Democracy: More than right to vote

at the shrine of the over-glorified Western-style democracy would make one believe that the development of nations demands democracy, and not vice versa, that democracy demands development.
It is not the resources of Zimbabwe and the infrastructure of the country that demand or create democracy, rather it is the democratic demand of Zimbabweans that calls for the ownership of resources, the means of production and the economic development of the nation.
The ostentatious charades about democracy being a product of development is a strategy by imperialist elites to keep the people of former colonies in perpetual slumber so they can yearn for a development spearheaded by foreign investors – that way outsourcing their only source of happiness, and entrusting their future in the power of foreign investors.
Nigeria is going to have election 2011 later this year and we have three leading political parties there.
There is Goodluck Jonathan’s ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change and Nihu Ribadu’s Action Congress of Nigeria.
A prominent Nigerian economist, Salihm Lukman rece-ntly commented on the major challenges facing Nigerian elections and what he raised is essentially not unique to Nigeria, but quite common throughout Africa.
The politicians of Nigeria, like most politicians in Africa have come to hold on to this nauseous doctrine that defines democracy as an arithmetical game of amassing vote numbers ahead of one’s political opponents.
A valid arithmetical lead in the number of amassed votes does not in and of itself mean that democracy has occurred.
The limpidity of the people’s wishes is not necessarily enshrined in the counting of votes after an election.
Democracy for Nigeria demands development of the oil industry to the extent that Nigeria benefits in net absolute terms from their God-given resource.
Nigerians in their generality have neither wish nor willingness to have Shell running their oil industry for the benefit of its foreign owners and the corrupt Nigerian leadership they may periodically bribe into silence.
The politicians in Nigeria are quite aware of what the people of Nigeria want, and they are also aware of the nugatory hope of antagonising the Western owners of capital – at least from the get-rich-while-in-political-office point of view.
The first challenge raised by Lukman is that of a shambolic voter registration process.
Reports coming from Nigeria are that some people have reported for voter registration on numerous attempts with-out success and registration officials have been reported to be demanding bribes to get prospective voters registered.
This is not necessarily because Nigeria is incapable of correctly and accurately registering its eligible voters.
The real problem is that there are politicians who believe they need control of the voter registration process before any election is held.
This is precisely because there are people these politicians would want registered and others that they would want out of the voter register.
This of course is in line with strategic power politics where the game at hand is numbers and how such numbers can be manipulated to one’s advantage.
It has nothing to do with democracy.
If the politicians of Nigeria were in agreement that the people of Nigeria must vote to take full control of their resources and to kick out imperialist exploitative foreign companies like Shell, then there would be no problem registering Nigerian voters accurately without any form of fraud.
Such a popular opinion is the true democratic voice of the people of Nigeria and the longstanding and perpetual conflict between Shell and the people of the Niger Delta is testimony to this.
The democratic public opinion among Zimbabweans is that Zimbabweans must own Zimbabwe’s natural resources, be it land, minerals, water, timber or anything else.
No sane Zimbabwean wishes these were controlled and owned by foreigners from Europe or from wherever else.
Zanu-PF is rallying people around this message and the economic empowerment policies preached by Minister Saviour Kasukuwere and others are an effort to rally people around a hugely popular sentiment.
The challenge is that this popular and democratic public opinion will mean that Zimbabwe’s development should come from Zimbabwe’s own democracy – that is the full participation of its people in the social, political and economic affairs of their nation.
Some people simply believe that Zimbabweans cannot by themselves fully develop their country without “massive handholding” by the Westerners — to borrow US Ambassador Christopher Dell’s phrase.
MDC-T for their part preach a development brought about by their “friends with money”, as Nelson Chamisa puts it.
They argue that once these “friends with money”develop Zimbabwe on behalf of our good-for-nothing people, then “true prosperity” will visit the nation and this is the “real change” that will bring “democracy” to our beautiful country.
We have Zanu-PF saying democracy should demand development and MDC-T saying rather development should demand democracy and also shape it in accordance to the foreign developer’s perception.
Lukman said the second challenge facing Nigeria’s 2011 election is coming up with credible candidates.
He argues that emerging from an election with a valid lead in the number of amassed votes does not in and of itself guarantee the credibility of the winning candidate.
Neither does it in itself endorse that democracy has occurred.
Nigeria like every other average African country is infested with crooks masquerading as politicians, if we for once agree that it is possible to be a politician without being a crook.
The credibility issues raised by Lukman include policy depth, integrity, commitment and above all capacity to deliver.
The argument here is that once the political field has been hijacked by people who are bankrupt in terms of policy, who lack professional and ethical integrity, who are committed to anything else but the true needs of the people, and who are incapable of achieving anything for those who vote them into power; then democracy cannot even begin. It suffers a still birth.
At this level the prospective election becomes a sham before it is even held.
While academic and professional credentials are not the sole criterion to measure the credibility of political aspirants, there is a certain level of academic and professional shortcoming that must guide political parties in not endangering the wishes of the masses.
There are a number of ways that can be used by political parties to ensure the credibility of candidates and getting in trouble with the police is not one of them.
