Africa in Transition

On December 29, South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled that the parliament had failed in its constitutional obligation to hold President Jacob Zuma accountable for illegal expenditure of public money on his private compound, Nkandla. Zuma has survived a number of no confidence votes and has denied wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court gave parliament six months to put in place a mechanism for removing the president. In response to the court’s ruling, a parliamentary subcommittee is developing a draft procedure for removal that would then be voted on by parliament. South African social media is speculating that the mandated development and review of procedures will increase the pressure on Zuma to resign the presidency. Following the African National Congress’s (ANC) convention vote, he is no longer party leader. ANC policy is that the party leader should also be the country's president so as not to divide authority between president of the country and the president of the party. Media is also speculating that Cyril Ramaphosa, who defeated Zuma’s preferred candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, will be trying to force Zuma out of the presidency to clear the way for reform of the party, which is suffering erosion of electoral support. Zuma, however, retains allies at the top of the party machinery, and his removal is by no means a sure thing. Nevertheless, the episode illustrates once again the power and independence of the South African judiciary. South Africa is not a parliamentary democracy, but a constitutional democracy. The constitution, interpreted by the judiciary, is sovereign, and all branches of government are subordinate to it. Hence, in the face of the December 29 ruling, parliament is moving to establish clear procedures for the removal of a president.   

Emmerson Mnangagwa’s post-Mugabe regime is consolidating its power even as it takes steps to open the economy. To that end, the new president has appointed as his vice president the former army chief, Constantino Chiwenga, the man who orchestrated the coup against Robert Mugabe that brought Mnangagwa to power. Further, Mnangagwa has announced the arrest of two ministers who supported the efforts to make Mugabe’s wife Grace his successor. Former foreign minister Walter Membi and former energy minister Samuel Undenge have been charged with “criminal abuse of office.” Former finance minister Ignatius Chombo has already been arrested, but all three are free on bail. Finally, Mnangagwa has ruled out any possible coalition arrangement with perennial opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who is fighting colon cancer. Mnangagwa has, however, offered official help with Tsvangirai’s medical bills. In Harare and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s largest cities, the military has replaced police at checkpoints. Soldiers are better paid than police officers and are perceived to be less venial with respect to bribes and shakedowns. So, the substitution is likely to be popular with the general public and will also strengthen the new administration’s control of the country. Mnangagwa’s biggest break from Mugabe so far is in his concrete steps to revive Zimbabwe’s collapsed economy. To that end, he is seeking international investment and loans from international financial institutions. To bolster international confidence, he has started to return seized farms to white owners and his spokesman is saying that “land reform is over.” The Mugabe ban on foreign ownership of Zimbabwean assets has also been lifted, with only a few exceptions. Nevertheless, Mnangagwa and Chiwenga are both notorious for violating human rights while serving as Mugabe’s “enforcers,” most notably in the early 1980s in Matebeleland and in 2008 during elections. Chiwenga’s elevation to vice president is a signal that little has likely changed in the character of Zimbabwe’s leadership.  In the short term, Mnangagwa’s strategy of economic liberalization while maintaining Mugabe’s illiberal political system (despite some new faces at the top) is likely to work. It may encourage him to proceed with national elections in 2018, as international opinion is pressuring him to do so.

Jack McCaslin is a research associate for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. On November 21, 2017, Somaliland peacefully elected its third president since 2003 and held its fifth peaceful election since declaring independence from Somalia in 1991. It was the first time that the incumbent did not stand; instead, former president Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud “Silyano” chose not to seek reelection. Muse Bihi Abdi, the new president, is a former minister in the government of the still-ruling Peace, Unity, and Development Party, and was a commander in the Somali National Movement (SNM). The SNM was the liberation movement that ultimately defeated Mohamed Siad Barre, the longtime leader of Somalia, and led Somaliland’s secession from Somalia. He was sworn in on December 15.  The secret, at least in part, to Somaliland’s quarter-century of peaceful de facto independence, was its gradual transition to democracy, partially shepherded by the SNM. A few months after the Barre regime collapsed at Mogadishu and the civil war ended in January 1991, the SNM held a conference of clan leaders that elected an interim leader, agreed to secede from Somalia, and created the independent Republic of Somaliland. This structure weathered intense internal violence in 1992, and in 1993 it elected Somaliland’s first president in multiparty elections. While the 1990s continued to be fraught with political and clan infighting, the newly-declared country was able to stick together and hold a constitutional referendum in 2001, which passed with over 97 percent of the vote. Like other liberation movements, such as the ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe, many current politicians and members of government were former members of the civilian and military arms of the SNM, but unlike Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF, the movement did not morph into a singular political party that controlled the state. It was a national movement at the time of independence, and eventually dissolved, creating space for political parties to emerge that reflected different views. In 2017, Freedom House ranked Somaliland as the only free ‘country’ in East Africa. Despite its rare albeit short history of peaceful democracy, only a quarter of working-age Somalilanders are employed, and in 2012, its per-capita GDP was the fourth-lowest in the world (if ranked independently). Remittances allow for much of the population to get by.  Through its reliance on councils of clan elders, known as Guurti, Somaliland utilized distinctly African forms of governance to guide it to democracy. It is ironic that African regional organizations have refused to recognize it, and the Untied States has followed suit. Their chief objection rests in the potential for a domino effect of successful secession movements in a region where there are numerous aggrieved (some more legitimately than others) parties itching for a chance to breakaway. For Somaliland, recognition by the international community is much more than merely symbolic; international recognition would enable legal foreign direct investment into the anemic economy.