America in good company on elections

President-elect Donald Trump

It’s dishonest, sitting thousands of miles on this God-forsaken side of the Atlantic, to purport to be an expert on American elections and their outcomes. That task is best left to that country’s own scholars, pollsters and political pundits.

They’re some of the best in the trade. And they failed, spectacularly. The crystal ball through which they see and predict such things has been shattered. A torpedo ripped right through the heart of their motherland.

And, they didn’t see it coming. So it’s better to let Americans themselves try to make sense out of what they have done to themselves and seek solutions for their own self-inflicted problem(s).

But from where I sit, the one thing I can confidently speak about is that America’s pet project in Africa since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has died. Africa’s top democracy policeman can no longer play that role. Insofar as the conduct of elections is concerned, there is nothing left for Africa to emulate from America.

And this isn’t because Donald Trump won. It has everything to do with the conduct of the entire election. Specifically, it’s about the candidates and more particularly Trump. I heard this time round America had two bad candidates to choose from. But it’s Trump’s refusal to engage Clinton on policy and recourse to dangerous, high-octane rhetoric that made the 2016 US presidential race ugly.

This whole Trump vs Clinton pantomime was quite African. According to Smithsonian.com, there have been at least four other disputed American elections. But those, I gather, pale in comparison.

To be honest, you can supplant the entire 2016 American presidential race from the campaigns, voting and the aftermath anywhere in Africa, and it’ll pass for an African election.

This isn’t to demean Africa. It’s just that until the events of the new 11/9 America had successfully positioned itself as the leader of the free world and the bastion of democracy.

Africa has never engaged in such pretences. So we’re familiar with the unorthodox things that happen during elections. But the US election has thrown at us things that are hard to take in all at one go. They may need months, even years, of digesting. Some of Africa’s very bad election habits, it would seem, have rubbed off on the US.

Trump made stunning claims of vote-rigging in the lead-up to the polls. He didn’t provide evidence. And, incredibly, no pressure was exerted on him from any quarters to validate them. It’s normal to make unsubstantiated claims of vote-rigging in African elections. In the US, this is simply unprecedented.

Vote-rigging is the basis on which presidential election outcomes in Africa are rejected. This is because the electoral system in Africa is set up to fail. In a manner of speaking, African elections are not won; they’re stolen. Rigging is euphemism for electoral defeat. Gabon, Zambia and Uganda serve as examples of Africa’s most recent disputed presidential elections. Vote theft was the dominant claim in the disputes.

Complete with placard-waving Clinton supporters taking to the streets with anti-Trump chants of ‘Not My President’ and police beating them back with teargas and truncheons, the script is so shockingly familiar. Secondly, in Africa candidates wage divisive and polarising electoral campaigns.

They appeal to the primitive leanings of their ethnic and tribal voting blocs. Trump targeted the atavistic and deeply buried sensibilities of sections of the American society, which they have always kept to themselves.

That’s very African.Thirdly, US President-elect Trump and Republican presidential candidate Trump seem to be two completely contradictory entities. It’s quite confusing which one of the two will be the leader of the world’s most powerful country and biggest economy in the next four years.

Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, campaigned on a platform of isolationism, anti-immigration and shamelessly exploited America’s hidden fears and prejudices against Muslims.

But words such as unity and uniting the country somehow found their way in the acceptance speech of Trump, the US President-elect as it always does with African leaders who win elections after waging divisive and polarising campaigns.

This is all quite cynical because it’s not possible for anyone who wins an election on the platform of ethnic, racial or religious bigotry to unite any country. Interestingly, there are positives in the Trump vs Clinton saga.

Trump has blown apart the myth of establishment candidates and party insiders as being the anointed ones. This is a good thing and an important lesson for those with leadership aspirations in Africa, where life presidents have emerged and dynasties are beginning to take root in some countries.