Ep. 190: 2023 Year in Review

We're looking back on 2023 and forward to 2024 in this week's episode! Kim and Rachel talk about elections, democracy, and more on the continent.

Next week, we're excited to introduce you to our new non-resident fellows! 

Find the books, links, and articles we mentioned in this episode on our website, ufahamuafrica.com.

Transcript

Kim Yi Dionne  00:02

Welcome to Ufahamu Africa, a podcast about life and politics on the African continent. I’m Kim Yi Dionne, one of your hosts, and I’m joined by my co-host Rachel Beatty Riedl. Hi, Rachel!    

Rachel Beatty Riedl  00:11

Hi, Kim, and hello, listeners. So this week, we hope is your long anticipated moment where Kim and I catch up on what's happened in 2023. And we look ahead to 2020, for what's happening and what it means. Now, for all of our listeners around the world. We know that 2024 is poised to be a really significant year, it is the biggest global election year in history. over 4 billion people, more than half of the world's population will head to the polls for elections in one form or another, whether for presidents and executives or sub national elections. And that also means that more than 60 countries will participate in these elections in Africa, and that means 22 countries will be holding elections this year. And of course, we know that means varied opportunities, varied levels of competitiveness, of democratic participation, varied levels of citizens, ability to assemble, to be represented equally in the selection and conduct of government. This is the contours of democratic contestation around the world and something that as we had two elections in the United States as well, and 2024, we're looking at very carefully. But here we're thinking about how elections do provide potentially this focal point around which mobilization can occur. Surprises can happen in one direction or another. And so it's a really significant year ahead. So Kim, thinking about that. What stands out to you when we look to 2024? 

Kim Yi Dionne  01:49

No, I actually, because there were so many elections happening, because we've been talking a lot about democracy and elections. In the last few episodes of our show. I was trying to look at the places that are having elections in Africa in 2024. You know, there's some big ones, of course, South Africa having an election and, you know, Ghana being on the same electoral cycle as the United States. And you also have a two party system. I've been following their elections over the years. But what was a real help for me to understand and kind of, think about continent wide elections happening? I actually went to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. They have a great primer on all of the elections that are pending in 2024 on the continent, and, you know, surely one has already happened. So I don't know if you have followed what's happened in Comoros, which is this archipelago of islands.Its one of these island African nations.  So there's three main islands. And the reason why I was wondering if you were following it is because this is a place where term limits have been debated. Right. So, you know, before there were term limits. And in fact, there was this like, really a stability in the country at peace and stability in the country because of an agreement about alternation, so across these three islands, there would be like, you know, the President would be someone representing from one of each of these islands kind of in turn, right. And after years of military coups, right, this decision to have this rotation across the three main islands. That decision brought stability for many years. Of course, that gets undone in 2018 with a referendum. And so what we see you know, the first African election in 2024, is Comorian presidential election, where the incumbent president of course wins. So for those who didn't know, the incumbent president, as Ali asked, Imani was reelected with almost 63% of the vote in these January elections in Comoros, but turnout was low, was only 16%. And this was because many opposition candidates had boycotted the elections with a 16% turnout, you know, that 's, it's remarkable. That's down from 54% turnout in the previous presidential election, and in 2019, this constitutional referendum that changed a lot of the electoral rules and Camarones happens in 2018. So 2019 was the first time that Osmani had run for re-election. You know, because before you wouldn't have been allowed to do it without this 2018 referendum. So turnout was 54 percent in 2019. But turnout was even higher in the previous presidential election, right in 2016. It was 69. for that. So we're seeing this drastic decline in turnout over time in Comoros. And you can't help but think that that has to do with this significant change in the rules. And you know, what Rachel and I would recognize based on, you know, our study of democracy. It's what Nancy Bermeo called, in her article many years ago, executive aggrandizement where the President Azali Assoumani, during his first term, need some institutional changes, that made it possible for him to have this constitutional referendum that would allow him additional terms in office, right, and then changing the makeup of me, and which courts get to decide on these kinds of basically making sure that the executive branch of the government would have more power, ensuring the likelihood that he would then be able to run again. And then during these January 2024 elections, there were violent protests following the announcement that the incumbent Assoumani had won re-election. And again, this is repeating what we saw in 2019 Going with Comoros's elections. And I guess I don't want to start off 2024 on a negative note. Because, you know, I do think that a lot of the elections that are coming up in 2024, are a lot of things, a lot of opportunities for democracy and democratic democratic actors and democracy advocates to have, there's a lot of reasons for that. And, but I think, you know, it's cases like this, that remind us to also be vigilant and to think about, you know, what it means when there are rules changing, and the consequences of those down the line. And I don't know, if, you know, you even seen many people reporting on the camera selections, and what happens, and, you know, these big changes.

