Elections, Violence and Transitional Justice in Africa

Elias Opongo, Tim Murithi, Elias Opongo, Tim Murithi, Elias O. Opongo, Elias O. Opongo, Tim Murithi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367655280
• eBook ISBN: 9781000593051
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Elections in Africa are competitive in nature and can be manipulated by incumbents to extend and entrench their rule through changes to constitutions, intimidation of opponents, excess use of police force and, in some cases, assassinations of dissident voices. Ethnic cleavages are also exploited by contestants to incite and mobilize unsuspecting masses to pursue their electoral ambitions which can lead to political instability. In many African countries, violence before, during and after elections has become a regrettable norm rather than the exception. The function of transitional justice is to address the legacy of human rights atrocities, political violence and societal harm resulting from prior misrule or violent conflicts, with a view to establishing fair, democratic and inclusive societies.

This book interrogates the potential intersection between transitional justice and electoral processes. Specifically, it examines the hypothesis that transitional justice interventions that strive to address historical injustices perpetrated by violence, conflict and entrenched by socio-political impunity, can initiate preventive measures against electoral violence through redress, accountability and institutional reforms. The contributors to this volume have engaged with country case studies from across Africa, while examining the intersection between transitional justice and electoral processes. Hence, this is a timely volume that highlights the uninterrogated nexus between elections, violence and transitional justice in Africa.

1 Election financing and violence

Implications for transitional justice in Nigeria, Kenya and Sierra Leone

Elias O. Opongo

DOI: 10.4324/9781003129936-2

Introduction

Election financing has become a controversial issue in many electoral processes in the world, particularly because it tends to determine the outcomes of elections. The extent to which a candidate is able to accumulate the financial resources required to mount a campaign using the media and public rallies in order to influence voters increases their chances of visibility and possible election victory. Election financing has also been closely associated with the direct influencing of voters through corrupt deals with corporations, bribery and funding projects designed to encourage voters to support a particular candidate. Election financing may also include officially giving political parties financial assistance to facilitate the various activities that are undertaken during election periods (Birch et al. 2020), including mounting electoral campaigns for individual candidates (Laakso 2007).

A number of scholars have defined election financing as the use of money for the electoral process by political parties and candidates vying for political office (La Raja 2008). While many interconnected areas relate to the use of money in politics, election financing can be analysed from the legal frameworks that define government regulations on financing political parties, campaigns and election management (Hickman 2009). On the other hand, election financing can also refer to the illegal transactions and activities that may finance political parties or politicians’ activities or election-related engagement. In most cases illegal transactions in elections are clandestine and tend to be concealed from both the government and the general public (Rapoport and Weinberg 2000). In most African countries election financing has included the bribing of voters during campaigns or luring them through pseudo projects based on the false promise of reaching out to the poor and marginalized. As such, the intention of the politicians is to ‘buy’ voters and persuade them to vote for the briber.

Electoral campaign financing for political parties in many African countries is characterized by corruption, lack of transparency and accountability. Scholars point out that little is known about the sources that fund political parties during the election process or and such knowledge is seldom disclosed publicly (Omotola and Aremu 2007). Information about the sources that fund elections in Africa is scarce, and the election processes are often riddled with scandals and controversies (Robins 2011). In those countries where donations for political parties, both private and foreign, are allowed, for example in South Africa and Botswana, the incumbent parties have been able to attract large sums of money from within and outside the country (Coletto and Eagles 2011). However, at the same time this has unfortunately disadvantaged the opposition, exposing those desperate to win elections to the dangers of accepting funding from dubious sources (Collier and Vicente 2008).

