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Ali Mazrui

What are the systematic and global impediments to African democracy? Should new constitutions opt for a single-term presidency? Should the term be six years or eight years?

Parliaments should be much stronger than have been in the past. Should there be a strong, permanently institutionalised prime minister? Should we study the Fifth Republic of France as a synthesis of parliamentary and presidential systems?

The tendency toward the single party needs to be watched. The British idea of “crossing the floor” has to be scrutinised in Africa. It could lead to members of opposition parties being “bought” by those in power. The opposition shrinks, the governing party expands and before long we are back to the single-party distortion.

Kenya’s Tom Mboya was perhaps correct in insisting that those who wanted to change parties after being elected should give up their seats and campaign for re-election again. The new constitutional order should take that precaution or winners will poach on opposition parties.

Reducing the risk of a military coup in Africa is a tough undertaking. One solution is an external countervailing force like the “stabilising” role of French troops in some of the former French colonies.

But there are other methods. One is to redefine the role of the military in consultation with the soldiers themselves, making the military guardians of development rather than guardians of security.

Soldiers could also be given direct representation in parliament, with a general as a member of the cabinet.

Africans respond more to sociocultural ideologies (ethnicity, race, religion, nationalism) than to socioeconomic ideologies (socialist movements, peasants’ movements, labour movements or even classical capitalism).

Sociocultural ideologies are strong in Africa, sometimes too strong. Socioeconomic ideologies are definitely too weak. A better balance in the equation is needed. The big question is still: how?

Africa should stop harassing and locking up its left-wingers. And those who are still in exile should be encouraged by their governments to return home. Africa will never fill its own ideological void until its silent voices are truly heard.

The end of the Cold War has probably made it easier for African countries to subject their arms deals to democratic control. African military rulers in places like Benin and Mali were forced out of office in the 1990s. But there remains a basic tension between militarisation and democratisation, which constitution-makers in Kenya should take into account and seek solutions for in their own national context.

What about support of African tyrants by foreigners? One of the happy outcomes of the end of the Cold War is the drastically reduced political cynicism in the world system.

In Cold War conditions, Soviet support for Ethiopian tyranny in the 1980s elicited US support for Somali tyranny. With the collapse of the East-West confrontation, African tyrants no longer have fully reliable foreign sponsors.

Is external support for African governments a constitutional issue or a policy issue?

African dictators have now lost some of their foreign sponsors. Many European countries now tie foreign aid directly to African performance in human rights. “Good governance” has become a slogan of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And American ambassadors in countries like Kenya have sometimes become direct pro-democracy activists. Perestroika may have failed in the Soviet Union but is Afrostroika beginning to yield democratic results?

But Africans should remain alert. While Western governments have now become allies of pro-democracy forces in most African countries, there is no guarantee this attitude will persist. Western governments may find other reasons for backing African dictators.