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African Politics in Action
Nigerian Election
FOR the first time, Nigerians have ejected an incumbent president at the ballot box, in a broadly peaceful election. Muhammadu Buhari, the former military dictator who has defeated Goodluck Jonathan, will now preside over Africa’s most populous country, biggest economy and weightiest global actor. This is joyful news for Nigeria—and Africa (see article).
One big reason to cheer is that Mr Jonathan has been such a dismal failure. So has his People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has run Nigeria ever since the generals gave way to an elected civilian government in 1999. His administration has woefully failed to defeat an insurgency by Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group that has tormented Nigeria’s north-east over the past few years. Mr Jonathan tried to improve farming and provide electricity to all, but proved unable to rebuild much of Nigeria’s hideously decrepit infrastructure. Above all, he was unwilling to tackle corruption, the country’s greatest scourge and the cause of much of its chaos. When the central bank’s respected governor complained that $20 billion had been stolen, Mr Jonathan sacked him. Nigeria is the biggest producer of oil on the continent, but most of its 170m-plus people still live on less than $2 a day. That is an indictment of successive governments.
Thanks to the resilience and vitality of ordinary Nigerians, the economy has been growing fast, especially around Lagos, the thriving commercial hub. But that is largely despite the government, not because of it. And with the oil price sharply down, Nigerians could well become even poorer.
Nobody can be sure that the 72-year-old Mr Buhari will turn things around fast, if at all. His brief stint as the country’s leader 32 years ago, when he was a general, was little better than Mr Jonathan’s. His human-rights record was appalling. He detained thousands of opponents, silenced the press, banned political meetings and had people executed for crimes that were not capital offences when they were committed. He expelled 700,000 immigrants under the illusion that this would create jobs for Nigerians. His economic policies, which included the fixing of prices and bans on “unnecessary” imports, were both crass and ineffective.
Nigeria in graphics: the issues behind the 2015 election Yet there is reason to hope that he has learnt from past mistakes. Although not always with a good grace, Mr Buhari accepted defeat in three previous presidential elections. As a northerner, a Muslim and a former soldier, he has a better chance of restoring the morale of Nigeria’s miserable army, which is essential if it is to defeat Boko Haram. His All Progressives Congress is a ramshackle coalition of parties, but the calibre of a number of its leading lights is superior to that of the greedy and incompetent bigwigs who dominate the PDP. Above all, Mr Buhari, whose style is strikingly ascetic, has a reputation for honesty. Corruption in Nigeria is so ingrained that nobody should expect him to root it out overnight. But it is vital that the new president makes a start. His vice-presidential running mate is a pastor who has fought hard for human rights and cleaner government.
Setting an example
Since 1991, when an incumbent leader on the African continent—in little Benin—was for the first time peacefully ejected at the ballot box after three decades without genuine democracy, at least 30 governments and presidents have been voted out of office. Though that is an incomparably better record than in the Arab world, Africa has recently become patchier again. Mr Jonathan’s magnanimous concession of victory to Mr Buhari will be a terrific boost to democrats across the continent. Just hope and pray that Mr Buhari does not let them down.
Nigerian Election
FOR the first time, Nigerians have ejected an incumbent president at the ballot box, in a broadly peaceful election. Muhammadu Buhari, the former military dictator who has defeated Goodluck Jonathan, will now preside over Africa’s most populous country, biggest economy and weightiest global actor. This is joyful news for Nigeria—and Africa (see article).
One big reason to cheer is that Mr Jonathan has been such a dismal failure. So has his People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has run Nigeria ever since the generals gave way to an elected civilian government in 1999. His administration has woefully failed to defeat an insurgency by Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group that has tormented Nigeria’s north-east over the past few years. Mr Jonathan tried to improve farming and provide electricity to all, but proved unable to rebuild much of Nigeria’s hideously decrepit infrastructure. Above all, he was unwilling to tackle corruption, the country’s greatest scourge and the cause of much of its chaos. When the central bank’s respected governor complained that $20 billion had been stolen, Mr Jonathan sacked him. Nigeria is the biggest producer of oil on the continent, but most of its 170m-plus people still live on less than $2 a day. That is an indictment of successive governments.
