Election Monitor Discusses Democratic Progress in Southern Africa

Dr. Molomo in his Gaborone office.

In 1974, most of southern Africa was ruled by repressive minority regimes, whether through Portuguese colonial administrations in Mozambique and Angola or settler-dominated systems in Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Since then, this region, which today encompasses the Southern African Development Community (SADC), has seen some of the strongest economic growth on the African continent accompanied by democratic progress. Dr. Mpho G. Molomo is a professor of political and administrative studies and the director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Botswana. He is a graduate of Boston University and Ohio University, and is also a member of SEAC, the SADC Electoral Advisory Council. In this capacity, he monitors elections in the 15 SADC member states and adjudicates their fairness. The Caravel spoke to him in his Gaborone office about his career observing the spread of democracy in southern Africa, as well as his perception of the challenges facing the region.

The Caravel: Dr. Molomo, what is your role as election monitor for SADC?

Mpho Molomo: SADC has a set of guidelines that ensure that an election is transparent, peaceful, and credible, so before each election in a member country it sends an advance party to see if the atmosphere there is conducive to holding elections. We basically go to see if the political climate will result in violence or unfair elections.

TC: How long have you been monitoring elections?

MM: I’ve been monitoring elections since July/August of 2014. My first election was the Namibian presidential election of late 2014, and since then I’ve observed the election in Lesotho in 2015 and the Zambian election this past August.

TC: What were your takeaways from these elections?

MM: In Zambia, we were most worried about violence from the youth groups of the two major parties, and voiced our concerns about this to SADC. In Lesotho, we were concerned about violence from the military and the police, since the security situation there was much more volatile after the attempted coup.

TC: What trends have you observed in the southern African region in terms of democratization?

MM: It’s a mixed bag. If our measure of democracy is simply the holding of regular elections, then SADC is certainly a success, but there are many different kinds of elections. Zimbabwe’s most recent elections were marked by voter intimidation, violence, and accusations of rigging. It took about a month for the results to be released, after all! Even Botswana has its issues. We say that our elections are “free and fair,” but the ruling party enjoys more media coverage than the opposition, so can we say the political playing field is really level? And such issues exist in each SADC country. We have the Media Institute of Southern Africa, which monitors these things, and they reported on the Zambian election campaign that the ruling party enjoyed 45 minutes of every hour of news coverage. But we understand that democratization isn’t an event, it’s a process, so we must continue to strive to make each election better than the last one. We do this by reporting on the shortcomings of each election, first in the interim report we release immediately following the election, and then in the final report, which examines the new political situation following the election and is released a month or so later. In fact, we’re convening to compile this report for the Zambian election next week.

TC: What factors do you think will impede democratic progress the most?

MM: Poverty, hunger, and unemployment. Election violence is usually done by unemployed, urban youths who are used by parties which give them some money and vehicles and tell them to disrupt rallies by other parties. These issues reflect southern Africa’s continued inability to care for its people. Youth graduate unemployment is a particular problem. You’d think that in a country of only 2.3 million, as we have in Botswana, unemployment should be limited, but it’s at around 17-20 percent according to the government. But according to research we’ve done with Afrobarometer (a nongovernmental group conducting national public attitude surveys in several African countries ed.), where we delve deeper and consider whether people are looking for jobs or have become discouraged and given up looking, the unemployment rate is closer to 44 percent. Inequality is also an issue. Botswana, Mauritius, South Africa, and Namibia are SADC countries with very high GDP per capita, but they also have great income inequality, which is a source of insecurity in the region.

TC: When you were in secondary school with Abram Tiro and other anti-apartheid activists in the early 1970s, nearly all of southern Africa was ruled by minority regimes or colonial powers. Could you have ever imagined that only 20 years later, all of these countries would be under majority rule?

MM: Yes. When (Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira) Salazar’s government fell in Portugal, and Angola and Mozambique became independent a few years later, we knew it was only a matter of time before the others went as well. This initially brought confusion, with the decades-long civil war in Angola and the fighting between RENAMO and FRELIMO (two liberation organizations ed.) in Mozambique, as well as the invasion of Angola by South Africa in 1975. But for us, we saw the actions of foreign powers, such as the shuttle diplomacy under (American Secretary of State Henry) Kissinger as a sign that victory was inevitable (Kissinger pushed for a negotiated solution in Rhodesia, today’s Zimbabwe ed.). There would be a domino effect that would move to Rhodesia first, because the newly independent states would aid the cause there. For example, Mozambique closed its border to Rhodesia, ending the support (Rhodesian Prime Minister) Ian Smith’s regime had been receiving since the UDI (the internationally unrecognized Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965 ed.), and in spite of sanctions. The continued war against opposition fighters began to take a great toll on Rhodesia’s economy, costing up to $1 million every day in lost production. This is because farmers couldn’t produce the cash crops of tobacco and maize that the economy depended on as the war raged on in their fields.

TC: Changing gears now and looking forward, South Africa has seen its dominant party, the African National Congress (ANC) weaken in light of scandals and mismanagement. As a student of South African politics, what do you predict for South Africa’s political future?

MM: As someone who supports the democratization movement, a healthy democracy should include the ability to alternate government. But what you see in Botswana, South Africa, and Namibia are basically one-party states, which undermines this basic tenet of democracy. Therefore, it’s an encouraging sign to see the ANC weakening and a healthy opposition emerging, since democracy can only exist with a healthy opposition. I think the ANC will win again in the next elections, but with a reduced majority, which will be a good thing.