Gambia closes two private radio stations amid crisis

Main press union says move a threat to people's democratic right to information amid escalating political crisis.

Gambian security forces have closed down two private radio stations based near the capital, Banjul, amid an escalating political crisis caused by President Yahya Jammeh's refusal to accept his election defeat.

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 Teranga FM and Hilltop Radio were closed on Sunday, said Emil Touray, head of the Gambia Press Union, on Monday.

 Teranga's headquarters were shut down by a police officer and four members of the National Intelligence Agency, he said.
"It is a slap in the face of the country's democratic process," said Touray. "People will not have access to information in this critical period of our history."
A government spokesman said he could not confirm the closures.

 It was not immediately clear why the two stations were targeted by Jammeh, under whose 22-year rule the media has come under regular attack, rights campaigners say.

 Teranga FM, popular for its review of newspapers in the local wolof and mandinka languages, has been closed four times in recent years.

 The station's managing director Alagie Ceesay was arrested in July, 2015 and charged with sedition. He was hospitalised twice in early 2016 while still in detention, Amnesty International said, and later fled to neighbouring Senegal.

 Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 coup, initially conceded defeat to opposition rival Adama Barrow but then called for fresh elections, drawing condemnation from local opponents and foreign powers.

 The leader's refusal to step down has opened up the possibility of a military intervention by West African forces after the ECOWAS body said it was putting military forces on alert. Jammeh called that a "declaration of war".

 Barrow's election victory was seen as a surprising triumph for democracy in The Gambia, which gained independence from Britain in 1965 but has since had only two presidents.
But the elation seen on the streets of Banjul in the days after Barrow's victory was quickly extinguished by Jammeh's defiant stance.

Read more Socialist Banner articles on Gambia here >

LUNGU THUMPS ICHILEMA AGAIN

President Edgar Lungu has once again defeated UPND leader Hakainde Ichilema during the 11 August presidential and general elections by a slim margin of 100,530 votes. Lungu polled a total of 1,860,877 votes against Ichilema who polled 1,760,347. the overall voting pattern is the repeat of the 2015 presidential by-election in the sense that both leaders managed to retain their traditional political strongholds, viz. Ichilema received 75% of the votes in Southern, Western and North-Western Provinces, whereas Lungu was massively in Wapula, Northern, Eastern, Lusaka and Copperfield Provinces.

The victory condemns Mr. Ichilema to his fifth successive loss while extending the PF’s rule to 10 years.

The elections were held under a new constitution which required the victor secures 50% plus one vote to avoid a re-run. Lungu polled 50.4% against Ichilema’s 47.63%. The other remaining opposition politicians polled less than 1% of the votes cast.

Lungu’s triumph under the glare of international election observers and monitors is the confirmation that the PF’s pro-poor policies have not worked to the satisfaction of all Zambians – especially those who dwell in rural areas.

Indeed, after an intense campaign period and four days of anxious waiting for the final election results, Zambians poured into the streets in a wild orgy of celebrations when it was announced that Lungu had won the elections – reminiscent of 2011 when the late president Saba had defeated the former MMD leader Rupiah Banda.

Overzealous crowds sing the chorus for the now popular vernacular song “Dununa Reverse”, which had become the PF campaign slogan. With the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities, such as cooking oil and meali meal – life remains still bleak along the line of rail and the capital city Lusaka for the workers, peasants and students.

Looking the seemingly small margin of the votes that separates the two presidential contenders the victory does not paint a rosy picture for the political future of the pf. It is now more certain than eve before the PF under the leadership of President Lungu is no longer a popular political party it claims to be.

Because the political campaigns preceding the elections, characterised by political hooliganism and intimidation between PF and the UPND. Celebrations heights ethnic sentiments directed against tribes who hail from regions that had unanimously voted for UPND leader Ichilema, viz. Tonga, Lozi, Kaouda, Laniba, and Luvale.

Zambia remains a divided country in terms of the voting patterns which emerged after the elections, with the traditional UPND and PF political strongholds remaining separate despite the massive economic and social programmes taking place in Southern, Western and North-Western Provinces.

The now seemingly entrenched ethnic and regional voting patterns speaks large about what motivates the way people vote in rural village communities. It is now apparent that residents in rural areas do mostly vote for a political leader to whom they have close ethnic and tribal affinities – regardless of his political credentials.

Despite having won a resounding victory above 50% Lungu came out in the open and expressed his reservations about the divisive regional voting patterns. Even before the Electoral Commission of Zambia had announced the final election results, UPND leader Ichilema stormed the facility to express his consternation in the manner the votes were tabulated. He had raised a court injunction disputing the election results.

The ruling PF suffered some political causalities in the sense that at least eight former PF ministers have lost the parliamentary seats while for the first time some ten independent candidates won the elections.

Among those who lost their parliamentary seats was the PF defence minister Richwell Siyamunene, who failed to retain his Sinazougwe seat in Southern Province. He had resigned from the UPND when he was appointed as defence minister in 2015 by Lungu. He was mobbed irate Tonga-speaking UPND political cadres and badly assaulted after having lost the election.

Indeed, the celebrations for Lungu’s victory taking place in the Copperbelt and Lusaka was reciprocated by indecent attacks against PF supporters in South Province by UPND political cadres.

Alarm bells are ringing more loudly for the future political destiny of the PF in the sense that once again the PF has failed to penetrate the UPND political strongholds of Western, Southern and North-Western Provinces. In fact it is supposed to be the indefatigable  UPND leader Ichilema who should be celebrating for having given Lungu a close and gruelling fight.

CEPHAS MULENGA, 

Zambia

Abstaining from voting

The African National Congress has forgotten what poverty looks like because they are now living well, a Khutsong resident in Carletonville said on Thursday.

Moeketsi Msiya told News24 he would not be voting for the ruling party because it always forgot "the people at the bottom". 

"The ANC only looks after themselves… If I vote for these people, they will forget about me," the 37-year-old said outside his home during a door-to-door campaign by the ANC. Msiya was born and bred in Khutsong and described it as a place which had no progress. "The youth here are addicted to nyaope and alcohol starting from 15 years."

He said they often dropped out of school and he didn't blame them because there was nothing motivating them to stay in school. "There is no progress here," he said, visibly angry and frustrated.

He said come August 3, he would abstain from voting as he did not trust any of the parties running for local government elections.

"I will only vote for someone who knows what it is to be poor, someone who knows what it is like to eat just plain pap and gravy for supper. I will only vote for someone who I know lives among the people and knows our struggles," he said.

Nikiwe Kutta vowed never to vote for the ANC again after it had made them "so many empty promises". Kutta told News24 she was no longer interested in what the ruling party had to say because their words did not translate into actions. "I'm tired of the ANC. They only give us empty promises… and ask us to vote but I will never. I would rather vote for the white man," she says.

Obiang set to become Africa's longest ruler

Africa’s longest-serving ruler, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, looks set to win a fresh seven-year term. Obiang initially took office in a 1979 coup, ousting his own uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, who was then rapidly dispatched before a firing squad. He has since acted to preempt any new putsch, regularly claiming to have quashed attempted coups and building a fortress state policed by security personnel in every public nook and cranny.

Obiang captured 95% of the vote in last presidential election. The elections have no chance of being free and fair.  The main opposition Progressive Party of Equatorial Guinea is banned and its leader Severo Moto won’t be on the presidential candidate ballot.