Rachel Beatty Riedl  07:26

Exactly, Kim, I think when you're talking about executive aggrandizement, that's looking back on 2023. And the last several years, that's really one of the trends that we see. And we should anticipate, you know, to continue in 2024. And thinking about, as you've just said, the ways in which that in this particular case, but replicated across the world, and in many situations, affects the ability of the judicial branch, to function and around candidate eligibility. That's something we've been talking a lot about in Senegal and other places, as we look forward to elections there, for example, in 2020, for the big presidential elections coming up, the way it affects the ability of the legislature to serve as a check on the executive. So that's something that we've really been thinking about in terms of Ghana and other places that's coming up with elections. And so that role of kind of democratic erosion through executive aggrandizement is something that I think there are these two counter trends when we look at an Africa, you know, across the last several years, in terms of thinking about the rise of coups in the region, you know, particularly across West Africa. And the rise of this kind of democratic erosion through institutional means executive aggrandizement. Now, when we mentioned that there are 22 countries that are looking for elections in 2024. There's also a question of whether those elections will happen. We know that in Mali, presidential elections were scheduled for February, and they've already been postponed. So that again, kind of following this question of when and where the institutional route are followed, versus Mali, following the coup, the ruling junta, the transitional government, et cetera, the postponement of elections there, they're already in the non institutional route to democratic erosion. There's a big question about whether elections will be held in Tunisia. They're slated for presidential elections in November. But as we heard from Alex Blackman, just a few weeks ago, that has also been a kind of shutting down of the other branches, dissolving parliament, you know, rather than co-opting it or using it as a tool of democratic erosion. So I think there are big questions here about what of the two paths we'll see and the institutional path versus the extra institutional path. And I'll also say that that challenge we see globally and across the continent, really coming articulated from below as well from citizens, whether they're sticking with the institutional path and really using elections as this moment to challenge or as you've said, in Comoros, you know, the boycott, you have to say this, this institutional path is not delivering, I don't believe in it, I'm not going to legitimize it by participating and you know that the extra institutional route is in some ways, we know it's not going to give opposition any stake holding in government any kind of backbench from which to be a chakra voice. But when citizens don't see that as a viable outcome anyway, I think it's really it's a sign of boycotts are a sign that people feel that their voices are so restricted, that that's their kind of remaining options. So we see that kind of top down and bottom up across the institutional and extra institutional routes. And I think we'll continue to see that in 2024 playout. The other thing that I'll just mention is looking back on 2023. And looking ahead to 2024 the increasing role of regional blocs, you know, like especially ECOWAS, thinking about the role of SADC. But ECOWAS has been playing such an interesting role, in particular in response to these clues in Asia, Mali, Burkina Faso, and we see reports that just in January, those three countries pulled out of echo loss. In particular, they withdrew because of the sanctions that the group was imposing on them in response to those coos, so the as we see this kind of democratic erosion through different routes, we can expect more disunity from regional bloc's which are not sharing the same even kind of need to comply with the practice of elections or make it look as if there are multiparty elections. And so that I think disunity within the regional blocks is a real factor to consider. They're weakening power, they're weakening pressure. And whereas we've discussed, you know, in the past, ECOWAS went into Gambia, or the pressure for a kind of pro democratic, pro multiparty elections used to be fairly significant. So these, these are really changing times in terms of the ability of a coherent regional bloc to act in concert and, and pressure any one particular member. 

Kim Yi Dionne  12:33

I have to admit, Rachel, I didn't know that the Sahelian countries have allowed us epilogues. So what does that mean? I mean, if there's no, like, I mean, not a philosophy is to stay here, you know, you know, of course, Brady, had some great moves in, in the last 10 years regarding like, promotion of democracy. You know, of course, we've just talked about the Gambian case in particular. But, you know, what, what recourse then is left for, you know, people who want to have elections want to have a civilian government want to have the power to choose who among them should serve as the leader of a civilian government, right, in these countries that experienced these curves? You know, if not eco class, right, you know, does it mean that like, you know, in places like Mali, are we waiting for the benevolence of military leadership, to actually shepherd in democracy, to return to democracy?

