President Denis Sassou Nguesso courted controversy earlier this year by announcing plans to
rewrite his country’s 2002 constitution, which he himself was in charge of drafting following Congo’s bloody civil war.
Congo-Brazzaville’s two-term president was accused by opposition figures and civil society activists that he has no intention of stepping down from power as legally required, but plans instead to remove term limits and join Africa’s club of ‘perpetual incumbents’. Indeed, nine other African countries led by presidents that are reaching the limits of their terms are slated to organize presidential elections between 2015 and 2017. All of them have announced plans to overstay their welcome in the presidential palace, giving birth to a worrisome trend in Africa’s fight for democracy.
However, democracy pundits would be wise to refrain from shortsighted generalizations. After all, Africa is not a country, but a continent 3 times the size of the United States with 54 different countries that hold together a population rivaling that of China’s. African ethnic groups number in the thousands, each endowed with a specific language, set of traditions and beliefs that have been conducive to a particular historical outcome.
While rarely making it to the headlines of the West’s major news agencies, Congo-Brazzaville’s recent constitutional conundrum has shone a very bright and critical light on one of Africa’s most ignored countries. It’s high time we examine the significance of this development.
Window-dressing democracy ?
Like most countries in Africa, Congo is an ethnic melting pot, with the country’s Kongo ethnic group dominating the spectrum. However, the vast majority of the population is Christian, offering a common thread that has kept the population together, preventing a conflict similar to the one that has been plaguing the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Political institutions also played an influential role in staving off a devastating civil war that erupted in the wake of Brazzaville’s first multi-party elections in 1992, which saw the ouster of the country’s longtime president Denis Sassou-Nguesso and the arrival of Pascal Lissouba. However, the country’s democratic progress was derailed in 1997, as Congo was gearing up for its second democratic presidential elections. After Lissouba’s camp surrounded Sassou Nguesso’s compound in what was largely deemed as a hostile attack on the future presidential candidate, a four-month bloody conflict began, dividing the country along ethnic lines, pinning the North against the South. In October of 1997, the southern supported Lissouba government fell and Sassou Nguesso took reins of the interim government pending elections.
Under Sassou Nguesso’s rule, an emergency constitution was drafted to ensure the stability of the nation, giving the presidential office far reaching powers to prevent a new descent into chaos. The move was in part due to the fact that sub-Saharan Africa has known a string of ethnic conflicts that have started following multi-party elections. Indeed, sacrificing security in the name of democratic elections is a wager that not all societies are ready to make. The President went on to win the subsequent two disputed presidential elections in 2002 and 2009, which were conducted without violence and no further security threats.
As the specter of sectarian violence no longer looms large over Congo Brazzaville, the outdated 2002 constitution appears to have run its course, which is precisely why Sassou Nguesso has set forth a roadmap for its imminent retirement. The president’s plan is to put an end to the sweeping powers of the presidential office and steer the country towards a parliamentary system by recreating the Prime Minister’s office and endowing the Parliament with more powers to set and control the legislative agenda.
Of course, since the current constitution prevents the president to serve more than 2 terms, Congo’s political opposition has jumped on the occasion to call Sassou Nguesso’s move as nothing more than a pretext to stay in power. After all, African presidents from all across the continent are famous for such moves. In fact, Sassou Ngusso was compared to Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, who was ousted by the population after making a similar attempt in November 2014.
But we should take note that African countries are not all the same and shouldn’t be thought of as being identical in terms of tendencies, causalities and, most importantly, political destinies. Using blanket statements, such as “Africa needs [insert modifier here]“ is not just reductionist, but is also misguided as it assumes that there is a one size fits all policy that would work throughout the Continent, north to south, east to west.
Similarly, using a political framework rooted exclusively in Western values, or in the policies that have “worked” in the West, is guilty of assuming that Africa’s needs, desires and experiences are compatible. Over the last hundred years, Africa’s political culture has evolved in leaps and bounds but nonetheless remains stuck in a transitional phase. From colonial rule, to a period of formal de-colonization characterized by the East/West bloc logic of the cold war, to the hosting of the first rounds of multi-party elections leading to transitions of power, Africa’s path to democracy has been marked by dramatic outbursts of violence, civil wars and genocides at the hands of bloodthirsty dictators and their enemies.
Congo Brazzaville’s forthcoming constitution is unlikely to be part of some sinister plot to keep the ageing Sassou Nguesso (he’s 72) in power. According to one of his advisors quoted in the France’s leading newspaper, Le Monde, “at his age, [Sassou Nguesso] no longer aspires to lead Congo, or to manage minor political conflicts. He sees himself in an international position. For example, participating in the regional integration of the Congo basin”.