Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
It's been dubbed Africa's Year of Elections, But has twenty twenty four been a bad year for democracy?
Its comminates from the elections that they had highly contested. The results are very controversial, and the opposition leader of financial Mont Glande announced four waves of protests that quickly escalated turned violent, plans people their lives, about one hundred and twenty one injured, with.
Many elections marred by voter suppression, vote rigging, and even corruption. One commentator has called this year quote hard to watch. With peaceful transfers of power like that's in Botswana and Maurcius now few and far between.
We will begin all administrative work to facilitate the transition, and I assure you that I will not take any actions to hinder or slow down this process.
On this episode of Next Africa Podcast, we'll ask what's happened to the safety rails meant to protect democracy in Africa and if anything can be done to turn the tide. I'm Jennifer Zabastaja and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent driving the future of global growth. With the context only Bloomberg can provide. So joining us this week is Justice Malala, a political commentator and author and also a Bloomberg columnist. Justice,
thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. How are you doing.
I'm good, I'm good. It's good to be with you, to be with your listeners.
It's great to speak again. I remember you and I spoke actually just before the South African elections earlier this year, which is why this piece that you have out for Bloomberg Opinion is fascinating to us. It's quite stark, is it's called Africa's Year of Elections has been flawed. Tell us why you came to that conclusion. What's behind the title.
Well, you know, there was so much hope, Joanne, at the beginning of the year when you looked ahead and said nineteen elections if you count the parliamentary elections in places like Senegal, whether we're going to have two bounds of election, you thought, oh, you know, this is a deepening of the democracy. We're going to see more people participating, more people having a say in how their countries are governed.
And so as the year rolled out, beginning with Commerce in January, Senegal in February and so forth, you started saying, what's going on here? And you know that hope began to diminish a bit, and you started saying, oh, this is not looking great, and so forth. So by May when you and I spoke in Johannesburg, South Africa, just just days before that election on May twenty nine, and it was up in the air. It was a real competition.
We didn't know who was going to win, We didn't know about what margin.
What this election has made plain is that the people of South Africa expect their leaders to work together to meet their needs. They expect the parties for which they have.
Voted to find common ground, to overcome their differences, to act and work together for the good of everyone.
That turned out okay, but essentially the majority of these elections turned out to be disappointing. They didn't uphold many of the key tenets of what a democratic election should look like. Turnout was poor, results were largely contested, and in many instances, like Mozambique, at the moment it turned into violence. So the hope that was there did not come through as we expected at this point in the year.
And just as you mentioned Mozambique. There we've been following what's been happening on the ground. But outside of that, are there other elections that particularly stood out to you from this year that sort of symbolize the flawed nature of I guess democracy on the continent.
Well, I mean, look, it's a mixed bag. And it's not a mixed bag. It's a mixed bag in the sense. You know, I could start with where you and I began, and that's South Africa. You know, the A and C, after thirty years in power below fifty percent, loses its majority and says I lost and I'd like to sit down with the opposition and form a coalition. And that's that's fantastic, that's good, that's great. You have Botswana, you have Senegal, you have Mauritius, and we can talk about those.
And then on the.
Other hand, you have a country like Togo where an election is held where they ruling the governing party wins, and that means that the incumbent continues his nineteen year stay in power, and you you try to remember, oh, when last did this happen? And you see that his father was in power for forty years before that, and so you see these these sham elections where they are dressed up they look good in the suit of democracy, but just underneath it's it's a rigged election. It's not
it's not free and fair. It's it's meant to look to the outside world like a good election, when when it's patently not.
In your piece, just as you get into some of the regional bodies on the African continent, you talk about the African Union, you talk about eco AS, there's also SADEK, which is the Southern African Development Community, do you believe they could have done more? Do you believe international observers could have done more? I mean, who do you sort of lay the blame on this on.
There are two elements to it.
I think the one is the political continental level. I think leaders on the continent should be very clear that institutions such as the Sadak Observation Mission or the eco AS Observation Mission, the AU Electoral Observation Mission should be upstanding, should not be subject to political manipulation, and should be free to speak and speak clearly on elections and essentially be the highest authority that speaks on a particular election.
You referenced earlier, on in our conversation Mozambique.
You know, Mozambique is classic.
You had the Southern African Development Community Observation Mission and you had the EU Observation Mission. The SADAK mission arrived and looked at less than one percent of the election voting stations in the country and left saying, oh, it looks fine. We didn't see any problem. You look at the EU mission and it went to the far north
of the country. It visited places and said look alongside organizations like Human Rights Watch and others and so forth, and said, look, here are instances of ballot stuffing and so forth and so forth. So in fact, if you look at what the aftermath of that election was, where people started rioting and saying this election was not free and fair. We saw this with our own eyes. It could have been foreseen and it wasn't foreseen by SADAK. The SADAG mission, in my view, has been very poor,
poor for Africans. If you go back a year ago to Zimbabwe, exactly the same thing happened. At least in that case, the SADAK observer Mission said this was a flawed election. It was political leaders who then protected the government in power and didn't do anything about it. So I think these missions could do better. The AU Observation
Election Mission has been very very poor. It said I had from the first election in January in Commerce, it said, oh, there was no incident whatsoever, when someone had died, when tens of people had been shot and injured by police action, when it was clear that things had not gone according to plan. Even then they said, oh, it was without incident, I think was the expression they used. And so you've seen this in many other jurisdictions where it's just oh, it's okay, and it's patently not.