Rachel Beatty Riedl  13:52

 Yeah, it's such an interesting question, especially when you think about that judicial level of an ECOWAS court, right, the fact that citizens could take concerns if they weren't finding their concerns being met at the national level citizens could go to this regional bloc level. And the, you know, these three countries the military leadership left ECOWAS, because they said it was betraying its founding principles and had become a threat to its member states and their people right through the sanctions that they were imposing. And ECOWAS says, you know, that they, of course, need to be able to react. And, you know, they haven't received any direct formal notification from the three member states about their intention to withdraw from the community. But these three member states made the public statement that they were pulling out, because they also again, this ties to a kind of internal external logic that we're seeing more broadly. The three member states have said that echo was acting under the undue influence of foreign powers, which is perceived to be France The United States, the UK. So this ties into the kind of narrative around that Mali new Share Burkina the military hunters have been portraying around a kind of anti colonial influence and that the democratic governments were kind of completely captured by those foreign linkages. So I think it's a really interesting question, Kim, that you pose around, like, what are the democratic outlets? How can citizens mobilize for rights? And whether they see that as being I think there are some some interesting kind of sentiment questions at this level about whether or not citizens see this extra institutional route as responding to some citizen demands in the short term of certainly not procedurally or in the long term, that there are democratically elected governments were, or seemingly, to them, at times incapable of doing particularly response to the kind of foreign influence and the domestic security challenges?

Kim Yi Dionne  16:07

Yeah, you know, I'm also thinking, you know, again, I move with this historical experience of Comoros right, which had these military coups back in the 70s. And then they come up with, you know, they have a transitional government, and then they come up with these institutional rules to try to keep peace and stability. Right. And that worked for more than a decade. And then one guy becomes president, right and engages in this whole, you know, we're talking about executive aggrandizement, engages in these changes to the rules that, you know, change it back to, you know, that erode democracy. Right. And so, I wonder, you know, how much you're thinking about, you know, in these countries that have had these shootings in the Sahel and elsewhere in West Africa? You know, we're hoping they're having elections this year, right. Like, we're counting them up, that looks like that's gonna happen. But there's, you know, these transitional governments do not, in fact, hold elections. Are there ways that they can safeguard knowledge about the path forward? You know, I think about your book a lot. And I'm talking about those first, the Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa. And I think about, you know, the party systems  you focus on in your book are different kinds of autocracies, right? They're here, dictatorships where there's a personal list, right? A president who's like a guy that kind of got his big cult of personality and and really, like it's, he's the ruler of the country, or it's, he's kind of hegemonic, single party regimes. Not really, military regimes. And I'm not not that I want to say, a society that, you know, right now, effectively the rulers of these transitional governments, I, people in the military, so I don't know, if you have thoughts about like, a country like Mali, right, which has had a lot of security issues and stability issues. You know, a transitional government is run by military officers like what, what should we think about  democracy? Elections? Like how, what should we be looking for, what should we be hopeful about?

Rachel Beatty Riedl  18:52

Yes, such a great question, Kim. And I am thinking about this a lot too, and trying to draw lessons from past cases and what we see right now. So I think there are three potential paths. One is where the military leaders oversee elections, in quote in air quotes here that our listeners can't see. But that just basically ensures their continued authoritarian power, right. And that would lead to the kind of historic transition that we saw in a place like Ghana, where JJ Rawlings came in as a military ruler, but then institutionalized over time, a party to help rule. But that would not be taking us towards democracy during that period, right. It would be maybe building out a party potentially, that could in the future serve as a democratic competitor. But I think there are other routes that are possible that might be more democratic, and one in particular is around whether or not the transitional military governments are able to oversee elections in the near term that are participatory. And they're, you know, open up the field, maybe they're still competing, right, but they're not restricting to too great of an extent other participants. There, I see the likely outcome, something much more similar to Benin, where you have a very fragmented party system where you have a lot of different flux, but that you have the ability to participate and get to a democratic contested elections here between in the kind of 1990s and 2000s. So I see that potential if these military governments do go towards elections, that it could be very highly contested, very participatory, and, you know, not not highly structured by these kinds of dominant parties or organizations. So that is one route. And then a third route might be that the military ruling governments don't hold elections in the short term. And they try to institutionalize and harden their rule. And then I think it presents much, much less of an opportunity to have the feedback around what citizens need and participation.

Kim Yi Dionne  21:23

For sure. You know, of course, it's not just these recent who experience states that are having elections this year. So what other places are you watching on the continent? I imagine Senegal is one of them. But I'm curious to know what other elections are you watching? And what other things around elections? And are you? What are you paying attention to?

