Africa is urbanising fast – and its
Expanding cities will fundamentally change politics on the continent
In August, Ugandan musician turned independent politician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, better known as Bobi Wine, went to campaign on behalf of Kassiano Wadri, another independent leader who was contesting a byelection in the Arua municipality.
Wine’s aim was to use his own popularity to help a like-minded colleague into power — and in the process deal a symbolic blow to the regime of President Yoweri Museveni.
During the election, Wine’s energy, charisma and message resonated with those who have grown tired of Museveni’s 31-year rule and are impatient for change. Fearful of Wine’s growing support base and influence — which was confirmed when Wadri won the seat — the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government detained and tortured him.
Some commentators have described this crackdown as an unnecessary overreaction and asked why Museveni was willing to attract so much international criticism over a by-election for a Parliament that his party dominates. The answer is that it was not the Arua municipality by-election that was keeping Museveni up at night.
His concerns have much deeper roots, namely that urban areas overwhelmingly support the opposition, and this trend is likely to be exacerbated by Wine’s emergence as a national player.
The NRM’s lack of popularity in towns and cities has not mattered that much up to now, because Uganda is a predominantly rural country and so the president did not need urban votes to stay in power. But as the country urbanises, and as the government seeks to contain public dissatisfaction with Museveni’s transformation into a “president for life”, the strong urban support for the opposition is becoming a greater threat. When old ways of maintaining power become less effective, the government will have to use other tactics to get the job done — which will probably result in an even greater reliance on brute force.
Significantly, this is not just a Ugandan story — instead, the case of Wine reflects broader trends across the continent. Africa is urbanising fast, and as it does so its politics is likely to change in five important ways.
1) End to ‘rural bias’
In the 1960s, when colonised countries became independent, Africa was an overwhelmingly rural continent. In the 1990s, when multiparty politics was reintroduced, it was still heavily rural. But by 2040, most Africans will live in urban areas. The speed of this change is remarkable. According to data from academic and author of Party Politics and Economic Reform in Africa’s Democracies Anne Pitcher: “Africa is the continent where urbanisation has grown fastest since 1990” and 21 of the world’s 30 fastest growing cities are on the continent.
The long-term effect of these trends on everyday politics will be far reaching. At present, governments know that they can win elections on the basis of rural votes, and so they target many of their policies at the rural electorate. As a result, the reintroduction of elections has typically made a bigger difference to rural voters than urban ones.
Research by academic and author of Attribution and Accountability: Voting for Roads in Ghana Robin Harding, for example, has shown that in more democratic countries like Ghana the introduction of multiparty politics had a more positive effect on the delivery of services and the standard of living in rural areas than it did for those residing in towns and cities.
But this picture will change as the urban electorate grows. Governments will increasingly have to secure urban votes to stay in power, and this will make them much more sensitive to the needs of those in urban areas, from slum dwellers to office workers.
2) More difficult to rig elections
Although some governments use services to cultivate rural support, others use intimidation and coercion. Because rural voters typically have less access to information, are more dependent on government patronage and are more influenced by traditional leaders, they are easier for ruling parties to bully into submission.
At the same time, government control of rural constituencies, and the fact that it costs more money to campaign in areas where people are more spread out, means that opposi-