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The fallacy of power-sharing
…..does it really reflect the will of the people?
BY MZIMKHULU SITHETHO
MASERU – A new phenomenon seems to be rearing its ugly head in African politics - that of power-sharing between political leadership in a bid to pacify dissidents or to buy peace after elections when there is no clear outright winner.
What remains at stake is the irrefutable fact that people went to the polls and cast their vote to elect a government of their choice; exercising their political right.
No matter what the outcome is, whether it breeds no outright winner or otherwise, voters expect fulfillment of the mandate they have conferred on any party that becomes government.
Their vote is not for sharing in board-room meetings that come up with decisions in which they are least represented.
The compromises and intransigent positions taken by leaders on certain decisions do not reflect the will of the people as those who are party to the power-sharing negotiations do not carry the mandate of their followers.
If they do consult, it is with the executive committees of their parties, not the voters who have a rightful say in determining their destiny after they have voted.
In most cases, no referenda are held to solicit people’s views on a number of issues that involve the sharing of their vote which is unwarranted.
This may ring true and confirm the suspicion that voters are used as conduits by political leaders to ferry their own personal agendas, not to fulfill mandates of the electorate as they purport during electioneering.
The power-sharing trend shows its face immediately after elections, especially those that were highly contested such that it was slightly difficult to determine an outright winner.
A poll whose outcome breeds a paper-thin line of victory among contestants dictates that two or more political parties that contested an election need each other and have to come to a negotiated settlement to form a coalition government.
In most cases, power-sharing is done under an environment of political unrest that is created by unyielding supporters of parties that were neck-to-neck in terms of votes attained by each. In that situation, each of the two parties seems to be claiming victory in the poll.
It is done is such that parties to the negotiated settlement get a fair share of the cabinet seats, and strategic positions in government in proportion with the vote they acquired, but it does not truly reflect the people’s will expressed at the poll.
Then the role of the electoral commissions becomes bogged down and seized by boardroom meetings chaired by mediators and representatives of parties involved in the power-sharing negotiations.
A prudent question is whether the electorate features in the boardroom meetings where power sharing is determined by a minority to determine a government that will conduct the affairs of a majority.
Therefore, the principle of a majority rule is ignored and fades away as a government is formed in board-room meetings by a minority.
Does it reflect the will of the people that they expressed by casting a vote in the poll? It is their leaders who were at the mercy of their votes before elections who are determining what suits them not their followers.
They determine what strategic positions would suit them, not for the good of the people.
In most cases, calls for transitional governments leading to fresh polls that will give people a chance to express their will are dismissed.
At least three countries – Kenya and Burundi in the West Africa and Zimbabwe in the Southern Africa have belled the cat in this phenomenon that appears to be an affront to democracy.
In Kenya, opposition leader, Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Party had to be dragged to a deal so that he accepted a post of prime minister against his claim that he had won parliamentary and presidential elections.
Mwai Kibaki, who had been pronounced by the media and election observers as a loser of the poll got the added advantage of being reinstated as president of the country, but now with no majority that he had enjoyed before.
The only salvation he has is to manipulate the new system, which he has created and known its dynamics in his favour, further destabilizing the country’s politics.
Targets of these power-sharing negotiations are the opposition leaders who are coerced to take up low-leverage positions in take-or-leave negotiations that seem to yearn for retaining the old liberation icons in their positions.
In Zimbabwe, the electorate went to the poll with a mission to exercise their right to elect a government of their choice in March 29, 2008 in a poll that was highly contested by the Zimbabwean African National Union – Popular Front (ZANU-PF) of Mr Robert Mugabe and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of Morgan Tsvangirai.
These two parties had been arch-rivals since 2000 when MDC first made a challenging appearance in the country’s politics that had been dominated by ZANU PF for two decades.
MDC was poised to bring down the then 20-year-old liberation movement that had been on the helm of that country since independence.
Parallels were drawn in the eight years of political polarization in Zimbabwe that resulted in human rights violations, tortures and other ills that were inflicted on innocent citizens of that country.
The fact that leaders do not have a gut-feeling about people’s predicament is buttressed by their intransigency on who should be in charge of the home affairs ministry.
Mugabe and Tsvangirai are engaged in a tussle for the home affairs ministry and one is even thinking of withdrawing from the deal if he does not get the ministry.