For all of the wealth Equatorial Guinea’s natural-resources generates, the country remains one of the world’s poorest with three-quarters of its fewer than 1 million people mired in poverty. The U.S. Department of Justice in 2014 reached a settlement with Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the Equatorial Guinea president’s son who is seen as his potential successor, forcing him to sell a $30 million mansion in Malibu, California, a Ferrari and various items of Michael Jackson memorabilia, that he purchased in the U.S. “with the proceeds of corruption.” It also ordered that certain other assets of his, including a Gulfstream Jet, would be subject to seizure and forfeiture if they are brought into the U.S.

Ghana's rich are the ruling class

According to Dr. Emmanuel Akwetey, Executive Director for the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG) the power of the ordinary Ghanaian is gradually being sold to the rich politicians and that it is not the power of the people that is governing Ghana now, but the power of people who have money, stressing that these group of people have different agenda than serving the public good and are exploiting the system. 

He said there could be a possible collapse of Ghana’s democratic system if vote buying is allowed to take center stage in the coming elections in November.

He explained there was a small group of people that is controlling Ghana’s democracy and not for public good but for their pocket.

The Importance of Democracy

Over the next year, 15 different elections will take place across the African continent. Six of the forthcoming elections will be held in East Africa where, from Tanzania to Sudan, a wide range of legal tools hindering freedom of association have recently been put in place by the authorities.

In Uganda, human rights defenders themselves are increasingly under threat. For instance, Gerald Kankya, Executive Director of the Twerwaneho Listeners Club (TLC), an organisation that combats unlawful evictions from public land, has recently been the target of physical and judicial harassment.

In Kenya, following the attack in April 2015 by the islamist militant group Al Shabaab on Garissa University College in the north-eastern part of the country, human rights organisations have been the target of government repression. Haki Africa and Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), which advocate for constitutional means to counter terrorism while respecting human rights, have reportedly suffered judicial harassment.

In Tanzania,  a new statistics law that makes it illegal for any publications to claim data as "official" if it has not been approved by the National Bureau of Statistics and also a cyber-crime law that punishes the electronic publication of "unsolicited" information and an access to information act which criminalises the spreading of "false" information. The Tanzanian media has had its hands tied by the establishment of a media council that determines which journalists and media outlets are permitted to operate. Under these circumstances, civil society is left with no choice but self-censorship.

Freedom of association and expression are cornerstones of any democratic society.

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000172475/danger-signs-freedom-waning-in-east-africa

Gambian democracy goes to the highest bidder

Gambia looks set to raise the cost of running in next year's elections with a new bill that a pro-democracy group says will make it harder for opposition parties to compete against President Yahya Jammeh.

Parliament passed a bill on Tuesday requiring presidential candidates to pay 500,000 dalasis (about $12,740). Candidates for the national assembly, mayor and ward councillor will also need to pay between $250 and $12,750 under the revised bill that Jammeh is likely to sign into law. The government said the bill was aimed at ensuring that political parties are organised and well led.

"Half a million dalasis is way out of reach for the majority of Gambians, especially the opposition," said JegganGrey-Johnson, an analyst for Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa. "It is meant to price ... a majority of the people out."

The oppositional newspaper Foroyaa criticised the bill's like passage in an editorial, saying it does not respect the electoral commission's independence. "Every honest Gambian ... (should) know that the amendment is a threat to the independence of the (Electoral) Commission and a barrier to the democratic and unrestricted participation of the people in electing their representatives," it said.

The average annual income in Gambia, one of the world's poorest countries, is around $450. The country relies on tourism but its industry was battered last year by a regional Ebola outbreak even though Gambia did not record a case.

Election Day Notes From 'Burundi Diary'

BUJUMBURA, 21 July 2015 (IRIN) - The presidential election finally took place today. Across the country, according to state radio and other stations still on the air, things are fine. For me, what’s important isn’t so much this election. I am more worried about people’s security. I wonder about people who can’t sleep well because they have fled or because strangers come into their homes. Last night I heard grenades going off and gunshots in several parts of Bujumbura, including Kamenge, an area which had been calm up to now. One resident there told me, “We also heard the music at night.” It made me realise that people have become so used to gunfire.
There are few independent or private media journalists left in this country. It’s hard to find reliable information. After the explosions, the place was abuzz with text messages and phone calls: “What’s happening? Who is shooting? Why?" Some people think journalists know everything about what’s going on. We don’t, even if information often comes first from us and is later confirmed by the authorities. The police have yet to explain the who and why of the shooting.
This morning I woke up as normal. I called a colleague from the Iwacu Press Group, the only private media company still functioning since the attacks on the press that followed an aborted coup against President Pierre Nkurunziza in May. We’re to work together, which is great; otherwise there’s a risk of being kidnapped, and then who would tell our family? That’s how it is now. 
I didn’t see a lot of people voting today while visiting polling stations in the Bujumbura districts of Taba, Kamenge, Gihosa, Rohero and Nyakabiga. Outside the capital, according to media reports, turnout was quite high. But in the city, according to the chairman of the electoral commission, voters only turned up in dribs and drabs. This was no surprise: turnout for the parliamentary elections held on 29 June was below 30 percent.
In some polling stations I visited, I saw voters trying to remove the indelible ink from their finger with lemon juice. Others put oil on their finger before voting so that when the ink was applied, it came off easily. It seems they didn't want to be clearly identified as having voted.

This morning there was a spate of criticism of the election. Belgium, our former colonial power, and the United States, both said the polls lacked credibility and shouldn’t be held.
We’ve heard all this before. People deplore the closure of political space, and then what? I wouldn’t give my life to a politician but I believe in the future of this country and its youth. I believe if you give people a chance they will do better. What I and other young people miss now is a chance for stability. We’ve had problems for a long time. We’ve been burying our loved ones for a long time. We don’t really know those who have bereaved us because there have been no credible investigations.
I am not going to have more than I had before because of these elections.
Burundians like me expected stability from credible elections. Whatever happens, we need stability. That’s all. For now, this stability is absent. Can you conceive of 161,000 refugees? It’s shocking to call family members in the province of Nyanza Lac and find their phones switched off. Why? They’ve fled the country, school children included. They finished the school year but missed their exams and left for camps in Tanzania. Tanzania has become another home for many in my family. I don’t know if these elections will bring them back or other Burundians suffering in camps in Congo and Rwanda.

from here and for previous diary entries, see here 

As Burundi Goes To The Polls, Journalism Is A High Risk Job

For the families of journalists like me in Burundi, life has been hell these past few weeks, especially since street protests began in April against the president’s plans to run for a third term.

Children haven’t been to school since then. Every day my son asks me when he do will do his homework. He remembers that the demonstrations started as he come home one Friday with a homework assignment. One day I had to ask his headmaster to open the school gates for a few minutes just so he could go in and feel some relief. It didn’t work.

The official discourse is reassuring, but the economic, political and social decline continues. Our families don’t understand how we can choose this career. “This job is death,” my sister told me recently.

“Papa, did they shoot at your computer,” my son asked me once. My boy likes computers. Many journalists had their computers riddled with bullets after private media houses were attacked in the wake of a failed coup bid in May.

“Son, it’s time to do something else. I’m afraid for you,” said my mother in a tearful phone conversation recently.

For journalists working for private or foreign media, it’s as if our work has become a crime.

But think the whole community is under threat. Today it’s journalists; tomorrow it could be shopkeepers, or doctors.

As a journalist and citizen I had always hoped that what’s happening now would not come to pass in Burundi. Events seem to evoke the old demons of destruction and violence. (Civil war ravaged Burundi between 1993 and 2005.)  Even before today’s legislative polls, the elections had already claimed victims: tens of thousands of people have fled the country and many have also taken flight inside.

