SKOLL FOUNDATION

RESEARCHING DEMOCRACY, PEACE AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA

Dr Nic Cheeseman

Director, African Studies Centre

Introduction One of the most pressing questions challenging Africa is how to hold peaceful elections. This is particularly important because African elections have frequently triggered conflict. Staffan Lindberg has estimated that at least 80% of African elections are associated with a serious violent incident that results in a loss of life.1 Since the re-introduction of elections – when? , fierce competition between rival leaders or political parties has been implicated in outbreaks of civil unrest in Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa (in the run up to 1994), Togo, Uganda, Zanzibar,2 to name but a few. This unrest is important for a number of reasons. Most obviously, the human cost of election-related conflict is particularly high. In Cote d’Ivoire, disputed polls and the deliberate exclusion of one of the main candidates led to a prolonged civil war. In Rwanda, the threat that the introduction of elections would result in a loss of power for the established Hutu political elite was one of the factors that led hardline Hutu leaders to engage in the Rwandan genocide, which culminated in the deaths of some 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus. In Kenya, the election crisis which followed disputed polls in 2007 took the lives of over 1,000 people and resulted in the displacement of 600,000 more. The cost of election unrest also extends far beyond the safety and human rights of citizens. During the Kenyan crisis, the closure of key roads and ports undermined the economy of neighbouring states, most notably landlocked Uganda. Kenyan GDP growth fell from 7% in 2007 to 1.5% in 2008. During the period of instability in Cote d’Ivoire, growth was often negative, 3 meaning that the economy actually contracted, undermining economic opportunities for all. During all of these episodes Foreign Direct Investment fell, undermining the capacity of domestic entrepreneurs to access capital.4 My research highlights the conditions under which African elections are likely to lead to violence and what can be done to prevent this. The solutions to electoral violence are particularly relevant to the work of the Skoll Foundation, because many of them involve forms of technological innovation that have been pioneered by social entrepreneurs. For example, efforts to reduce the controversy around elections have focussed on using new

1 Lindberg, Staffan I. Democracy and elections in Africa (JHU Press, 2006), pp. 39-40. 2 The semi-autonomous Island off Tanzania. 3 For example between 2000 and 2002. 4 Figures taken from World Bank Data, available at http://data.worldbank.org (11 March 2014).

technology to reduce the scope for electoral manipulation. Examples include the use of new technology to register voters and to transmit election results from the polling station to the Internet in real time. Strategies to map and reduce conflict have also been inspired by social entrepreneurship, such as the Ushahidi “crowdmapping” project that sought to record cases of election violence in order to promote accountability using only mobile phones, text messages, and a Google map.5 The work that I have undertaken demonstrates the potential for social entrepreneurs to contribute to the promotion of democratic rights. In Sierra Leone, Simeon Koroma co-founded Timap for Justice (Stand Up in Krio) that has set up a network of highly trained paralegals and mediators in order to enable victims of human rights abuses to seek justice. Equally impressive is Crisis Action, which has brought together human rights and humanitarian organizations together in order to empower civil society to act as one in moments of crisis. Such activity promotes long-term democratization by enabling citizens to better resist authoritarian abuses. One area in which there has been a lot of discussion about the potential for social entrepreneurs to make a contribution is around the innovative use of technology, such as the Ushahidi project in Kenya. The opportunities here are exciting, but my work also suggests the need for caution. The case of electoral fraud illustrates this point well. As with the battle between Anti-Doping agencies and corrupt athletes, the struggle between election monitors and corrupt politicians is a dynamic one. For example, while monitors are busy developing new and stronger methods to detect electoral fraud, unprincipled governments are developing new and more sophisticated means of securing an unfair advantage. Under these conditions there is only so much that social or technological innovation can achieve, especially in the case of close elections when the gap between the leading contestants is small. The research context In the late 1980s, it became increasingly difficult for authoritarian leaders in Africa to maintain control. Economic decline undermined the ability of one-party states and military dictatorships to maintain their patronage networks and provide public services. As unemployment rose and economic growth fell, opposition to authoritarian rule became increasingly widespread and vocal. At the same time, indebtedness to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank rendered African leaders increasingly dependent on the support of the international community. When the Cold War ended, and security ceased to dominate the foreign policy concerns of western governments (at least until 9/11), the American and British governments were able to use their leverage to promote democracy in Africa. As a spirit of change swept the continent, new civil society and opposition movements emerged, inspired by the collapse of one-party states in Eastern Europe and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990. The combination of external and internal pressure for reform forced African governments to open up their political systems. As a result, the African political landscape was transformed: between 1989 and 1994, thirty-five sub-Saharan African countries re-introduced multiparty elections, bringing political openings to around five

