The tyranny of the party, person in Africa

AFRICAN politics throws Western scholars, journalists and other observers into a true vertigo when it comes to how our leaders lead and how the populations participate in being led and governed.

Africans are still seen in the West as marauding mobs that are protesting and fighting in the streets and our leaders appear as warlords that command militias and political gangs. To understand our politics, leaderships and political populations one needs to patiently go to the genealogies and provenances of modern African politics and understand where our political systems and political gamesmanship come from.

Present African political systems are, depending on where one stands; a confusion or complication, of pre-modern, modern and indeed post-modern political orders. Owing to this mixture of confusion and complication of political orders, an individual African leader is partly some kind of king, an important executive and also a pop-celebrity. In encountering one African leader one never knows when they are dealing with a pre-modern monarch whose authority stems from the clans and the tribes, an important modern executive who leads through popular accountability and transparency, or a techno-smart post-modern idol who is on Twitter, Facebook and frequently updates his Instagram.

The political parties, governments and states that are presently the order of politics and administration in Africa are all artefacts and inventions that came with colonialism and modernity in Africa and have continued to change up to the present stage of political regimes that feed on online presence and virtual mobilisation technologies. The era of political post-modernity does not mean that Africans have abandoned clannism, nativism, tribalism and familism in their political leadership and followership; it is for that reason that African elections from Ghana to Congo and from Angola to Mali frequently become ethnic censuses where the leader from the biggest clan and tribe becomes the popular leader. Patrimonial rule, Personal rule and Big Men rule still have a many-handed octopul grip of the political life of the African continent, and this is in spite of our varied pretensions to democracy and modernity.

In this short article I posit to treat the subject of the evolution of the political party and that of person of the leader in African politics and administration. It is my principal argument that our political parties and leaders in Africa, in ruling parties and their oppositions, are a product of a confused and also complicated mixture of the primordial, modern and post-modern political traditions. The Political Party in Africa the fathers of Pan-Africanism and nationalism, ideologies that were the political oxygen of African liberation movements. The communists from Eastern Europe brought military training, guns and socialist ideology to Africa and its political parties. Eventually the political party in Africa also became an ideological school and also a mass mobilisation tool. Strict rules and regulations, that is what is called “the party line” emerged, cadres and members of the party were to tow the party line or be disciplined, punished and sometimes be eliminated as sell-outs or traitors. Violence as a means of discipline and punishment came with the guerilla armies that reproduced and imitated the violence of colonial regimes, facing danger and death in the bushes and forests, guerillas became dangerous people in turn.

The vanguards of the party became the educated and elite custodians of the ideology of the party who were also instructors for the masses that were led by rearguards, the leaders among the led. The political party in Africa, in its mixture of nationalist, Pan-Africanist, communists and sometimes also fascist ideologies became a monstrous organisation that had its mind, it’s “line” and could be very violent and punitive. Slowly, education and ideological consciousness began to replace royal blood as entitlement to leadership. The mission educated elite became the new kings and chiefs that were trusted with leadership as they could navigate their way through colonial administrations. For that reason, most early African political leaders were reverends, teachers and mission educated clerks, “omabhalane” who were articulate speakers and proficient writers. These elite Africans used their privilege of modern education, literacy and numeracy, as entitlement to political leadership of the parties. They became a unique and powerful race of their own that stood in between the white man and the native.

These fellows were not necessarily democrats and liberators of their people but some opportunists and Smart Alecs that just became the right people at the right place in the right time. It is for that reason that most unlucky African countries ended up having some very interesting and amazing personalities as their leaders. Because of the early prominence of tradeunionists, reverends and teachers in the leadership of African political parties, up to today the African political parties are partly churches and schools in their form and content. The political leader is allowed to carry himself like a preacher and a teacher and his opinions can be treated as gospel or wisdom. The party leader becomes an unquestionable high priest and followers in their wisdom and opportunism rush to create a cult around him, and now and again, he can behave like a pre-colonial monarch whose word is law.

The rise of the personal ruler in Africa became powerful and were venerated. They could shout at the white man in his language and plead with their own people in the mother tongue. Kwame Nkrumah exemplifies this class of politicians that mixed the modern and the traditional in terms of politics and leadership, they made the white man know that they were representatives and ambassadors of the masses of Africans while they also made the masses aware that they were as modern and powerful as the white man, and so did they claim their fame. These leaders became the country and the country was them, it is no accident why, the philosopher, Kwame Nkrumah’s personal biography is titled; Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah. Nkrumah accepted such names as: Man of Destiny, Star of Africa, Teacher and Author of the Revolution, Deliverer of Ghana, and some postmodern monikers as “Show Boy” and “Iron Boy” etc. When he appeared to the masses clad in an elegant tailor-made suit Jomo Kenyatta was the “Burning Spear” that had become a white black man. When he approached the white courts with a leopard skin hat and a ceremonial stick Kenyatta was a true native king and ambassador. Joseph Mobutu, the journalist, was “The Guide” while Kamuzu Banda the medical doctor was the “Ingwazi” of his people. These leaders built their massive power and authority with premodern notions and symbols of a ruler that they combined with claims of modernity such as advanced education and elevated oratory.

The masses could not contest these gifts on any rational grounds they just had to follow the leaders and worship the ground that the rulers walked on. Personality cults and patronage networks flourished around the leaders who were, not in name, but in actuality monarchs.

The benevolent dictators (even malevolent ones) of Africa came from this class of politicians. Democratic elections became a ritual that was meant to earn the leader and his party international political legitimacy and not to get the political consent of the masses. Most African political parties and their leaders aspired for the one party state and the life president model of political leadership where opposition political parties were suffered as a real nuisance. Thanks to that history, most African countries remain in the shadow of the party-state and person-state under a strong ruler and his political party.

Navigating the party and the person In most ruling and opposition political parties of Africa, the political cultures are the same, party and personal rule remain intact. Once one is elected or appointed leader, that person immediately becomes a kind of monarch and choirs of praise singers, defenders and loyalists crowd around him and turn him into a deity. In the process, even the humblest and most wellmeaning of African politicians are immediately turned by their supporters into tin-pot tyrants. Patronage networks, popularly known as factions, are formed by followers and leaders join them. In a way, African political followers tend to corrupt political leaders, turning national leaders into tribal leaders and party leaders into faction leaders, making African countries and the continent the biggest losers.

Decolonising African politics will entail changing political cultures of followership and navigating the tyranny of party and personal rule to instil rule by ethics of popular consent.

Democracy will remain a pipe dream as long as the party line and the personal line of the individual leaders remain non-negotiable in Africa.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Pretoria, South Africa:decoloniality2016@ gmail.com