Thanks to the resilience and vitality of ordinary Nigerians, the economy has been growing fast, especially around Lagos, the thriving commercial hub. But that is largely despite the government, not because of it. And with the oil price sharply down, Nigerians could well become even poorer.
Nobody can be sure that the 72-year-old Mr Buhari will turn things around fast, if at all. His brief stint as the country’s leader 32 years ago, when he was a general, was little better than Mr Jonathan’s. His human-rights record was appalling. He detained thousands of opponents, silenced the press, banned political meetings and had people executed for crimes that were not capital offences when they were committed. He expelled 700,000 immigrants under the illusion that this would create jobs for Nigerians. His economic policies, which included the fixing of prices and bans on “unnecessary” imports, were both crass and ineffective.
Nigeria in graphics: the issues behind the 2015 election Yet there is reason to hope that he has learnt from past mistakes. Although not always with a good grace, Mr Buhari accepted defeat in three previous presidential elections. As a northerner, a Muslim and a former soldier, he has a better chance of restoring the morale of Nigeria’s miserable army, which is essential if it is to defeat Boko Haram. His All Progressives Congress is a ramshackle coalition of parties, but the calibre of a number of its leading lights is superior to that of the greedy and incompetent bigwigs who dominate the PDP. Above all, Mr Buhari, whose style is strikingly ascetic, has a reputation for honesty. Corruption in Nigeria is so ingrained that nobody should expect him to root it out overnight. But it is vital that the new president makes a start. His vice-presidential running mate is a pastor who has fought hard for human rights and cleaner government.
Setting an example
Since 1991, when an incumbent leader on the African continent—in little Benin—was for the first time peacefully ejected at the ballot box after three decades without genuine democracy, at least 30 governments and presidents have been voted out of office. Though that is an incomparably better record than in the Arab world, Africa has recently become patchier again. Mr Jonathan’s magnanimous concession of victory to Mr Buhari will be a terrific boost to democrats across the continent. Just hope and pray that Mr Buhari does not let them down.
![Picture](/uploads/5/0/7/9/50796731/7554861_orig.png)
African Government Setup
African societies today have two levels of government: the indigenous organization, which pertains to local groups, and the national government of the independent nation-states. The relationship between the two levels is complex and has led to serious incompatibilities and conflicts.
Blue Countries are Republics, and red countries are Monarchies
It has become usual to classify the multitude of indigenous forms of African government into three main categories, conventionally known as bands, tribes, and kingdoms. Bands are relatively few and are limited to the societies with economies based on hunting and gathering, especially those of the Bushmen of the Kalahari and the foragers of the central African forests. Their economies require a low density of population and, therefore, its wide distribution over large areas, which inhibits permanent or large settlements. These bands are not found in total isolation but are interspersed with culturally different groups with distinct and complementary economies. Essentially, the bands are large kinship groups under the authority of family elders and shamanic ritual leaders.
"Tribes," a word less often used today than it was formerly because it is held to imply "primitiveness," form the numerically largest political category. Tribes are larger and more settled than bands, but they still lack any overall form of centralized political authority. They have no kings and, in the past, usually had no formally appointed chiefs, although there have always been ritual leaders with some degree of political authority. Most of these societies are based upon a structure of clans, which are segmented into subclans and lineages, often with three or four levels of segmentation. A clan or lineage is the basic unit of such a tribal organization, in which the tribe resembles a series of small, equal, and quasi-autonomous groups. The traditional sanctions for social order are ritual, feud, and warfare. Other tribal systems place emphasis on age rather than on descent, and everyday government is in the hands of councils based on the recruitment of men (and women) of similar age. Initiation at puberty is extremely important, in order that ties between age-mates (whether young warriors or legislative elders) overcome those of birth and descent. These societies are found especially in eastern Africa among pastoralists, such as the Maasai. In yet other tribal societies, mostly in western Africa, government is by some form of association (including the so-called "secret societies") of men and women of equal age and standing.
