58. China’s model is not Africa’s – Nic Cheeseman

When we hear about rigged elections in Sub-Saharan Africa, many say: ”Well, what can you expect?”

The underlying assumption is that it is sad but unavoidable that democratic flaws have to be tolerated in immature and poor countries.

Wrong, thinks Nic Cheeseman, professor of democracy at the university of Birmingham, UK. All countries must be measured with the same democratic yardstick.

”Many African elections are actually more advanced than elections in Europe. British elections are very manual and old-fashioned”, says Cheeseman.

Fraud and rigging is not an African problem. All the main tricks described in Cheeseman’s and Brian Klaas’ book ”How to Rig an Election” have been used in Europe and America.

Some subtle ways are still used on every continent, like ”gerrymandering” and putting up high identification and registration thresholds for voters, which typically disfavors minorities, the poor and the less educated.

”In which country in the world every main party has been fined by the electoral commission for breaching campaign finance laws in the last three years? The answer is the UK”, says Cheeseman.

”It is patronizing to think that African nations can’t reach the same level of democracy as Europe has. Look at countries like Ghana, South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius.”

Democracy is also what Africans want. This is what polls on the continent consistently show.

It is of course true that democracy in Africa is young and still feeble in many places. Hence the idea some have that maybe electoral democracy is premature. Maybe there should be another order of events: first wealth and health, then elections.

But this is also a flawed idea, according to Nic Cheeseman. There is no order of events. Democracy and development happen in tandem.

”It is not true that poor people are not able to make informed choices about their future. Look at Zambia and Benin which were very poor when they made their transition to democracy.”

”And there is no particular connection between wealth and the possibility to hold elections.

If you really want to, you can hold a piece-of-paper-and-pen election extremely cheaply.”

Also: holding free and fair elections and building accountability has shown to be a driving force for governments to perform better.

”If we go back to the 70s and 80s, in none of the countries that had the most benign autocrats we can imagine today, like Nyerere and Kaunda, we saw the development of thriving conditions for democracy”, says Nic Cheeseman.

”It's the curse of low expectations.”

Democracy creates a stronger rule of law, which addresses corruption, which enhances economic growth, which gives rise to stronger civil society. It becomes a virtuous circle.

”The best model for the future is to see development and democracy side by side. The China model is nothing that works in Africa.”

Nic’s personal website: https://profcheeseman.wordpress.com/

Nic’s site Democracy in Africa: http://democracyinafrica.org/

Nic’s profile page at the University of Birmingham: https://bit.ly/3v1yoh8

Nic’s books: https://amzn.to/3tUM9gx

Nic’s Twitter handle: @Fromagehomme