The Shadow Cast by Ballot Boxes and Weapons in the Great Lakes Region

THE SHADOW CAST BY BALLOT BOXES AND WEAPONS IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION

Elements of analysis and reflection on democratisation in Central Africa after two electoral years 2010-2011

Kris Berwouts

"A crisis is, when the old is dead and the new cannot be born.”

A. Gramsci

Table of Contents

Summary

O. Emergence from war

1. Elections after the historic elections

a) 2010: an annus horribilis for Paul Kagame

b) Burundi: the opposition's flight from the scene

c) DRC: the contested elections of 28 November 2011

2. Consolidating democracy or organising elections in order to win them

a)  Control over public opinion and electoral machinery

b)  Fighting with unequal weapons: the opposition's thankless role

c)  The shadow of elections cast over the security situation

-  Kayumba Nyamwasa and Agathon Rwasa's flight from the country

-  Complex political/military landscape in the DRC

-  Kayumba Nyamwasa's dream

-  The failure to start up a Burundian rebellion

-  The current situation in North Kivu

3. Moving towards some conclusions: slow progress or decline in democratisation?

a)  Reforms and opening up? Perhaps, but pluralism remains a façade

b) The vulnerability of civil society

c) Limitations on the international community's impact

The content of this report does not necessarily represent EurAc's positions

SUMMARY

2010 and 2011 were difficult election years in Central Africa. Not only Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC, but also the Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic and Gabon organised elections in 2011, as did Uganda, which is not considered to be part of Central Africa. All of these elections confirmed and renewed the legitimacy of the ruling leaders.

In this report, we shall analyse this process for the three countries that together make up the region covered by EurAc. In Rwanda, on 9 August 2010, the elections were won by the outgoing president Paul Kagame, the RPF's candidate, with a resounding result of 93% of the vote, against three candidates who were described by the opposition as "satellite" candidates, a phoney opposition to maintain the illusion of pluralism. In the first stage of the pre-election period, the regime's fight focused around the traditional opposition, and in particular around the flamboyant Victoire Ingabire, whose clear messages and direct style attracted a lot of attention in particular. In March 2010, the tensions fundamentally changed in nature, with the dissidence of the General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a long term companion of President Kagame and one of the most powerful people in the Rwandan army. Suddenly, the regime's first concern was no longer the traditional opposition. From the start of March 2010, the ruling inner circle felt that its coherence was threatened and it had to battle against its own disintegration.

In Burundi, the electoral cycle started on 24 May with local elections. The participation rate was 92% and the victory by the ruling party was resounding (64%), followed at a great distance by the FNL (14%). After the local elections on 24 May, six of the seven candidates for the Burundi presidency withdrew from the presidential elections, thus reducing the ballot to a plebiscite on extending the term of office of the outgoing President Pierre Pierre Nkurunziza. This decision was the result of what the opposition denounced as "massive fraud". However, although the election observation missions, including those by COSOME and EurAc, certainly talked about irregularities, they did not report massive fraud. The 2010 Burundi elections were an important step backwards in the democratisation of the country. The result is a near monopoly by the ruling party in institutions at every level (a situation which evoked bad memories of the time of one-party rule) and a frustrated and marginalised opposition outside of the country. The potential for violence significantly increased with an opposition that had many of its roots in armed struggle.

In the DRC, the elections of 28 November 2011 took place with many irregularities and the situation became very tense during the days and weeks after polling day. Time diffused the situation. Even though the results of elections remained contested, the explosiveness of the impasse gradually went away with the certainty that the cancellation of elections, the reissuing of electoral operations and the recounting of votes were not serious options. The incredible things that happened to ballot papers after 28 November made a recount technically impossible. In the first few months of 2012, the various Congolese political players (with the exception of Tshisekedi) took credit for these election results that everyone agreed were very debatable.

In this report, we shall try to analyse how, in the three countries, the regime organised formal elections, while retaining maximum control over the election machinery and public opinion. We shall also look at how the opposition was unable, in any of the three countries, to create the impression that it was ready to take over after a possible regime change. The opposition parties were institutionally weak and/or very divided. They had to defend themselves using weapons that were unable to compete with those of their opponents. They did not know how to make a difference. In Rwanda, the opposition was removed several months before the elections; in Burundi it pulled out after the first ballot (the local elections), and in the Congo, it was not able to capitalise on the sense of fatigue that existed amongst a large part of the electorate since it was not able to put together a coherent and solid political constellation.

We shall see how the democratic shortfall in the three electoral processes was at the basis of a loss of cohesion by the armed forces and an immediate risk of a new wave of violence. We shall analyse how Kayumba Nyamwasa and Agathon Rwasa's flight from the country, as well as the impact of the electoral climate on the political/military landscape in the east of the Congo became significant destabilising factors.

The absence of a real parliamentary opposition puts a lot of pressure on civil society. It wants to participate in the national debate and to be considered a partner to be consulted regarding the great issues concerning the nation. In a context in which the opposition plays a marginal role, it becomes (together with the media) one of the rare places where divergent opinions and critical comments are expressed. Often, its officials and militants are targeted, like journalists, by specific acts of repression. The killing of Floribert Chebeya on 1st June 2010 was the most well-known proof of this.

The irregularities, cheating, intimidations, violence etc. damaged the credibility and legitimacy of the institutional architecture in Central Africa. This risks having the consequence that the public soon loses all confidence in elections as a means of bringing about change.

