How the “Limited Legitimacy Syndrome, LLS” undermines democracy and national interests in Africa

Time and time again, we witness the accusations of electoral fraud, limits to the plurality of dissenting opinions and the politicization of justice in party-cratic regimes in most African states. But how does the absence of democracy harm the national interest and weaken the sovereignty of African states?

Democracy and the “Social Contract”

It is well known that democracy is popular will-based regime, which through the “Social Contract” attributes representative legitimacy and legality to a government, usually through direct or indirect elections, depending on the type of government.

In parliamentary regimes the Prime Minister is appointed by Parliament through the majority parties formula, once directly elected by the people. This is also the case in semi-presidential regimes, such as the French or the Angolan, in force between 1992 and 2010. In these forms of semi-presidential government there is the possibility of “bicephalous political cohabitation” between a President of the Republic from one political party and a Prime Minister from another political parties.

In France, after the early parliamentary elections at the end of past June (1^st round) and the first week of July (2^nd round), there was a possibility of a majority being formed in the French Assembly by the coalition of left-wing parties united in the NFP (New Popular Front) and the party of the incumbent president. If this happened, there would be a new cohabitation in the country’s history, after the one between President Miterrand (left-wing party) and Prime Ministers Chirac and Balladur (right-wing party), between 1986 and 1995, and the other between President Chirac and Prime Minister Jospin (left-wing party), between 1997 and 2002.

As you can see, democracy is not just about the popular vote, direct or indirect. It also depends on the types of government and the formulas for legitimizing power in the direct or indirect relationship between the sovereign people and their representatives in society and in the state.

Voting without democracy as a cause of LLS

In the so-called “illiberal democracies”, as Fareed Zacaria characterized them at the end of the 1990s, elections are held.

However, these elections can be understood as a “vote without democracy”. A vote without democracy happens when the majority vote of citizens in party-cratic regimes reflects neither electoral truth nor political changes. In these cases, the party-cratic regime orchestrates the favorable outcome of the vote for itself (electoral fraud), through the use of authoritarian intimidation strategies and economic blackmail of voters, the creation of third-party political parties to “disperse” votes, or the media silencing of the main opponents, who, faced with the fait accompli, give in to the number of parliamentary mandates that the African party-cratic elite decides to award them randomly. If these strategies are used, the government that emerges from these elections suffers from what I can call “Limited Legitimacy Syndrome, LLS”, which consists of the political self-awareness of the lack of internal popular legitimacy to govern, as well as the absence of a sense of political accountability to the people either directly or indirectly through their parliamentary representatives.

The legitimacy of government in a party-cracy and the risks of vulnerabilities in the international system

One of the least explored phenomena in Africa–and whenever it is, it is limited to a mere chorus of condemnation based solely on the principles of political alternative through voting, and not on the merits of these events– are coups d’état, which, as we have already seen are not all the same. Rather than condemnation, which at the end of the day does not change the status quo ante, it would be appropriate and necessary to address the correlation of causes and effects between the LLS and the occurrence of these coups d’état, especially when they take on the genuine popular revolutions against the usurpation of power by the party-cratic regimes previously in power in the majority of African states.

However, a comparative look at the so-called consolidated democratic regimes shows the correlation between democracy and the national interest, as well as the strength of the preservation of their national sovereignty. In other words, the more democratic a society is, the less susceptible it is to external vulnerabilities that jeopardize the pursuit of its national interest and the maintenance of its sovereignty. Based solely on internal legitimacy, derived from the popular vote, consolidated democracies do not suffer from LLS.

On the other hand, African governments that are not the result of a democratic vote and suffer from LLS, often don’t have the strength, or the will, to pursue the national interest alone. In fact, since their elite relies on international legitimacy in order to survive, these governments submit to external diktats and international patronage commitments from the states from which they seek legitimacy. Curiously, this is what can justify and explain the search for international recognition immediately after the election results are announced, because without it, party-cratic regimes feel insecure and illegitimate not only in the eyes of the people, but also in the eyes of the international system and organizations.

In short, there is a direct cause and effect relationship between democracy as such and the materialization of the national interest, the prestige of the state, its people and its ruling class in the international context (not just in Africa) and national development.

The search for international legitimacy, in addition to causing the LLS, subjects the African state and its ruling class to constant international pressure, blackmail and diktats that ultimately harm the national interest, because party-crats, in order to remain in power, are more prone to alienating the national interest than leaders legitimized by the people, who even will act as a shield for the survival of the modern state, because when the people are aware that they have a legitimate government resulting from their democratic legitimacy, they tend to defend it in cases of blackmail or international incursions. When the opposite is true, the same people will be an instrument of external pressure to weaken the anti-democratic government.

Issau Agostinho