Democracy is failing to deliver in Africa

ALGORITHMS aside, comments in public discourse that democracy is not for Africa increasingly surface on social media.

- RUDI BUYS

Or quite possibly algorithms are exactly the point — the function where such messages gain more hits is the result of viewers repeatedly opening those links. The algorithm follows the user’s preferences, and then the user follows the algorithm, unless for a deliberate choice to choose other posts and links.

However, while it may only be algorithms that manipulate users’ selection of social media content, an increasing interest in the question corresponds with formal research of voter interest across several African countries. While marginal, statistical analysis reveals a rising doubt that democracy as a political system is a good fit for African nations, as opposed to more authoritarian and military-styled systems.

The popularity of several African presidents who achieve stability and development for their countries while also openly criticising Western-type democracy as non-African and neo-colonial, play a vital role in this regard. By replicating how to be a democracy from the West, and how to develop your country from the East, Africa is resigning itself to the next wave of colonial oppression, the argument goes. A few public voices go as far as to say that Africa needs a return of the dictator, albeit not the self-enriching one, but the benevolent dictator - the one who, by authoritarian methods, gets things done for the benefit of all the people.