5 For the story as told by the British media, see The Guardian, ‘Ushahidi: crowdmapping collective that exposed Kenyan election killings’ (7 April 2011), <http://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2011/apr/07/ushahidi-crowdmap-kenya-violence-hague> (16 March 2014).

hundred million people. By 2010, only Eritrea and Swaziland had failed to hold multiparty polls of some kind. The challenge of how to hold peaceful multiparty elections in the context of diverse societies is thus one that now faces the vast majority of the continent. But the political systems that resulted were not straightforward democracies by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, many of them combined elements of democracy, such as the holding of competitive elections, with the hallmarks of authoritarianism, such as human right abuses, tight control of the media, and corruption. 6 My research demonstrates that the amount of progress a country made towards democratic consolidation during this period depended on the balance of power between the domestic opposition, international donors, and the incumbent government.7 In cases in which the existing authoritarian regime was effectively bankrupt, had few international friends, and faced a strong and united domestic opposition, political change could be profound and rapid. This was the story in countries such as Benin and (at least at first) Zambia. However, in cases where leaders had access to vast natural resource wealth, maintained international allies (which of course is all the more likely when a leader has oil or diamonds at their disposal), and faced a fragmented opposition, change could be painfully slow. This has been the story in countries such as Angola, Uganda, and Zimbabwe – and will continue to be the story for some time to come. Unfortunately, the majority of countries followed the latter pathway. By the end of the 1990s, only Botswana, Benin, Ghana, Mauritius, Namibia, and South Africa could be held-up as uncontroversial examples of democratic consolidation. In a larger set of countries, elections continued to be accompanied by human rights abuses and corruption. According to Freedom House, an American think tank that ranks the quality of civil liberties and political rights in every country in the world, the early 1990s witnessed a rare trend: while the introduction of elections meant that the level of political rights in Africa increased, the willingness of many presidents to use extreme coercion to repress new opposition parties meant that the quality of civil liberties deteriorated over the same period.8 This situation forced academics to come up with a range of new terms to describe these “hybrid” regimes, such as semi-democracy, quasi-democracy, electoral-authoritarian and competitive-authoritarian.9 What all of these terms have in common is that they suggest a new form of political system – one in which opposition parties are allowed to contest elections, but with one hand held behind their backs. Why elections trigger civil conflict Democratization is an unsettling process because it introduces intense political uncertainty into fragile and divided societies. Whereas authoritarian rule fixed the identity of the government, multiparty elections introduced greater levels of uncertainty, which in turn transformed the opportunities and challenges facing individuals at all levels of the political system. Incumbents forced to constantly seek re-election became so focussed on retaining power in the short term that many resorted to strategies that threatened the stability of the nation in the long-run. For example, while

6 Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. "The rise of competitive authoritarianism." Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (2002): 51-65. 7 Cheeseman, Nic. Democracy in Africa (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2014). 8 See the Freedom House website, <www.freedomhouse.org> (16 March 2014). 9 Van de Walle, Nicolas. "Africa's range of regimes." Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (2002): 66-80.

leaders often proved adept at using repression and inter-communal mistrust to overcome fractured and poorly resourced opposition parties, the use of such divisive methods typically exacerbated political tensions, encouraged rivals to rebel against the system, and, in the worst cases, drove countries to the brink of civil conflict.10 In countries such as Burundi and South Sudan these processes are occurring in front of our eyes. One of the best examples of how this process has played out over time is Kenya. The Kenyan example is an instructive one, because it highlights the way in which localized violence can over time lead to civil conflict at the national level. It also demonstrates that although violence was more frequently deployed by ruling parties, opposition parties have also resorted to the use of force – especially in cases where it became clear that the sitting government would not allow them to win power through the ballot box. In the Kenyan case, it was leaders from the Orange Democratic Movement who instigated the violence, some of whom now stand accused of committing crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.11 Daniel arap Moi came to power in 1978. When Moi took over the leadership of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and hence the one-party state that had emerged under President Kenyatta, Kenya was known as being one of the most stable polities in Africa. But this changed after Moi was forced to change the constitution to legalize opposition parties after the 1991 Forum for Reform and Democracy (FORD), and international donors began to demand good governance reforms. In order to retain power against a vibrant opposition in 1992 and 1997, Moi’s government organized militias to instigate ethnic clashes to displace opposition supporters and create an atmosphere of intimidation. At the same time, senior Moi allies accelerated their looting of the state in order to fund KANU’s election campaign, leading to the notorious Goldernburg scandal, in which fraudulent claims for export subsidies cost the country 10% of its annual GDP. Moi’s strategy was successful in the short term. He won the 1992 and 1997 elections and only relinquished power in 2002 when presidential term-limits stopped him from contesting a third election. But the consequences of his actions were disastrous for Kenya’s long-term political stability. In an article co-authored with Daniel Branch, I argued that the way that Moi exacerbated ethnic tensions, weakened state institutions, and decentralized control over violence to militia groups, undermined the capacity of the Kenyan state to maintain order.12 The way in which the Moi regime exacerbated ethnic tensions was significant because it increased the stakes of electoral competition and meant that the ethnic communities most effected by the clashes of 1992 and 1997 – the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu – came to associate elections with violence and instability.13 The weakening of state institutions was also important, because by undermining the credibility of crucial components of the political system, such as the judiciary and electoral commission, Moi created a situation in which opposition parties refused to trust them to impartially arbitrate disputes. The

