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The Role and Impact of the African Union on the Democratisation Process in Contemporary Africa

Khabele Matlosa*

Contextual Background: Stage-Setting

There is no equivocation today that Africa has made tremendous strides towards democratisation since the last one and a half decades. Of significant note, of course, in this commendable political development in the continent is certainly the collapse, on a global scale, of the devastating ideological bipolarity marked by the Cold War that spanned 1945-1990, which, in the main, fanned and fuelled political instability and propelled authoritarian regimes of various sorts throughout the continent. There is no gainsaying, undoubtedly, that whereas the Cold War ensured an intensified propaganda warfare and arms race between the then superpowers, namely, the United States of America (USA) and the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), it generated various types of Hot Wars in the African region supported directly and/or indirectly by both superpowers as they strove to win political allies in their larger ideological contestation. Thus, the collapse of the Cold War and the subsequent emergence, since 1990, of a unipolar world under the unchallenged politico-military hegemony of the United States of America, following the disintegration of the USSR, has put an end to the global ideological bipolarity. This has not only presented Western liberal democracy as the only political menu in town for all and sundry, including African states as they embrace wholesomely what Huntington terms the third wave multiparty democracy, but it has also considerably reduced protracted violent inter-state conflicts of the yesteryear, a condition perfectly conducive to democratisation in the continent.

Thus, African states have been presented with a fairly positive global scenario for advancing with efforts towards both democratic transition and consolidation. Whereas clearly the transition has shown remarkable signs of success, it is doubtful whether or not the African democracy can, already, be said to have consolidated. Maybe on this point it is still early days to make a definitive judgment, as the jury is still out to make a firm determination. Be that as it may, it is worth mentioning, from the very onset, that, closer to home, another key factor that assisted the African states to make important headway in the democratic transition has been the demise of apartheid in South Africa, a development that has been perceived as a monumental political miracle of our time. The demise of apartheid, pretty much like the collapse of the Cold War, helped the continent as a whole and Southern Africa in particular, to make a transition from the era of destabilisation and apartheid military and economic aggression towards peaceful coexistence of the African states themselves, thus downscaling considerably the phenomenal incidence of violent inter-state conflict. Again, this development propelled the impressive impetus for African states to gear their political systems more and more towards democratic governance as the era of authoritarian rule was systematically jettisoned.

Taking the Bull by the Horns: African Union and Democratisation

It is thus behind this backdrop that we are better positioned to explain, or at least fathom, the role of the African Union (AU) in the democratisation process in contemporary Africa. To be sure, the African Union has pursued the democratisation process in the continent following on the footsteps of the Organisation of African Unity and quite obviously it has scored some modest successes that still require firmer sustainability and consolidation. A couple of years ago, in 2001, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was transformed into a new continental structure known as the African Union (AU), which was inaugurated a year later in Durban, South Africa, and issues of continental political integration were elevated to top priority on a par with imperatives for economic integration. Some of the key objectives of the African Union, as enshrined in its Constitutive Act are:

· To achieve greater unity and solidarity between the African countries and the peoples of Africa;

· To defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its member states;

· To accelerate the political and socio-economic integration of the continent;

· To promote peace, security and stability on the continent;

· To promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance; and

· To promote and protect human and peoples’ rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other relevant human rights instruments.

All the above objectives are certainly key and central to the nurturing and consolidation of democratic governance in the entire continent. In order to achieve these objectives, the African Union has the following key organs:

· The Assembly of the African Union;

· The Executive Council;

· The African Parliament;

· The Commission;

· The Permanent Representatives Committee;

· The Specialized Technical Committees;

· The Economic, Social and Cultural Council; and

· The Financial Institutions.

Thus, African leaders for the first time recognised the reality that without political integration, economic integration will always remain a chimera that will continuously elude even the most prudent policy initiatives. The first major step that the OAU had taken in the recent past towards addressing democratic governance issues in a forthright manner was in 1993 when it held the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa (CSSDCA), initiated by the Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, in Kampala, Uganda, which in turn agreed to and adopted the Kampala Declaration. The Kampala Declaration basically encapsulates four intertwined clusters of development priorities or what are referred to as calabashes for the continent as follows:

This was a major continental initiative that confronted the governance problems facing the continent head-on since the on-set of democratisation in the early 1990s. Indeed, the stability calabash focused attention specifically on democratisation, good governance and popular participation in the continent. Be that as it may, agreeing and signing/ratifying declarations like this is one thing, while implementation of their recommendations is quite another.

