Power Sharing: Africa's Quest
13 Mar 2009
By Edoardo Totolo for ISN
Over the past decade, an increasing number of conflicts and situations of political instability in Africa were solved with power-sharing agreements: deals in which rival parties agreed to coexist in the government and to share power in predetermined ways, often under the mediation of international community leaders –but the results have rarely been positive.
While power sharing proved to be an effective technique for conflict resolution, most countries have not reached long-term political stability nor do they seem on the right path to installing a credible system of multi-party politics.
In 2008, power sharing was adopted in Zimbabwe and Kenya and in previous years in Liberia, Nigeria, Burundi, Sierra Leone, the DRC, Rwanda, among others. In many cases, countries managed to escape (at least temporarily) from war, but then continued to be suffocated by corruption and bad governance.
Power sharing, therefore, is a dilemma for post-conflict development theorists: It represents a compromise that can halt conflict and save lives in the short-term at the expense of good-governance and long-term political stability.
Donald Rothchild, who was an influential political scientist at the University of California, eloquently external pagedefined power sharing as a "face-saving mechanism," because it is usually taken when rivals realize that the cost of war, in terms of resources, energy and lives, becomes unbearable for the populations. In many cases, power-sharing is also the result of strong pressure by the international community.
"Few people, scholars or practitioners, would contend that these [power-sharing agreements] are ideal institutions but rather represent pragmatic adjustments to difficult circumstances in deeply divided societies," he wrote.
Important personalities have gone even further and questioned the applicability of multiparty democracy in the African context. Newly elected leader of the African Union (AU) and Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi said during the AU summit in Ethiopia that the ethnic composition of African societies makes multi-party democracy impossible in the continent.
"We don't have any political structures [in Africa], our structures are social. Our parties are tribal parties - that is what has led to bloodshed."
Gaddafi went as far as promoting the dictatorial rule used in Libya as a political model for the rest of Africa, neglecting that most dictatorships in post-independence Africa eventually led populations to poverty and economic collapse.
Problems and Potentials of Power Sharing
Experts and policymakers have contrasting views on power sharing in Africa.
The international community has traditionally been in favor of power-sharing deals because they often determine the end of civil conflicts; besides halting violence and bloodshed they can enable minority groups to gain political representation and may pave the road to peaceful interactions between rival parties.
A well-known example is South Africa, where power sharing allowed the transition from Apartheid to democracy and a majority rule constitution in 1996. Since then, South Africa has often promoted power-sharing deals in other war-torn countries, but most of them did not succeed, demonstrating once again that political solutions taken in this country cannot be easily transplanted in the rest of Africa.
In 2003, the power-sharing deal reached in external pageLiberia was also relatively successful, as it culminated with free and fair elections of 2005, won by Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf –the first female president in Africa.
However, the agreement came after 14 failed attempts to share power in the country, and the security of Johnson-Sirleaf is still as stake, as numerous ex-combatants groups oppose the government and a external pagecoup was prevented in 2007, mostly thanks to the large presence of UN peacekeeping forces.
Also external pageNigeria adopted a multitude of power-sharing formulas after the civil war (1967-1970) in order to give political representation to the numerous tribal minorities. However, most of these agreements worsened the problems that they were supposed to alleviate.
The country used to be divided in three federal states before independence. Now it is divided in 36. This territorial division was supposed to increase the political representation of minorities, but this happened more in theory than in practice.
Many small ethnic groups in Nigeria have continued to use violent means to obtain political power and higher shares of oil revenues. Despite the numerous power-sharing deals signed in the country, Nigeria did not manage to overcome bad governance, corruption and high ethnic tension.
Power-sharing arrangements can also go horribly wrong; the genocide in Rwanda is a frightening example.
In 1993, under the mediation of the international community (see external pageArusha Accords), the Hutu and Tutsi main political parties decided to share power equally in the cabinet, augmenting the perception among Hutus of a strong power shift in favor of the Tutsi minority. The escalation of violence and intolerance eventually led to the genocide.
Many critics of power sharing argue that this political institution does not offer stability in the long term because it can undermine basic pillars of multi-party democracy.
For example, the competition between political parties and the presence of organized political oppositions - which are fundamental characters of western democracies - are replaced by coalitions where counterparts must cooperate even though they have little in common. In these situations, governments are normally unable to take important decisions and to design structural reforms for development and effective democratization.
Recent Failures and the New Horizons
2008 was not a good year for the supporters of power sharing in Africa.
The recent deals in Kenya and Zimbabwe reinforced the argument that power sharing could legitimize fraudulent behavior by the ruling elites. In fact, despite Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's and his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe's manipulation of their respective elections, power-sharing deals legitimized them to take the highest seats in the government.
Botswana President Ian Khama external pagedefined the agreements in Kenya and Zimbabwe as "bad precedents for the democracy in the continent."
The Kenyan case also shows that structural reforms are very difficult to implement under power sharing. The enormous hopes and expectations of the peace deal mediated by former UN secretary Kofi Annan have been harshly disappointed.
On the positive side, peace still prevails in the country and the government managed to remain intact. However, all the structural reforms promised have not been met and the perception among Kenyans is that the elites are even more corrupt than they used to be before the election.
Vincent Ogutu is a street trader from Nakuru (Kenya) whose business of African arts has been seriously damaged by the post-election violence. His opinion on the current power-sharing deal is certainly not positive.
"Kenya is much more corrupt than it used to be, everybody knows that" Ogutu told ISN Security Watch.
"Kibaki and Odinga only care about their own interests and they point the fingers at each other when something goes wrong. Power sharing is not working in Kenya, because it allows our leaders not to take responsibility for their actions".
The recent power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe between Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has several similarities with the one signed in Kenya.
Even though the historical and political situations in the two countries are profoundly different, in both countries elections were manipulated by the governments and ended up in violence. Both power-sharing deals envisaged the creation of separated center of power and the drafting of a new constitution that could prevent further conflict in the future.
And in both countries power-sharing looks more like a façade than a credible political strategy.
Time to Dismiss Power Sharing?
Peace is a precondition of democracy, and as long as power-sharing deals manage to reach this objective, little can be argued against them.
Political violence in Kenya might have turned into a civil war without the power-sharing agreement signed by the two rivals, and therefore many lives have been saved thanks to the deal mediated by Kofi Annan; the same can be said about many other African countries.
However, it is necessary to distinguish conflict resolution and rapid peace agreements from actual democratization efforts and long-term political stability. While power sharing has a chance to achieve the first set of objectives, its chances to achieve the second seem much smaller.
European and African countries often have very similar institutional frameworks but their functioning mechanisms are completely different. Many African political parties are based on the ethnic origin of their leaders rather than on right- or left-wing ideologies; these structures produce completely different obstacles and opportunities for democracy.
Successful examples of democracy do exist in Africa, and the peaceful election of John Atta Mills in the Ghanaian presidential election of 2008 brought hope for the rest of the continent. However, Kenya was also flagged as a model for the rest of Africa, but then miserably failed the election test.
Presidential elections are scheduled in South Africa - the biggest economy on the continent - April 2009, said to be the tensest after post-apartheid elections in 1994.
The external pageschism of the ruling party (African National Congress) and the rising effects of the economic recession in the country are provoking higher political hostility between competing parties and sporadic cases of external pagepolitical violence.
The biggest test for democracy in Africa is one month away.