Transcript 0:00 [intro music] Welcome to Trendlines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. My name is Peter Duri. One of Africa's model democracies, Ghana, is gearing up for an election in December. 0:18 Dorina Bekoe will join us for this week's report on the presidential campaign and how it challenges the continuity of democracy in the West African nation. 0:28 But first, I'm joined again by World Politics Review editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, for this week's briefing on world affairs. Welcome back, Judah. Uh, what are we talking about this week? Thanks. 0:39 It's great to be back. I'd like to start with a briefing by David Kleon on Belarus, which held parliamentary elections last month. The novelty this time is that two opposition members were actually elected. 0:53 Uh, that's the first time that's happened since 1996. It represents a symbolic attempt by President Alexander Lukashenko to soften his image as Europe's last dictator. 1:06 It's a, an attempt meant especially for Western consumption. Uh, Belarus depends heavily on Russia in many of the same ways Ukraine did for energy, trade, and especially remittances. 1:20 Uh, and Lukashenko has been alarmed by Russia's heavy-handed intervention in Ukraine, uh, seeing it as a, a cautionary tale for what might befall Belarus in the event it recalibrates its strategic alignments. 1:33 Uh, he's served as an intermediary in diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict while continuing to resist efforts by Moscow to pressure Ukraine to make concessions. 1:45 Uh, at the same time, he's tried to hedge against Russian influence by warming ties with Europe and the US, first by conducting a less violent presidential election last year, and it's r- a- and it's important to remember when you use the word election, uh, with regard to Belarus, uh, there's always scare quotes around it. 2:03 Um, he also, at that time, released some political prisoners, and now the symbolic opening to the opposition is, is, uh, the latest effort. 2:12 It seems to be paying off as the European Union lifted most of its sanctions earlier this year, although Washington has been more circumspect. 2:21 But as David makes clear, it's a precarious balance between the West and Russia that Lukashenko will have difficulty maintaining, as Ukraine makes, uh, very clear. 2:32 Yeah, and you had a, an- another very interesting article, um, uh, another very interesting briefing by Ernest Harsch, which looks at another country, uh, which, which can s- in some ways, uh, pose as a template how a country looks after its longtime, uh, dictator has been deposed. 2:49 And this is a briefing on Burkina Faso that, that I found, uh, to be very interesting. 2:55 Um, Burkina Faso, of course, uh, the West African country that was ruled by President Blaise Compaoré for 30 years up until two years ago when he was ousted in a public revolt. 3:06 A very uneasy time of an interim government followed, uh, that culminated in a, in an attempted coup, uh, about one year ago that ultimately faltered. 3:17 And, uh, after that, we had a free and fair presidential election, and, uh, with, uh, President Kaboré, uh, now in office, uh, th- for more or less a year now. 3:29 And, uh, Ernest, he looks at the atte- attempts of, uh, the Burkina B- authorities to bring about justice. 3:39 Uh, justice, uh, for the a- about 40 protesters who were killed, um, during the public protest against Compaoré and the subsequent coup d'état, which was led by Compaoré loyalists. 3:51 Um, justice for, uh, the murder of an investigative journalist in 1998, as well as, uh, for the killing of, uh, revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara in 1987 during the coup that brought Compaoré to power originally. 4:08 Um, so th- this is, these, justice for the, in these cases were core demands of the protesters and, uh, ranging back, uh, for many years, but which cul- culminated ultimately in, in the demonstrations against Compaoré. 4:22 And, uh, Ernest, uh, really looks into, into the, uh, state of, of, of these cases. And I, I think his key finding is that due to public pressure, um, there have been some advances, uh, made. 4:35 There, there was a f- uh, the first, uh, former, uh, politician associated with Compaoré, uh, former Prime Minister Luc-Adolphe Tiao, has been found guilty recently of, uh, o- of, uh, murder of the protesters due to having signed an order to fire, um, into, into the crowds during the protests two years ago. 4:56 But he is the only one who has, uh, who has received some form of justice, with many of the other cases lingering in various states, uh, in, in the, uh, justice system. 5:08 This intersects with a, wi- with a general disillusionment on part of the broader population with the new government's performance, uh, which hasn't really managed to address, uh, the, the many challenges facing, um, facing Burkina Faso's economy, facing its political, uh, scene, its, its position in West Africa, its security landscape. 5:31 And I, I think I agree with Ernest that this, this poses some potential for further conflict, um, because, uh, Kaboré, while he has been elected in a free and fair election, and, uh, at the, at the time of the protest against, uh, Compaoré, uh, was in the opposition, he has very close ties to the former regime, um, uh, having been an official in Compaoré's party as well as a member of its g- o- of his governments, um, d- over the years. 