Ever since the coup bid, reporters have gone into hiding, including myself as well as colleagues from both private and state media.  I personally chose not to leave Burundi for a neighbouring country, but around 50 journalists have fled and some are living in refugee camps.

The closure of private media “is a major setback for freedom of expression, because there are no more voices that contradict those of the government, no more independent sources about what is happening now,” Jean Regis Nduwimana, a professor of communications, told me.

He added that he feared the country was at risk of falling prey to “a quasi-totalitarian regime which only wants to hear its own voice heard on state media.”

These days moving around with recording devices, laptops or smart phones is very risky. Staying at home all the time is impossible but travel has to be done with great caution. Many journalists say they are followed. Some have had their houses attacked. The most recent case of this was of Voice of America reporter Dianne Nininahazwe, who was also followed.

We journalists expected private media to be reopened before polling began. But it seems we are going to have to wait for that, nobody knows for how long.

Over the past week I saw men lying on the ground bleeding after grenades were thrown from car windows. Being a journalist now is to live the pain of others and to forget one’s own. We have all lost loved ones in the past but the wheels of history in Burundi are still turning and the same mistakes are being made. We continue to shed tears for our friends and family. People are still burying their loved ones.

Our country’s greatest curse is that people never try to walk in others’ shoes.

I’ve heard government officials describe those protesting as bringers of bad luck. This has gradually become a conflict although the government says 99.9 percent of the country is calm. But it’s not normal for people to flee a country when elections come around. Can you imagine more than 100,000 refugees? Children separated from their parents, not going to school, who can no longer sleep, who are in camps, at risk of cholera and malnutrition?

About 10 days after the failed coup, journalists working for foreign media and visiting correspondents were summoned by the National Communications Council. I arrived late. I had considered not showing up at all; I thought I might find myself behind bars. This place makes you paranoid. At the meeting, we were warned, accused of only covering the demonstrations when the ruling party was in full campaigning mode, of encouraging the protestors, of only talking to refugees when 10 million people had remained in Burundi.

Once when I tried to interview a witness to an attack he refused to talk to me, saying he didn’t want to die.

Gunfire and grenade blasts rang out in parts of Bujumbura on Saturday night, and again on Sunday night. For hours, we had no idea who was shooting or why. State radio announced three people had been killed on Saturday night. The police spokesman was mysteriously unreachable.

All this makes for a fearful climate. I can see no cause for calm. Burundi’s former partners have pulled out, as have election observers.

Gunfire in a country the government says is calm and the withdrawal of the opposition from the race, and widespread calls from the international community to delay the polls are signs that we are on a slippery slope and that that the return will be hard.

by Désiré Nimubona from here

The Sham Of Elections In Ethiopia

According to the National Election Board of Ethiopia, the result of last week’s national election is that the EPRDF (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) has achieved a complete victory by grabbing all the parliamentary seats. The same board and the Ethiopian government qualified the result as a triumph of democracy, which leads one to assume that in today’s Ethiopia the progress of democracy is measured by the size of exclusion of opposition parties from parliamentary participation. In 1995, the process resulted in 75 seats to various opposition parties; then it evolved to one representative in 2010; until it has reached the present stage of advanced democracy with zero representative from the opposition. Bravo to the EPRDF! Be it noted that this novel interpretation of democracy seems to be endorsed by the American government through the authoritative voice of Wendy Sherman, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs (go to http://www.diretube.com/ethiopia/under-secretary-of-state-wendy-sherman-talking-about-ethiopia-video_851c48f3b.html) The only step remaining to achieve the apex of democracy is the banning of opposition parties, obvious as it is that they have become obsolete.
 
On a serious note, last week’s election appears very enigmatic to many observers. For one thing, in view of the creeping discontent in the country, which is even expressed outwardly here and there, in view also of the paranoia of the regime showing an unprecedented level of mobilization of its repressive forces to intimidate voters and stifle dissenting voices, a complete parliamentary victory strikes by its utter impossibility. There is only one possible conclusion: not only the election was not free and fair, but it was also subjected to fraudulent practices, such as stealing or eliminating votes supporting the opposition.
 
The question that comes to mind is the following: if neither the people and opposition parties give an iota of credibility to the official result, nor for that matter the officials and the cadres of the ruling party themselves––since they used all repressive and fraudulent means to eliminate the opposition––in a word, if nobody lends any credibility to the official outcome, why is the ruling party going through such a costly, time-consuming, and utterly useless exercise? What is the expected gain?
 
Can we say that the election serves the purpose of renewing legitimacy? But how can a government renew legitimacy by claiming an unbelievable victory? Who falls for a score of 100 percent? What about the international community? Perhaps, but again provided that you come up with something believable, and 100 percent is not believable. Accordingly, such a score defeats its purpose, if it is legitimacy.
 
This is what is most perplexing: a lesser score (say, for example, of 80 percent) would have gained some credibility without, however, endangering the hegemony of the ruling party. Indeed, why not leave some seats to the opposition? So long as the ruling party retains an overwhelming majority, the opposition does not present any risk. What is more, the presence of the opposition, however negligible, would give some sense to the voting process in the parliament.
 
There is more: in turning the election into a process of elimination of the opposition by all means necessary, the government and the ruling party are loudly telling the Ethiopian people that any hope of change through peaceful means is just an illusion. This is none other than forcing the people to seek other means, namely, violent forms of struggle, such as uprisings and armed struggle. It is hard to understand why a government would push its own people to violent methods.
 
If, instead of renewing legitimacy, a score of 100 percent only succeeds in cornering people to violent means, why on earth would a government adopt such a detrimental policy? We only saw negative sides. Where is the gain? The huge enigma here is that, unlike most dictatorial states, the regime in Ethiopia has recognized multiple opposition parties, even if it has restricted their activities to what it deems tolerable. While the general rule for dictatorial regimes is to ban opposition parties altogether, the Ethiopian regime recognizes them except that it does not want them in parliament. Since in both cases the result is the same, the behavior of the Ethiopian regime may become intelligible if we get hold of the reason why even dictatorial regimes that ban opposition parties organize elections.
 
Where no opposition parties exist, the purpose of election cannot be the achievement of victory. As there is no contest, the claim of victory would be simply surreal. By contrast, single-party regimes are concerned with the number of people who come out to vote, the issue being to get out the maximum number of voters by all means necessary. Clearly, the objective is not to gain the majority of votes; rather, it is to demonstrate force. Elections are meant to show the extent of the control of the government and the ruling party over the people. The less the people like the regime, the higher is its need to show the maximum electoral score, thereby displaying its invincibility. The message is then clear enough: even if you do not like the regime, there is nothing you can do about it. As such, it is a celebration of defiance, a parade, a showoff of political force.
 
It seems to me that the dominant party in the governmental coalition, the TPLF (Tigrayan People's Liberation Front), has perfected the meaning of election under dictatorial rule: unlike one-party dictatorships, it recognizes opposition parties, allows them some freedom of maneuver, only to deprive them of even one seat in the parliament as a manifestation of its absolute hegemony. This is none other than an extreme form of political bullying, as in the case when a child donates his toy to another child and takes it back after some time as a way of showing his dominance by aggravating the frustration of the other child.
 
