After Shift in Nigeria, Entrenched-Party Rule Faces Test Elsewhere in Africa
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Version 0 of 1. JOHANNESBURG — The historic election results last week in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and biggest economy, drew worldwide praise and stirred hopes of a democratic domino effect on the rest of the continent. If an incumbent president could step down willingly, and power could be transferred peacefully from one party to another in Nigeria — with its history of military coups and deadly ethnic and religious rivalries, not to mention a raging Islamist insurgency — why wouldn’t the same happen elsewhere? In the last two decades, incumbents have lost elections and peacefully handed over power to the opposition in about 10 other African countries, mostly smaller nations like Senegal, Benin, Zambia and Malawi. But nowhere were the stakes as high as in Nigeria, where vast oil wealth has long intensified political battles and where the loss of power, in this case by President Goodluck Jonathan and his powerful Peoples Democratic Party, has meant a sudden stop to the flow of riches for one group. “Given Nigeria’s size and the direct influence it exercises on neighboring states, it does make far more respectable and acceptable in elite circles the idea of a change,” said Steven Friedman, a political analyst at the University of Johannesburg. “We have to see what happens, but from that perspective, the way in which it’s happened has been significant.” “But is it going to persuade the generals in Zimbabwe to stop doing what they’re doing?” he added. “Absolutely not.” Amid the accolades for Nigeria last week came a development on the other side of the continent, one more in keeping with the practice of clinging to power. In recent months, supporters of President Paul Kagame of Rwanda — who exercises outsized influence in Africa as a darling of Western governments, international donors and investors — have started a media campaign clamoring for constitutional change that would permit him to run for a third term in 2017. Similar efforts are underway in a handful of other countries, including two of Rwanda’s immediate neighbors, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. Only two days after Mr. Jonathan conceded defeat in Nigeria — publicly telling his long-dominant party that it “should be celebrating rather than mourning” because it had “established a legacy of democratic freedom” — Mr. Kagame gave the clearest indication yet that he would be open to staying in power beyond the two terms allowed by his county’s Constitution. “Those who think the president should continue, they should convince me,” Mr. Kagame said on Thursday. “I’m not asking anybody to change the Constitution.” Across the continent, there are equally powerful trends and countertrends, making it difficult to say precisely what Nigeria’s impact will be. Some analysts cautioned that Nigeria’s election outcome could be regarded as less of a genuine democratic transfer than a reshuffling of the country’s historical power brokers. The newly elected president, Muhammadu Buhari, is a former general who once served as Nigeria’s military ruler after coming to power in a coup. The first president of Nigeria after the return to democracy in 1999 was also a retired general and former military ruler of the country, Olusegun Obasanjo. Mr. Buhari’s political party, the All Progressives Congress, was established after three opposition parties formed an alliance in 2013 with the view of challenging Mr. Jonathan in 2015. Mr. Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party had held power since 1999, and it is almost certain that many within his party opposed his decision to concede quickly to Mr. Buhari. Some see in that concession — and the possible emergence in Nigeria of a real two-party system — a sign of political maturity in the continent. They also see it as a challenge to other African nations — including the other African giant, South Africa — that are effectively one-party democracies. Commenting on the transfer of power between political parties in Nigeria, John Robbie, a popular radio talk show host here, said, “It’s the ultimate test of a democracy, and we’re not there yet.” The African National Congress has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, though it has lost regional elections, including in the Western Cape, the province containing Cape Town. At the national level, the A.N.C.’s share of support has declined in every election in the last two decades, though experts believe that its hold on power is secure for at least the next two to three election cycles. Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari, an expert on African foreign policy at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said that even with its recent transfer of power, Nigeria lacks the kind of strong civil society and domestic democratic institutions that hold South Africa’s government more accountable. Few doubt that the A.N.C. will peacefully accept an eventual loss of power nationally, just as it has in more local elections, he said. “If Nigeria provides the big bang, there have been smaller shifts in South Africa that have socialized the A.N.C. to the possibility of losing power at some point,” Mr. Hengari said. Voters have overwhelmingly backed the dominant governing parties in other one-party democracies, including Namibia and Botswana, in recent elections. In addition, Mr. Hengari said, the governing parties in the one-party democracies — not to mention more authoritarian governments, like Zimbabwe’s — are unlikely to feel threatened by the loss of Nigeria’s Peoples Democratic Party. Though Nigeria’s party governed continuously for 16 years, it lacked the historical legitimacy of other dominant parties, like the A.N.C., which played central roles in liberating their nations from colonial rule. “I don’t think for South Africa the lessons from Nigeria are of a democratic nature,” Mr. Hengari said. “It’s one where South Africa says, ‘Well, it’s good to see Nigeria stabilizing democratically.’ ” |