Election season in Africa

30th October 2020

By: Martin Zhuwakinyu

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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In a few days, Americans will cast their ballots in an election that will either extend Donald Trump’s rule by another four years or see him leave the While House as the first one-term President since George Bush Snr.

But the world’s media has been so fixated on the November 3 election that there has been scant coverage of upcoming Presidential elections elsewhere, including on the African continent, where citizens in ten countries will be exercising right to decide to their retain the incumbent leader in the job or to put him or her out to pasture.

By the time you read this piece, the winner of the vote in the West African nation of Guinea would have been announced. What sucks about the Guinea election, held on October 18, is that the current President, in power for the constitutionally permissible two times, was in the running, having initiated an amendment in terms of which his first two terms no longer count.

Readers of this column would know my feelings about Presidents who hang on to power, even though they may be good leaders. Complacence may set in and it is not implausible to assume that frequent changes of the guard disrupt corruption networks in the public sector. I shudder to think what would have happened had Jacob Zuma not been ejected from the Union Buildings. The Gupta brothers would still be hollowing out State-owned enterprises and we would be talking about a phenomenon far worse than the “nine wasted years”.

Nearly all the African Presidential elections scheduled for the next few months bear an unsettling similarity to the Guinea election. In Cote d’Ivoire, the incumbent President made the two terms that he has hitherto served disappear through a constitutional tweak. Thus, should he triumph in the October 31 election, the path will be cleared for him to serve a third-but-actually-first term.

This week – on October 28 – Tanzania held its Presidential election. While the incumbent was seeking only his second five-year mandate, in the lead-up to the election, reports were rife about the harassment meted out to the main opposition candidate, who lived in exile for about three years after an attempt on his life. He frequently complained about disruptions of his campaign rallies by police.

When Ugandans go to the polls in February, strongman Yoweri Museveni, in power since 1986, will be seeking to extend his stay by a further five years. This after he repealed a constitutional provision that placed an age cap of 75 on anyone serving as the country’s first citizen. The fellow is now 76.

The greatest disappointment for me is the Gambia’s Adama Barrow, who defeated the obnoxious dictator, Yahya Jammeh, in 2016 and promised to serve for three years, thus winning the hearts of many. He has since reneged on that. Last month, his allies rejected a new draft Constitution, ostensibly because it would limit Barrow to a decade in power.

Other countries where Presidential elections will be held in the next five months include Benin, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Niger and Seychelles. Niger is the only country where the incumbent will not be running for a new term.

Back to Trump: I hope he will be voted out. The fellow does not quite like Africa and once described some African countries in unprintable terms and insulted our Nigerian brothers and sisters as hut-dwellers. He dislikes immigrants from Africa and other places with a passion. He seems to be oblivious to a fact that has been proven by survey after survey – that Africa sends only its best brains to America. These people are helping to make America great.

Should Trump be rejected by voters on November 3, we will have fewer Africa-haters to put up with.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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