Electoral Democracy and Election Coalitions in Former Settler Colonies in Africa: Is Democracy on Trial or in Reverse Gear in Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe?

Abstract

Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire, both former settler colonies of the British and French respectively, though regarded as the most promising economies in Africa since the dawn of independence in the early sixties, have been disappointing under-achievers both politically and economically. Zimbabwe, another British settler colony, became equally promising and equally disappointing. The three countries, being typical presidential authoritarian one-party regimes, have experienced tremendous challenges to democratize since the advent of multi-party politics in Africa in the early nineties. This chapter examines these challenges to democratize, seeking to understand why advances in democratization through electoral processes have at times been halted or even reversed by state repression. In all the three countries, conflicts have ensued after disputed elections, occasioning grand coalitions as temporary measures to momentarily contain or resolve such disputes. Questions are raised whether majoritarian “free and fair” elections is an appropriate “model” for democracy in such former settler colonies where fratricidal political struggles among bureaucratic political elites thrive on pre-capitalist social relations as power bases to access and maintain state power.