10 This sections draws heavily on 10 Cheeseman, Nic. Democracy in Africa (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2014). 11 Along with leaders from the PNU – equal numbers were investigated on both sides of the political divide. 12 Branch, Daniel, and Nic Cheeseman. "Democratization, sequencing, and state failure in Africa: Lessons from Kenya." African Affairs 108, no. 430 (2009): 1-26. 13 Lynch, Gabrielle. "Courting the Kalenjin: The failure of dynasticism and the strength of the ODM wave in Kenya's Rift Valley province." African Affairs 107, no. 429 (2008): 541-568.

use of militias to carry out acts of violence was of equal importance, because it undermined the state’s monopoly on the use of force, and integrated a number of unaccountable gangs into the heart of the political process. This strategy was not unique to Moi: it has also been used by political leaders in Nigeria, contributing to the current instability in the Niger Delta. During the 2007 elections, these three trends interacted in a way that set Kenya on a path to civil conflict. The 2007 campaign was particularly tense for two reasons. First, it was the closest presidential election Kenya had ever witnessed, and opinion polls gave opposition leader Raila Odinga, and his Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) a narrow lead. Second, the polls pitted Odinga’s broad ethnic alliance against Mwai Kibaki’s predominantly Kikuyu Party of National Unity (PNU). This was problematic because it created the impression that there were “42 tribes against 1”.14 The tensions created by these two developments were more than the political system could bear. As evidence emerged that the elections were being rigged in Kibaki’s favour, Odinga’s allies claimed victory, and the political system began to fall apart.15 It was at this point that the legacy of the Moi era became clear for all to see. Most obviously, the damage that Moi did to institutions such as the legislature and the judiciary enabled Kibaki to appoint allies to key positions, stacking the courts in his favour in case the opposition moved to appeal the election result. As a result, Odinga refused to trust the official process for resolving election disputes, and instead took his supporters to the streets. Less obviously, the devolution of the capacity to use violence against militias undermined the ability of the state to maintain law and order once the campaign of civil disobedience had begun. Many of the leaders and groups that had been deployed by the ruling party in 1992 and 1997 had moved into opposition when Moi and KANU were defeated in 2002,16 and in 2007 threw their weight behind Odinga. As a result, the threat posed by the opposition in 2007 was far higher than in 1992 or 1997. Taken together, these factors led to the “Kenya crisis”. Following the electoral commission’s controversial declaration that Kibaki had won a narrow victory, militias aligned to the ODM attacked individuals assumed to have voted for Kibaki in the Rift Valley. In response, state police brutally repressed opposition protests while gangs associated with prominent Kibaki leaders launched “revenge” attacks against those assumed to have supported Odinga. In the resulting violence over 1,000 people were killed and more than 600,000 displaced. The cycle of violence was only brought to an end in February 2008, when international mediators successfully brokered a power sharing agreement in which Kibaki was allowed to remain as president, but the new post of prime minister was created to accommodate Odinga.17 Since this arrangement was signed, power sharing deals have become increasingly common across the continent, having been deployed in Tanzania (Zanzibar) and Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, it is likely that we will see more cases of power sharing in the future.

14 Cheeseman, Nic. "The Kenyan elections of 2007: An introduction." Journal of Eastern African Studies 2, no. 2 (2008): 166-184. 15 Ibid. 16 In 2002 KANU was defeated by NaRC, which at the time was led by Mwai Kibaki. Odinga was Kibaki’s running mate in 2007, but the two men subsequently fell out over the question of constitutional reform and the creation of the post of prime minister for Odinga. 17 Cheeseman, Nic, and Blessing-Miles Tendi. "Power-sharing in comparative perspective: The dynamics of ‘unity government’in Kenya and Zimbabwe." Journal of Modern African Studies 48, no. 2 (2010): 203-29.