In the third type of indigenous political structure—that of the kingdom or state—political authority is centered on the office of a king (sometimes a queen), who is chosen from a royal clan and given sacred attributes by his or her subjects. Kingdoms range in population from a few thousand people to several million, and their rulers vary from being little more than ritual figureheads (as among the Shilluk of the southern Sudan, the prototype of James G. Frazer's "divine" king) to military despots with powers of life and death. These kingdoms may have arisen by conquest (as those of the Zulu or Swazi of southern Africa) or by combining into a federation of culturally related states (as those of the Asante or Ghana). The ruler may be regarded as a senior kinsman to his subjects, as a member of a socially senior royal clan, or as a member of an ethnically distinct autocracy (as in the former Rwanda and Burundi kingdoms). In all of the kingdoms, however powerful their rulers, there have always been institutionalized means by which the people controlled royal power. Such axioms as "the king is a slave" are accepted in many African kingdoms. In addition, it has been almost universal for there to be periodic rituals of purification of both the king as an individual and the kingship as an office or institution in its own right, independent of the temporary incumbent (well-known examples are those held in the kingdoms of the Swazi, Zulu, and Akan).
All of these different kinds of political units exist today, although the traditional powers of kings were invariably limited and weakened during colonial rule. In some colonial systems, in particular that of the British, the indigenous rulers were permitted to reign without the power of inflicting death or waging war, under the policy of "indirect rule"; in other systems, especially in the French colonies, it was more usual for indigenous rulers to become little more than figureheads—or even to be abolished.
Above the level of indigenous forms of polity is that of the modern nation-state. There are today almost sixty such nations in Africa, their boundaries remaining those established by the colonial powers that divided Africa at the end of the nineteenth century, with scant regard for the interests of the Africans themselves. It is little wonder that there have been perennial boundary disputes, which have almost all been settled by the Organization of African Unity.
The leaders of these new states have been faced with the problem trying to construct and retain notions of national identity, and to this aim have they tended to reduce still further the powers of traditional rulers and of the local councils and courts, which are based on association or descent. The indigenous local political units may retain the loyalties of their members, but this loyalty has typically been condemned as "tribalism" and (usually mistakenly) considered to be antithetical to "nationalism." The indigenous ruling elites have been weakened and have been replaced by modern elites, whose memberships are based on wealth and commerce rather than on traditional affiliations. The clashes between the two principles of organization—class and descent—have led to gross conflicts of interest and often to armed struggles within military and one-party governments, which have suppressed protestations and expressions of democratic dissent as "tribalism."
Read more at : http://www.everyculture.com/Africa-Middle-East/Introduction-to-Africa-Government-and-Politics.html#ixzz3XzMZRqiD
African societies today have two levels of government: the indigenous organization, which pertains to local groups, and the national government of the independent nation-states. The relationship between the two levels is complex and has led to serious incompatibilities and conflicts.
Blue Countries are Republics, and red countries are Monarchies
It has become usual to classify the multitude of indigenous forms of African government into three main categories, conventionally known as bands, tribes, and kingdoms. Bands are relatively few and are limited to the societies with economies based on hunting and gathering, especially those of the Bushmen of the Kalahari and the foragers of the central African forests. Their economies require a low density of population and, therefore, its wide distribution over large areas, which inhibits permanent or large settlements. These bands are not found in total isolation but are interspersed with culturally different groups with distinct and complementary economies. Essentially, the bands are large kinship groups under the authority of family elders and shamanic ritual leaders.