International partners, including the European Union, have not had a favourable impact on democracy. They have been very ambiguous in their messages about democracy. Western countries insist a great deal on the holding of elections but go quite far in accepting non-democratic practices. Perhaps, the international partners do not have the proper tools to make a difference. In the case of the Congo for example, it is possible to escape the following question: what impact can we expect from a framework created by Western partners that is based on traditional divisions and which gives great support to standardised programmes that have been conceived for post-conflict contexts, while a new leaf has not yet ever really been turned over in terms of the conflict in Central Africa?

If we want citizens to continue to believe in elections, we have to ensure that they are credible. It is essential not only to supervise the electoral process as such, but also to invest in a transformation of the political landscape. It is also imperative to contribute to the demilitarisation of the political arena, for example by strengthening (majority and opposition) political parties and parliaments (both elected representatives and civil servants). Lastly, there is an urgent need to prepare the ground so that local communities appropriate the values and the concepts of democracy for themselves through civic education and support for observation missions put in place by civil society.

O. Emergence from war

The situation in Central Africa is the product of different complex regional processes through which local differences and national conflicts have crossed national borders. In this region, each country has a complex internal situation and recent violent history, in which local antagonisms have been polarised and interwoven with those of neighbouring countries. Following the end of the Cold War and throughout the 1990s these regional processes turned into an avalanche of death and destruction. During the two wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), (1996-1997 and 1998-2002) which followed the genocide in Rwanda, the DRC, and more specifically its eastern provinces became the battle ground for the "First African World War".

At the beginning of the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo confronted a situation in which the acceleration of the democratisation process led to the implosion of the state and conflicts that were different from those that had existed previously. Tensions in the different countries polarised and started to overlap until a number of ad hoc alliances were formed; these were often very irrational and most of the time based on the adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", even if it sometimes transpired that today's enemies were tomorrow's friends. The result is a network of unstable coalitions between armed groups and politicians which geographically include all the African countries between Angola and the Horn of Africa.

In the three countries, the end of the war was followed by a transition that ended with an electoral process. In these three countries, elections were won by movements and leaders who came out of the uprising.

In Rwanda, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) had transformed its military victory, which brought an end to genocide in July 1994, into political domination by gradually cordoning off the political space. The electoral cycle (2001-2003), which brought the transition to an end, was organised without open debate: the only true opposition party never received approval, and the main independent candidates for the presidential elections were disqualified on the eve of polling day. The campaign was accompanied by disappearances, arrests and intimidation of candidates, the electorate and observers. Threats and intimidation against the last holdouts of the free press and the last truly independent associations from civil society led to a resounding victory by the RPF and its president Paul Kagame, the President of the Republic.

In Burundi, the war ended with the signing of the Arusha Agreement in August 2000, even though a transition government was not formed before November 2001. It was only on 16 November 2003 that the most significant rebellion, the CNDD-FDD (National Council for the Defence of Democracy / Forces for the Defence of Democracy), integrated the army and transition institutions. This integration immediately normalised the security situation in most of the territory (only the FNL/Palipehutu continued its armed struggle) and it enabled the organisation of the 2005 elections. These elections were considered free and transparent by Burundian and international observers, and they gave a clear result that was accepted by all players from the political and military landscape. These elections led to regime change: on 19 August 2005, the president of the CNDD-FDD, Pierre Nkurunziza, was sworn in as President of the Republic.

In the Congo, the crumbling regime of Mobutu's Zaire experienced an accelerated disintegration following the entry within its territory of more than two million Rwandan refugees after the end of the genocide in July 1994. Military action carried out by Rwanda and Uganda in the east of the country in 1996 brought about the final fall of the elderly Field Marshal. Rwanda and Uganda's most important Congolese ally, the rebel Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who had been active on the scene since the 1960s, was sworn in as President of the Republic on 26 May 1997 in Kinshasa. A second war broke out in August 1998, after which Kabila fell out with the country that had helped him come to power. This war divided the country into various sections, each one "administered" by different warring parties, it involved such a large number of African countries that it began to be talked about as the first African world war. It was an extremely cruel war, particularly in the East of the Republic, with several million direct or indirect victims of the violence. Two of the significant consequences were: on the one hand the plunging of the country into violence with total impunity, and on the other hand, the militarisation of an economy that was already informal due to decades of Mobutu's kleptocracy. In January 2001, Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated by a kadogo (child soldier) in the presidential palace. His son Joseph succeeded him as the head of state. The war officially ended in 2002; a national unity government (the famous 1+4) managed a period of transition that organised elections in July and October 2006. Finally, Joseph Kabila won the presidential elections in the second round against Jean-Pierre Bemba, and his party - the PPRD (People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy) - won the legislative elections. The presidential majority also dominates organisations in the provinces. Local elections were planned but they were never organised.

All of these processes of peace, transition and elections were considered to be historic and they received a lot of attention from the outside world, since they should have brought an end to a period of extreme violence and the implosion of states, not only at their respective national levels, but throughout the entire region. These various elections marked the start of terms of office that ended recently.

In our analysis, we wonder to what extent the 2010 and 2011 elections had an added value for emerging democracies and to what extent they contributed to the consolidation of the democratisation process and the return to stability. We shall also try to draw some conclusions about the role and impact of the international community, even if this is only an abstraction: it is the sum of multiple national, bilateral and multilateral issues, and in no way and at no point does it act as a coherent body grouped around a mutual interest.