In Cote d’Ivoire a similar story played out, although it is perhaps more accurate to say that the militarization of politics was promoted by all sides. Nonetheless, it was the political marginalization of the north of the country which, combined with the exclusion of a prominent northern candidate, Alessane Outtara, encouraged rebels sympathetic to the opposition to try and overthrow the government by force in 2000.18 The attempt was successful, but conflict split the country down the middle. Later, when President Laurent Gbagbo allowed Outtara to contest the 2010 elections, but subsequently refused to accept his victory, forces loyal to the opposition leader took on Gbagbo’s troops once again, this time removing him from power. Greater uncertainty affected ordinary voters as well as political leaders, because at election time citizens have been faced with the prospect of gaining, or losing, access to resources, often for the first time in a generation. In countries such as Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda, citizens were used to living under governments that had treated government resources as personal largesse to be distributed only to loyal subjects. They therefore came to expect elections to follow a winner-takes-all logic in which defeat condemned communities – often living in dire poverty – to exclusion from desperately needed development resources, state jobs, and government protection. In countries that were already divided, the combination of political uncertainty, irresponsible leadership and fearful electorates meant that elections became synonymous with inter-communal tension and disorder. The more elections that feature violence and instability, the more unsettled citizens become – which is why it is so hard to improve the quality of elections in countries like Nigeria. Of course, there is nothing inevitable about the relationship between multipartyism and violence. Competition induces strains wherever open elections are held; what matters is the ability of a political system to diffuse these pressures. Incumbents constrained by international pressure, independent courts and legislatures, and their own conscience, are likely to allow for free and fair elections, and to accept defeat when it comes. In turn, if opposition parties have confidence that the electoral commission will act in a fair and impartial way, they have good reasons to continue to play by the rules of the game. And if ordinary voters believe that whoever takes office will govern broadly in the interests of all, they are less likely to follow polemical leaders spouting messages of suspicion and hate. It was precisely because so many African leaders were able to resist international pressure, had consistently favoured their own communities in the distribution of resources, and were able to use neo-patrimonial networks to undermine democratic institutions, that violence and electoral competition are so closely intertwined. However, the increasing tension between different ethnic communities in the 1990s was not solely driven by democratization. Three more processes that were not directly related to the reintroduction of elections also served to focus attention on local politics and communal identities. First, the combined impact of economic decline and the retreat of the state undermined the ability of many African governments to meet their citizens’ desire for security and economic opportunities in the 1980s. One impact of these trends was to render ordinary people increasingly vulnerable to forces beyond their control. Peter Geshiere and colleagues have found that one way that individuals living in a variety of different countries and contexts responded to this development was to buy into local sources of identification in which they could find security and a sense of

18 Bah, Abu Bakarr. "Democracy and civil war: Citizenship and peacemaking in Côte d’Ivoire." African Affairs 109, no. 437 (2010): 597-615; Langer, Arnim. "Horizontal inequalities and violent group mobilization in Côte d'Ivoire." Oxford Development Studies 33, no. 1 (2005): 25-45.

belonging, which in turn led them to increasingly emphasise ethnic and family ties.19 This tendency was reinforced by the simultaneous rise of an international indigenous peoples’ movement, which asserted the right of local communities to be compensated for the use of their land, resources, and collective wisdom, and so encouraged ethno-regional groups to more clearly define and defend their own identities.20 Local leaders quickly came to recognize that by demonstrating that their communities were the original or rightful occupiers of a particular area or cultural practice they could establish a monopoly over potential revenue streams. In turn, this focussed attention on who could and could not claim to be a member of a community, and hence on the dividing line between indigenes and settlers. Finally, these two processes were exacerbated by the NGO-ization of aid in the early 1990s, and the subsequent concern of NGOs to demonstrate the projects were ‘locally owned’.21 This focus meant that by proving a legitimate claim to be the appropriate ‘local’ people for an NGO to work through, a community could secure access to considerable international funds. Taken together, these three developments increased the symbolic and economic value of group identities, created incentives for groups to emphasise their differences rather than their similarities, and thus further politicized communal identities. The reintroduction of elections in the early 1990s was therefore only one of a series of interconnected historical processes that complicated ethnic relations. To varying extents these processes continue to be played out across the continent, and are currently being exacerbated by a fourth: decentralization. The principle of devolution is an excellent one: it brings power closer to the people and in doing so enables a more responsive form of government that is better placed to engage with citizens. However, it also focuses attention onto local identities and political cleavages, and this has the capacity to intensify the kind of ethnic tensions described above. It is therefore important to remember that decentralization of the kind introduced in Kenya by the 2010 constitution brings with it challenges as well as opportunities. Although most commentary of African elections focuses on “ethnic” parties and “ethnic” conflict, it is worth noting that election related violence was not always ethnic. In countries such as Zimbabwe, conflict followed party, rather than ethnic, lines.22 But more often than not, political violence had an ethnic component. Even in largely peaceful Ghana, the elections of 2008 exacerbated long-standing tensions over the selection of traditional leaders, leading to clashes in the North and the Volta Region that resulted in a number of deaths.23 But while more than three-quarters of African elections witnessed serious unrest of some form, it often went unreported because journalists and commentators became desensitised to election violence in Africa. As a result, assaults and murders that would have held the front page in Europe or North

