NKOSIYATI KHUMALO asks why some elections are smooth and some always end up crunchy.
 

When Barack Obama was officially declared the winner of the 2008 US elections, citizens across the country, and across the world, took to the streets to celebrate. A casual observer in New York City might easily have confused Election Night with New Year’s Eve celebrations, as revellers sang, danced, and chanted “Yes, We Can!” late into the night. My own sister was part of an impromptu parade of people who walked past the White House and sang “Na Na Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye” to outgoing President George W. Bush. Even so, the transition from one administration to the next was a smooth one, with no violent incidents or protests.

In contrast to this, political and social unrest characterised the 2008 electoral process in Kenya, the homeland of Obama’s father. A year on, many still believe Kenya’s election, in which incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was re-elected, was fraudulent. Although the opposition party, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), led by Raila Odinga, won the parliamentary election, Kenya’s Electoral Commission announced Kibaki as the winner in the separate presidential election. ODM supporters staged protests, but Kibaki’s government chose not to review the electoral process. Intense civil unrest followed, in which lives were lost and thousands of citizens displaced. After intense negotiations, mediated by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the African Union, Kibaki and Odinga arrived at a tentative power-sharing deal that would see their parties serving alongside each other. 

 Former South African Constitutional Court Justice Johann Kriegler, who also served as the chairperson of South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission in 1994, has been involved in election and post-election processes in Kenya, Afghanistan and East Timor, amongst other nations. In 2008, Kriegler led a commission in Kenya that recommended that the Electoral Commission of Kenya be overhauled or even replaced. Kriegler’s experience has shown that elections are not nearly enough to ensure a working democratic system. As he puts it, “No [electoral system] can ultimately ensure that the individual voter’s views are given much weight…that is to be achieved by political party structures vigilantly monitored by civil society.”

Kriegler outlines three essential components of successful elections: legitimacy, credibility, and integrity. These are requirements not only of the democratic systems, but also of the very people who implement them. Ultimately, “honesty is what the electorate demands,” says Kriegler.

What is clear is that a number of factors within a society contribute to either election acceptance or unrest. In his essay “Kenya’s Retrograde Election”, professor and former journalist Jonathan Stevenson suggests that tribalism “remains latent in many African societies, including Kenya, and threatens modern political order on the continent”. Stevenson attributes much of the social conflict in post-colonial Kenya to the continued favouritism of the predominant Kikuyu tribe (of which Kibaki is a member) and the marginalisation of smaller tribes such as the Luo, which has typically supported Odinga. Ethnic violence between members of the two groups ensued after the 2007 elections, and rioting and provocative rallies continued into 2008.

Recent events in Iran seem to mirror the unrest in Kenya. Protests erupted after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in June. Media outlets across the globe broadcast amateur footage of demonstrations from Tehran, where protestors held signs demanding “Down with the Dictator,” and called for reform across the government. Mir Hossain Mousavi, the protestors’ preferred presidential candidate, carried support from the country’s youth – 60 percent of Iran’s population – who, according to reports, have been unhappy with the faltering economy and an alarming unemployment rate.

Although no concrete evidence was brought to light, and despite repeated denials by the Iranian government, many believe that ballot fraud took place, since Ahmadinejad took victory in areas heavily populated by Moussavi supporters. Riots and violence continued even after Iran’s election authority proclaimed the results of the June 12 election valid. Protestors clashed with police, and after the government prohibited all media reports from leaving Iran, human rights groups claimed that midnight attacks and arrests were being carried out to prevent the Iranian government.

Whatever the risks involved, electoral processes often act as catalysts of change, and new hope follows every new victory. But, while the introduction of democracy into many cultures has sustained them through periods of social transition, in countries like Kenya and Iran, one wonders just how successful democratic structures can be in the face of such civil turmoil. One also wonders how democracy, with its intentions to give every citizen a voice, survives in a nation whose leaders, such as high-ranking Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami, suggest that protestors be punished “firmly and mercilessly”.

Perhaps, as Stevenson wrote, “the redemptive powers of democracy may be trumpeted too hopefully.”

Nkosiyati Khumalo is in first-year, studying in the Print Production programme. He is a subcom member at The Cape Town Globalist.