The ultimate goal of this political bullying is, of course, the inculcation of submission through the sense of hopelessness. While in democratic countries, elections establish the legitimacy of states through the exercise of popular sovereignty, in dictatorial regimes, like that of the TPLF, they are periodical rituals displaying the submission of the people. To the extent that these elections raise and then dash hopes for change, they renew the sense of hopelessness of the people, and so deepen their resignation.
  
by Messay Kebede from here

No Election Fever in Togo

President Faure Gnassingbe is looking to continue his family's 48-year rule of Togo in elections held on Saturday. Turnout was low, close to 40 percent, according to local election observers. Faure Gnassingbe, 48, has been in power since his father Gnassingbe Eyadema died in office in 2005 after ruling Togo with an iron fist for 38 years. The election is a two-horse race between Faure Gnassingbe and Jean-Pierre Fabre who unsuccessfully stood against Faure Gnassingbe in 2010. Last year, opposition protests failed to bring about constitutional changes limiting the president to two terms in office - a move that would have prevented Mr Gnassingbe from standing.

Togo's GDP has more than doubled since 2005 and economic growth reached 5.6% in 2014. But critics say the benefits have mainly gone to a wealthy minority, while most ordinary Togolese still suffer from high poverty and unemployment rates. 2011 statistics show 58% of the population lived on less than a dollar a day, and while official figures put the jobless rate at 6%, many believe the actual figure is much higher. Unemployment disproportionately affects the young, who make up a rapidly growing percentage of Togo's population.

"I have lived nearly my whole life with this regime. The regime has to go," said Ama Yambila, a mother of seven. 

"There is no work!" said 55-year-old Martin Assouvi, a Fabre supporter. "We are suffering."

Tsomana Yovo Aki, a 57-year-old motorcycle taxi driver, said he was voting for an opposition candidate, though he declined to specify which one. He said he was worried about the high cost of living and poor public services, especially in the country's hospitals. "We need a change at the head of the government so that another can come to power and show us his style of governing," Aki said. 

Togo is the most unhappy country in the world, closely followed by Burundi, Benin and Rwanda, a study finds.

We Have The Vote But No One To Vote For - South Africa Elections

Elections should be a season of hope. Steve Biko declared that our fight was for an open society, a society where the colour of a person's skin will not be a point of reference or departure; a society in which each person has one vote.

We have the vote but the political parties do not represent the aspirations of the people. Millions of black people remain poor and oppressed. When we organise outside of the ANC we are violently repressed.

This election is not the season of hope. It is the season of deception, slander, gutter politics and lies. There are campaigns to encourage our people, and in particular young people to vote. We are being told every day that voting is the way to express our hopes and to build a better society. Politicians are leaving the comfort of their fortresses and frequenting our townships. They all say that they are disgusted that we are still living below the poverty line in squalid conditions, with no water and electricity. They all say that voting is the way to restore the dignity of our people.

Those who claim to be so disgusted with how the people are living include the same ones that have been stealing from the people. There is the Nkandla Chief who has made his own family rich while the rest of us remain poor. There is also Malema who dismantled a house of R4m to build a mansion of R16m.

Another feature of our politics is that it has become about messiahs. John Block tells us that walking with Zuma is like walking next to God. According to Andile Mngxitama Julius Malema has become Maolema. Helen Zille has been given the name Nobantu (people's person).

In the black consciousness movement we read a lot. Some of us started as teenagers. At a young age we read Frantz Fanon's warning about leaders that send the oppressed to their caves and tell them to leave politics to the professionals or the messiahs. We understood clearly that a radical politics is a democratic politics and that a democratic politics is a politics in which the oppressed control their own organisations and participate in all decision making.

The media also reduce us to spectators of politics rather than participants in politics. We are reduced to those who must clap hands and cheer for our 'leaders'. At times the noise is so high that you hardly hear your leader.

We are in the struggle to kill the idea that one kind of person is superior to another kind of person. We want to abolish racism. But we also want to abolish the idea that politics is about choosing between Zuma, Zille and Malema.

The formation of the Black Consciousness Movement in this country was a realisation by black people that we could no longer stand and be spectators of the game we are supposed to be playing. This election season continues to demonstrate the relevance of Biko's teachings. We are expected to cheer the politicians as they play the game. We are expected to cheer the BEE millionaires as they play the game. If we want to play the game ourselves we end up like Andries Tatane, the Marikana martyrs or Nkululeko Gwala and Nqobile Nzuza.

Today our generation has to encourage people not to accept the hardships that they are facing. We have to find a way, even in the environments we are forced to live in, to have hope for ourselves and our country and to organise to confront oppression. That is what black consciousness is all about. It is not about supporting one corrupt messiah against another corrupt one. It is about taking a side with the people.

After the murders of Tatane, the Marikana miners, Gwala and Nzuza it is immoral to vote for Zuma. After Nkandla it is immoral to vote for Zuma. After Blikkiesdorp and Hangberg it is immoral to vote for Zille. After Malema forced his way into the leadership of the ANC Youth League and he and his friends plundered the organisation, as well as Limpopo government and the National Youth Development Agency it is immoral to vote for him too. Zuma must go on trial for Marikana and Nkandla. Zille must go on trial for Hangberg. Malema must go on trial for his plunder and unpaid taxes.

But corruption and repression are not our only problems. There is no doubt that the ANC is rotten but it is a grave mistake to divorce corruption from the rotten form of crony capitalism that we have in South Africa. Both the ANC and the DA are proponents of the kind of capitalism that always makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. They are both proponents of the Youth Wage Subsidy which is a false solution to unemployment. We need a subsidy for the people, not for capital.

The EFF say that they will nationalise the mines and run them for the people. But no one in their right mind can trust Malema to run the mines for the people.

We have to ask ourselves why it is that we now have the vote but there is no one to vote for. Maybe the reason is that the political parties are all funded by elites and so they all work for elites. We need to change the system in which the parties are funded. All parties should receive the same funding from the state and there should be no secret and private funding.

Elections should be an opportunity for the people to choose their representatives from amongst themselves. What we have today is a system whereby we can only choose which group of rich people, working for the big capitalists, we want to rule us.

From here

South Africa's Elections

In South Africa’s  May 2014 election most of the ‘Born Frees’ (persons born after the end of apartheid in the early 1990s) are eligible to vote in a general election yet a recent “Status of Youth Report” released by South Africa’s National Youth Development Agency found that young voters, with few exceptions, “are regularly less likely actually to turn out on Election Day than other age groups.”

Shenid Bhayroo was one of the thousand-plus journalists that traveled to South Africa in December 2013 to cover the death of Nelson Mandela.

Bhayroo saw a strong public dissatisfaction with the deep poverty rampant across South Africa, poverty many South Africans increasingly blame on failures of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the organization Mandela once led. Many studies list income inequality in South Africa as highest in the world, citing such figures as the poorest ten percent averaging $427 in annual income compared to $80,800 for the richest ten percent.

“What I saw was a greater sense of criticism of the short-comings of the ruling party, even from staunch ANC supporters,” Bhayroo said referencing rising objections including criticisms of corruption and nepotism among ANC officials, particularly South African President Jacob Zuma. “There’s been little improvement in the lives of the working poor.”

Mosi was a member of the ANC’s military wing, living years outside of his homeland in exile. He suffered a gunshot wound in Angola during a 1980s battle against American CIA-funded rebels that were fighting in alliance with South Africa’s apartheid government. Mosi is among the ANC supporters dissatisfied with the policies and practices of that party.