Okay, and stick with us. Justice. When we come back, we'll talk about some of the more positive examples, because there are some, as you mentioned this year, and also how things could perhaps turned around again. We'll be right back. Welcome back today on the podcast, we're looking into the year of the elections and in particular in Africa and really the health of democracy on the continent. Justice Malala wrote a column for Bloomberg Opinion and he's joining us now.
So Justice, we talked about some of the examples earlier this year, but there are some positive examples that you get into in your piece. Most importantly, there's Botswana and there's Mauritius. What stands out to you about the processes that we saw in those two nations.
I think, first of all, the demospracies. Those demosplacies have been going for a good while. The populace is engaged, people wanted to take part, and they kept watch on their politicians. They kept watch on their institutions that those institutions with were fair, were able to do the work that they needed to do. So they kept an eye,
particularly on the electoral commissions. In Botswana, there was a lot of discussions beforehand in the media about, you know, will these guys be able to handle a constitution and an election of this magnitude and which is so highly contest that for sixty years in Botswana you had the Botsuana Democratic Party in power and without much contest, and for the first time this year that looked like.
It was going to be an issue.
So the institutions in the particular country worked. In South Africa you had the independent Electoral Commission. In Senegal you had the Constitutional Court that worked and could deliver judgments that everyone across the political spectrum could respect. So you see in those countries, Senegal Mauritia, South Africa, Botuana, institutions that really worked, that had come together. You saw a free and fair media. You saw political actors participating properly
and without you know, threatening violence and so forth. Except for we had that blip in Senegal in Fembrary when Makissal tried to postpone the election and failed. And so you could see the movement of democracy. You could see the elements that I needed for a free and fair election even beforehand. What was remarkable about all of these elections is that immediately after losing, the incumbent said went on television, addressed the nation and said I have lost
and I am handing over to the new guys. In Botswana, it was fantastic to see the president Mucucy handing over to du marbor Go, the young new leader.
In a matter of a day.
Same thing in Senegal at the beginning of the year with Makissal over to the winner. And so these for me are fantastic examples of what we can achieve on the continent.
But justice does this mean? There's the positives right and the negatives. And I wonder when we think about the state of democracy on the continent after taking a look at all of the elections this year, is your are you confident in saying that support for democracy is potentially eroding or do you think that's you know, that's not actually true and there's more people who actually do want to see more elections like Botswana and Mauritius.
Most Africans certainly want to see elections like Botswana and Mauritius. If you look at the reception to the Botswana election result, for example, you go to Na Robi, you go to Legos, I trust the continent, people are saying, wow, look at these guys. A young team has come in. As I speak to you this week, we have elections in Namibia. A lot of people are saying, oh, you know, the contestant for the main party seventy two, and maybe it's time to look around and.
Say where are the young people? Where the footy year olds?
The fifth You know, people look at Senegal and say, wow, the new present is forty four. The new president of Zona's fifty four, and people are saying it's time to make ways. So, you know, you look at afric Barometer, so much of the research that's done many many people on the continent believe in democracy one democracy to work.
However, there has been some backsliding.
I think the past four years have been terrible for the continent with the coups in the coup belt of West Africa, whether it's Mali, Bekinna Faso and others, those have really dented the image the idea of democracy on the continent. But I don't think I don't think we lose in the battle. I think that this is a challenging time. I think that what you saw in Botswana, hopefully we'll see in Maybia this week, will continue.
I mean a country like Kenya.
You know where young people stood up against tax increases in June July this year. You know, it's very vibe and young people will not allow that democracy to backslide. All these places of their crisis. But I think that the trajectree is northwards, it's upwards, and things do and will get better.
All we can do is be hopeful. Justice really fantastic piece, really interesting to take a step back at the year that was. But appreciate your time so much. Thank you for joining us, and you can of course read Justice's piece on Bloomberg right now, as well as the full coverage of all of this year's elections across Bloomberg platforms. Here's a few other stories we're watching in the region
this week. Zimbabwe failed to pay state workers the ZIG component of their salaries and bonuses in November, less than two weeks after its treasury requested spending cuts on certain budget items. The Southern African nation started paying employees salaries in local currency and the rest in dollars back in twenty sixteen to incentivize them and deal with sharp slumps
in the local unit. Unions are threatening to take action if the money is not paid soon, and Kenyon lawmakers called for an investigation into how independent power producers set teriffs as part of a study into how the East African nations over reliance on private generation facilities affects the cost of electricity. Kenya has been racked by protests over the high costs of living this year, in which dozens
of people have died. The demonstrations forced the government to row back tax measures and cover a revenue shortfall by pairing back spending and borrowing. And you can follow these stories across Bloomberg, including the Next African Newsletter. Will of course put a link to that in the show notes. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review the show wherever you usually get your podcasts.
I'm Jennifer's Appasoja.
Thanks for listening.
As always,