There is a particular culture in the MDC-T that makes certain people believe that passing through police cells is the one and only credible way to rise to political office.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai explicitly implied that if Minister Elton Mangoma had been arrested by a senior police officer he (Tsvangirai) would have accepted the arresting happily, presumably for the raised profile of the arresting act itself.
He publicly lamented that the minister from his political party had been arrested for alleged corruption by “a mere constable”.
He vehemently asked his listeners to “imagine a cabinet minister being arrested by a mere constable.”
Not too difficult to imagine in a functioning democracy Mr PM!
Being arrested is big political business in the culture of the MDC-T and one must admit that this is most probably borrowed from liberation war heroes, some of whom are chronically bragging about their own days of arresting and detentions at the hands of the widely loathed Ian Smith.
Our sympathies and solidarity are often expected to be expressed through the vote and even MDC-T politicians seem to believe this chicanery works!
Lukman thirdly talked about credibility of election officials as a challenge to the coming Nigerian election.
Africa is notorious for appointing political activists as election officials and this is precisely why we have the Ivorian election dispute today.
Both Ouattara and President Gbagbo had their senior political activist in the high echelons of the electoral system and this is largely why we have two different standing results for the same election.
Of course there other factors to seriously consider as well, but to imagine for once that the issue of credibility was above board for both the Ivorian Independent Electoral Commission and the National Constitutional Council would be to ignore a reality observed by many long before the election was even held.
Democracy itself is a lot more than votes and free market economics.
There is a story often told about a US citizen who chided the late former Tanzanian President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere about Chama Cha Mapinduzi being the only political party in Tanzania at the time.
The President reportedly responded by saying, “Well, in the United States, you, too have only one political party, but with your customary extravagance you have created two versions of that one party.”
When one looks at the US foreign policy this assertion from Mwalimu makes a lot of sense.
No sane person can say the US policy on Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iran or Cuba has changed because of a shift of power from one political party to another.
Many Africans agree that Western-style democracy is narrow in the extreme and largely alien to African cultures and values.
At the 119th General Assembly of the All African Conference of Churches (AACC) in 1994, the General Secretary Belo Chipenda had this to say:
“Democracy is not merely the right to vote and seize power.
“It is about a whole complex of rights and duties which citizens must exercise if a government is to be open, accountable, and participatory.”
He also argued that Western-style democracy “places people into artificial antagonistic boxes, turns friends to enemies, and aims at arousing unnecessary competition.”
One has to visit online forums where Zimbabweans scold each other ruthlessly in the name of political debate and Chipenda’s assertions perfectly make sudden sense.
The artificial antagonism guided by blind loyalty and directionless zeal of novices is quite apparent.
The reported epicurean inclinations on the part of Morgan Tsvangirai in as far as his sexual life goes has been bluntly labelled as persecution by some of his blind followers who will never see or hear any evil about their “President”.
Wishes and dreams of course need to be protected while they last.
In real life, this writer has had former college and university mates declaring themselves enemies on the basis of diverging political views.
It is shocking when a university graduate cannot muster enough intellect to tolerate a differing opinion.
The leadership of the MDC-T are quite explicit in saying that democracy is about the right to vote and seize political power.
This is why they precisely and publicly declare that only them can bring democracy to Zimbabwe.
Essentially there can’t be democracy without the MDC-T seizing power.
That is the reasoning behind Morgan Tsvangirai’s lamentations for “a road map” to elections, something he wants foreign governments to provide for Zimbabweans.
A forum of the Africa Faith and Justice Network once made the following declarations:
l Free market capitalism and multi-party systems are not synonymous with democracy.
l Respect for human, social, and economic rights as well as civil rights is essential if democracy is to take hold in Africa, for democracy cannot survive in a contest of stark polarisation between rich and poor.
The organisation also added that the Church, as well as any other advocates for justice and democracy, “must speak on behalf of the poor and the marginalised.”
It is the attainment of social, human and economic rights that forms the basis for democracy.
A people deprived of their economic rights cannot vote to produce a democracy under whatever circumstances.
A people whose resources are not in their own hands can never be described as democratic without losing the meaning of the word democracy itself.
A people enjoying full civil rights under free-market capitalism, itself a glorified guise of imperialistic expansionism; cannot be described as living in a democracy if we stick to Aristotle’s definition of the term.
A people whose national wealth is under the control of a few elites either from their own national ranks or from foreign countries cannot ever pass for a true democracy; regardless of how many elections they may hold.
It is the democracy of people that will develop nations and raise the people’s standard of living.
Those who argue that development comes before democracy or that development demands and creates democracy are illusionary.
It is only Zimbabweans who can change their situation and the only real change they need is that of controlling the wealth of their nation and participating fully in the development of their country.
No single politician is capable of “bringing prosperity” to the people of Zimbabwe, hell knows from where.
We are here talking about opportunities given to new farmers who got land in the early 2000s, some of whom are reported to be doing extremely well, especially those in the tobacco farming sector.
We are talking about the opportunity for Zimbabweans to control the mining sector, to control the manufacturing sector, retail and the rest of the service industry.
Democracy cannot be realised by merely creating a country of extensively employed people working for foreign taskmasters masquerading as investors.
That is waged slavery by definition.
Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on [email protected] or reason@rwafawa rova.com or visit www.rwafawarova.com