“Too many ANC leaders now drive Mercedes Benz cars. They don’t do things for the poor,” trade union member Mosi said, critical of top ANC officials for engaging in self-enrichment, a repugnant practice of elites worldwide. “The ANC has political office, but the economy of the country is still in the hands of white people,” Mosi said during a July 2013 interview in the impoverished township of Alexandria located adjacent to the most wealthy enclaves in Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. “People in South Africa are still poor. Some still sleep on the streets.”

“While political apartheid ended economic apartheid in a different guise took shape,” American scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro, of Temple University in Pennsylvania, wrote in a December 2013 essay entitled “Nelson Mandela: The Contradictions of His Life and Legacies.” For Monteiro, instead of a “radical redistribution of wealth and income…a program of neo-liberal capitalism and protection of western corporate wealth and white South African interests [was] implemented. In return blacks got the right to vote and modest improvements in the lives of the poor…the suffering of the working masses and poor got worse…”

Nkosi Patrick Molala, a legendary soccer star, anti-apartheid figure and community activist in South Africa who holds the dubious distinction of being the first soccer star in his nation imprisoned for anti-apartheid activities. Molala served eight years on infamous Robben Island , is among many concerned about the grave economic inequities in his nation like 50 percent unemployment about black youth. “Much in the ‘Rainbow Nation’ that we claim is the same as before: Those who were poor then are poor now,” Molala said. Post-apartheid South Africa is a “democracy of those who can make it,” Molala said during an interview last summer.

From here 

elections and democracy

Traditionally in Africa’s villages decisions and conflict resolution takes place using a consensus system with no absolute winners and losers, with all parties agreeing to the final decision and honor bound to carry it out. Just the opposite of what happens after “elections” in “democratic Africa”.

 In Ethiopia, where the ethnic minority regime declared themselves victors 12 hours after the polls closed with 99.6% of the seats in parliament.

 In Liberia, where the capital Monrovia has not had running water or electricity for the entire term of Eleanor Johnson’s Presidency, she who ran unopposed the last “election”, and won a Nobel Prize to boot.

 In Somalia, where there simply was no voting done by the Somali people, the entire parliament which “elected” the President was hand picked by the previous President.

In Libya where Al Queda militias run rampant and it doesn’t really matter who won the latest “election”, it is all about tribe and family and ties to the local warlords, sort of like Somalia really.

In Mali  the “victor” of the  “election”, is scheduled to be held in the midst of an ongoing counterinsurgency with thousands of French troops still occupying the country.

In Cote D’Ivoire where under the international communities supervision hundreds of thousands of non-Ivorians were allowed to vote (never mind the Ivorian Constitution) and then declared the World Banks local rep as the winner (again, never mind the Ivorian Constitutional Court who declared the incumbent President the winner). And when the incumbent wouldn’t cede power as demanded, rocket his Presidential residence courtesy of the French military and UN “peacekeepers” until shellshocked into surrender.

Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Burundi, Congo, Central African Republic…insurgencies and rebellions everywhere.

In Eritrea, 22 years independent and no elections.

Most Africans will tell you what we most want is food, water, shelter, medical care and education for our children. If a country’s leaders are providing these basic human rights to their people they are doing what their people want and practicing democracy. If they are not, if their people are hungry, cold, sick and illiterate then these leaders are not democratic no matter how many times they hold “elections”.

Adapted from here 

Kenyan Election

The majority of Kenyans live in misery. Two thirds of the population of the capital lives in slums. People want change. All of them are talking about change. "Change" is on the lips of the people forming those endless queues. But what kind of change?

In a state where the majority of people live on less than US$1 a day, the local MPs enjoy some of the highest take-home salaries paid to politicians anywhere on earth –more than US$123,000 a year. For comparison, British MPs earn the equivalent of US$99,000. Why would the rich want to change anything?

The elections have been described, in advance, as ‘democratic’, by both the local and Western mainstream media. In the case of Kenya, elections are also ‘democratic’, because there are eight Presidential candidates, and countless candidates running for MP, Senators and governors. It does not matter that not a single Kenyan Presidential candidate has been truly ready to represent the interests of the people. In the language of Western propaganda, democracy is measured only by the number of political parties and candidates; and not by their agenda. Change is definitely not on any candidate’s list. Their allegiances are to their tribes and to their business interests, to their deep pockets, neither to ideals nor to the nation.

 The two main Presidential candidates, Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, belong to the two most powerful political dynasties. Uhuru Kenyatta, is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president. Raila Odinga is the second son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, one of Kenya’s Independence heroes, and the nation’s first vice-president. No real changes to the system have been proposed by either candidate.  None of the essential issues have been discussed in the pre-election campaign such as the brutal capitalist system that is destroying the lives of millions.

While the Kenyan elites are harvesting millions of dollars from their collaboration with former and present-day colonizers, In many parts of Kenya, people are dying from hunger and disease.  If Uhuru wins or if it is Raila who wins, what difference does it really make? There is no change. The war against the poor goes on.

The Wabenzi Election

According to the World Bank, almost half of Kenya's 41.6 million people live below the poverty line of $1.25 a day. 20 percent of Kenyans suffered from food poverty, such that their entire income is not even enough for purchasing food. Between independence in the 1960s and the 2007 election, Kenya's constitution was amended around 30 times, each time bolstering the power of the presidency at the expense of the judicial and legislative branches of government, and, ultimately, at the expense of the Kenyan people.

"Wabenzi" is Swahili  slang for those who own a Mercedes Benz. Fifty years after independence, the Wabenzis in Kenya are still in a class of their own. They can afford a decent meal in the upmarket restaurants in Nairobi's leafy suburbs; take their kids to schools abroad or in the local exclusive £20,000 term academies. When sick, they can jet out to Europe and the US for treatment and skip the crowded Kenyatta National Hospital. Although it is Kenya's largest referral hospital, it is under-funded and sees queues for hours on end of patients seeking medical attention. For the last three months, nurses in public hospitals have been on strike, and nobody seems to care. Shortly after independence in a swift and seamless transformation, the new public servants became flashy tycoons. They had the money and political power. Some of them had just arrived from the world's top universities or had managed to enter into the boards of blue-chip companies as a thank-you note for being loyal to the colonial regime. The Wabenzi and their children are party animals. In their parking yards, one can spot a wide assortmant of vehicles, such as Jaguars, Range Rover Sport, Land Rovers, Escalades, Mercedes Benz, BMWs and Hummers. These are the signature status symbols of Kenya's nouvelle generation. Some even own private helicopters, vintage vehicles, and real estate. And that is besides the thousands of acres of plantations that are cultivating either tea, coffee - or even simply lying fallow. Some are into the stock market and own major shares in leading companies.

They use taxpayers' money to live large. They love the thrill that accompanies this power status - motorcycle outriders, menacing soldiers, and ministerial Mercedes hurtling at speed. Kenya's political elite cling to their pay and to their allowances. For the lesser Kenyans it is austerity, but not the Wabenzi. Kibera is one of Africa's poorest slums. And yet last year, the country could afford to refurbish parliament with 350 seats, each costing about $3,000. That is the kind of opulence that the Wabenzi love. Only 10 percent of Kenyans lived in opulence, 33 percent barely eked a living while 57 percent live below the poverty line and in squalid conditions. It is the poor that  become pawns in a political chess match when the 10 percent return every five years in search of political power and might in the general elections. The country's leaders line their pockets while Nairobi's slums swell with the desperately impoverished.

 Kenya's capital streets are awash with red and orange. Red: The colour of TNA candidates Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. Orange: The CORD coalition of Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his allies. A small fortune is being spent to buy votes. "We have never seen a campaign like this," a taxi driver said. "There is so much money being wasted."

