Opposition parties in Africa are always complaining that governments, secure in overwhelming majorities in their legislatures, ride roughshod over them.
But many Southern African politicians point out that it is also crucial that opposition parties present themselves as credible — and better — alternatives to the existing governments.
In Botswana, opposition parties have been known to cry “Ga lo bolo go ja [You have been eating a long time; it is time you gave others an opportunity, too]” when telling the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) why it is time for them to let go of the nipples of power.
Partly as a result of this kind of unseemly jostling to get to the trough, the opposition party, the Botswana National Front (BNF), has not been able to dislodge the BDP from power for the last three decades. The BNF also grumbles that Botswana’s “winner takes all” Westminster electoral system does not reflect the strength of the opposition.
If opposition parties in Southern Africa are to be taken seriously by the people of the region, they should invest in the development of economic, social and political policies that present voters with real alternatives to those of the ruling parties, say the regional political leaders. These quality alternatives would give opposition parties the status of “governments-in-waiting”.
But opposition parties should also be interested in building a national consensus on important challenges facing countries. This could be displayed by not opposing every government move, but agreeing to cooperate with the ruling bloc on issues of national interest, such as security and poverty relief.
The responsibilities and rights of ruling and opposition parties in defending and deepening democracy in Southern Africa were discussed at a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum held last week in Maputo, Mozambique.
The workshop brought together members of the ruling parties and their opposition and representatives of civil society from the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Zimbabwe was not represented.
To put participants at ease during the discussions, journalists attending the workshop were asked to protect the identities of delegates. The workshop was held as five SADC countries — Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa — prepare for elections later this year.
Despite competing over the spoils of power in their home grounds, there was a surprising degree of agreement among the SADC politicians on their roles in building democracy in the region.
One of the main resolutions of the conference was that “incumbency should not presuppose abuse of power”. During the discussion of this resolution, it was pointed out that there is a tendency on the part of ruling parties to conflate their own interests with national interests. Where this occurs there is little distinction between the ruling party and the government — the one is interchangeable with the other and state resources are used for party political purposes with little regard for rules of governance.
Participants at the workshop insisted that, once elected, governments must act in the interests of their people as a whole, rather than just those of the party.
In fact, delegates went further and demanded that governments should strive to create an atmosphere where the opposition flourishes. Instead of treating the opposition as unwanted fellow travellers, ruling parties should see them as important contributors to national discourse.
This would rule out their systematically undermining opposition parties, often through the use of the instruments of the state, either through drastic methods such as banning opposition political parties, detaining their leaders or changing presidential serving terms (as in Namibia and the failed attempt in Zambia), or via gentler methods such as criticising and pressuring instruments of accountability such as the auditor general and ombudsman.
Participants at the workshop also warned ruling parties that they should prepare for an opposition role. With many ruling parties in Africa often popularly perceived as being liberators, they frequently believe it unthinkable that some day they could be out of power and on the opposition benches.
It was noted that ruling parties are often obliterated once they have lost power because they are not ready for their new role.
An example from Zambia is former president Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party (UNIP), which lost power after introducing multi-party democracy in 1991 after decades in power. UNIP has never recovered and is not even the official opposition. It now finds itself on the periphery of Zambian politics.
After 40 years of power in Kenya, Daniel arap Moi’s Kenya African National Union lost power last year and suddenly finds itself in a similarly unfamiliar position.
South Africa’s African National Congress is far from demonstrating dictatorial tendencies and a propensity to cling to power — and there is little chance that it needs to prepare itself for the opposition benches in the foreseeable future — but there are signs that it is often uncomfortable with instruments created to check its hold on power.
When the high courts and Constitutional Court found, at different times, that the government has an obligation to provide comprehensive treatment for HIV-positive pregnant mothers who wished to stop transmission of the virus to unborn babies, the ANC said it was worried the judiciary was beginning to encroach into policy-making areas when all it was supposed to do was to interpret the law.
But in its ruling on a case brought by the Aids lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign, the Constitutional Court said: “The Constitution requires the government to comply with the obligations imposed on it. Should a court find the government to be in breach of these obligations, the court is required to provide effective relief to remedy that breach.
“In formulating that relief, the court will be alert both to the proper functions of the legislature or executive under our Constitution and to the need to ensure that constitutional rights are vindicated. There can be no argument that the order improperly trespasses on the exclusive domain of the legislature or executive.”
The same complaint about the judiciary placing onerous duties on the executive was raised when the courts ruled in the landmark Grootboom case. In that case, the Constitutional Court held that the government had to provide alternative accommodation to squatters it wanted to evict.
Given this discomfort with the limiting of its power, it is important that the ANC be kept on its toes by opposition parties so that its hold on power, if it continues, is due to its ability to deliver, rather than the weakness of its opponents.