TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/052190/05210010.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 12.6 KB | 283 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 34

AFRICA

Continental Shift


In Africa too, authoritarian regimes are giving way to
multiparty systems. But can democracy thrive in countries that
cannot even feed themselves?

By LISA BEYER -- Reported by Marguerite Michaels/Nairobi


    The story going around Kinshasa is that one night late last
December, Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko was entertaining
a roomful of dinner guests when the television broadcast news
of Nicolae Ceausescu's precipitate execution in Bucharest.
Mobutu had long counted as a friend the Romanian autarch, who
came to power in 1965, as he did. At the sight of that familiar
face wreathed in blood, Mobutu abruptly left the room,
abandoning his visitors without a word.

    Finally, late last month, the authoritarian ruler of Zaire
for all but five of its 30 years of independence was ready to
speak. As his compatriots -- who had taken to calling their
President "Mobutu Sese Sescu" -- crowded around radios and TVs
set at full volume, Mobutu gave his answer to the stunning
events in Eastern Europe. Reversing positions he had
tenaciously reavowed only months before, Mobutu announced that
he would allow two parties aside from his to compete for power
and would turn the day-to-day running of the government over
to a new Prime Minister. "Wisdom comes at 60," Mobutu told
reporters, inflating his age by a year. "It is time to let go
little by little."

    In at least superficially mimicking the revolutions in
Europe, Mobutu has lots of company in his own neighborhood.
Since February three other one-party regimes in sub-Saharan
Africa -- those of Benin, Gabon and the Ivory Coast -- have
consented to pluralistic systems. These were radical moves,
considering that the leaders of these lands, who with Mobutu
have held power for a combined 96 years, had previously put up
with virtually no dissent. Tanzania too has said yes in
principle to pluralism, and Zambia has promised a referendum
to decide the issue.

    All these pledges of change, however, may prove more
illusory than real. "Establishing a multiparty system is only
a step on the way to democracy, not an end in itself," cautions
Francis Wodie, leader of the opposition Ivorian Workers' Party.


    If Eastern Europe's liberation inspired the shake-ups in
Africa's mid-belt, the real detonating force was economics.
Each of these African countries overspent badly in the 1970s,
suffered plunging commodity prices in the 1980s, and today
finds itself flat broke. Desperate for hard currency, each has
been forced into structural-readjustment programs, which entail
strict and painful austerity measures, in order to obtain loans
from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

    Throughout the 1980s, political leaders told their
constituents that times would be lean for a few years under the
belt-tightening policies and would then turn rosy. But their
deadlines are long past, and their promises are unfulfilled.
According to a World Bank report last year, the gap in per
capita income between sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the
Third World keeps widening. In 1988 the contrast was $330 vs.
an average $750 for all developing countries. The nations of
black Africa, home to 470 million people, together have the
purchasing power of Belgium, a country of only 10 million.

    For the impoverished masses, long willing to accord to their
rulers the traditional African obeisance to authority, the
sense of betrayal has reached a flash point. A wave of strikes
and protests prompted by economic grievances has turned
political. At the same time, the IMF and the World Bank have
begun to press African regimes to liberalize their politics as
well as their economies. In its report, the World Bank also
admonished that economic restructuring would not "go far, nor
will much external aid be forthcoming, unless governance in
Africa improves. Leaders must become more accountable to their
peoples."

    Benin was the first to catch on. Late last year President
Mathieu Kerekou found his grip on order slipping as civil
servants and teachers, who were not paid for months at a
stretch, went on strike, angry students protested in support
of the teachers, and workers pressed for higher wages through
go-slow campaigns. Allegedly widespread corruption was another
sore point.

    To assuage the public's irritation, Kerekou in December
promised free-market reforms, disavowing the Marxism-Leninism
he introduced two years after he came to power in a 1972
military coup. In February he convened a conference of more
than 500 participants, including several opposition figures,
to draft a new constitution. In effect, the conference
engineered a coup, stripping Kerekou of most of his powers and
leaving him a figurehead President. His Cabinet of Old Guard
stalwarts from the Party of the Popular Revolution was sacked
and replaced by a fresh team dominated by modern-minded
technocrats and led by new Prime Minister Nicephore Soglo, an
anti-government activist and a former executive at the World
Bank. Opposition parties were legalized, and elections were
scheduled for next January.

    The prescription for Benin's revolution came largely from
France, once its colonial master. According to a memo to
Kerekou last December, the French ambassador recommended that
the government hold a national conference and adopt specific
constitutional changes. Kerekou followed the advice almost to
the letter. In exchange, Paris has supplied Benin with what one
French official called "significant" additional aid. Said
Jacques Pelletier, France's Minister for Cooperation and
Development: "The wind that is blowing in the east should not
stop in the south."

    Gabon's metamorphosis was similar. Although once relatively
prosperous, Gabon's economy has been battered by falling oil
revenues. In February austerity measures aimed at strengthening
the government's accounts provoked debilitating strikes and
weeks of unrest in the capital of Libreville. Even before the
cutbacks took effect, civil servants had not been paid for
almost three months.

    In March President Omar Bongo, in power since 1967, acceded
to popular demands for a Benin-like powwow to chart a new
political course. Following its recommendations, Bongo last
month ended his Party of Democratic Gabon's 22-year monopoly
on power. He also named a new Prime Minister, Casimir Oye-Mba,
formerly a prominent banker, whose Cabinet includes six
opposition figures.