Rachel Beatty Riedl  21:49

Yeah, Senegal is definitely a place that I'm watching. I think they're really high stakes there. I think they're really interesting, practical and scholarly questions about democracy about barring candidates and candidate eligibility. Do you see this as an example of when the courts can do the work that they need to do around their own criminal justice proceedings? And then whether or not candidates are eligible? Or is this really a red flag? So I think Senegal is a really interesting case. And we'll continue to kind of have episodes on it and be listening to our former non resident fellow Bamba Ndiaye, over at the Africanist podcast. The other case that I think is really significant, and many people's eyes are on is South Africa. You know, I think it's such a huge election, its potential potentially likely that the ANC might lose, you know, their majority, but might be able to still rule through a kind of plurality. So I think there is just so much kind of growing potential for continuing contestation and opposition and at the same time, really deep, Lee expressed citizens' grievances around governance and questions about corruption and questions that should force parties to reform and continue to evolve and offer be responsive to what citizens need. So I think they're, I think it's going to be a kind of another historic transitional election for South Africa. But I'm still, you know, kind of, on Evan Lieberman's great book about South Africa, I remain a South Africa optimist. I still think it's this incredible, you know, opportunity. And so I'm hopeful that that election will continue to be a democratic outlet for accountable, good, effective government governance that delivers on what citizens are asking for. So Kim, what countries are you watching?

Kim Yi Dionne  23:54

So likewise, South Africa, because of the challenge to the ANC, either, I think their rightful challenge to the ANC? Certainly, you know, they've played an important role and South Africans history. I think being plagued by these corruption scandals, just raises some questions about, you know, the extent to which they're going to be involved with South Africa's future. And I think, you know, one thing that's really interesting to me about South Africa's elections is how the youth will vote. And then the growing appeal of the Economic Freedom Fighters to youth voters, right, so the EFF for this party 's people may know their figurehead. Julius Malema was this firebrand, who is skosh is quite charismatic, I think, you know, depending on who you are, and the extent to which you agree with his politics, but I think you know, the way the The EFF is mobilizing me, right in the middle of the party. Right, the Economic Freedom Fighters, I think, you know, economic issues are really, you know, what's driving a lot of dissatisfaction with the ANC. So not just corruption. But, and I think that this is peculiar to South Africa. I mean, I think, in a lot of African elections, you know, people aren't just interested in elections for democracy, or per se, but, you know, a lot of voting the thumbs out, because their everyday lives are not improvable, that can be worsening. To be sure some of this is happening because of global economic trends, and things that are out of the control of democratically elected leaders. But also, I think there's something about the political elites, you know, including, you know, former leaders of the ANC, just being woefully out of touch with ordinary voters and not taking seriously their needs and concerns. And it's going to come to a point where if you haven't addressed our basic living standards, we are going to go for this person who's saying a few things that are a little bit crazy. But also like, it's right in the main economic freedom fighters like apartheid, political apartheid, maybe that economic apartheid still exists, right? opportunities have improved for black people in South Africa. To what degree and for how many black South Africans? Hey, thank you. It's like, whenever I hear economists tell me like, oh, but poverty has gone down, life expectancy has gone up, everything is looking awesome. And I was like, Yeah, except for the people who are still poor, except for, you know, the mothers who are still losing their babies at very young ages, because infant mortality has gone down, but it's not zero. And there are still people who are feeling like, you know, democracy is not helping us. And actually, this is, you know, one of the concerns I have thinking about this is, you know, the election of the populace. Right. So, you know, talking about economic freedom fighters in, in South Africa, right. That's a party that certainly has a populist campaign. But there are others right. At the same time, of course, you know, we live too late in 2023. And, you know, and how populism. Good, then, I mean, George whale lost in Liberia, and he ran in 2017, on a largely populist campaign, then he didn't deliver, right. So I guess, I'm a little bit concerned about populace, except the ones on here a populist, and you make campaign promises, that you're, you're going to be different than the other guys, but you're not going to be corrupt, like, you know, the guys who were in office, and you're going to make sure that, you know, ordinary citizens are going to get their share of a country's prosperity. Well, in the case of Liberia under George Weah, Liberian said, Well, we didn't get that. So you know, it was a close election. But the fact that we lost re-election, I think is important for us to think about, you know, the limits of populism. What was also important is that not only did George Weah lose, seat it? And I think, you know, I'll be curious to see the places where losers do and do not consider, I think that there is a growing trend. You know, maybe that's just my view, living here in the United States, where the last presidential election, you know, the guy who lost in conceit and I think we should be paying attention to the extent to which users are willing to say they've lost.