6:03 So, um, he, he might feel the public pressure to, to change, uh, s- how, how politics is done in Burkina Faso, but he's also, uh, not the person, uh, best suited to do so due to his own, uh, history or in, in, in complicity, uh, in, in the, in the crimes, um, of, of the regime over the years. 6:25 It, it's important to add that transitional justice in the aftermath of a, of a dictatorship or a, or a uprising or revolution is always a very complicated, uh, process because y- in some ways you need the buy-in of the remnants of the old regime, which are often very well entrenched in very powerful roles, to prevent, uh, a real sort of fight to the death, zero-sum conflict, um, and to allow for a peaceful transition. 6:59 At the same time, uh, there has to be accountability, uh, for the victims and for the, the, the new forces in the country that are seeking to change and reform things. 7:12 So it's always this delicate balance of how far you can go with accountability before you risk, uh, inciting the old regime to actually fight for its stake. 7:22 I think part of that is what we saw with the attempted coup, uh, last year, where loyalists of the old regime saw, uh, the writing on the wall in terms of what was coming and chose to fight for it. 7:35 Now, in Burkina Faso's case, it seems like that kind of regression has been ruled out, but there still is a, a lot of potential for violence and instability, which could put the further goals of, uh, of the transition at risk. 7:50 And one should note that Compaoré himself remains free in exile in neighboring Côte d'Ivoire and reportedly, uh, continues, uh, to meddle in Burkinabé affairs. Uh, so there's that as well to consider. 8:02 But you also had a very interesting, um, a very interesting piece, not a briefing, but a country report, um, about Peru, obviously a very different part of the world. 8:12 Yes, a, a country report, which is an in-depth, uh, long-form article that really gets to go into detail about the, about the country in question and give a real, uh, uh, granular look at, uh, what's going on there. 8:28 Uh, this one by David Dudenhoeffer, uh, again, as you said, on Peru and its prospects for modernizing under President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who was elected last year. 8:40 Uh, Peru has seen strong growth over the past two decades, mainly fueled by the commodities boom and its mining sector. 8:48 But un- unlike other resource-exporting countries, it has actually managed to maintain growth despite the collapse of commodity prices, in part thanks to a growing tourism industry. 8:59 Uh, Kuczynski's challenge now is to maintain that growth while broadening it to benefit more Peruvians. 9:06 Uh, as David explains, he's qualified to do that in terms of his past credentials and his personal background, which gives him a sincere desire to do so. But the challenges he faces are significant. 9:19 Uh, to begin with, despite the recent record of economic growth, poverty, and economic vulnerability of those who are just above the poverty level remain major problems in Peru. 9:30 Uh, added onto that, there's the lack of adequate government services, corruption, and the resulting mistrust among Peruvians of government, and social protest movements by those who are directly impacted by the negative aspects of mining and other development projects. 9:47 So as David makes clear, Kuczynski is pursuing a worthy goal, and he has a, a lot of the tools necessary to do so on a personal level. But on an institutional level, uh, success is by no means guaranteed. 10:02 Okay, very interesting stuff again this week. Uh, thanks for joining me again. Thanks. It's always a pleasure. 10:06 [Instrumental music] Ghana is without a doubt one of Africa's most stable democracies, having experienced a string of free and fair elections, as well as peaceful turnovers of power between government and opposition. 10:23 But this year's presidential campaign is testing the limits of Ghana's constitutional order, with tensions running high and public trust in the judiciary and electoral commission at a low. Dorina Bekoe has more. 10:35 [Instrumental music] I am Dorina Bekoe. 10:40 I am on the faculty at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, DC, and, uh, we work to help train African security sector officials on democratic governance and ethical leadership. 10:57 Ghana's recent history is that it wa- is one of the leaders in the, um, democratization of the African continent. 11:08 It suffered through several decades, um, of military rule with a number of coup d'états, and in 1992, the mi- military leader at the time, Jerry John Rawlings, 11:23 acceded to pressures for democracy and held the first multi-party election, and it's had regular multi-party elections every four years ever since. 11:35 Currently, Ghana is facing a very, um, competitive, uh, presidential election, which is, um, scheduled to take place, uh, December 7th. It's contested for a number of reasons. 11:48 One is the, the country's actually quite polarized, and the supporters of the ruling party and supporters of the opposition are almost equal. 11:59 There are other, um, political parties, of course, but there are really two main parties, and they are very close in, in the number of support. So it is a very competitive, um, election. 