Power sharing no substitute for reform

The core constitutional issue in new or reborn African democracies is presidential power. Extraordinary pressures have been exerted on presidents in many countries to adhere to two-term limits, successfully in several cases.

In Kenya and Zimbabwe, externally mediated power-sharing agreements have resulted in the division of the executive power between a president and a prime minister.

In Zimbabwe, the constitutional change came about only with Mbeki’s involvement. In the preceding decades, Mugabe never allowed any constitutional reform process, let alone one that would force him to limit his executive power.

In Kenya, the division of executive authority was proposed, rejected and then that rejection was rejected in a popular referendum, only to be reinstated with the help of former UN chief Kofi Annan’s mediation.

So the Kenya and Zimbabwe power-sharing accords offer an intriguing twist on academic scepticism about their long-term validity.

These deals have indeed incorporated short-term arrangements — like the division of cabinet ministries in Kenya, but fundamental constitutional changes with potentially long-term importance. But the operative word is “potential.”

The key question in these cases is whether Annan in Kenya and Mbeki have been constitutional midwives delivering lasting constitutional reforms or just short-term deal makers.

Will divided executive prove lasting, thanks to the external mediators? Or will these mediated agreements fall apart after, or perhaps before, the next national elections in both countries? We just don’t know.

We will know this if and when there is a constitutional process in Kenya and Zimbabwe in which the people and the political elites have the opportunity to decide this and other constitutional questions.

At a minimum, citizens will need to have the opportunity to vote in referendums on revised constitutions drafted by political elites and lobby groups voting on the proposals of political society in academic parlance.

A better, more durable option is a process such as the Bomas talks in Kenya, in which lobbies get to participate actively in the formulation, followed directly, by the ratification of constitutional changes in referendums.

John Harbeson is a professor of political science, City University of New York