Conducting elections is not just administrative; it’s also political

African countries have held many elections since the return of multiparty democracy in the early 1990s.

The return to multiparty politics witnessed many countries forced by internal pressures as well as donor conditions to conduct presidential as well a parliamentary elections.

From this early period, very few incumbents lost elections.

Those who hitherto feared to hold elections – and there were many in west Africa – began to realise that incumbents could not lose elections that they had organised.

They then embarked to hold elections convinced that, with incumbency, they could not lose to the opposition.

From then on, the tradition to hold elections began.

Only a few countries successfully conducted these elections.

The winners and losers would humbly accept the results because everything was done in a transparent manner.

In a majority of cases, the losers who invariably comprised the opposition, would dispute the results on argument that the government and the ruling party rigged the elections in favour of the incumbents or the favoured candidate.

Because of this development, elections lost meaning to citizens.

The period beginning 2000s thus witnessed an increasing tendency in the decline of voter turn outs across Africa and voter apathy in general.

In other instances, voters began to literally ask for bribes from candidates because they were certain the candidates would not do anything for them.

WHAT THEY DID

The bribes would pass as the only thing the voter would count from the candidates.

This disillusionment remains a common feature everywhere on the continent.

But recent events in Ghana and Nigeria where incumbents have lost elections for their second term is beginning to create confidence in the electoral processes even in countries such as Nigeria.

There are of course bad cases such as Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo where there is no commitment to holding elections.

The success of Ghana’s election and the role the Electoral Commission of Ghana played in the conduct of a successful election is gaining praise today because the election was done well.

In fact, the incumbent President John Mahama lost the election and conceded defeat.

What is it that the electoral commission did to succeed in the conduct of the polls?

I recently listened carefully to a discussion by Ms Charlotte Osei, the chairperson of Ghana’s electoral commission.

She discussed what they did in Ghana as a commission for everyone to pass their elections as credible, free, and fair.

Many of what she mentioned are things that the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) did.

I do recall that before 2007, the ECK was often praised across the continent for “work well done” because of conducting a successful 2002 General Election.

The ECK became a training ground for many electoral management bodies in Africa – including Ghana.

In the recent past, the current Ghana electoral management body visited Kenya to learn what the IEBC does.

QUALITY LEADERSHIP
Ms Osei mentioned that the roll of registered voters is prepared early enough for voters to verify.

Biometric Voter Registration is the in-thing but there is also a fall back position in case this fails: there is a manual register, too.

Votes are counted at the polling station and results announced there.

The discussion pointed at an excessively administrative and technical process.

There is nothing much they do that Kenya doesn’t do.

The only difference perhaps is the quality of their political leaders.

She mentioned that there was anxiety over late transmission of results. Politicians became restless.

The opposition, after tabulating votes from all stations, was aware that their candidate had won. They went public with wait.

The commission remained silent on this but the politicians did not burn their office.

The opposition waited restlessly for the commission to announce the result but there was no feedback.

This alone speaks a lot about the quality of leaders rather than the quality of the electoral commission.

One may want to argue that the quality of leaders in elections is as important as the electoral process itself.

In Kenya politics is more important than technical process.

But what is it that Kenya has done to avoid pitfalls of the past?

I am certain that Ghana is not the benchmark because the administrative processes they put in place are always deployed in Kenya and yet Kenyan voters rarely show faith and trust in the electoral process.

BAD SYSTEM

In Kenya, more often than not, winners behave as if they are not certain they have won and losers behave as if they shouldn’t have won.

There are several factors contributing to the uncertainties here. First is the electoral system.

The system provides for a “winner take all” and the loser loses everything in politics.

The 2010 Constitution has addressed certain challenges but it still entrenches a “winner take all” politics.

The requirement that the winning presidential candidate must get 50 per cent plus one of the votes to be declared a winner is itself a good provision but it speaks only to the presidential elections.

It does not require the governor – who controls enormous amount of resources at the counties – to win similar margins.

We forgot that governors will behave like our past presidents, too; they will win and take all.

If they are in a multi-ethnic setting or in contexts where the clan system rules, then the “winner take all” will continue causing conflicts and tensions in the county.

Therefore, it does not matter whether the IEBC conducts an administratively and technically good election or not.

Local divisions will undermine the electoral process in this context.

The losers will not accept anything than a win.

And the winner will not accept to include the losers in the composition of their government.

Because of this, it does not matter how well the electoral commission conducts the process; the losers will be mad but the winners will not include them.

The same context is visible at the national level.

The 50 per cent plus one rule implies that no single presidential candidate in Kenya will ever win without mobilising more than three large ethnic groups.

LAWS IMPLEMENTATION

The losers will also make similar attempts of mobilising any of the two remaining large and medium sized communities plus other small groups.

Those who win will always be under pressure from their own supporters to exclude the opponents.

The losers will always be mad but the winners will not include them in their governments.

The second problem is the management of political parties.

The parties are evolving and one may say that in our context at present, we have different parties from what we had in the 1990s.

The main party blocs have remained the same except that they have changed names; their names are just labels that keep on changing.

All the same, between 2013 and today, the main political parties have been quite active compared with the past when the parties would disappear after elections.

Financing the parties from the exchequer has played a role in keeping them afloat.

However, oversight of the parties remains weak. Some are better organised than others.

There is a third problem with our electoral practices; we have many laws we do not enforce – we have a law for anything on elections.

But these laws are not enforced at all.

Justice Kriegler’s report, which audited our political practice, cited failure to enforce laws as a major problem that contributes to violence.

Notable is that influential and powerful politicians are never punished for breaking the law.

BIGGER PICTURE

All institutions with a responsibility of punishing those who break the law simply stand by as political leaders break the law.

They watch them engaging in hate speech; they watch them flouting campaign rules; they watch them hoping from one party to another; they watch them manipulating ethnic groups to support or oppose others.

The truth is: if you arrest any senior and powerful politician and successfully prosecute them, everyone will go under.

If there is anything politicians everywhere fear, it is to be prosecuted and going to jail.

We saw this way back in 2012 when the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) caused arrest of several leaders.

Those arrested could not even reach their own colleagues for help.

They all disappeared on them. Enforcing the law in a strict manner, therefore, will lead to a better outcome than without enforcement at all.

One thing is clear from this. Elections are not an issue of administration of a technical process.

It is also about managing the political realities of our context.

Reading the political signs in the electoral process and addressing them is what new electoral management bodies in Africa should begin doing.

Looking at elections as a technical process is not enough for passing elections as free and fair.

Prof Kanyinga is based at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Nairobi; [email protected]