Mthobeli Jiwulane

With widespread demand for democratic change in Southern Africa, citizens in several countries in the region have begun to wake up to the need for political change.

In the process both the ruling former liberation movement parties and parties that brought independence are under siege as pressure mounts for them to get out of the way and let the will of the people reign. Struggle credentials seem to be counting for nothing as people want their own choices in power.

The democratic removal of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), after 58 years in power in power is a demonstration that the winds of change are sweeping through Africa. The BDP, founded by the late first President Sir Seretse Khama and now led by President Mokgweetsi Masisi, has been governing since independence in 1966. The little-known Duma Boko, a human rights lawyer son of a mining migrant from South Africa, has replaced Masisi as the new President. Boko’s party, Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), shocked many because it had not only made history by ending the BDP rule, but the party was only established in 2012. This makes it a relatively new player in the Botswana political landscape.

In Mozambique as was expected, violence followed the victory of long-reigning Frelimo Party. This after the results were disputed by the opposition, which organised national protests via social media. This prompted the government to shut down all social media platforms, which had become popular media for disgruntled citizens to organise protests in Mozambique. In 2010, food price protests in the country that were organised through social media were successful, but this time the authorities in Maputo decided to close the popular digital media and crackdown against the protesters resulting in the fatal shooting of several protesters and arrest of many by the police.

In Zimbabwe, in the whole SADC region, is notorious for its intolerance of the opposition since the outbreak of first post-independence unrest around 1982 when the army killed opponents in Operation Gukurahundi, supported by the Zanu-PF party. Political violence again swept through the country after the 2008 national election when political opponents were targeted by security forces after the opposition Movement for Democratic Change won the polls. Zimbabwe is a democratic state because multiparty elections are periodically but the country’s system could be described accurately be described as “totalitarian democracy”, where everybody is allowed to contest election but no other party other than the ruling party is allowed to win the polls.

Due to police crackdown including an assault on opposition MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai, an election re-run was organised which, off course was then won by Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. The situation in the country was exacerbated by economic instability caused by running hyper-inflation which followed the grabbing of white-owned farms by liberation military veterans. Regular protests occurred in Zimbabwe under the new Citizens Coalition for Change, an offshoot of MDC, but the protests were always met police brutal action. Crackdown against pro-democracy and economic related protests seemed to have worsened under Mugabe’s successor, Emerson Mnangagwa.

In South Africa, which is famous for its respected world class constitution, there has never been so much infighting among and between political parties since the country attained freedom, as is the case at present. With the late icon Nelson Mandela in the midst then, South Africa enjoyed a period of relative peace as the famous anti-apartheid freedom fighter invited all political parties and groupings to settle for peace and reconciliation rather than confrontation. Following multiparty negotiations towards achieving democracy and new constitutional dispensation, the former black and white foes opted to establish the first government of national unity where the major parties, the African National Congress and the National Party governed together in a coalition.

Now the former ruling African National Congress, had its power trimmed when it lost its electoral majority at the May 9, 2024 national and provincial elections. President Cyril Ramaphosa was forced to form a coalition, known as the government of national unity (GNU) with ten other parties. The ANC has to consult other GNU partners before it made any decision.

But the ANC is facing pressure from its left struggle era alliance partners like the South African Communist Party and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The SACP in particular accuses the ANC of having conceded too much power to the neoliberal Democratic Alliance which questions every decision the ANC made, claiming it was not consulted. The SACP’s general secretary, Solly Mapaila, continuously and publicly criticises the ANC for having sold out by cooperating with DA, which pursues neoliberal market-friendly policies. Mapaila sees a coalition with the DA as contradicting the ANC’s national democratic revolution aim that was touted to produce economic emancipation as the next and second phase of the black liberation, after the 1994 freedom.

Now a ideological tug-of-war is ensuing between the Left and the DA to influence the ANC towards adopting their respective political lines. The SACP opposes the right-leaning decision on the business-friendly economy while the DA is vehemently against leftist policies such as the National Health Insurance which was designed to provide healthcare for all society, regardless of economic class. The DA and other right-wing parties disagreed with the Basic Education Laws Amendment and this week they protested at the Pretoria against clauses of the legislation that undermine white languages and culture.

Some say the ANC, which obtained 40% in the May election, would never return to power, instead it was bound to drop further down to below 30% and subsequently becoming one of the smaller opposition parties in future. That is not impossible considering that even Botswana’s BDP lost from 38 seats to only 4 seats in the of 57-seat Parliament, which is a huge jump to the bottom. In South Africa, the ANC fell from 57% in the 2019 election to 40% in May, a huge loss considering that the party had been well above the 60% between 1994 and 2019.

The new GNU is facing its worst crisis as the main parties in the coalition frequently clash on policy direction. Some foresee a split of the GNU as both sides were not willing to compromise on their policy stances. But there is fear that should this right-leaning coalition break up, the ANC might be tempted to do what it avoided from the start – to form a leftist coalition with the Economic Freedom Fighters founded by Julius Malema and Umkhonto Wesizwe Party led by former ANC and the country’s president Jacob Zuma. These two parties pursue pro-poor socialist-oriented policies.

The trouble is such a combination wouldn’t be welcomed by markets who prefer the ANC-DA coalition as a better vehicle to ensure market friendly economy. They believe an ANC-EFF-MKP government would move in the “wrong direction” direction to implement a radical agenda including land expropriation without compensation by the state, an expensive wholesale free education and the nationalisation of the South African Reserve Bank and mineral resources under the control of the state.

Other countries that have seen democratic changes with power moving to the opposition were in Zambia and Malawi. Although the South West African Peoples Organisation (Swapo) in Namibia had been in power since 1990, the opposition parties are allowed in Namibia but none of them posed a threat to the Swapo dominance since they were weak. Democratic changes had also swept through Zambia and Malawi and in those countries there was no longer one-party democratic rule.

The trend in the SADC region is that the former liberation movements were being rejected by the people at the ballot box. While cut-off period for them to remain in power was 20 years, many of them had beyond that time as bonus, but many had overstayed their welcome. Judging by the rate at which democratic changes are happening, it’s a matter of time before the ANC in South Africa, ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe, Mozambique’s Frelimo party and Namibia’s Swapo lose power completely through the ballot box.

As matters stand currently, nothing will stop the winds of change from blowing and by the look of things anyone who stands on the way of democracy will be crushed. The lessons of the last few months in South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique clearly show that democratisation is what people want in Africa.