"Tribes," a word less often used today than it was formerly because it is held to imply "primitiveness," form the numerically largest political category. Tribes are larger and more settled than bands, but they still lack any overall form of centralized political authority. They have no kings and, in the past, usually had no formally appointed chiefs, although there have always been ritual leaders with some degree of political authority. Most of these societies are based upon a structure of clans, which are segmented into subclans and lineages, often with three or four levels of segmentation. A clan or lineage is the basic unit of such a tribal organization, in which the tribe resembles a series of small, equal, and quasi-autonomous groups. The traditional sanctions for social order are ritual, feud, and warfare. Other tribal systems place emphasis on age rather than on descent, and everyday government is in the hands of councils based on the recruitment of men (and women) of similar age. Initiation at puberty is extremely important, in order that ties between age-mates (whether young warriors or legislative elders) overcome those of birth and descent. These societies are found especially in eastern Africa among pastoralists, such as the Maasai. In yet other tribal societies, mostly in western Africa, government is by some form of association (including the so-called "secret societies") of men and women of equal age and standing.
In the third type of indigenous political structure—that of the kingdom or state—political authority is centered on the office of a king (sometimes a queen), who is chosen from a royal clan and given sacred attributes by his or her subjects. Kingdoms range in population from a few thousand people to several million, and their rulers vary from being little more than ritual figureheads (as among the Shilluk of the southern Sudan, the prototype of James G. Frazer's "divine" king) to military despots with powers of life and death. These kingdoms may have arisen by conquest (as those of the Zulu or Swazi of southern Africa) or by combining into a federation of culturally related states (as those of the Asante or Ghana). The ruler may be regarded as a senior kinsman to his subjects, as a member of a socially senior royal clan, or as a member of an ethnically distinct autocracy (as in the former Rwanda and Burundi kingdoms). In all of the kingdoms, however powerful their rulers, there have always been institutionalized means by which the people controlled royal power. Such axioms as "the king is a slave" are accepted in many African kingdoms. In addition, it has been almost universal for there to be periodic rituals of purification of both the king as an individual and the kingship as an office or institution in its own right, independent of the temporary incumbent (well-known examples are those held in the kingdoms of the Swazi, Zulu, and Akan).
All of these different kinds of political units exist today, although the traditional powers of kings were invariably limited and weakened during colonial rule. In some colonial systems, in particular that of the British, the indigenous rulers were permitted to reign without the power of inflicting death or waging war, under the policy of "indirect rule"; in other systems, especially in the French colonies, it was more usual for indigenous rulers to become little more than figureheads—or even to be abolished.
Above the level of indigenous forms of polity is that of the modern nation-state. There are today almost sixty such nations in Africa, their boundaries remaining those established by the colonial powers that divided Africa at the end of the nineteenth century, with scant regard for the interests of the Africans themselves. It is little wonder that there have been perennial boundary disputes, which have almost all been settled by the Organization of African Unity.
The leaders of these new states have been faced with the problem trying to construct and retain notions of national identity, and to this aim have they tended to reduce still further the powers of traditional rulers and of the local councils and courts, which are based on association or descent. The indigenous local political units may retain the loyalties of their members, but this loyalty has typically been condemned as "tribalism" and (usually mistakenly) considered to be antithetical to "nationalism." The indigenous ruling elites have been weakened and have been replaced by modern elites, whose memberships are based on wealth and commerce rather than on traditional affiliations. The clashes between the two principles of organization—class and descent—have led to gross conflicts of interest and often to armed struggles within military and one-party governments, which have suppressed protestations and expressions of democratic dissent as "tribalism."
Read more at : http://www.everyculture.com/Africa-Middle-East/Introduction-to-Africa-Government-and-Politics.html#ixzz3XzMZRqiD
![Picture](/uploads/5/0/7/9/50796731/3353136_orig.png)
African democracy A glass half-full.
