Karl Lyimo
26 July 2008
column
Nairobi — As a senior official at the United Nation headquarters, Dr Asha-Rose Migiro of Tanzania joins such towering African female figures as Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, Kenya's 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai -- and two other Tanzanians: Pan-African Parliament President Gertrude Mongella -- who was behind the 1995 Beijing Women's Conference's success -- and UN Habitat Head Anna Tibaijuka.
Dr Migiro was on leave in Dar es Salaam late July where she talked to Tanzanians on the UN's stand on world issues, ranging from rising commodity prices -- especially fuel and food -- to the Millennium Development Goals, climate change and global peace/security.
The gist of her address was democracy, or what passes for it in Africa. Notable was Dr Migiro's definitive comment regarding the UN's stand on some African countries that are gradually adding a new dimension to democracy that cannot be good for that institution.
Indeed, power-hungry African leaders seek perpetuation of their rule (usually bad) by all means possible -- rigging elections, falsifying results with help from malleable electoral commissions and going on to govern as if nothing untoward had happened.
HOWEVER, WITH MORE AND MORE OF the governed becoming increasingly aware of their rights, freedoms and their ruler's political shenanigans, this is increasingly becoming unacceptable.
In the event, the rulers have almost imperceptibly devised an appendage to election-stealing: Seeking a compromise through power-sharing with their closest rival(s).
We saw this happen in Kenya, and it's to happening in Zimbabwe. We nearly saw this happen in Zanzibar, beginning with the 1995 elections that saw Mwalimu Julius Nyerere doubt the results that showed the CCM candidate "winning" the presidency.
In the last case, CCM and CUF have engaged each other thrice in negotiations for a compromise that would lead to a government of national unity.
Kenya and Zimbabwe are slightly different. After the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was controversially declared winner, violence erupted that eventually saw 1,200 people dead 300,000 displaced.
A truce brokered by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan saw the two political foes form a grand coalition government last April.
A similar process is ongoing in Zimbabwe that may yield a government of national unity between Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.
The painful bit is the lackadaisical way in which most African leaders viewed these counter-democratic developments.
While the presidents of Botswana and Zambia were relatively articulate in denouncing the Zimbabwe's -- and Africa's -- warped new mode of democracy, other African Union leaders virtually perpetuate the concept that Mwalimu Nyerere decried as a trade union of dictators.
This is surprising, considering that Africa has a peer series mechanism purported to ensure democratic good governance and rule of law.
Yet, when any leader is threatened with being called to account -- Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir (300,000 dead; two million displaced) and Zimbabwe's Mugabe (hundreds dead, four million displaced) -- they rally around the fellow, screaming and scheming against those baying for their man's blood.
Talk of democracy for power-hungry failed leaders!
Karl Lyimo is a freelance journalist based in Dar.
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