19 See Geschiere, Peter. "Autochthony and citizenship: new modes in the struggle over belonging and exclusion in Africa." In Forum for Development Studies, vol. 32, no. 2, 2005, pp. 371-384; Geschiere, Peter. The perils of belonging: Autochthony, citizenship, and exclusion in Africa and Europe. University of Chicago Press, 2009; Geschiere, Peter, and Stephen Jackson. "Autochthony and the crisis of citizenship: democratization, decentralization, and the politics of belonging." African Studies Review 49, no. 2 (2006): 1-7. 20 Dunn, Kevin C. "‘Sons of the Soil’and Contemporary State Making: autochthony, uncertainty and political violence in Africa." Third World Quarterly 30, no. 1 (2009): 113-127. 21 Comaroff, John L., and Jean Comaroff. Ethnicity, Inc. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2009). 22 LeBas, Adrienne. "Polarization as craft: party formation and state violence in Zimbabwe." Comparative Politics (2006): 419-438. 23 Jockers, Heinz, Dirk Kohnert, and Paul Nugent. "The successful Ghana election of 2008: a convenient myth?." The Journal of Modern African Studies 48, no. 1 (2010): 95-115.

America passed without serious discussion. However, while low-level violence was largely ignored, cases of violent democratic collapse made the headlines, most notably in Rwanda in 1994, Kenya in 2008, Zimbabwe in 2008, and Côte d’Ivoire in 2000 and again in 2010, which significantly dampened international enthusiasm for African elections. One lasting consequence of this is that it is becoming harder for NGOs – and I suspect social entrepreneurs – working in and around the topic of democracy assistance to secure funding from traditional sources. The consequences of electoral conflict Social entrepreneurs need to think about elections because of the economic, political and social impact they can have. For example, there is considerable anecdotal evidence that elections negatively impact the economy – even when they do not lead to conflict. This is because the uncertainty around elections that I discussed earlier is as problematic for investors as it is for political leaders and voters. Both domestic and foreign businesses and investors are notoriously risk averse, and political uncertainty considerably increases the risk of entering a new market. To return to the case of Kenya, election years have typically featured lower levels of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and been followed by a period of economic downturn. This was most clearly the case in 2007, but a similar story could be told of the 1992 and 1997 polls. William Easterly and Ross Levine have argued that Kenya is representative of a wider phenomenon on the continent. In an influential (though controversial) account of low economic growth in Africa, the authors argue that the “problem with Africa” is ethnic diversity. They find that more diverse states typically grow at 2% less a year than their less diverse counterparts. One reason for this, they suggest, is that elections in diverse societies are more likely to take the form of winner-takes-all contests in which government spending is used to reward the supporters of the government, rather than to promote development for all.24 Another is that ethnic violence undermines economic growth, not only in in the country concerned, but in neighbouring countries also.25 Moreover, because government spending around elections is typically spent on satisfying the electorates’ short-term needs, it rarely contributes to sustained economic growth. As a result, election years often contribute to short-term inflation but not long-term development. Steven Brock’s important study into elections and economic reform in Africa finds that ‘business cycles are alive and well in the nascent democracies of the developing world’, and documents ‘systematic electorally timed interventions’ in a number of African countries. He argues that what he finds is consistent with what we would see if politicians were intentionally manipulating the economy in an opportunistic attempt to boost their support ahead of elections. Moreover, he concludes that ‘if Africa's increasingly frequent elections are associated with reversals of fiscal and monetary policy reform, there is a potential conflict between political and economic reform.’26 This is bad news for social entrepreneurs who often need investment to get their projects off the ground. Elections are also likely to be bad news for social entrepreneurship projects that rely on ordinary people to invest in a scheme, or to take

24 Easterly, William, and Ross Levine. "Africa's growth tragedy: policies and ethnic divisions." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 112, no. 4 (1997): 1203-1250. 25 Collier, Paul. The Bottom Billion (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). 26 Block, Steven A. "Political business cycles, democratization, and economic reform: the case of Africa." Journal of Development Economics 67, no. 1 (2002): 205-228, 205.

