Trade Unions and Sustainable Democracy in Africa

Gerard Kester, Ousmane Oumarou Sidibe

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138390324
• eBook ISBN: 9780429751899
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Labour Economics
• Index: Economics

First published in 1997, this volume sets out to open a dialogue with the trade union movement and its social partners including civil society, political leaders and the scientific community. The authors, all of whom work closely with APADEP, have drawn on their personal experience and have been guided by a simple, yet flexible, theme: trends in the last few decades in their countries, with the emphasis on transition over the last five years. Part I consists of an overview of sub-Saharan Africa based on selected documentation. Part II is given over to an analysis of the specific situations obtaining in ten African countries in different geographical and language areas. Each case study provides its own democratisation scenario.

Part I

Trade Unions, Democracy and Development

Sub-Saharan Africa is made up of a large number of countries. They each have their own history, culture, society and economy. In trade union terms, they each have their own separate issues - but there are common issues as well.

Part I of this book opens up a general discussion on the trade union movement and democratisation in sub-Saharan Africa. This discussion takes its inspiration from research conducted in ten African countries set out in Part II, and from general literature on the subject.

What role has the trade union movement played in the establishment of political democracy? Surely a bigger role than one has been led to believe. And what influence has it had on the structural adjustment of the African economy? Probably less than one would have liked.

The fourth and last chapter in Part I examines the potential role that African trade unions have in making democracy sustainable. It is a provocative chapter because the trade union movement has reached its meeting-place with history just as it is having to cope with some serious problems of its own. If trade unions are unable to democratise the economy, can democracy itself survive?

1 Trade Unions, It’s Your Turn!

GÉRARD KESTER AND OUSMANE OUMAROU SIDIBÉ

Africa had been preparing the ground for major change for many years when structural adjustment and its stablemate, neo-liberalism, came onto the scene in the early 1980s. They have dominated the continent’s economic and social development ever since. Economic reform may have been long overdue, but these two have made their combined presence felt with quite unmistakeable force. Suffering has increased and the debts have piled up, and privileges have continued to be showered on a tiny élite who seize the property of the State claiming that they can manage it better themselves. Open protest has been relatively muted, but this has been mainly due to the tanks that dictators have sent onto the streets: the people’s sense of injustice has certainly been deep-seated enough. Finally, the end of the Cold War gave neo-liberalism the extra boost it needed, and provided a justification for unrestrained capitalism.

Hopes soared once again when ‘democracy’ became the new principle underpinning the organisation of change, and most of the people who poured onto the streets to call for democracy did so because they were weary of bad management, nepotism, embezzlement of public funds and a failure to observe human rights. This intensification of popular pressure indicated that people no longer had confidence in the State. Demonstrations, too, revealed that people were aware of the issues, and were keen to demonstrate their ability to do whatever was necessary to survive, to make their voices heard, and to be involved in decision-making - even if there were others who found it discomfiting (Sidibé et al, 1994: 83).

Democracy in Africa: a brief history

It is not our intention here to recount the great debate that has surrounded democracy; there is an abundant literature on the subject of democratisation in Africa, and it is to this that the reader should refer (see Bibliography). Instead, we shall confine ourselves to some comments that are particularly relevant to this study.

Africa has a long and varied history of democracy. Indeed, we have preceded this chapter with a quotation of Nelson Mandela that expresses the best in a wholly African tradition, even though it cannot be applied to the entire continent. In some pre-colonial African States such as the Ghana, Mali and Songhoi Empires, people exercised their sovereignty through representatives appointed according to strictly enforced rules. Even sovereigns themselves were assisted by assemblies designated in accordance with well-tried mechanisms. At the level of more scattered units such as villages, direct democracy was also exercised through the arbre à palabre, or ‘palaver tree’, a form of open, undiluted democracy still to be found in francophone Africa.

It would be a mistake to paint too romantic a picture of participative democracy in pre-colonial Africa. The substantial literature on the subject boasts a wide variety of viewpoints ranging from the positive to the cynical (see Buijtenhuis et al, 1993). There is also an impressive range of African political systems, but there is no hiding the fact that nearly all of them excluded women and slaves from their decision-making structures (Codesria, 1992: 15-16).