After the 2007 electtion as many as 1,400 people died in the span of 59 days, while 600,000 people were displaced from their homes. Kenya slipped dangerously close to outright civil war. Gangs of youths roamed through many of Kenya's slums, torching homes, as riots spread across the country. Adding fuel to the fire of unrest, news reports emerged showing police officers shooting unarmed protesters amid the chaos. a church in the northern Eldoret district was burned to the ground. It was packed with women and children. 17 were burned alive.

 "By this time, there was a great resentment and dissatisfaction among the people about having a leadership underwritten by corruption and corrupt networks," Kiama Kaara, a political analyst with Kenya's Debt Relief Network, told Al Jazeera. "There was a realisation among people that the leaders were not any different [from one another] and wanted to control, and to benefit from controlling the nation's resources for their personal benefit and their personal gratification. This built frustration for Kenyans across the board."

Source

Legalities in Kenya

The Berlin Conference of 1885 imposed formality on Europe's Scramble for Africa, designating the 250,000 sq miles chunk from the Indian Ocean to beyond Lake Victoria as British East Africa. Today, it forms Kenya and Uganda. The Scottish ship-owner William Mackinnon set up the Imperial British East Africa Company and established trading activities. High taxes, low wages and hardship after the First World War politicised a generation of would-be Kenyans. By the Second World War, Kenya was of strategic importance for campaigns against Italian forces. Nearly 100,000 black soldiers, askaris, fought for Britain in the King's African Rifles. At the end of the war they wanted to keep their improved status, and became a vanguard for African nationalism. Jomo Kenyatta demanded a political voice for Africans. He would go to prison for leading the Mau Mau uprising which began in 1952 and in 1963 Kenyatta's Kenyan African National Union formed the first government.

Trade between the Kenya and the UK grew to £1bn last year and the UK is the largest single foreign investor with projects totalling £2bn and around 70 companies involved. Britain's strategic alliance with Kenya extends not only to trade but also to ever-closer military and security links. Kenya is the centre for security operations by the UK against the Islamist al-Shabaab group in neighbouring Somalia. The British military teams sent to train Somali forces (as part of the strategy to build up security in countries facing insurgencies) will have their logistical support base in the country. One of the British Army's main exercise areas overseas used by 10000 personnel a year is also in Kenya and is used by brigades in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan.

The coming elections in Kenya are causing major consternation in London. Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Jomo, is running neck and neck with Raila Odinga, his main opponent, in the polls. Kenyatta has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity being accused of orchestrating the violence which left 1,300 people dead during the last elections in 2007. The UK's position is that it will have nothing but the most "essential" contact with someone in that position. The British Government, itself, is embroiled in a legal case for gross violations of Kenyan human rights before Kenyan independence in 1963 which it does not reject but a case they tried to evade on legal technicalities.

Time to bury the ghost of Nkrumah and abolish capitalism

The need for African Socialism and a Socialist Party of Ghana

Elections in Ghana- December 2012
'Ghana's election a close contest despite boom' -  Xan Rice writes in The Financial Times, 6th December 2012: “The presidential election in Ghana, west Africa's second-largest economy is fiercely contested; the prize is control over billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues expected to flow in the next four years, giving the victorious party the potential means not only to transform the economy but also to stay in power for a long time. With Ghana's economy booming – the International Monetary Fund predicts 8.2% growth this year, thanks to oil, cocoa and gold production and a strong building and service sector – the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) might appear to have a strong advantage.
But perhaps uniquely in Africa, Ghana has developed a recent tradition of tight elections, with power changing hands from the nominally centre-left NDC to the centre-right New Patriotic Party (NPP) and back again. The peaceful handovers have helped to attract foreign investment. “Ghanaians are divided around two main parties just like the Democrats and Republicans in the US” said Bossman Asare, a political science lecturer at the University of Ghana.
Oil production began in 2010, the fiscal deficit has been cut and the country achieved lower middle-income status last year. Incumbent president Mr Mahama is targeting 8% growth until 2016. The NPP is regarded as the more pro-business, pro-western party. The NPP presidential candidate Mr Akufo-Addo describes himself as “the man to trust with Ghana's money”.

  'Ghana election: John Mahama declared winner' – BBC News Africa, 10th December 2012:
 “Ghana's presidential election has been won by incumbent John Mahama, the electoral commission has announced. It said Mr Mahama had secured 50.7% of votes, with opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo on 47.74%. However, the opposition NPP says it will contest the result, accusing the governing NDC party of conspiring with commission staff to fix Friday's poll. Ghana, one of the world's fastest-growing economies, is regarded as one of Africa's most stable democracies. Police in the capital Accra fired tear gas to disperse opposition protesters from outside the commission's offices on Sunday evening. Tanks guarded the electoral commission and roads around the offices were barricaded by police as the results were announced”.

The NDC can be seen as akin to the Labour Party, and the NPP is similar to the Tories but essentially their differences are wafer thin and both parties administer capitalism in Ghana on behalf of the capitalist class. Other political parties in Ghana are the Nkrumahist Convention People's Party (CPP) and the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP). But the NDD and NPP have a stranglehold over the electoral process in the same way as the Republicans and Democrats in the USA.

Adongo Aidan Avugma wrote in the Socialist Standard in April 2000: “The interests of the Ghanaian ruling class since independence is just the same as those of the old colonial regime; and it works with the forces of neo-colonialism and international capital to negate the consciousness of the masses, using its unlimited access to the economic surplus to attain this objective”. Like the liberal democracies in the West, Ghana has adopted a neo-liberal approach to capitalism, and has moved away from the state capitalism of the Nkrumah period;  Avugma writes of Ghana; “The worship and devotion to free enterprise is therefore total. The impression that private investment of capital is essential for economic growth relegates labour to a secondary position in industry and prepares the minds of the people to accept the dominance of capital over labour in the process both of production and distribution. It also seeks to imprint in the minds of the recipients of education the idea that the profit motive is both essential and intrinsic to increased productivity; and the belief that free-for-all competition at the market place is the only way to realise the overall interest of society”.

The Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) is a political party splintered from the CPP,  founded by the late Daniel Lartey who was described as a “Nkrumahist adherent”. The party political philosophy is Pan-Africanist but also advocates autarky known as “domestication” which is “growing Ghana from Ghana rather than depending on foreign aid and investments”.

The Convention People's Party (CPP) candidate for Ghana president in December 2012 was agronomist Dr.  Michael Abu Sakara Foster who received only 0.18% of the vote. The CPP is described as a left wing party advocating “Nkrumaism, Pan-Africanism, Socialism”, and is chaired by Samia Yaba Nkrumah. 

This paltry vote does not reflect that this party governed Ghana from 1951 to 1966. The CPP website does not mention the word 'socialism' but talks of “Self-determination, Social Justice, Pan Africanism”. On Social Justice the CPP say “The state has a moral and constitutional duty to promote equal opportunities and equitable rewards for all Ghanaians”. The CPP believe that “fundamental reforms are needed” and Ghana “needs bold and visionary leadership”. The following statement is 'socialism' but omits the word:

“The principle of social justice is derived from the CPP’s understanding and acknowledgement of the obvious inequalities and imbalances inherent in the availability of natural and institutional resources and its distribution in Ghanaian society. To this end, the CPP is resolved to the application of social justice to reduce poverty through the fair distribution of the state’s natural resources, provide basic education, provide basic health care, and provide judicial service and other social facilities to enhance the stability and cohesion of the state without discrimination regarding gender, religion, social standing or tribal origins”.

Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72) spent 1935-45 in the USA where he became a socialist, he knew CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya.  Nkrumah's 'socialism'  is the state capitalist 'marxist-leninist' style that held sway in the USSR.  In 1963 the USSR awarded Nkrumah the Lenin Peace Prize.  The current CPP  is still in thrall to Leninist vanguardism:  “Democratic centralism:  The authority of the party is derived, sustained and emanates from the centre to all its organs, functionaries and structures”.

Nkrumah founded the CPP in 1949 and campaigned for the independence of the Gold Coast from British imperial rule. In 1951 Nkrumah became prime minister of the autonomous British colony of the Gold Coast, and from 1957-66 was prime minister/president of the independent Ghana.

In 1957 Ghana had $481 million in foreign reserves. Nkrumah wanted Ghana to escape the colonial trading system by reducing economic dependency on foreign capital, technology, and goods, and in this way Ghana could achieve real independence. The state capitalism of the Nkrumah period saw rapid industrialisation, large public investment in capital projects, a welfare system was established, and  free healthcare and education.  Production of cocoa, Ghana's chief export doubled, and bauxite and gold mining expanded.  The major achievements of Nkrumah's rule were the hydro-electric project of the Akosombo Dam on the Volta river in Eastern Ghana, and the Volta Aluminum Company (VALCO).

Nkrumah met with the US President John F. Kennedy in March 1961.  Following this meeting Ghana borrowed finance from the USA, UK, and the World Bank to fund the construction of the Akosombo Dam which was built by Kaiser Aluminium. The hydro-electric power plant would provide water for irrigation in Ghana's agricultural sector and power for the towns, and for the new Volta Aluminum Company plant. Later the aluminium exports from VALCO would be a major source of foreign exchange for Ghana. The Akosombo Dam was opened amid much publicity on 22nd January 1966.

Nkrumah and the CPP were not noted for their belief in pluralist bourgeois democracy. The 1958 Trade Union Act made industrial action (strikes) illegal, and 'preventive detention'  legislation imprisoned opposition politicians. A 1961 railway strike led to the imprisonment of strike leaders and opposition politicians. A 1964 plebiscite gave  99% approval to changing the Ghana constitution to make the CPP the only legal party in Ghana.

By 1966 with overspending on capital projects, cocoa prices falling, Ghana was in debt to the tune of $1 billion, the foreign reserves had gone, and repayments to the international capitalists were not being met. While Nkrumah was on a state visit to China and North Vietnam in February 1966, the Army and Police with CIA support  staged a bloody coup d'etat and overthrew the CPP. The CPP was banned and did not reform again until 1996.

Adongo Aidan Avugma on Ghana's state capitalism:

“The alternative to the free market policy is normally presented as the state ownership of the means of production. What is not discussed or is not known is that the state ownership of the means of production prescribed and fixed in law does not preclude the exploitation of labour by capital. Capitalism is not only characterised by the legal form that class possession of the means of production takes. That is the superficial aspect of it. The essential aspect is the social fact that those who "possess" the means of production exploit wage labour and accumulate surplus value thus obtained as capital. The immediate post-independent West African economics would suffice to illustrate this point. Workers sold their labour power to various state enterprises; and the products of their labour were sold in the market place with a view to profit. The difference between the wages of the producers and the value of what they produced was used for capital accumulation and the consumption of the privileged classes. Under the guise of socialism that state was employed by the ruling classes to appropriate economic surpluses from the masses. State ownership sought to hide the monstrosity of capitalist exploitation by confusing socialism with state property and presenting it to the producers of wealth as the best”.

Nkrumah wrote 'African Socialism Revisited' in 1967. Nkrumah's philosophical socialism has much to be recommended but its practical application in Ghana in the 1960's was Leninist political leadership, authoritarianism, and state capitalism.

Nkrumah's socialism:

“the recognition that the restoration of Africa’s humanist and egalitarian principles of society calls for socialism”.

“ We postulate each man to be an end in himself, not merely a means; and we accept the necessity of guaranteeing each man equal opportunities for his development”.

“Socialism in Africa introduces a new social synthesis in which modern technology is reconciled with human values, in which the advanced technical society is realised without the staggering social malefactions and deep schisms of capitalist industrial society. For true economic and social development cannot be promoted without the real socialisation of productive and distributive processes”.

“Socialism depends on dialectical and historical materialism, upon the view that there is only one nature, subject in all its manifestations to natural laws and that human society is, in this sense, part of nature and subject to its own laws of development”.

Ghana needs the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.  The world is a "global village". Each region may have its own particular and distinct customs, but they are part of a greater system of society that is world-wide. This system of society is capitalism and every region and nation operates within this system of society in one way or another. Socialism is not a cooperative island in the middle of capitalism, but a global system of society that will replace capitalism.

There is an immediate need for the establishment of a  Socialist Party of Ghana  to enter the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of Ghana to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.

The World Socialist Movement of which a Socialist Party of Ghana would be part is a global socialist movement that believes capitalism cannot meet the needs of the majority of the people in the world. It does not today, and it never can.

Steve Clayton

The Sierra Leone Election

Albert Margai left office in 1967, after three years as prime minister of Sierra Leone, he was worth an estimated US$250 million – despite receiving an annual salary of just US$4,000. In 1985, when President Siaka Stevens stood down, he is said to have amassed a fortune of US$500 million. The Bank of Sierra Leone, in contrast, held US$196,000 in its foreign reserve accounts. In the late 1980s, a common joke told on the streets of Freetown was: ‘What did Sierra Leoneans read by before they had candles? … Electricity!’ By then, life expectancy in Sierra Leone was one of the lowest in the world. Infant mortality was amongst the highest. The literacy rate was just 15 percent.  In 1991, the United Nations ranked Sierra Leone last of 160 countries in its Human Development Index.  A common joke told on the streets of Freetown was: ‘What did Sierra Leoneans read by before they had candles? … Electricity!’

Since the civil war officially ended in 2002, consecutive national elections have been won by different parties. When Ernest Bai Koroma and his All People’s Congress (APC) party were elected in 2007, the incumbent Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) accepted defeat – albeit reluctantly. For many, elections – and the preceding campaigns – provide the true measure of how Sierra Leone has progressed. As yet the fundamental character of political competition in Sierra Leone has not been altered. Identity, not ideology or policy, remains the paramount factor. Ethnic and regional voting blocs – sustained by entrenched patronage networks and corruption – are as rigid as ever. The APC draws majority support from the Temne, Limba and other northern tribes, and Krios of the Western Area, while the SLPP are favoured by the Mende and tribes of the south-east. Elections are regarded as ‘winner takes all’ contests with defeat entailing exclusion and disadvantage for the losers, and their regions.

Political parties still use violent means to achieve political goals. Election campaigns for the 2007 elections were tarnished by clashes organised by the upper reaches of the APC and SLPP. A return to war was never probable, but President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah threatened to suspend the vote and impose a state of emergency. On 9 September 2011, during a ‘thank you tour’ to SLPP supporters, Julius Maada Bio’s convoy was pelted with rocks by mobs of APC supporters in the southern city of Bo. Maada Bio required stitches to the head. SLPP mobs retaliated by setting fire to the APC district office and residential properties. A public enquiry concluded that the violence was both premeditated and orchestrated by elites of both parties.