WHICH way will African politics go? The way of Senegal, where the president conceded electoral defeat on March 25th to a younger rival, extending a democratic tradition unbroken since independence in 1960? Or is nearby Mali a more troubling bellwether? A few days before
Sad tales like Mali's dominate news from Africa, yet in the longer term its political norms have evolved more towards politicians in suits than mutineers in battle fatigues. Democracy south of the Sahara may be sloppy and haphazard, but electoral contests and term limits are increasingly accepted as fixed rules, to be flouted at a would-be ruler's peril, rather than distant ideals. Today only one African state, Eritrea, holds no elections. Even Mali's coup-plotters have sworn to hold them soon. Tellingly, the country's neighbours united in a storm of protest. “We cannot allow this country endowed with such precious democratic instruments, dating back at least two decades, to leave history by regressing,” said Alassane Ouattara, the president of Côte d'Ivoire.
Yet many Africa-watchers perceive a gradual erosion of democratic standards. In last year's Liberian election, the former warlord Prince Yormie Johnson cruised the countryside wearing a red fez. Winding down a window of his Ford Expedition, he would toss banknotes at assembled voters and then speed off to the next village. At one campaign event he lambasted the sitting president for corruption, while an aide fretted about running out of cash to pay off journalists for good coverage.
African elections do not necessarily produce representative governments. In oil-rich but poverty-ridden Equatorial Guinea, President Teodoro Obiang was “elected” with 95% of the vote. His party “won” 99% of seats in parliament. Many opposition parties in Gambia planned to boycott elections on March 29th, assuming they would be rigged. In Zambia, another democratic standard-bearer, the government has tried to shoo the opposition out of parliament for failing to pay a party fee.
Academic studies also paint a gloomy picture. The Economist Intelligence Unit's annual democracy index ranks only one African country, Mauritius, as a “full” democracy, though it uses tough criteria that count countries like much-praised Botswana as “flawed” democracies. The Mo Ibrahim Index, a quantitative measure of good governance, shows a decline of 5% since 2007 in African political participation. Freedom House, an American think-tank, says the number of full “electoral democracies” among the 49 sub-Saharan countries has fallen from 24 in 2005 to 19 today.
Southern Africa, historically the best-performing region, is now a problem child. Nepotism and corruption increasingly mar politics in the regional giant, South Africa. The president of Madagascar, André Rajoelina, has remained in power for three years after a bloodless coup. President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi is behaving ever more despotically, provoking Western donors to suspend aid. But even here the news is not all bad. Madagascar may have elections later this year. Angola, where President José Eduardo Dos Santos has ruled since 1979, making him Africa's longest-serving leader, will soon run parliamentary polls, and its ruling party may push Mr Dos Santos into retirement.
Still, Africa has come a long way. In 1990 Freedom House recorded just three African countries with multiparty political systems, universal suffrage, regular fraud-free elections and secret ballots. “Progress comes in waves,” says Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at Chatham House, a London-based think-tank. Mali aside, the rest of West Africa has enjoyed a democratic boom. Sierra Leone and Liberia, both violent basket-cases not long ago, have set up respectable if imperfect political systems. Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire overcame spasms of strife and returned to democratic rule. Coup-prone Guinea-Bissau held a calm election on March 18th. Nigeria and Niger ran their best polls in recent memory last year. Ghanaian democracy has been praised by President Barack Obama.
Yet the poor, illiterate electorates of many African countries are obviously keen on handouts, and thus easy to manipulate. Election violence has also become more common. Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe saw serious clashes after their most recent polls, driven by longstanding ethnic and sectarian rifts.
All these came to a more or less swift end, unlike Africa's civil wars of previous decades. Political progress during the next decade may be slower than in the past one. The easy post-cold-war advances have been made. Reformers must now set their sights higher. Ensuring better governance by building firm institutions is harder than putting ballots in a box.
Reformers have plenty of reasons to be hopeful, among them the growing sophistication of opposition groups. These used to be a mess—divided, undemocratic and starved of resources. One observer called them “the skunks at the democratic zoo”. Many are still hopeless, but some have learnt that discipline can put them within striking distance of power. Zambia and Senegal are recent examples.
