We, old men, always feel uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb – a saying I took lightly in my younger days, but which I understand better now that I am officially an old man. So even if I speak generally, some sensibilities might be slighted! Just thought, though, that I’d help you take a sneak peek behind the curtains and tell you how presidential races play out in sub-Saharan Africa, otherwise called Black Africa.
But before that, I thought it’d be a good idea to point out that, for the record, this is the first presidential race, under the 1995 Constitution, where every contestant is flying a party flag. In the 1996 and 2001 elections, candidates ran on individual merit under the so-called ‘Movement Political System’, which is best described as a fraud, perfected into an art form, and worthy of patent. We’re talking about an elaborate charade, codified into law, and celebrated as reform.
A carefully – and dubiously – choreographed illusion, elevated to statecraft, and marketed as a democratic virtue and political system. In short, the Movement system was a masterclass in political sleight of hand, refined into a part-science-part-art, and paraded as a Ugandan speciality and its initiator – whose name I can’t recall just now – was celebrated as a national genius of rare proportion. Yawn, yawn, pass the salt! So, what should a keen eye look for in this election? Where you have a despotic or fascist government, the challenge usually comes in the form of how to present itself as a proper, democratic outfit to position itself as a good corporate citizen of the international community.
On the whole, it is common practice in Black Africa to have stooge candidates. These are candidates planted in order to give the election credibility, to give an otherwise despotic government a broad, democratic outlook.
This is good diplomacy: a classic example of statecraft aimed at signalling pluralism while retaining control. A tactical exercise in political façade and regime stabilisation. This is an instance of performative democratisation designed to secure both domestic and international legitimacy.
Stooge candidates are less about competition than choreography-carefully staged to sell the illusion of democracy while delivering political mileage to the regime.
Stooges may not have any particular merit worthy of note; but as long as they are in the contest, the ruling party will point to them and tell the whole, wide world, ‘See? This is a competitive democracy; people are free to do as they like – they even challenge the president!’ Then there will be the spoiler candidates: strategically positioned by dominant parties to fragment Opposition support and influence overall vote distribution.
Their presence in the election has, therefore, nothing to do with winning it; they are strategic to the ruling party because they split the Opposition vote and, therefore, make it impossible for the leading Opposition candidate to gain traction.
Candidates like that do not have mass appeal on a national scale, but they will be strong in certain parts of the country where the incumbent is not guaranteed a great performance. They are therefore in it, not to win it, but to spoil it by muddying the waters for the leading Opposition contenders. This tactic reflects a calculated approach to vote management, where additional candidates are introduced to dilute competing blocs.
Candidates like that will have lots of unexplained money during the campaign… and even more after the ruling party candidate has been sworn in. That brings me to the third category: the salesmen. Purely commercial candidates.
They treat elections the way traders treat market stalls: set up shop, display some posters, and wait for the highest bidder. Winning the vote is rarely the goal; cashing out is. Salesmen will, at a critical point, withdraw in favour of some candidate.
For them, democracy is just a bazaar where the ballot paper is not a covenant with the people but a receipt for services rendered. The salesmen see elections not as contests of ideas but as auctions of opportunity. They enter the ballot not to lead the people, but to invoice the process.
In their hands, candidacy is less a calling than a commodity-bought, sold, and withdrawn at the right price. For the salesman, politics is simply business conducted under the cover of democracy. So, good people, take a good, long look at those eight…