on debt, such as micro-finance projects. The evidence suggests that rising political uncertainty around elections makes citizens more likely to save and less likely to commit to expenditure or debt. A research project that I was involved with that looked at the drivers of entrepreneurship in Nigeria found that people were less likely to start a business, or to invest in a business, when they felt insecure (because, for example, they had been victims of crime or expected electoral violence in the near future).27 Moreover, according to Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong and Thomas Traynor, ‘political instability has a deleterious effect on the savings rate both directly and indirectly through a reduction in investment and economic growth’.28 But although we have sufficient evidence to be able to say that elections have a significant impact on economic performance, we know far less than we need to about how political competition impacts peoples’ everyday lives. In large part, this is due to a lack of data. We do not have information about the economic decisions that consumers make on a month-by-month basis, which makes it difficult to see how the holding of an election changes consumer behaviour. This is where social entrepreneurs can help. The data collected by micro-finance initiatives and the like is likely to be sufficiently fine-grained to reveal when and why individuals change their spending, saving, and investment habits. There is also a problem with macro-economic data, which is often deeply unreliable. Census information is often distorted for political reasons, while basic economic data is often either incomplete or lacks credibility. As Morten Jerven notes in his recent book Poor Numbers, this is not simply an “African” problem.29 Some of the main culprits are the international financial institutions, whose reputations rely on their analysis – and hence their figures – being correct. Jerven argues that precisely because they are so invested in the data which is produced by African states, the IMF and the World Bank have unquestioningly accepted dubious figures resulting in a misleading interpretation of the continent’s economic performance. Of course, it is not all doom and gloom: elections may also have a positive effect. By holding governments to account, and enabling voters to express their support for opposition leaders with different economic ideas, elections may increase the quality of economic policy making over time. This certainly seems to have been the case in Ghana, where both the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the National Patriotic Party (NPP) have competed to demonstrate their economic competence. It is also the case in Mauritius, where electoral competition helped to drive economic reforms including a reduction in red tape and the cost of doing business, which in turn has encouraged high levels of foreign direct investment. Over successive generations, this combination has helped Mauritius to go from being one of the poorest nations in the world to being a middle-income nation. Given this understanding, what academics and social entrepreneurs need to be able to identify is which kind of political system one is dealing with, and what that means for the relationship between elections, economics, and political stability. Research I

27 Alemika, Etannibi. ‘The Consequences of Crime’, CSAE Briefing Papers, <http://www.iig.ox.ac.uk/output/briefingpapers/pdfs/iiG-briefingpaper-21-PublicTrustNigerianPolice.pdf> (12 March 2014). 28 Gyimah‐Brempong, Kwabena, and Thomas L. Traynor. "Political instability and savings in less developed countries: Evidence from Sub‐Saharan Africa." The Journal of Development Studies 32, no. 5 (1996): 695-714. 29 Jerven, Morten. Poor numbers: how we are misled by African development statistics and what to do about it. (Cornell University Press, Cornell, 2013).

conducted with Daniel Paget for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) generated insights into this topic. We tried to determine the factors that encourage the emergence of more “policy based” political systems. Our findings suggest that what matters is whether elections see genuine competition between viable political parties with clear policy proposals which operate within the rule of law.30 In other words, are parties “programmatic” in the sense that they are trying to win votes based on policy platforms rather than clientelism, identity politics and corruption? If so, they are more likely to promote better governance and more effective economic policy over time, even if they generate policy u-turns and artificial business cycles in the process. But if elections are contested by ethnic parties who frequently violate the law and appeal to votes on the basis of divisive populist rhetoric – or feature very low levels of competition because one party dominates the political system – the impact of elections is more likely to be politically destabilizing and economically problematic. Elections and the need for social entrepreneurs The high number of controversial elections and cases of electoral conflict in Africa has led policy makers to look for new ways to prevent electoral fraud and to manage electoral conflict. The search has resulted in the adoption of new forms of technology, and this is where social entrepreneurs have played an important role. New technology has proved to be particularly attractive to both electoral commissions and donors because it is easy to imagine that there is a silver bullet that can make electoral systems “tamper proof”. To some extent this is a fallacy, as I discuss in the conclusion, but it has nonetheless had a significant impact on the way that elections have been organized. A common innovation has been the use of biometric identification software to improve voters’ registers, for example by removing dead voters, which in turn makes it harder to artificially inflate the vote of a candidate. Biometric technology can also be used on polling day itself, to make sure that only those voters who have registered are able to cast their vote. Such technology has recently been used in Ghana and Kenya.31 To date, it has typically been provided by foreign companies and funded by donors, but there is no reason that it cannot be provided by African social entrepreneurs. Indeed, some of the problems that the technology has run into have reflected a failure to appreciate African realities. Most notably, in the Ghanaian election of 2012, a number of voters found that the biometric verification machines used to check voters’ identities could not read their fingerprints. This was because the equipment was not sensitive enough to detect the worn down fingerprints of some agricultural workers, especially in hot and sweaty conditions. Similar technology developed by social entrepreneurs in Africa would have been less likely to commit this most basic of errors. Another recent development has been the use of mobile phones in innovative ways to try and tackle electoral fraud. In Zimbabwe, the opposition MDC deployed party activists armed with mobile phones ahead of the 2008 elections, so that they could take pictures of the presidential election results as they were released at the polling station level. By collating these figures, the party was able to create a parallel set of results that could be compared to those released by the electoral commission. Consequently, the opposition was able to challenge the electoral commission’s claim that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai had only secured 48.6% of the vote, necessitating a run off. However, this

