Unseating incumbents in Africa calls for planning

Outgoing Gambian President Yahya Jammeh

The recent declaration of Ghana’s opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo the winner of the 2016 General Election was received with heightened emotions and discourse on the topic of unseating a head of state in Africa.

Whereas the elections in Gambia that saw Adama Barrow beat Yahya Jammeh, Gambia’s authoritarian president also proved it is possible to unseat an imperial leader, perhaps the departure orders that the electorate handed to Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan through the election of Muhammadu Buhari rekindled this possibility in a wider sense.

While the same phenomenon seems localised in West Africa and has not found its way to East or Southern Africa, it requires a more open debate that is focused on local realities in terms of the configuration of electoral processes, voter grievances and the capacity of the opposition to be well organised to capture power through democratic means. For a start, it has to be acknowledged that current international, regional and national realities at play are dynamic and fluid.

It then follows that planning for an election victory is a high-level enterprise that will pull together a diverse set of professionals; bounty of resources and a multi-disciplinary systems approach. Simply put, it requires not just the ability to mobilise crowds to attend rallies but also to hold in trust voter grievances before the Election Day and direct the same to a landslide victory.

In this context, there are no favourites except a coherent campaign team that works as a whole and not as separate parts.While the argument has been made that the incumbent can rev up state machinery to undertake this delicate assignment, recent elections indicate that state machinery doesn’t work in isolation.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan even managed to postpone the elections but in the end, he couldn’t convert that extension to a sizeable margin. So while state machinery is a likely advantage, one has to be careful how and when the same is deployed.

In dictatorial societies, state machinery has simply provided the canine ability which delivers to the incumbent regime extension, not popular legitimacy.

This being the case, the question arises as to whether opposition victory is tied to incumbent failures and gross abdication of duty.

First, it is possible that given the low appetite for research and evidence based manifesto drafting, most incumbents run with promises that are not specific. Once the reality of power sinks in and variables change, most incumbents fail to communicate effectively with the electorate and this in turn produces a toxic feeling of betrayal of expectations, which can only be expressed on the voting day.

Second, how incumbents handle strategic contingencies- the make-or-break moments during their tenure, will play a major role come voting day.

For Obama, the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the scaling back of US military machinery in Afghanistan and Iraq contributed significantly to his re-election.

On the other hand, one can see how the poor handling of the Chibok girls’ crisis dented Goodluck Jonathan. Third, gross abdication of duty does not just imply truancy or missing in action by an incumbent at a time of grave national importance.

It can also mean failure to provide leadership and even pandering to elite interests at the expense of national interest. South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye is now facing this nightmare after lawmakers in National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to impeach her over a corruption scandal.

While some Presidents in Africa have managed to be re-elected even in the face of sweltering corruption that points to their complicity, one should remember that there comes a time when citizens are simply tired and voting out an incumbent is the only solution for national rebirth.

In all these scenarios, it must be appreciated that the opposition must be better organised to take advantage of the blunders created by the incumbency and fashion a compelling narrative.

One cannot simply cite the cases of Nigeria, Gambia and Ghana without due regard to their internal contexts. It requires a new approach to party leadership and campaign planning. It requires the ability to create simulations and scenarios that will throw the incumbency in a fire-fighting mode.

It requires proper articulation of alternative policy positions. It is possible that the incumbent can use under-hand dealings; intimidation and blackmail at some point. But this should not be an excuse to sit back and cry foul.

Power doesn’t give in easily. Therefore opposition movements should be prepared to fight using constitutionally acceptable means to capture votes. Otherwise, claims of rigging will not suffice with every loss.