This explains in part why about a decade down the line a more or less similar initiative was begun, with ostensibly no clear synergy with the Kampala Declaration. This is rather ironic, for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) that was adopted by the Organisation of African Unity in Lusaka, Zambia in 2001 and further endorsed wholesale by the African Union in 2002 encompassed three main initiatives and left out the Kampala Declaration. These are (a) the Millennium Partnership for African Recovery Plan (MAP) developed by the South African President, Thabo Mbeki; (b) the OMEGA Plan for Africa developed by the Senagalese President, Abdoulaye Wade; and (c) the Compact for African Recovery: Operationalising the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Plan developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Although the NEPAD Document of 2001 makes no reference to and seems to lack synergy with the CSSDCA, subsequent official documents recognise the dire need for synergy between the two initiatives. The NEPAD project is anchored upon four priority initiatives as follows:

To all intents and purposes, these development priorities reflect the earlier concerns of CSSDCA and thus in terms of its policy focus the relevance of NEPAD for the continent cannot be doubted. Obviously, the democracy and political governance initiative is the most relevant aspect of NEPAD for purposes of this discussion. According to the NEPAD Action Plan of July 2002, pioneers of NEPAD committed themselves to the promotion of democracy and its core values especially the pursuit of the following, in accordance with the democracy and political governance initiative:

The NEPAD democracy and political governance initiative dovetails neatly into the AU Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance, which was approved by the Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) of NEPAD in Rome, Italy, in June 2002 and further adopted and endorsed during the Inaugural Summit of the AU held in Durban, South Africa, in July 2002. An important, albeit contentious, aspect of the Declaration is, in fact, the establishment of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) to monitor and enforce compliance of African states in respect of democratic governance. The APRM was adopted by the HSGIC of NEPAD in its meeting of March 2002 as a “voluntary mechanism open to all member states of the African Union …for purposes of self-monitoring… [to]… foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcement of successful and best practices, including identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs for capacity building” (NEPAD, Action Plans, July 2002, 8). According to the July 2002 NEPAD Action Plans, “the mandate of the African Peer Review Mechanism is to ensure that the policies and practices of participating states conform to the agreed political, economic and corporate governance values, codes and standards contained in the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance. The APRM is the mutually agreed instrument for self-monitoring by participating member governments” (NEPAD Action Plans, July 2002, 8). The implementation and operationalisation of the APRM is planned to evolve through five stages as follows:

All these commitments and protocols for strengthening democratic governance in Africa have been concretised by the adoption of a political culture of holding regular multiparty elections by African states. In fact, to give meaning to both the Declaration on Democracy and the APRM outlined above, the AOU/AU adopted a Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa during the Inaugural Summit of the African Union in Durban, South Africa. Complementary to the Democracy Declaration, the Democratic Election Declaration of the AU commits member states to the following:

  • Freely and fairly;

  • Under democratic constitutions and in compliance with supportive legal instruments;

  • Under a system of separation of powers that ensures, in particular, the independence of the Judiciary;

  • At regular intervals, as provided in National Constitutions; and

  • By impartial, all-inclusive, competent and accountable electoral institutions staffed by well-trained personnel and equipped with adequate logistics (OAU/AU Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa, July 2002).

The above Declaration does not only commit AU member states to democratic governance through the holding of free, credible and regular elections, but in a sense it also goes some way in setting the tone for continent-wide Norms and Standards for the holding of elections. This is a noble and crucial undertaking that needs to be given serious attention by the African leadership if elections are to be owned by Africans themselves and not turned into a foreign policy tool by the powerful Western nations to extend their strategic and commercial interests through political conditionality of aid. Not only has the AU dispatched teams of election observer missions in almost all African countries holding parliamentary and presidential elections, but the AU has stood firm on rejecting usurpation of state power by unconstitutional means as the recent developments in the Central African Republic, where a military coup occurred a few months ago, have clearly demonstrated. Immediately following that military coup, the AU, through its current chairperson, Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, made it publicly clear that it will not recognise the new regime in that country. These are clearly positive developments of shaming those who think they could easily catapult themselves into state house without reprisals from the AU. Gone are the days of a series of military coups, which were executed with impunity during the 1960s up to the 1980s. Politics of the bullet, which marked the political landscape of the continent during the past three decades, has been eclipsed by politics of the ballot throughout the African continent, thanks to the concerted efforts of the African Union.

Conclusion: Whither African Democracy?

Although Afro-pessimists in our midst may contest the stark reality that Africa is making considerable progress in putting its house in order in respect of institutionalising democratic governance, this short article has demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt that through the African Union, the continent is surely on a path towards nurturing and consolidating its new-found democracy. This reality is acknowledged by all Afro-optimists, including this author. As we indicated in the article, this development is happening in a conducive context of post-Cold War era and the post-apartheid epoch. Although the collapse of the Cold War on a global scale and the demise of apartheid in South Africa have provided a critical impetus for these positive developments, it must be recognised that the citizens of Africa have also agitated for these changes through popular struggles. In this vein, it becomes abundantly obvious that both exogenous and endogenous factors have combined to build firm foundations for the progress now underway in institutionalising democracy in Africa. Undoubtedly, the frequency of military coups of the last three decades has been eclipsed by the regularity of elections, which in turn leads to legitimate and credible governments and thus assuring the much needed political stability: a critical sine qua non for economic development and prosperity. The NEPAD initiative is a commendable development, although African states themselves, through the AU, have to show enough commitment to drive the process in their own right and not mortgage the political and economic sovereignty of the continent to the G8 countries as it were. The African Peer Review Mechanism is still to be put to a test and only time will tell whether or not it passes or fails the test. Let history judge the African Union on the bases of its relatively impeccable track record on the democratisation front thus far.

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