12:12 The stakes are also high for the opposition party because their flagbearer, Nana um, Addo, is running for his third time, and some might say perhaps it's his last presidential campaign because of his age. He's, he's 72. 12:29 So that makes the, the, um, stakes quite challenging. 12:34 And then, you know, the country has, has really gone through a number of economic challenges that are, you know, putting a lot of pressure on the ruling party to essentially make its case. 12:47 So there's a lot riding on, on the, the election. [upbeat music] Well, Ghana's President John Mahama has launched his presidential campaign ahead of what is expected to be a highly contested election in November. 13:01 Mahama has promised to tackle Ghana's economic challenges and steer the country towards prosperity. He's also highlighted investments in education, transport, healthcare, and electricity as priorities. 13:16 The high stakes of the election and the comp- competitiveness of the election had, has had an impact on the campaigns, um, themselves. 13:26 In the first place, they started a lot earlier than they usually do in st- in terms of selecting the flagbearer or the, the candidate. 13:35 And so the country has been in sort of campaign mode for a longer than usual amount of time. 13:43 It has also politicized a number of things that, um, maybe might have been, um, resolved in a less contentious manner. And so the rhetoric among politicians has been quite sharp, I would, I would say. 14:01 So, so that's really affected how the, the campaign has been conducted. There has been a lot more tension. 14:10 It has sort of worried a lot of political analysts about what the outcome would be and how it would be resolved, you know, should there be some, some contested, uh, results. The last election in 2012 was contested 14:28 by the current opposition. The last election was between the NDC, which is the ruling party, and the NPP, which is the opposition. 14:38 And even though they installed a government, the NDC installed its, its, its president, the NPP contested that, that result. 14:48 After they do a runoff election, the, the Constitution says that they have to proceed with the inauguration by the seventh of January, and that's difficult because the runoff is always in December. 15:03 And so when there's a contested, um, result, it makes it hard to resolve that before the inauguration. So the inauguration went ahead in 2012, but the opposition party chose to 15:18 take their complaints to court, and that dragged out for about nine months, uh, where there were daily presentations of how the Electoral Commission had, um, failed in a number of aspects to verify voters, um, that some constituencies had actually registered more votes than voters. 15:38 And in the end, the Supreme Court decided that president was elected legitimately, and the opposition accepted that, that result. 15:53 You know, the, the key, I, I think, in that situation is that even before the Supreme Court came out with its decision, the opposition, the NPP, pledged that they would abide by whatever the Supreme Court said. 16:10 So they indicated that they trusted the Supreme Court. [upbeat music] The vote transfer was started from September 9 and ended on October 7 at all 216 EC offices nationwide. 16:27 But some district offices of the commission witnessed clashes of political party agents during the exercise in Ashanti and northern regions in particular. 16:36 But commission's head of communications, Eric Kofi Jakpasu, believes the violence were orchestrated by the political parties. 16:43 Their strategy is prevent people you perceive are not being your supporters from transferring, then those you think are your supporters, ensure that they are transferred, whether they meet the requirements or not. 16:55 And this is the cause of most of the confusion here. This year, we're likely to see 17:04 a contested result, whether it's on the basis of, you know, too many voters, which they call over-voting, or voters being improperly verified. 17:17 But the difference is that the faith in the judicial system has decreased greatly. 17:23 The worry is that if the, um, trust in the judiciary is so low that once they render a decision, if an, if they indeed go that, that route, and, or it could be, you know, the Electoral Commission, which has also suffered a decrease in, in trust, that the opposition parties would not abide by that. 17:42 And the added danger is that there are a number of, the local term is macho men, but they are sort of armed or aggressive people that are, you know, employed or allied with, uh, certain political parties. 17:59 Although this is illegal, it still does go on, and they might decide to take matters into their own hands. And so that's, that's the worry. 18:07 If there's no legitimate route to address grievances, that they would decide to take matters into their own hands, and that's a mu- much more serious situation that would put, you know, civilians, uh, at risk if they, if they decide to, to go that route. 18:24 I think that once, when people think about violence in Africa, I, I think that some of the dominant images that come to mind are, you know, maybe Kenya or, or Cote d'Ivoire or Zimbabwe, and I don't think we're talking about that in Ghana at all. 18:39 So I'm really comparing Ghana to itself and, and the level of violence that it has, it, you know, has experienced. 