Outcome of poll machinations send nations into dark ages

So Joseph Kabila has pulled yet another electoral coup in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And it looks like he may get away with it, at least in the interim. Another election, and another farce with pre-ordained results, though this latest one was well thought through in its insidiousness.

Knowing that declaring his party candidate the winner would almost certainly lead to chaos and conflict, given the vast and open hostility against him, Kabila went with Plan B, which was to make a deal with the weaker opposition candidate, then ensure parliament was controlled by his party. It was a devilish brilliant move since Felix Tshisekedi, the declared winner has some residual support transferred from his father, and some support in the capital Kinshasa, even though he was clearly losing to the main opposition candidate Martin Fayulu, according to the Catholic Church which had the most credible observation team.

Fayulu, who was supported by Kabila’s most intractable political rivals, was a threat to the immunity that Kabila has established for himself and his cronies. But with all the fatigue and exhaustion generated by Kabila’s years of brinkmanship, many are just happy that he is no longer President, at least officially.

Kabila controls all institutions of the state, from the Judiciary, election commission, military, police and Treasury, and now he has a puppet as President, though this may not last given the reality of power.  

The “selections” in Congo provide yet another example of the demise of elections—as currently done--as a method to choose our leaders. We have seen election theft in Kenya in 2007, 2013 and 2017, as Ken Opala so graphically described in his series of investigative articles on the 2017 elections, which included the IEBC ceding control of its servers to get the results desired.

We saw manipulated elections in Zimbabwe in 2018. We saw the bizarre elections in the US that were affected by Russia, and in which the person with 3 million less votes was declared the winner. And we saw how politicians broke all sorts of laws in the UK’s Brexit referendum, including manipulating turnout, to get the result they wanted. And it goes on and on.

Given all this, why do we bother with elections when results are pre-determined? Why go into all the stresses, costs and tensions, if voting means nothing? And how long will ordinary people continue to accept this charade especially given the high costs of this farce?

We are basically back to the one party state, but with the trimmings of competition that means zilch. In fact, anyone advising candidates may be better off suggesting that their candidate spend time and resources to manipulate the results in whichever way possible, rather than spending time campaigning, canvassing and giving speeches. The only thing to do beyond stealing results is to generate the public relations images of huge crowds—which can be rented and bought—so that it gives some credibility to the fake results.

As we saw in DRC, once results are validated by a court or commission, they are incredibly difficult to reverse formally. It is clear the world has no idea how to react to electoral or civilian coups, so much so that even people who know better eventually go along.

It was almost comical to see Raila Odinga—the classic victim of election theft—rushing to proffer congratulations to Tshisekedi, after this gargantuan electoral theft!

Some years ago, after shepherding the Kenyan peace process following the violence triggered by the stolen elections of 2007, the late Kofi Annan embarked on a process seeking to instill credibility in election processes as part of the doctrine of responsibility to protect. The gist of it was that stealing elections was a common trigger for violence and conflict and should be handled like a military coup. There were even suggestions to make electoral theft a crime against humanity.

Sadly his death has slowed down these discussions at a time the world has changed dramatically, with democracy and democratic space drastically reduced. More and more strongmen are finding their way into power, mostly by means foul, and there is growing intolerance for “others” and against those who disagree and dissent. It is these strongmen, often believing they are God-ordained who are finding all sorts of ways to cling onto power, whether hated, feared or despised, changing constitutions willy-nilly to remove term and age limits so they can rule for life, knowing that being out of power would haunt them for all the crimes they committed whilst in power.

But it is not so easy. While these machinations may indeed prolong--and put into power--people who do not deserve to be in power, history shows us that the consequences can be dire. Just like in the days of the one party states and military regimes, frustrations and anger fester and grow, leading some to see violence and conflict as an option. And sadly that is an option that only sends countries backwards into the dark ages, something which Congo only knows too well.

- The writer is former KNCHR chair. [email protected]