All these happen when the electorate who cast a vote is suffering the scourge of absence of food in shelves, medication in clinics and hospitals, abject poverty and hunger amid an economy that has gone to the dogs.
The thrust of Zimbabweans to go to the polls in droves was informed by their zeal to see their vote salvaging them from the vestiges of the eight years of political and economic turmoil that have sent more than two millions outside their country.
Their hopes got shuttered when their vote failed to translate into meaningful gains in their lives but was marred by insensitive leaders who used the vote to amass their own power at their followers’ expense.
Each leader wants to gain power and executive authority over the other, instead of focusing on real issues at the centre of suffering people.
The contents of the manifestoes chanted during campaigns towards elections have gone down the memory lane, what is at stake is who is more powerful and has political leverage over the other.
The five years that are envisaged to drive the transition of that country according to SADC will end only in political chaos as each party will be demanding to appear on top.
It still remains whether going the power-sharing route is worthwhile to bring both political and economic stability for the good of the people of Zimbabwe.
The two leaders must have been engaged in a healing process for the wounds caused in eight years, reconciliation of the politically polarized Zimbabwe, healing rifts within society and the rebuilding the broken social fabric of the country.
There is urgent need for political stability so that when the next poll comes, it is an accepted one that conforms to the ethos and principles contained in the SADC Declaration that the country has acceded to and ratified.
Above all, the economic meltdown that Zimbabwe has expedience has never been experienced by any country in the world and that has to inform the gut-feeling of Mugabe and Tsvangirai.
The two months that they have lapsed with no improvement except that the two leaders were playing chess at the expense of the people have thrown the hopes of Zimbabweans who were jubilant at the signing of a deal into oblivion.
The deal of the 15 th of August 2008 that was dubbed a victory for an African solution for the African people has now turned out a thorn.
In Lesotho, the power-sharing came out in political circles as a worthwhile measure to pacify the angry opposition, but got doused with derision by the ruling party.
After the 2002 poll that was hailed as stable; devoid of post-election conflict, the Basotho National Party (BNP) wrote a letter to the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) requesting formation of a unity government.
This came after BNP had unsuccessfully sought legal redress about the election outcome, demanding opening of ballot boxes by the high court and a recount of votes. LCD dismissed BNP’s request with the contempt it deserved.
In a recent press conference where Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili presented a report of a SADC extraordinary summit held in South Africa on the political impasse that has since dogged Zimbabwe the poll, he expressed his view on the power-sharing as creating unstable governments.
Top on the agenda was review of the ongoing mediation process led by former South African President, Thabo Mbeki that resulted in the power sharing deal in Zimbabwe.
It transpired in the prime minister’s report that as a person, he did not given a nod to the power-sharing mechanism as a worthwhile solution.
In other words, all efforts to bring about peace by resorting to power-sharing in Zimbabwe as proposed by SADC have proven fallacious.
Mr Mosisili made examples of governments such as those of Israel where there is still instability after polls emanating from shared deals.
On whether power-sharing deals were representative of the will of the people expressed in the ballot box by the electorate, he only blamed the voters for voting in a manner that bred no outright winner, hence prompting unity government.
“If the voters vote the way they have done in Zimbabwe, it will always end up in the kind of power- sharing deals that we see,” he said.
An alternative model of finding a resolve to the political instability that characterize post-election periods is that of instituting transitional governments run for a maximum of two years while stability is being restored to the country and then go for a fresh poll.
This route has been proposed by the National Constitutional Assembly of Zimbabwe (NCA) that has charted the course for the political stability that will lead to an economic stability in that country.
The NCA’s premise is that unity government will not take the country anywhere because it does not represent the people’s will expressed at the polls.
NCA is of the view that people get cheated by political leaders who drive their own agendas for their own personal aggrandizement by amassing as much political power as possible at the expense of the people.
The NCA has maintained that political leadership of the two main parties in Zimbabwe is not concerned about people who have been on the receiving end of poverty, hunger and other predicaments.
It castigates the actions of the two parties that have led to the gross shortages of medication in hospitals and clinics, poor sanitation that have crippled that country and that it believes have been orchestrated by the prevailing political situation.
Meanwhile, the uncompromising and forthright president of Botswana General Ian Seretse Khama has also called for a fresh poll to bring stability to Zimbabwe. But he has not received any backing from his SADC counter-parts who seem to be rallying behind a negotiated settlement, and the one that backs Mugabe and cements his grip on power.
