Annual Basker Vashee Memorial Lecture: Africa's Democracy Deficit

Lecture at:De Balie, Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10, Amsterdam

> See Press Release and Background on lecture

Across the African continent, constituting democracy has proved elusive for many countries despite the widespread acceptance of democracy worldwide as an alternative to dictatorship and totalitarian regimes. William Gumede, will examine the reasons in the annual Basker Vashee Memorial lecture, drawing on the vivid current example of Zimbabwe’s Zanu PF’s descent into dictatorship which has shattered the dreams of many Zimbabweans.

Gumede, a Senior Associate & Oppenheimer Fellow, at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford University and renowned political and media commentator, asks whether there is something inherent in the culture of African political parties and liberation movements that makes it difficult for them to sustain democratic platforms.

For the reality is that liberation movements who valiantly opposed colonial powers, in the name of freedom and democracy, have behaved markedly undemocratic once they assumed power. Political parties who have been in opposition, and came to power after the end of undemocratic regimes have not done much better.

Gumede argues that the reasons for Africa’s democracy deficit are both self-inflicted and imposed from outside. But at the heart of the failure of African attempts at democracy building is that ruling political parties and liberation movements have failed to establish a democratic political culture. Democracy has been interpreted in a highly limited way as meaning elections, even if a Government’s practices were highly democratic.

The lecture will be a taster of Gumede’s forthcoming book, Democratic Deficit: Africa's Lost Years, to be published by Zed Books later this year.