The confiscation of freedoms

The one-party interlude - in which one man, as Head of State, wielded total power by combining the Presidency of both the government and the single party - is not a throwback to pre-colonial days. On the contrary, it is in many ways a consequence of the hiatus filled by colonisation. Indeed, the first three decades of independence in African countries were marked by a shameful lack of democracy and the confiscation of freedoms.

During this period, trade unions - usually single organisations covering an entire country - were centralised, they had to pledge their allegiance to the single party and operated as an instrument for keeping workers in check. Young people and women were similarly organised into monolithic organisations similarly attached to the party. Even in countries like Côte-d’Ivoire which openly took their inspiration from economic liberalism, economies were planned and extensively nationalised.

As a result, a deep chasm opened up between the people and their leaders, the latter revealing themselves incapable of comprehending the problems of the former, let alone find solution to them.

Military régimes were also unable to fulfill promises that they would inject a note of morality into public life and the management of public affairs; in the end, they exhausted the good will of their people, whose hopes had evaporated as a result of corruption, nepotism and the confiscation of freedoms. A deepening of the economic crisis also caused this general discontent with ruling political régimes to crystallise.

From the 1980s onwards, African governments were forced to agree Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) with international funders. The social consequences of these programmes were dramatic and governments gradually lost control; in particular, SAPs undermined the social bases that governments had in the towns and cities. Factors that combined to swell the numbers of the excluded in urban areas included early retirement schemes in the public sector, massive lay-off programmes in public enterprises and a shortage of jobs for many young graduates. This expanding army of excluded found new hope in an opposition organised within political associations that were mostly illegal, but which were beginning to demonstrate increasing support for urban revolt.

The turning point

The growing discontent orchestrated by well-structured organisations fed into the movement then promoting democratisation, but we should not underestimate the impact of events taking place in eastern countries, or of positions adopted by external partners; all of these factors acted as catalysts for democratisation. For example, in ‘From Crisis to Sustainable Development’ (1989), the World Bank stated that political legitimacy and consensus were essential conditions for sustainable development in Africa; the Bretton Woods Institutions, too, were convinced that democracy provided an environment favourable to economic development, and Mauritius and Botswana were held up as examples for other African countries to follow. Then, in 1990, at the La Baule Summit, the French President, François Mitterrand, announced his intention of linking development aid to democratisation in African countries; finally, in 1991, the idea was adopted by USAID after the US Congress directed that progress towards democracy should be taken into account when granting aid.

Many African countries, to a greater or lesser extent - and with varying degrees of fortune - committed themselves to a process of democratisation. However, it all happened in a climate marked by a radicalisation of internal demands and external pressure for more democracy and freedoms, and these pressures were given an extra impetus by the end of the Cold War.

Some countries, including Benin, Zambia, Malawi, the Central African Republic, Congo and South Africa, achieved peaceful transformation, while others underwent more violent change. An example of the latter was Mali where democratic transition was only achieved in the wake of several insurrections and a military coup d’état.

For many countries, such as Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Togo and Cameroon, the democratic opening was largely controlled after elections led to the re-installation of groups that had previously held power; these elections were often notable for their lack of transparency. Some countries, like Zaïre and Chad, are still engaged in transitions that never reach a conclusion, or else they have totally rejected a real democratic opening (Nigeria, Sudan and, to a lesser extent, Kenya). Others are in a state of civil war and are still searching for peace (Angola, Somalia and Liberia) or are attempting to consolidate it (Mozambique). Finally, we must not forget Rwanda and Burundi where the democratising process has caused a major ethnic conflict leading to genocide in Rwanda, and making the whole issue of democratisation much more complex.

Anger

The type of democracy that Africans have chosen is close to the European model, that is to say it is a political system that allows the people to elect their leaders freely and ensures a separation of powers and executive control. A system of this sort also incorporates respect for individual and collective freedoms, and the existence of counter-powers such as a free press and a strong civil society.