The electoral processes in Africa are often fraught with tensions and emotions, divisions and ethnic or religious profiling that can at times degenerate into violence. This has been witnessed in elections in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Nigeria, Mali and Togo, among others. Episodes of violence can be either spontaneous or planned by the political contestants and their supporters (Rapoport and Weinberg 2000, 15–50), who are often paid to attack the candidates’ opponents or simply create the kind of chaos that could eventually favour the politician sponsoring the violence. In some cases, electoral violence can be staged to look like a random attack or systematically organized to blackmail a candidate through public scenes and the media; sometimes opponents are physically attacked or even kidnapped (Kagwanja 2009). This means that election periods are often marred by acts of coercion, intimidation and threats (La Raja 2008). When committed to impact the electoral process and the outcome thereof (Daxecker 2020), violence may lead to the exclusion of certain categories of voters who may have been displaced or too intimidated to vote; delays in the delivery of election materials such as ballot boxes and papers; disruptions to or derailment of procedures at the polling stations; and delays in the release of election results (ibid). Such actions are intended to influence the outcomes of the electoral process and to help particular candidates to win the elections (Collier and Vicente 2008).

This chapter focuses on election financing in Kenya, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and draws attention to implications for transitional justice in all three countries. During different electoral cycles there have been scandals related to the financing of the elections and lack of accountability on the part of political parties and politicians (Obi 2011). In Nigeria, for instance, there is a general belief that the incumbent can use violence during election periods as a strategy to fraudulently keep the ruling party in power (Omotola and Aremu 2007). In Kenya politicians mobilize huge financial resources to fund their campaigns, some of which are used to sponsor militia groups to protect political candidates or to intimidate their opponents (Raleigh 2016). In most cases, the youth are targeted as key actors in political violence. In Sierra Leone the use of money to bribe voters and to fund attacks by the militia on political opponents is equally rampant. The legal structures designed to control electoral financing are weak.

Many countries in Africa have been grappling to effect reforms to their electoral systems in order to put in place the necessary structures for the holding of free and fair elections. Electoral law reforms have been undertaken in Kenya, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, among other countries (Robins 2011). These reforms are meant to cover issues of accountability among political parties’, leadership, transparency in the use of political parties’ funds, as well as regulation and management of political processes (Rapoport and Weinberg 2000). However, these reforms have not been effectively implemented, and political parties and politicians have been slow to be transparent about their political transactions. As a result, in Kenya, Nigeria and Sierra Leone there is still a need for the enactment of political reforms that can ensure political accountability (Obi 2011).

Conceptualizing election financing

The original aim of elections has always been to allow for peaceful transfers of power. Election financing of political parties is important and necessary since political parties play an important role in election campaigns and are part of institutions in the country’s political system (Coletto and Eagles 2011). Election financing is not limited to the running of campaigns and other activities that are undertaken during the election season that lead to voting or how people vote. It includes financing the administrative and political activities of political parties before, during and after the election process. Important as money is for the electoral process, election financing has brought into politics the concept of winning at all costs (Mueller 2011). Unfortunately, elections are sometimes held outside consolidated democracies with groups and institutions sponsoring candidates whose sole focus is to win (ibid.). This has led to the commercialization of the election financing process that can attract sources which may be dubious in their dealings and which might have ulterior motives (Côté and Mitchell 2016). These sponsors get so caught up in the desire to win that they are ready to instigate violence if that will enable their candidate garner a seat (La Raja 2008). Electoral violence is viewed as a prototype of political violence and is analytically divergent, but with very practical dynamics (Kapur and Vaishnav 2013). Electoral violence is distinct from other types of organized violence, and is substantially different from non-violent electoral manipulations. However, electoral violence does not take place in a vacuum. There are certain triggers that lead to electoral violence such as pressure to win from the sponsors (Briffault 2000, 620), socio-ethnic rhetoric urging dominance and control, party politics aimed at power control and the exclusion of those who do not fall into line, and regional dynamics influenced by the positioning of neighbouring countries that may have a preference for a specific candidate. Many countries in Africa have attempted to put in place laws that govern election financing as well as institutional structures aimed at streamlining election financing (Coletto and Eagles 2011).

Election financing in many countries, especially Africa, has been identified as the bedrock of political corruption (Côté and Mitchell 2016). All three countries under study, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, have introduced laws that guide the holding of elections and election financing (ibid.). However, these laws have often been broken or ignored, particularly when it comes to fundraising.