18:48 Typically, Ghana will experience violence in its northern regions, and that's because a lot of underlying conflict dynamics are politicized. And so that, that happens quite regularly every, um, every four years or so. 19:03 The post-election violence is a bit unusual. 19:07 We saw a post-election tension, if you will, in 2012, perhaps a little bit of it also in 2008, and what I think, uh, what I fear would happen this, this time around if, if the election is contested and if sort of, you know, mitigating factors that can diffuse tension are not put in place, then I fear that we, we would see more escalated, uh, violence, whether that would be protests that might go wrong if they are, if there are clashes with, you know, security. 19:46 The violence is not a foregone conclusion. Uh, it's not inevitable. 19:50 Even at two months to the election, there are still opportunities to reduce the chance of that, of that happening, and I think that that involves working with civil society, working to ensure that the process is both in f- in fact and by perception, you know, fair and transparent and accountable. 20:15 There are institutions in, in place that, that can do that, but, you know, now more than ever, because it's such a tense situation and it's, and the stakes are higher, it is, um, really important that those are brought to bear, 20:32 um, to mitigate the tension before it actually manifests into violence. Tension is normal in any electoral process. 20:40 People are, you know, fighting for power, so there's going to be tension, but the key is how do you manage that tension? Even an electoral crisis is not the problem per se. 20:54 You know, in 2012, there was definitely an electoral crisis. You had a, a president that was being inaugurated while the other half of the opposition was contesting the, the result. 21:05 That's definitely a, a crisis, but it was resolved in a way that didn't lead to violence, and I think that that's what needs to be the focus, that there is going to be tension. 21:15 There might even be a crisis, but how do you plan ahead so that the crises are resolved peacefully, that tension is diffused so that it doesn't escalate and manifest in a more violent manner? 21:30 [instrumental music] I stand before the world t- today to declare that just as we have done in the past, my country will go to the polls this December, 21:43 and the processes before, during, and after will mark a further consolidation of Ghana's credentials as a leading world democracy. So there are a number of initiatives and programs underway. 22:01 There's, um, something called the, the National Peace Council, and they've been doing some training. There is, uh... They've been holding some workshops. 22:12 There's something else called the National Elections Security Task Force, and that is a combination of several different security forces, security services. 22:27 So there's the military, there's the police, there's customs, there's immigration. So it's a mix. 22:33 They have a national body and then they kind of replicate themselves, you know, at the regional level and at the district level. But it's, it's more of a, a security focus versus 22:46 a peace-building and reconciliation focus. 22:51 So it's, you know, it's, it's educating communities on, on the law, which is, which is critical, but it's not necessarily, uh, focused on, okay, there's this, this tension in this community, you know. 23:04 What can be done to make sure that it's resolved? What the regional governments can do and, and naturally I think about the Economic Community of West African States because that's the regional institution. 23:16 ECOWAS has really been a leader, uh, on the continent in addressing, um, political crises. Uh, ECOWAS 23:26 has-- is certainly known for deploying peacekeeping missions, but I think it's less well-known for the immediacy with which it responds to a political crisis, you know, sending 23:39 envoys and other sort of, uh, respected regional leaders when things might, uh, seem to get serious. 23:47 You know, if things were to get out of hand or too tense, I would imagine or hope that, you know, ECOWAS would deploy envoys the way it, it has in, in other, um, in other crises to 24:01 impress upon the protagonists that, um, yes, there is a crisis, but, you know, it should be resolved in a, in a peaceful manner. Many thanks to Dorina for joining us this week. 24:15 Together with Stefanie Burkardt, she is the co-author of an in-depth article looking at these and other issues surrounding Ghana's election on worldpoliticsreview.com, which I suggest you check out. 24:28 Please also take the time to subscribe to Trendlines in the podcast app of your choice. Uh, that way new episodes will be delivered to your smartphone or computer as they are published. 24:39 Just search for Trendlines wherever quality podcasts are offered. Trendlines is produced and edited by me, Peter Dury. 24:47 You can follow me and World Politics Review on Twitter, and you can find links to pieces covering the issues we talked about in the show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com. 24:56 Have a fantastic weekend and see you next week for a new episode of Trendlines. [outro music]