30 Cheeseman, Nic and Daniel Paget. ‘Programmatic Politics in Comparative Perspective’. In Politics Meets Policies (International IDEA) forthcoming 2014. 31 Ofori-Dwumfuo, G. O., and E. Paatey. "The design of an electronic voting system." Research Journal of Information Technology 3, no. 2 (2011): 91-98.

ultimately proved insufficient to secure the MDC a first round victory, and Robert Mugabe subsequently beat the opposition into submission in the second round.32 A similar idea was recently tried in Kenya, where a mobile phone transmission system was established to transmit election results directly from the polling station level to an automatically updated total streamed live on the Internet. The idea was that this system would make it impossible to rig the vote at the counting stage – which is what appears to have happened in 2007 – by instantly transmitting polling station results to a domestic and international audience. This sparked competition between social entrepreneurs to compete to design the most suitable Java application that could be loaded onto mobile phones ahead of the election, in order to enable returning officers to submit the results at the touch of a button – although the contract ultimately went to a private company. Mobile phones have also been used to try and monitor electoral conflict. Indeed, perhaps the best-known example of non-profit social entrepreneurship around elections is the case of Ushahidi Inc, which develops free and open-source software for information collection, visualisation and mapping. Following the onset of the election violence in Kenya in early 2008, Ushahidi made headlines around the world by creating a website (http://ushahidi.com/) that enabled Kenyans to text and email reports of violent incidents. These were then placed on a Google Maps, creating the most comprehensive picture of the location and intensity of the violence, and the way in which it changed over time. This innovative use of crowdsourcing became known as “activist mapping” and the technology has since been used in Chile, Haiti, Russia and Washington D.C.33 As a result, Ushahidi is now recognized as an African pioneer, demonstrating the potential for social entrepreneurs on the continent to find solutions to some of Africa’s problems, and to become world leaders in the process.34 Social entrepreneurs have also innovated to encourage peaceful polls by creating mobile phone games designed to promote mutual tolerance and respect. For example, Afroes (www.afroes.com), a digital content development enterprise committed to designing and delivering a mobile application to inform and educate Kenyan youth, launched Haki: Chaguo Ni Lako (Justice: The Choice is Yours), a game designed with the Tuvuke Initiate for Peace (www.tuvuke.org). The game was intended to encourage dialogue and contemplation by challenging users to reflect on how they choose who to vote for and why. It was deliberately produced to be compatible with both Java and Android platforms so that it could be used on low-capacity phones as well as smart phones. Of course, social entrepreneurship is about far more than technological innovation. Perhaps one of the most successful projects in recent years is Crisis Action, which seeks to coordinate activity in order to force powerful decision makers to act. The great idea of Crisis Action is not to create another advocacy organization, but rather to better coordinate the forces that already exist in order to make them more effective. By only focussing on one conflict at a time, Crisis Action is able to focus attention, and energy, on the most important issue of the day. It has grown rapidly, going from one employee to 30 in the space of eight years. Perhaps the most impressive achievements of Crisis

32 Tsvangirai ultimately withdrew from the second round when the level of coercion made it impossible – and extremely dangerous – for the MDC to effectively contest the polls. 33 In response to earthquakes in Chile and Haiti, winter storms in Washington and wildfires in Russia. 34 Over the last few years Ushahidi has won a number of important awards, including the Global Adaptation Index Prize 2012 and the MacArthur Award 2013.

Action to date include playing a role in securing the first ever UN Security Council Presidential Statement on Burma, and its campaign on the humanitarian disaster in the Central African Republic, which was so influential that it drew a personal response from the coup leader and played a role in forcing European nations such as the UK and France to pledge more money to help those in need. By effectively mobilizing on certain issues, Crisis Action has become a force to be reckoned with. Its strength is not only that it can respond to major crises, but that leaders who know of the organization’s potential my begin to take this it account when planning their next move. In other words, the more effective that Crisis Action is, and the longer time period in which it operates, the more it is likely to encourage recalcitrant regimes not to embrace authoritarian strategies. It is therefore clear that there is a real opportunity for social entrepreneurs to pioneer new technologies and new ways of overcoming coordination problems in order to combat some of the most serious and long-standing challenges facing the African continent today. The limits of technology and the power of coordination It is easy to be seduced by the power and efficiency of new technology, and there are good reasons for social entrepreneurs to continue to acts as pioneers in this area, but it is also important not to overlook its limitations. Technology does not remove human beings from the equation; it simply changes the role that people play in the electoral process. Technology can thus act as a means to control fraud, or an advanced way to commit fraud, depending on the context. A research project I conducted with Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis concluded that political will was essential if new innovations are to function as intended.35 It is thus a fallacy to think that a lack of political will can be overcome by creating evermore clever and effective technology. In reality, the latter depends on the former. The Kenyan elections of 2013 are a good example of the strengths and weaknesses of election technology. Biometric voter registration appears to have resulted in a much cleaner electoral register than in previous elections – even if the ODM alleged that fewer kits were deployed in their home areas, advantaging their rivals. But when it came to polling day, the EVID kits did not work to prevent multiple voting or ID fraud because they failed in over half of all polling stations.36 As a result, the scope for rigging was constrained, but the voting procedure itself remained as open to manipulation as it had been in 2007. Worse was to come. Despite the vast amount of money invested in it, the mobile phone transmission system failed. It now appears that one of the servers simply could not cope with the amount if data it was receiving. The collapse of both the EVID and mobile phone transition system undermined public confidence in the polls. But it was very difficult for the opposition to prove their case because the margin of victory was so small. Many Odinga supporters now believe that he was defeated by a very clever process of electoral manipulation in which the vote of his rival was artificially increased by a small amount in a number of different locations.