Opposition parties also benefit from the general absence of ideological fault-lines in African politics since the demise of Marxism. More than in the West, voters there are swayed by evidence of individual competence, not party affiliation. This is useful for hungry opposition members competing with complacent governments. Africa's high birth rates produce a pool of young voters who are more likely to take a chance on political newcomers. In many countries a president or party can win office even where all the supporters are under 30, so long as polls are fair.
At the same time, impressively high economic growth rates in many African countries have fuelled a communications explosion. Political campaigns need no longer depend on government-owned media or the ability to travel to far-flung places. They can reach voters directly and remotely via the internet and, especially, the ubiquitous mobile telephone. They can expose political skulduggery and also tabulate poll results instantaneously, making fraud easier to detect. In Nigeria's 2011 election, tens of thousands of monitors recorded local results and fed them by text message into a central system run by volunteers. Devious governments have to invent ever more complicated and hence less effective ways of manipulating results.
The lack of voter data is a costly obstacle everywhere. Most Africans have no identity documents, so electoral rolls often need to be drafted from scratch for every poll. In Congo the government spent more than $500m on elections last year, making them the world's most costly after America's. High rates of illiteracy and a lack of capable institutions do not help. In Sierra Leone's border regions, officials judge who should get a voting card by listening to people's accents.
But setting aside the quality of African democracy, all but a few of the continent's 1 billion people now expect to vote in regular national polls. That is something which 1.5 billion Asians, for all their impressive economic performance, cannot do.
WHICH way will African politics go? The way of Senegal, where the president conceded electoral defeat on March 25th to a younger rival, extending a democratic tradition unbroken since independence in 1960? Or is nearby Mali a more troubling bellwether? A few days before
- Blue – Full presidential republics
- Yellow – Semi-presidential republics
- Green – Presidential republics, executive presidency linked to a parliament
- Orange – Parliamentary republics
- Red – Parliamentary constitutional monarchies in which the monarch does not personally exercise power
- Magenta – Constitutional monarchies in which the monarch personally exercises power, often (but not always) alongside a weak parliament
- Purple – Absolute monarchies
- Brown – Countries where the dominant role of a single political party or coalition is codified in the constitution
- Dark green – Countries where constitutional provisions for government have been suspended
- Grey – Countries that do not fit in any of the above listed systems
Sad tales like Mali's dominate news from Africa, yet in the longer term its political norms have evolved more towards politicians in suits than mutineers in battle fatigues. Democracy south of the Sahara may be sloppy and haphazard, but electoral contests and term limits are increasingly accepted as fixed rules, to be flouted at a would-be ruler's peril, rather than distant ideals. Today only one African state, Eritrea, holds no elections. Even Mali's coup-plotters have sworn to hold them soon. Tellingly, the country's neighbours united in a storm of protest. “We cannot allow this country endowed with such precious democratic instruments, dating back at least two decades, to leave history by regressing,” said Alassane Ouattara, the president of Côte d'Ivoire.
Yet many Africa-watchers perceive a gradual erosion of democratic standards. In last year's Liberian election, the former warlord Prince Yormie Johnson cruised the countryside wearing a red fez. Winding down a window of his Ford Expedition, he would toss banknotes at assembled voters and then speed off to the next village. At one campaign event he lambasted the sitting president for corruption, while an aide fretted about running out of cash to pay off journalists for good coverage.
African elections do not necessarily produce representative governments. In oil-rich but poverty-ridden Equatorial Guinea, President Teodoro Obiang was “elected” with 95% of the vote. His party “won” 99% of seats in parliament. Many opposition parties in Gambia planned to boycott elections on March 29th, assuming they would be rigged. In Zambia, another democratic standard-bearer, the government has tried to shoo the opposition out of parliament for failing to pay a party fee.
