Democracy on trial globally, let Africa pick lessons and improve

This has been a mixed season for democracy and its values. Clobbered in America, tumultuous in Europe but hopeful in Asia.

On its part, Africa continues to exhibit mixed storylines, but the continent is not our focus this week. In America, it all started with the election of Donald Trump in November. As an avowed democrat, I celebrate the triumph of the democratic process despite its battering by candidate Trump on January 6th, 2021, and relentlessly in the last 4 years.

As regular columnist Aaron Hughey wrote in the Daily News, the victory of DJT was not an aberration, but disclosed the reality of what America truly is. But one does not need to focus on Trump to see the contradictions of America’s democracy. For all its trumpeting of liberal democracy to the world, US is content to unapologetically set aside what are considered liberal democratic values.

Take President Biden’s pardon of his son despite numerous promises that he would abide by decisions of the courts. At a personal level, I have no problem with Hunter Biden’s pardon, any father worth the title would issue a pardon in those circumstances.

It is the very existence of this unchecked power and its blatant abuse historically that is repugnant. More critically it is the hypocrisy that justifies its abuse but demands higher values of everyone else. Imagine if a Hunter Biden scenario were to happen with President William Ruto.

The decibel levels of the tut tut we would hear from our erstwhile democracy supervisors would overwhelm! I still remember the moralising from the West when the Kibaki government pardoned Aids Council CEO Margaret Gachara after she was jailed for corruption. America’s assault on democratic values doesn’t end with the pardons but is exhibited in blatant nepotism.

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President-elect Trump is nominating two of his in-laws to senior positions, one as Ambassador to France. By the way he had pardoned the latter when he was President, continuing this rich tradition. Enough said. As for Europe, whether East of West, democracy is in turmoil.

In Eastern Europe, Georgia has a serving President calling on the people to oust the recently elected Prime Minister who is considered pro-Russia. Protests against a “stolen election” abound and it is not clear where this will all end.

Western Europe’s France has just sent its three-month-old Prime Minister packing after he tried to push a centrist budget that was then rejected by both sides of the political spectrum. Expect weeks if not months of uncertainty and disruptions, maybe even the French tradition of street protests.

The UK remains trapped in its Brexit debacle, and while left leaning Labour won a landslide earlier this year, the bulk of the population remains rightist, which explains the rumblings that have accompanied Keir Starmer’s government.

There is at least some hope in Asia. India has established a way to stabilise its complicated politics and manage its diversity. Earlier this year, Bangladesh rejected the assault on democracy and installed Nobel Laurate Mohamed Yunus as the Prime Minister to facilitate a democratic transition.

Even Sri Lanka appears to be settling down after it pushed aside the status quo politicians that have dominated its politics for decades and elected “AKD” its left leaning “change candidate”. South Korea this week rejected a move towards martial law and consequent authoritarianism and appears set to send the President home and most probably to jail, a Korean tradition.

What do all these experiences have to say to Africa as we build our young democracies? Firstly, we must be wary of placing any nation on a values pedestal, every country, especially the ones that shout loudest, comes with warts on its democratic skin. Secondly, there is still hope in democracy, it is a guarantor of sustainable peace.

Thirdly, there are lessons to be learnt from those whose democracies which seem to be working, especially those closer contextually to Africa. The latter is true not just of our politics but of our economics.

India, Korea and Malaysia can teach us how to resolve our economic challenges and how to contextualise our politics and make our democracy serve our realities than Europe and America ever could.

-The writer is an advocate