OPINION: Term limits the only solution to our political challenges

Democratic trend has been reversed in the new millennium in Africa. During the cold war era, undemocratic leaders like Jose Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola, Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethopia, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Moi of Kenya ruled as long as they remained loyal to the super powers. Now it’s over, the politics of Africa may be influenced by western countries but the citizens have also recognised and reawakened their role in political participations.

In Tunisia and Egypt, peaceful and largely non-violent protestors have managed to change the political destinies of their countries. Africa in the past decade has had conflicts in Cote d’Ivoire, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and Ethiopia; Rwanda’s genocide is still fresh in our minds and a dozen spots where new fighting looks either possible or highly likely are still present on the continent

One of the possible solutions to the crisis in Africa to handle is the question of peaceful power transfer. This is a big challenge since democracy is just taking root in Africa. There are weak democratic institution, the fusion of the arms of government to promote the interests of the ruling classes and a weak opposition and civil society. Though multiparty politics is now widely accepted in Africa, the offices of the presidency seem to be stronger than most political parties on the continent. It has become very hard to democratically defeat incumbent presidents in Africa.

The democratic components of term limits were introduced by more than half of the continent’s states between 1990 and 1994. They came as part of a “democracy package” that included multi-party competitive elections, freedom of the press and constitutionalism. They were meant to end the practice of presidency for life, when dictators were ousted only by a coup d’état or death, or both.

The democratic reversal came when President Sam Nujoma of Namibia, in 1999, removed term limits, followed by presidents Abdou Diouf of Senegal, Lansana Conte of Guinea in 2001, the late Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo in 2002, the late Omar Bongo of Gabon in 2003, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso in 2003, Idriss Deby of Chad in 2005, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2002 and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda in 2005. In 2008, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria and Paul Biya of Cameroon joined the list of leaders ruling past their sell-by dates. Biya introduced term limits to Cameroon in 1996, only to scrap them when his own retirement loomed.

Some leaders in Malawi, Nigeria and Zambia have tried and failed to amend constitutions to secure a third term in office. African leaders have changed their country’s constitutions with the sole purpose of extending their stay in power. Some African leaders have argued that the Western world has got to accept that Western democracy may not necessarily be the right one for African countries. They have conceived their citizens that only those leaders have the capacity to create political stability in those countries. This has, however, not created true stability since with no hopes of ever defeating incumbent presidents in peaceful democratic elections, civil wars have been always the alternative.

Until Africa solves the challenge of peaceful transfer of power, of which term limits can partly help, it will remain entangled in cycles of political violence. The best way is to put a limit on the stay in power by any president, that if the democratic process can not remove them peacefully, they can be out of office due to a time limit.
Author:  Elia Kisembo  (email the author)

email adress: kisembo.elia@yahoo.com

Source: Daily Monitor, Posted Friday, February 18 2011 at 00:00