Chronicle Editor
Lawson Mabhena, Editor
THE United Kingdom has mastered the art of making democracy look silly. This is probably because the British are the gurus of comedy be it on film, television or radio.
It was no laughing matter though when the credibility of the UK and liberal democracy in general was brought into question on Thursday when Ms Liz Truss became the fourth prime minister to resign in six years.
Both domestic and international legitimacy of this strong hegemony and leading former coloniser were left hanging by a thread. The stability of British democracy is now a cause of international concern.
Ms Truss, who will be the shortest-serving prime minister, announced her plans to resign after 45 days in office. And now the race to lead the Conservative Party will further divide the Tories and leave Britain with a fifth prime minister in six years.
So bad are internal divisions that MPs revolted against Ms Truss — ostensibly for confusion on her economic plan — hardly three months after cabinet ministers resigned on Mr Boris Johnson.
Ms Truss replaced Mr Johnson in September following controversy as well as alleged failure to handle the coronavirus crisis. Mr Johnson had replaced Mrs Theresa May whose snap election in 2017 lost her, her party’s control of the House of Commons. Mrs May did not learn from her predecessor, Mr David Cameron, whose referendum on leaving the European Union in 2016 badly backfired.
Following the six-year horror (or rather comedy) of dramatic resignations, it is surprising that there are still some Tory MPs who want to be prime minister.
Said Ms Truss in a statement of surrender: “I recognise that I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”
French President Emmanuel Macron was one of the first Western leaders to comment on the latest round of chaos, saying he wanted stability from the next UK prime minister.
“We want, above all else, stability,” Mr Macron told reporters upon arrival for a European Union summit in Brussels.
Mr Macron’s concerns don’t come as a surprise. Europe has enough problems on its plate: Brexit, a war in Ukraine, a regional energy crisis and the international economic crisis, just to name a few.
Yet, despite all these problems, the UK has enough time for political comedy.
A National Public Radio report summed it up so nicely: “The United Kingdom used to be synonymous with stable, dependable, if sometimes dull, governance. But the resignation Thursday of Prime Minister Liz Truss — after six weeks in office — shows just how chaotic British politics has become in recent years.”
Stability in the UK is a huge ask, especially in the near future. And without stability, credibility is lost.
Generally, countries regarded as the most democratic nations in the world — with the US and the UK topping the list — hold regular elections and power is transferred from two or more parties. However, in the UK — where power has rotated between the Labour, Conservatives and coalitions — elections are now “too” regular.
Such instability has traditionally not been associated with democracies. But the world has changed; autocratic regimes are proving to be more stable, and by extension more credible.
Democracies are the new tyranny. Alexis de Tocqueville’s warning of a “tyranny of the majority” in the United States of America in 1831, has come to pass.
According to Tocqueville, there is nothing wrong with democracy itself, but the excess of power held by the majority.
In a paper titled “Tyranny of the majority — a permanent threat of democracy”, Karolina Adamová notes that
“one of the perils threatening the democratic parliamentary system is the ‘tyranny of the majority’ in parliaments, which means that the opinions and proposals of political minorities are being overlooked”.
From the Brexit vote to the forced removal of prime ministers, the tyranny of the majority has become the order of the day in the UK.
This is particularly a problem to countries which look up to the UK in terms of democracy. Is the UK still a model democracy?
Former colonies like Zimbabwe, which would like to re-join the Commonwealth, have serious considerations to make. Democracy is no longer what it used to be, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The United States Capitol attack of 2021 is also another fresh example of what leading liberal democracies have degenerated into.
What is happening with democracy must force Africans to stop looking up to the West and possibly map their own path using lessons learnt in the Middle East and Asia.
Democratic peace proponents are not spreading order and development, which Africa needs so much. They are spreading chaos and confusion. Above all, they are spreading a tyranny that cannot be easily removed from power like the tyrannies of old. The UK’s problems are far from over, they are a wake-up call to Africa.
There is too much politics in liberal democracy, and unlike the UK, Africa can’t afford all the comedy.
Online Reporter