    In the Ivory Coast the weak spot was falling world prices
for cocoa, its chief export. The government unveiled plans in
mid-February for sweeping income tax increases to offset the
public-sector deficit, sparking two months of often violent
strikes and street demonstrations. Little used to overt
dissent, the government responded with force. Police and
soldiers broke up protests using truncheons, tear gas and
occasionally live ammunition. One schoolboy was shot dead.

    Overnight President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, 85, whom
Ivorians had been conditioned to regard in reverential terms
since he took power at independence in 1960, became an object
of vilification. Step by step, the government gave ground.
Houphouet-Boigny announced that he would relinquish leadership
of the party at its congress later this month. Next the tax
hikes were scrapped, and finally, two weeks ago, opposition
parties were legalized.

    None of these developments are a panacea for Africa. Lip
service to reform notwithstanding, it remains unclear just how
committed these well-entrenched regimes really are to giving
up the total control they have enjoyed. The need for foreign
aid and the fear of social unrest drove President Kenneth
Kaunda, Zambia's leader for 25 years, to embrace the idea of
pluralism, but he has yet to schedule a promised popular
referendum. In the case of Mobutu and Houphouet-Boigny, their
utterances have contained a hint of "Apres moi, le deluge."
These old-timers may be calculating that they can stand back,
allow chaos to break out as competing factions scuffle for
power, then return triumphantly. Mobutu's police did their part
to encourage disarray two weeks ago when they fired on people
at an unauthorized political rally in Kinshasa, killing two
participants.

    Deep-seated ethnic animosities pose a threat to stability
as these inexperienced countries move toward competitive
democracies. Many African leaders have long maintained that if
multiple political parties were permitted, they would
inevitably form along tribal lines, inviting bitter and perhaps
bloody confrontations. The Ivory Coast is home to at least 60
different ethnicities; Zaire has 200. While this argument has
often been overblown to justify repression, ethnic and tribal
rivalries inevitably complicate the growth of democracy.

    Sub-Saharan Africa is ill prepared for democratic government
for other reasons as well. These countries lack the critical
mass of educated voters that is essential. They have few
democratic roots. "There is no concept of a loyal opposition,"
notes Smith Hempstone, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya. "Dissent
is equated with sedition." Most debilitating, though, is their
sheer poverty, which makes it extremely difficult for a
pluralist political system to thrive. Says Hempstone: "Africa
missed the industrial revolution, which formed the basis of
modern democracy in the West."

    Another American diplomat based in Africa is concerned that
with expectations raised by events in Eastern Europe, Western
countries will demand too much of Africa too soon and that
desperately needed aid and debt relief will be hitched to an
unrealistically rapid schedule of political change. "Are we
going to force something else on this continent that's
inappropriate?" asks the diplomat. "Must a country have
MULTIPARTY stamped on its forehead before the appropriations
committee will pony up?"

    If the answer is yes, such a policy might ultimately prove
as hostile to the development of democracy as have Africa's
ruthless dictators. No government, freely elected or not, will
survive long if Africa's evident destiny -- to drown in debt
-- is not reversed, and that will require enormous assistance
from abroad. With its current debt of $135 billion roughly
equivalent to its gross national product and its debt-service
obligations equal to half its export earnings, sub-Saharan
Africa faces an intolerable situation that has produced
instability and promises to breed more. If the West really wants
to see democracy take root, it must first give a helping hand
to the continent's economy.


____________________________________________________________
OPTING FOR CHANGE


    BENIN. President Mathieu Kerekou renounced the Marxism-
Leninism he had established in Benin (pop. 4.4 million) in 1974
and convened a constitutional convention, which stripped him
of most of his powers, legalized opposition parties and fired
the old discredited Cabinet. The new Prime Minister, Nicephore
Soglo, is a former dissident.

    GABON. President Omar Bongo gave in to popular demands for
a conference to chart a new political course for Gabon (po. 1.2
million). Following the council's recommendations, Bongo
consented to multiple parties. He also appointed a new Prime
Minister, Casimir Oye-Mba, who named six pposition figures to
his Cabinet.

    IVORY COAST. President Felix Houphouet-Boigny abolised the
ruling Democratic Party's monopoly on power in the Ivory Coast

at the upcoming party congress. So far, five opposition groups
have qualified to take part in presidential and legislative
elections scheduled for later this year.

    TANZANIA. President Ali Hassan Mwinyi accepted in principle
the concept of multiple parties, as long as the change wad
grdual. His concession came after his influential predecessor,
Julius Kambarage Nyerere, chairman of the reuling Revolutionary
Party, said Tanzania (pop. 24 million) could learn a "lesson
or two" from Eastern Europe.

    ZAIRE. President Mobutu Sese Seko promised a new
constitution for Zaire (pop. 32.5 million) and announced that
two parties besides his own will be permitted. New Prime
Minister Lunda Bululu named a 40-member Cabinet that includes
only 15 people from the old team.

    ZAMBIA. President Kenneth Kaunda promised to hold a
referendum on the question of legalizing opposition parties in
Zambia (pop. 7.4 million) after such a vote was endorsed by a
national convention. But the delegates ruled out proposals to
allow multiple candidates for the presidency and to limit
office to two five-year terms.