Kenya has implemented a number of laws aimed at guiding the electoral process and maintaing checks on the conduct of politicians and their political parties. In 2010 Kenya adopted a new Constitution which was promulgated in that same year. The new Constitution paved the way for the enactment of legislative and administrative reforms. These reforms included the Election Act that came into force in 2011; the Political Parties Act and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Act of 2011; the Elections Campaign Financing Act 2013; and the Leadership and Integrity Act of 2012. In addition, other principles of international laws and treaties were included provided that they had been endorsed by the government of Kenya and were bound to influence the election process.

The Elections Campaign Financing Act 2013 tasked the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) with responsibility for creating and keeping a register of all authorized persons in politics; supervising the candidates and political parties in relation to campaign financing; and setting limits on the level of spending by political parties and candidates during election periods. The new Constitution stipulated that certain laws should be introduced into the electoral system over a period of time, and that these should be enacted by the National Assembly.

According to the 2010 Constitution, the IEBC is an independent body and should not be controlled by any person or authority or even be given instructions that do not fall within the remit of the Constitution (Mueller 2011). To enhance the credibility of the electoral system, provisions were made for the values and principles required during the election process, namely transparency, integrity, accountability and good governance. The electoral system was to be subject to the principle of free and fair elections through the secret ballot; free from violence, intimidation, improper influence or corruption. The electoral reforms gave the commission responsibility for financing the political parties. However, this has not adequately implemented despite the laws being in place on how political parties should be financed and conduct their campaigns (Robins 2011). This was one way of ensuring that parties move away from obtaining funding from illegal or clandestine sources.

Despite the introduction of well-intentioned electoral laws, and the subsequent reform of the electoral system, the electoral process in Kenya is riddled with allegations of vote rigging and massive corruption (Kovacs and Bjarnesen 2018). It is against this backdrop that the National Assembly came up with the Election Offence Act in 2016 to oversee the complaints of the political parties and candidates (Mueller 2011).The Act was intended to ensure that any form of misconduct during the election process would lead to disqualification, prosecution or even imprisonment in the event of a person being tried and found guilty of an electoral offence. The offences include selling or buying a person’s voter card, exchanging the card for money, being in possession of a collection of voter cards, and registering to vote more than once (Sule et al. 2018). Unfortunately, despite the introduction of a plethora of rules and laws, the country witnessed massive and reckless spending during the 2017 election process. This calls into question whether the Constitution has been effective as far as election financing and violence are concerned.

Nigeria has faced similar challenges in the implementation of its electoral financial laws. The demand for sound elections had been viewed as an important aspect in the economic growth of the country and its sociopolitical development (Rapoport and Weinberg 2000). The call for reforms to the electoral system to ensure the holding of free and fair elections in Nigeria increased in volume as the country entered into what has been referred to as the fourth phase of democracy. The current legal framework adopted for the administration of elections in Nigeria is a product of legislative intervention and recommendations made by the electoral reform committee. It comprises the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, after the amendments; the Electoral Act 2010, and case law and guidelines that regulate the behaviour of institutions and agencies involved in elections (Sule et al. 2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• The editors and contributors
• Introduction
• 1. Election financing and violence: Implications for transitional justice in Nigeria, Kenya and Sierra Leone
• 2. The media and electoral violence in Kenya and Nigeria: Holding journalists accountable in transitional justice processes
• 3. Electoral systems, election outcomes and legal frameworks: Challenges to transitional justice processes in South Sudan, Rwanda and Uganda
• 4. Youth and electoral violence in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Establishing political accountability in transitional justice contexts
• 5. Women in politics: Gender, security and transitional justice in electoral processes in Africa
• 6. Electoral observation and transitional justice in Southern Africa: A comparative analysis of Zimbabwe and Angola
• 7. The International Criminal Court and electoral justice in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire
• 8. Transitional justice and the mitigation of electoral violence through the Amani Mashinani model in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya
• 9. Electoral processes as platforms for transitional justice: Rethinking governance systems in Africa
• Conclusion: Elections, transitional justice and the way forward
• Index