35 Cheeseman, Nic, Gabrielle Lynch, and Justin Willis. "Democracy and its discontents: understanding Kenya's 2013 elections." Journal of Eastern African Studies ahead-of-print (2014): 1-23. 36 According to the ELOG domestic election observation team.

37 If this is true, it is hard to see what kind of technological innovation could detect such subtle forms of rigging. Fortunately, the elections passed off peacefully despite the controversy, but this had nothing to do with any improvements in the electoral process, or with the new technology that was introduced. Rather, peace resulted from the formation of a new set of political alliances which brought together former rivals within the same coalition, the deployment of the security forces in unprecedented numbers in areas of potential stability, and the emergence of a pervasive “peace narrative” that effectively delegitimized any opposition activity likely to threaten political stability.38 It is therefore important to keep in mind that while technology and social entrepreneurs have an important role to play in promoting more peaceful electoral processes in Africa, technological innovation is no panacea. It is also important to remember that not all innovation comes from new technology. One of the problems in Africa is not that services and talent does not exist, but that it is not efficiently harnessed for the public good. Many of the most interesting recent efforts to protect vulnerable people and to enable individuals to exercise their rights has come when organizations have sought to coordinate existing organizations and efforts more effectively. Consider Ushahidi – there is nothing particularly advanced about the technology used to map violence in Kenya. It relied on normal mobile phones and a Google map. What was ground breaking was the way in which Ushahidi empowered concerned citizens to act in concert in a way that had not been previously possible. The same can be said of Crisis Action, which has achieved significant results on the international stage by focusing on coordinating the activities of existing NGOs and campaign organizations to far greater effect. The genius of Crisis Action is that it does not attempt to try and reinvent the wheel; rather, like Ushahidi, it has made it possible for concerned groups to act in concert to achieve a common goal. In doing so it has become a major player in the defence of human rights. Coordination is not just critical on the world stage: it is just as important at the domestic level. It may seem to be a long way from the high profile international campaigns of Crisis Action to the work done my Timap for Justice, which seeks to solve justice problems in Sierra Leone, but the principles behind the project are actually very similar. Like Crisis Action, Timap aims to operate “sparingly and selectively” by coordinating paralegals and individuals who need legal assistance in order to address severe cases that carry potential for social or legal impact”.39 Employing over 70 staff across the country, Timap has helped thousands of people by working in the often difficult space between formal and customary legal institutions, seeking to improve both. So far, Timap has been remarkably successful, receiving $1 million from the World Bank in 2006, and being praised by President Carter as an organization that is “not intended to replace existing justice mechanisms, but they can provide alternatives where people’s trust in local justice—formal or traditional—is low and can set a competitive example

37 A number of petitions were brought against the presidential result, all unsuccessful. See Herman, Charles. "The Adjudication of Kenya’s 2013 Election: Public Perception, Judicial Politics, and Institutional Legitimacy." (2013), <http://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/1494/> (14 March 2014). 38 This is the central argument of Cheeseman, Nic, Gabrielle Lynch, and Justin Willis. "Democracy and its discontents: understanding Kenya's 2013 elections." Journal of Eastern African Studies ahead-of-print (2014): 1-23. 39 See <http://www.timapforjustice.org/work/> (2 April 2014).

by operating in professional and transparent ways that invite comparison and improve overall performance". The impact of Timap and Crisis Action demonstrates the value of being able to identify situations in which there is both a need and individuals and organizations willing to respond, but the two have not yet been brought together. This may require new forms of technology, but often it does not. In Zambia, call-in shows on community radio stations are enabling some local communities to complain (or praise) the performance of their MPs and administrators. There are many similar opportunities across Africa today. One of the challenges for the next generation of social entrepreneurs is to find them.