Rachel Beatty Riedl  29:29

Absolutely, Kim, and I think, you know, that's, that's a really key. That's the number one kind of sign of democratic practice as well. And I want to just highlight what you were talking about in terms of South Africa and the broader sense, again, kind of looking at past trends and when what it portends for the year ahead, is the importance of the role of the economy and the kind of sense of the The way in which that's driving voting behavior. I think we know voters are generally dissatisfied with a lack of, you know, real economic dividends from democracy. And that has translated to some dissatisfaction with democracy itself. And Ken Opalo actually has a really nice piece in Bloomberg this week and also related to his substack. But his piece in Bloomberg is titled “Africa's Year of Elections Faces a Pernicious Enemy, and that is the Economy.” We saw the intensification over the last year 2023 of economic woes. And in particular, we saw the debt crises and distress in Ghana and Zambia, two really important democratic actors on the continent, as they worked on restructuring their debts and following defaults in the previous year. Ethiopia defaulted this year. And so the way in which the demands on governments to provide viable livelihood enhancing infrastructure and the efficient use of debt for job creation, I think that these two economic factors will really they'll play out, as you've said, in the South African case, and in many places around the demands that citizens are making on governments and what they how they need to deliver, to make the economy work, not just for a kind of growing GDP and a small number of elite, but to really meet the needs of the majority of citizens and to meet the needs of those who are the most in need of assistance. Now, Kim, there's one other factor about South Africa that I wanted to mention from, you know, such an important leader on the continent. And I know you were you were doing some reading about the kind of current status of South Africa's ICJ court case. So can you tell us a little bit more about what you're thinking there?

Kim Yi Dionne  32:21

Yeah, so we mentioned this, and in a previous episode about South Africa, bringing case to the International Court of Justice, right, charging Israel with condemning genocide against Palestinians. And in that case, there was a decision. Not like so the ICJ the International Court of Justice did not rule that Israel has committed genocide. That's not what happened in this most recent decision. What, what they did say was that it was plausible that Israel can violated genocide, convention rights, which is the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was a convention that came out of the terrible history of World War Two, and the Holocaust. So the plausible violation of the Genocide Convention, our listeners can learn more about that ruling from the ICJ and the case generally by reading a piece that Kelebogile Zvogbo wrote for good authority that will link in our show notes, just kind of giving you some more background on that we had a against some some other resources that folks can check out in our previous episodes. But one thing that really caught my eye, I don't know if you read it retail, but it's just this really, essay in the New York Times that Sean Jacobs, a professor at The New School wrote, and so folks who don't know Sean Jacobs, in addition to being a professor at The New School is also the founder of Africa as a country, which is one of our favorite blogs slash like and news outlets, that publishes lots of great work. And so Sean wrote about this case before this plausible violation decision had come out of the ICJ and the way he wrote about it was, you know, as an expatriate South African, us kind of, you know, lived a life that remembers, right, the fight for end of apartheid, and they can birth of South Africa as as a democracy. So he writes about how this diverse group of lawyers that argued South Africa's case at the ICJ represented, quote, a country whose national identity is a product of collective struggle, and a rejection of ethno-nationalist politics that South Africa left behind when we defeated medieval apartheid, that kind of demons Many of us to define Israel's policy toward Palestinian three years, the country's now governing African National Congress, common positive for Palestinians. In the International Court, the South Africans were at points fighting for and helping us imagination and built on shared struggle and ideals, rather than group identities, end quote. So I encourage our listeners to read John's essay, it's about more than South Africa's case at the ICJ. It's also about patriotism, as well as global civil society. And Sean's essay is one of hope and the way he writes about the case shows us the power of solidarity among groups that have faced oppression and violence.

Rachel Beatty Riedl  35:46

And thanks so much for sharing that with us. I think it's really helpful for our listeners to kind of have a sense of positioning this in a broader picture, and then thinking about what it means from different perspectives and, and what we can take from it. So we hope that this has been an interesting conversation for our listeners. And we look forward to next week introducing you all to our nonresonant fellows for this season, season eight, who will give themselves a brief introduction and tell you a little bit about what they're going to be talking about this season for their interviews and their episodes. So stay tuned and we look forward to sharing more with you throughout this coming year on the elections we've just been talking about and much, much more.

Kim Yi Dionne  36:38

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Ufahamu Africa. You can find more episodes, show notes, and transcripts on our website, ufahamuafrica.com.

This podcast is produced and managed by Megan DeMint with help from production assistants Chukwufunanya Ikechukwu, Alex Kozak, and Ami Tamakloe. Our non-resident podcast fellows are Bamba Ndiaye, Maseke Rioba, Takondwa Priscilla Semphere, and Kamogelo Tinyiko Theledi. 

We are generously supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and receive research assistance from Cornell University and the University of California, Riverside. Our music is courtesy of Kevin MacLeod. 

Until next week, safiri salama.