In a brilliant exposition, Mafeje has developed the idea that Africa has borrowed the vocabulary of democracy from Europe, with the caveat that these words only become functional if they are structured by a common grammar (Mafeje, 1995). It was, in his view, ‘folly’ to try and transplant elaborate democratic systems developed across 200 years of history in a specific historical climate. The debate on democratisation in Africa has, in many places, given a new dimension to Afro-pessimism. Intermediary assessments of democratisation are often negative (see Lemarchand’s summary, 1992), and indicate big differences between African countries.

In his summaries of progress on democratisation in 15 francophone countries, Monga uses a large number of criteria to measure the democratic ‘design’ and, above all, the implementation of the concept of democracy; his conclusion is that the prospects in most countries are gloomy (Monga, 1995: 63 ff). The fragility of democracy is all the more striking if one recalls the fact that, only months before the military coup d’état in Niamey, Monga’s ‘democratic classification’ had Niger in second place, and only just behind Benin.

More interestingly and more hopefully, however, the advent of democracy has opened the floodgates to a tidal wave of ideas, proposals, theories and actions. Democracy has come under the close scrutiny of the intellectual world, of women, of politicians and the public at large; all acknowledge that its present form is only a beginning, and that democracy needs to be adapted to African realities.

‘For Africans,’ writes Monga in his captivating ‘Anthropologie de la colère’ (Anthropology of Anger), ‘it is all about reappropriating words that have been confiscated for too long by the official institutions of power’ (Monga, 1994: 99). ‘How can we manage the collective anger and, behind the façade of an informal civil society, prevent it from degenerating into some sort of anarchistic cacophony? How can we restore the credibility of the State by simultaneously bolstering the structures of “private” society?’ (ibid: 117). The challenge is to develop a form of democracy that meets African needs in an African context, and which varies from one country to the next. The thirst for democracy must be translated into an appropriate form; the vocabulary is in need of a grammar. Democracy is not simply System X or System Y; it is a dynamic phenomenon (‘A developmental concept’, Sklar, 1987). African countries have not yet rooted themselves irreversibly in democracy. The nascent movement is undermined by too many factors; one of them is the need simply to survive in a harsh economic climate. To achieve that alone, enormous sacrifices will have to be made.

Democracy and development

Democracy has made huge strides in Africa during the last five years, but sadly the concluding years of the 20th century have also been marked by a persistent decline in African people’s living conditions. The coincidence of these two facts has revived the debate on the nature of the relationship between democracy and development. However, the debate is now even more critical as this catastrophic fall in living conditions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) simply cannot be tolerated; a still burgeoning democracy still needs urgent support. Many commentators have remarked that any debate on democracy that excludes economic issues completely misses the point. As Newbury has pointed out:

‘… rural dwellers in Africa and the urban underclasses want more than social peace, due process in the judicial system and political accountability. They hope for justice, as well as legal order; they want improved opportunities to feed their families and educate their children, as well as the opportunity to vote for one or another elite. Authoritarian regimes are being rejected because for the most part they have failed to meet these needs; democratic regimes will be judged (in the popular mind) on their ability to respond to such concerns.’ (Newbury, 1994: 2)

Before we move on to the question of whether development is a necessary condition for democracy, or whether democracy should precede development, let us first be clear about what we mean by development. In our view, all development must be sustainable development; in other words, it must lead to an improvement in the physical and moral well-being of the population who, in addition to preserving the environment, must participate both in the production and distribution of the profits of that production, and in the transparent management of the State and the rule of law.

This definition implies a distinction between economic growth and development, and these days we use Human Development Indicators as well as per capita GDP to describe a country’s level of development; these usefully illustrate the limitations of economic growth as a criterion for identifying the well-being of a country’s inhabitants. Otherwise, even if the country enjoys a high rate of economic growth, it cannot achieve development without equitable distribution of this addition wealth - an improvement in the well-being of the people, and a structural change in production. Growth rates say nothing about the level of a population’s well-being: for example, is the emphasis on investment or on consumption - and, if the former, where is the money being invested? An eloquent example is provided by the former USSR where the level of the population’s well-being fell away just as the country was enjoying a r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Quotation from Long Walk to Freedom
• Part I: Trade Unions, Democracy and Development
• Part II: A Look at Ten African Countries
• Bibliography
• Abbreviations