Root causes of political instability in Africa

Solly Rakgomo | Monday July 31, 2023 06:00

There is no more critical variable than governance, for it is governance that determines whether there are durable links between the State and the society it purports to govern.

The nature of governance is central because it determines whether the exercise of authority is viewed as legitimate. Legitimate authority, in turn, is based on accepted laws and norms rather than the arbitrary, unconstrained power of the rulers.

Governance also has an important regional dimension relating to the institutional structures and norms that guide a region’s approach to challenges and that help shape its political culture.

Bad governance encompasses a variety of situations from corruption, deceit and to passing of unfair policy. From this, it can be noted that different manifestations of bad governance can vary in severity and the potential impact in their respective setting. In addition, bad governance is a phenomenon that is centralised around the idea of not only corruption within a system but a lack of transparency and accountability, arbitrary policy making and the cheating of those who are governed.

Governance problems on the continent of Africa revolve around the management of states, resulting from the inability of many leaders to properly manage economies, diversities and political inclusion. This leads to a loss of trust in state institutions (if at all they exist) and in their capacity to execute basic functions, particularly the provision of the public good.

In other words, poor governance fails to address the issues of political exclusion and economic marginalisation. This, in turn, has a negative impact on social progress, particularly in contexts where there are no social safety nets provided by the government. Corruption in Africa has become institutionalised, and, in most cases, the political elite are at the centre of all the corrupt deeds. Corruption and bad governance often go hand in hand. Corruption can be seen in various settings, from governmental to economic. T

he presence of corruption-related crimes within a governing body leads to poor governance because officials and the political elite prioritise their interests over others. In many African countries, corruption-related crime impacts social services, such as health care and education, and law enforcement authorities, such as the police who are in most cases involved in acts of extortion from the poor and vulnerable citizenry. Besides corruption, bad governance manifests itself through authoritarian style of political leadership where State security agencies are often unleashed to squelch any dissenting voices of those who advocate accountable political leadership that is transparent and adhere to the rule of law. Authoritarian leaders are fond of trampling on institutions that are supposed to create oversight that are meant to provide checks and balances on political leadership. This is in addition to changing constitutions to extend presidential terms in office as well as manipulating electoral processes thus creating a very toxic political climate during elections.

Joseph Seegle tells us that when poor governance entrenches itself within a government, there would be those concerned citizens who will start questioning the legitimacy of the political leadership. In most cases those questioning the legitimacy of the leadership are the socio-economically and politically marginalised people with a plethora of local grievances. It is common for insurgent groups to emerge from this situation and engage in acts of violence in an attempt to topple the leadership that is insensitive to their socio-economic plight. Terrorist groups also take advantage of governance-development deficit to radicalise and recruit socio-economically marginalised people thus causing political instability.

All in all, the lack of legitimacy and accountability due to poor governance are at the root of many of Africa’s armed conflicts, reflecting an inability of these political systems to accommodate participation, contestation, and power sharing. In other words, there is a strong link between poor governance and political instability. The link between conflict and governance is a two-way street. Weak or destructive governance is sometimes the source of conflicts in the first place. This can happen in several ways. In the thankfully rare cases where national governance breaks down completely (in this case South Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic), its absence is an invitation to every ethnic or geographic community to fend for itself—a classic security dilemma.

It is frustratingly disturbing that in many cases when violent conflict evolves along ethnic lines due to inept attitude and political rascality of some African leaders, it is wrongly labelled ‘ethnic conflict’ as if ‘caused’ by ancient hatreds. In reality, it is more often caused by bad governance and by political entrepreneurs. Poor leadership can result in acts of commission or omission that alienate or disenfranchise geographically distinct communities and these are bad for political stability.

Governance challenges facing various countries on the continent are a result of political leaders with total disregard for institutions that are meant to constrain undue excess from political leadership. This then raises questions about how to address countries’ structural vulnerabilities to prevent generalised and protracted instability from taking root in Africa through good governance where there is strong presence of strong institutions not strong men.

African governance frameworks such as the African Governance Architecture, as well as governance tools developed at the level of regional economic communities, are important normative tools to help deal with governance issues on the continent. However, instead of being mere ‘nice to have’ documents, they should be domesticated and implemented effectively. There should also be efforts to devise new ways to address challenges around the governance of elections.