countries in Africa."
But even for commentators without axes to grind, the US electoral fiasco exploded the myth of American, and by extension, Western democracy. To some this was a source of deep gratification, an indictment of American political arrogance, a confirmation that a country founded on slavery and where people of African descent continue to be oppressed and marginalized cannot be fully democratic. The staggering amounts of money spent on the elections before and after polling day, easily outstripping the budgets of many African countries, but without half the country even bothering to vote, seemed to provide ample testimony to the critics that this system panders to the highest bidder and primarily serves selected vested interests dominated by the rich. In short, those who have always questioned the prospects of Africa learning from Western democracy either because they believe that the continent does not need democracy or that it ought to brew its own homegrown variety felt vindicated.
So far, it would seem that it is the detractors of democracy who stand to gain from the US electoral malfeasance, at least in the short term. It gives succor to Africa's dictators who can now claim that if election irregularities are normal even in the world's richest nation it is unfair to hold their poor countries to unrealistically high standards of electoral performance. Thus Washington's influence on matters relating to elections, democracy and good governance in Africa and other parts of the South may be diminished. But the real danger is not that Africa's wily tyrants have been given new ammunition to question American electoral democracy and diplomacy and election monitoring by western governments and agencies in general, on whose back regional and national election monitors often ride, but to discredit democracy in general. It is for this reason that some acute observers have expressed the fear that when all the laughter at the US electoral shenanigans is over Africa's already fragile democracies may be the loser. In the words of the Dakar-based Le Matin, "the most crazy elections in American history are bad news for democracy in Africa."
At stake, then, is not simply a question of who is better for Africa, Bush or Gore, the Republicans or Democrats, although of course the foreign and African policies of the two parties differ slightly, but how African leaders, opinion makers, and voters read into what has happened in the US elections. There is of course no way of predicting that. From the popular press both within and outside the continent, it would seem that many Africans have been impressed by the fact that the ardent supporters of Gore and Bush have limited their inflamed passions to verbal acrimony and protest rallies rather than physical violence. This disclosure of America's political fallibility might be a blessing in disguise if Africans learn that electoral contestation, however bitter, does not have to be accompanied by violence, let alone provide an excuse for the military to strike.
Even more would be achieved if the American election crisis could help remove Africa's burden of imitation, the notion that the continent is eternally doomed to importing progressive practices and institutions from abroad, and embolden African democrats to design more democratic and effective electoral and governance systems for their own countries. The political and legal maneuvers surrounding the US election clearly show that the entire system from the county electoral commissions to the courts is permeated by partisanship. This compares quite unfavorably with the apparent neutrality and accountability of electoral commissions and processes in some of Africa's functioning democratic states. Certainly it shows the weaknesses of winner-take-all politics, which effectively disenfranchises large groups of people, or even overrides the will of the majority of the voters as has happened in the current US election.
Perhaps the most important consequence of the 2000 American
presidential election for Africa is that it may have put to rest the
notion that there is a democratic system out there which Africa can
import as a turnkey project. It reinforces the plea by some of
Africa's most perceptive philosophers and political scientists to
explore political systems that go beyond the marjoritarian democracy
of winner-take-all multipartyism, and devise ones that are inspired
from progressive African traditions of what some have called
consensual governance as well as the aspirations embodied in
contemporary struggles for human rights. In short, systems that seek
to provide, protect, and promote the participation in power of all
citizens regardless of the peculiarities of their various
affiliations and associations. Clearly such a system does not yet
exist even in America. That is the challenge that confronts all
democracy loving people wherever they may be in Florida or Burkina
Faso.
Veney is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Illinois State
University, Normal, Illinois and while Zeleza is Professor of History
and African Studies and Director, Center for African Studies at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Both are contributing
editors of USAfricaonline.com and USAfrica The Newspaper.
|
These views were
stated during an interview CNN's anchor Bernard Shaw and
senior analyst Jeff Greenfield had with Mr. Nwangwu on
Saturday November 18, 2000 during a special edition of
'Inside Politics 2000.' |
 Nelson Mandela, Tribute to the world's political superstar and Lion of Africa Martin Luther King's legacy, Jews and Black History Month  ELECTIONSGigolos on the Campaign Trail. By Prof. Walt Brasch  Ethnic
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and slaughter in the Sudan by Dawud Ibrahim Salih, Muhammad
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representatives of the Massaleit community in exile, Cairo,
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CONTINENTAL
AGENDA
he
said that "Africa will not be an area of priority" in his
presidency has been questioned by
USAfricaonline.com Publisher Chido
Nwangwu. He added that Bush's "pre-election position was
neither validated by the economic exchanges nor
geo-strategic interests of our two continents." 
Morrison,
Soyinka, Thelwell, world's leading arts scholars in New York
in November at Bard College.