Sierra Leone’s 2012 elections are unlikely to reveal anything new about the country and its politics. President Koroma is expected to win a second term, but not because he has transformed the country’s economy. The incumbent has deployed clever tactics, co-opting proxy parties – including the Revolutionary United Front Party – to carry out political dirty work, and enticing high profile SLPP politicians to defect, most notably veteran Tom Nyuma formerly of the NPRC.

While the economy has grown, it is structurally little different to its pre-war incarnation. The purchasing power of low income earners has halved since 2007. Food prices have spiraled. A cholera epidemic concentrated in the slums of Freetown had killed 392 residents by September 2012. Youth unemployment remains endemic.  Sierra Leone’s government budget is minuscule, about US$500 million per annum, most of which is from donors who insist on democratic and liberal economic reforms in exchange. The government is not in a position to adopt political and economic policies that will inevitably be unpopular with donors. Nor does it possess the human capital or institutions to successfully implement such measures.

 Important progress has been made, particularly in the area of electoral management. But legacies of identity politics, violence, corruption and inequality have been – and will continue to be – harder to overcome. the imperatives of how to create employment and distribute wealth more equitably have been keenly avoided by Sierra Leone’s political class.

From here

Electing Democracy

A coup d'etat by the army took place in the West African nation of Mali on Thursday, March 22 even though elections were scheduled to be held in little over a month (on April 29) where legitimate differences could have been debated, with voters (rather than guns) deciding the future of the country. A group of military officers , ironically calling themselves the "National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State", ended 20-years of democracy in the West African country. This group did not topple a dictator who had ordered soldiers to fire on his own people, as had been the case 21 years ago, but a democratically elected president in the last month of his term.

Liberal freedoms matter. One should never underestimate the value of liberal-democratic freedoms, even if they can be said to be often primarily symbolic. It is important, not to understate the significance of holding back authoritarianism. The dictator has in many peoples' minds the symbol of the law, all-capable, all-powerful, ready to manage affairs in a rational manner, not in the manner dictated by bourgeois law or by propertied interests. The most damaging thing to the cause of real democracy is the repeated assurances that what we have nowadays is democracy, and so all the sleaze, all the secret negotiations and dirty deals get lumped together to suggest in people's minds that democracy is not all that great. The dictator or the Junta become a symbol for orderliness and rationality in an insane and disorganised world. They represent stability. Most people do not look to democracy to bring about this stability. The bourgeois propagandists have done their work, and have effectively destroyed any belief in democracy as the idea that folks can run their own lives and own communities. Years of battering and enforced passivity has come to mean that for most of the working class the idea of them being in charge of affairs is inconceivable. They have been part of a manipulative system for too long and have become resigned and compliant.

The term democracy is bandied about and gets widely differing explanations of what it is or what it should be. It is a word that is ill-defined, misused, over-used too ambiguously and has been hijacked by governments and elites to deliberately misinterpret their actions and so deceive a captive and poorly represented electorate. Electorates worldwide haven't had the true experience of involvement, of having had their voices heard, at any significant level to have resulted in a culture of expectation of inclusion in the various processes of so-called democracy. Rather than an expectation of involvement there is apathy, cynicism or the repeated mantra heard far and wide that governments don't listen to the people. Many so-called democracies tend to breed apathy for a variety of reasons. Decisions have long been made for people not by people, electorates distanced from their representatives, decisions made with no consultation process and "leaders" believing they have been selected to take the reins and make all decisions on behalf of the voters. It's taken for granted that once elected the politician decides on behalf of the electors. There is scant reference to the masses in times of major decisions, public spending or whether to go to war. Even mass demonstrations can leave the elected unmoved and intransigent. As a result there has long been a culture of complaint, a collective feeling of impotence with no expectation of being heard, even if seemingly listened to.

We have all heard at some time or other such statements as "democracy is inefficient"; "the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship"; or "the country should be run by experts, well trained managers, not just any Tom Dick or Harry". These points are easily countered: democracy is only inefficient if your only criterion is speed, but if you include wide consultation and a plurality of opinions and ideas within the decision-making process, then democracy is actually far more efficient in the long run. The benevolent dictator idea neglects the fact that dictators must have a class to back them up so as to ensure the primary aim of all dictators—of staying in power. Likewise, with the group of managers, the question becomes, how do we select such managers? And how are they supposed to manage the country? In whose interest?

It is a basic tenet of the World Socialist Movement that the establishment of socialism involves the capture of political power via the ballot-box. For this to happen presupposes the existence of a "bourgeois democracy". We regard universal suffrage, the vote and political democracy within capitalism as a potential class weapon, a potential “instrument of emancipation” as Marx put it. Marx and Engels always held that the bourgeois democratic republic was the best political framework for the development and triumph of the socialist movement. But while such an arrangement is undeniably preferable to political dictatorship we don't entertain any illusions about the nature of this "bourgeois democracy". It is a very limited kind of democracy indeed. Capitalist democracy is not a participatory democracy, which a genuine democracy has to be.

“Democracy” has become an ideology used to give capitalist rule a spurious legitimacy. Looking at the vast sums of money involved in our allegedly democratic elections we can hardly claim that they are "free". In fact in most of the so-called democratic countries it could be said that the astronomical costs of challenging for political power have been deliberately manipulated in order to ensure that those who cannot attract rich backers will be denied meaningful access to the democratic process. There also the other aspect of bourgeois democracy, such as free speech, which is similarly compromised by the nature of the system. In this case by the disproportionate power it bestows on those who own and control the media. Effectively this means that in the same way as people in dictatorships are denied the right to make real political changes, in allegedly democratic societies prohibitive financial restrictions are placed in the way of the working class organising politically to effect real economic change. The idea of fair and free elections would give the ruling class political apoplexy. This does not mean that socialists equate dictatorship and bourgeois democracy. Within the latter we are free to organise politically and to develop our support to the extent where we can eventually overcome the embargoes and impediments that capitalism’s restricted democratic forms impose on us, whereas in the former any socialist work is necessarily clandestine and can invoke severe penalties. What we can equate is the hypocrisy of bourgeois politicians, who rightly condemn those dictatorships where political freedom is denied and yet are willing participants and vociferous defenders of a form of capitalism wherein financial impediments exist that make a mockery of real democracy. Democracy is not a set of rules or a parliament; it is a process, a process that must be fought for. The struggle for democracy is the struggle for socialism. It is not a struggle for reforms, for this or that political system, for this or that leader, for some rule change or other—it is the struggle for an idea, for a belief, a belief that we can run our own lives, that we have a right to a say in how society is run, for a belief that the responsibility for democracy lies not upon the politicians, but upon ourselves.

Socialists are offering the establishment of an open and genuine system of participative democracy in a world where the massively destructive and ubiquitously corruptive power of money would no longer exist. Socialism will of course be a democratic society with elections and referendums. Democracy means the rule or power of the people, i.e. popular participation in decision-making. It allows various ways of reaching a decision but, in the end, if consensus cannot be obtained, it has to come to a vote; in which case the majority view prevails. Democracy does not mean that all decisions have to made at general assemblies of all concerned or by referendum; it is compatible with certain decisions being delegated to committees and councils as long as the members of these bodies are responsible to those who (s)elected them. If there wasn’t such democratic control there wouldn’t be common ownership, so there wouldn’t be socialism. Democratic control is not an optional extra of socialism. It is its very essence. This being so, socialism cannot be imposed against the will or without the consent and participation of the majority. The socialist revolution can only be democratic, in the sense of both being what the majority of people want and of being carried out by democratic methods of organisation and action.