Academic studies also paint a gloomy picture. The Economist Intelligence Unit's annual democracy index ranks only one African country, Mauritius, as a “full” democracy, though it uses tough criteria that count countries like much-praised Botswana as “flawed” democracies. The Mo Ibrahim Index, a quantitative measure of good governance, shows a decline of 5% since 2007 in African political participation. Freedom House, an American think-tank, says the number of full “electoral democracies” among the 49 sub-Saharan countries has fallen from 24 in 2005 to 19 today.
Southern Africa, historically the best-performing region, is now a problem child. Nepotism and corruption increasingly mar politics in the regional giant, South Africa. The president of Madagascar, André Rajoelina, has remained in power for three years after a bloodless coup. President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi is behaving ever more despotically, provoking Western donors to suspend aid. But even here the news is not all bad. Madagascar may have elections later this year. Angola, where President José Eduardo Dos Santos has ruled since 1979, making him Africa's longest-serving leader, will soon run parliamentary polls, and its ruling party may push Mr Dos Santos into retirement.
Still, Africa has come a long way. In 1990 Freedom House recorded just three African countries with multiparty political systems, universal suffrage, regular fraud-free elections and secret ballots. “Progress comes in waves,” says Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at Chatham House, a London-based think-tank. Mali aside, the rest of West Africa has enjoyed a democratic boom. Sierra Leone and Liberia, both violent basket-cases not long ago, have set up respectable if imperfect political systems. Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire overcame spasms of strife and returned to democratic rule. Coup-prone Guinea-Bissau held a calm election on March 18th. Nigeria and Niger ran their best polls in recent memory last year. Ghanaian democracy has been praised by President Barack Obama.
Yet the poor, illiterate electorates of many African countries are obviously keen on handouts, and thus easy to manipulate. Election violence has also become more common. Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe saw serious clashes after their most recent polls, driven by longstanding ethnic and sectarian rifts.
All these came to a more or less swift end, unlike Africa's civil wars of previous decades. Political progress during the next decade may be slower than in the past one. The easy post-cold-war advances have been made. Reformers must now set their sights higher. Ensuring better governance by building firm institutions is harder than putting ballots in a box.
Reformers have plenty of reasons to be hopeful, among them the growing sophistication of opposition groups. These used to be a mess—divided, undemocratic and starved of resources. One observer called them “the skunks at the democratic zoo”. Many are still hopeless, but some have learnt that discipline can put them within striking distance of power. Zambia and Senegal are recent examples.
Opposition parties also benefit from the general absence of ideological fault-lines in African politics since the demise of Marxism. More than in the West, voters there are swayed by evidence of individual competence, not party affiliation. This is useful for hungry opposition members competing with complacent governments. Africa's high birth rates produce a pool of young voters who are more likely to take a chance on political newcomers. In many countries a president or party can win office even where all the supporters are under 30, so long as polls are fair.
At the same time, impressively high economic growth rates in many African countries have fuelled a communications explosion. Political campaigns need no longer depend on government-owned media or the ability to travel to far-flung places. They can reach voters directly and remotely via the internet and, especially, the ubiquitous mobile telephone. They can expose political skulduggery and also tabulate poll results instantaneously, making fraud easier to detect. In Nigeria's 2011 election, tens of thousands of monitors recorded local results and fed them by text message into a central system run by volunteers. Devious governments have to invent ever more complicated and hence less effective ways of manipulating results.
The lack of voter data is a costly obstacle everywhere. Most Africans have no identity documents, so electoral rolls often need to be drafted from scratch for every poll. In Congo the government spent more than $500m on elections last year, making them the world's most costly after America's. High rates of illiteracy and a lack of capable institutions do not help. In Sierra Leone's border regions, officials judge who should get a voting card by listening to people's accents.
But setting aside the quality of African democracy, all but a few of the continent's 1 billion people now expect to vote in regular national polls. That is something which 1.5 billion Asians, for all their impressive economic performance, cannot do.