One is an African (Liberian), the other is a South American (Brazil), and the other one is East European (Ukrainian). They are all democratically elected Presidents of their respective countries. More than that, they were all maverick politicians elected on the wave of massive discontent about other “normal”, “mainstream”, “establishment” candidates in these countries. George Weah, former, Monaco, PSG, AC Milan, Chelsea and 1995 World Footballer of the Year, was elected president of Liberia in 2018. He still organises and plays in informal football matches in the grounds of the presidential palace for the entertainment of his associates and admirers. So hard to kick off the habit of a lifetime, it seems. Before him, Liberia had put their hopes in the ability and intellect of the Harvard-educated and former World Bank economist, Mrs Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, to rescue the country from the ruins of civil war and economic stagnation. Nothing much happened by way of improvement in the daily lives of the people though. Sirleaf was president from 2006 to 2018. When her deputy, Mr. Joseph Boakai, former minister of agriculture and an expert in social entrepreneurship, contested against the agile footballer, the people had had enough of educated urban elite lording it over the masses. They overwhelmingly voted for Weah – the “common man”.
Similarly, in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro has been elected president of Brazil since January 2019. He was a former paratrooper in the Sao Paulo regiment, who decried and detested the attitude of “corrupt politicians” and banditry running the country. His campaign for the presidency was high on rhetoric and low on substance. By all account, he ran a divisive, racist, homophobic and misogynistic campaign of the kind Donald Trump in the United States would have been proud, and won a resounding victory against a more cerebral and level-headed opponent in the person of Fernando Hadded, former Mayor of Sao Paulo, an accomplished academic with a postgraduate training in economics and a doctorate in philosophy. The outgoing president, Michel Temer, himself was an erudite scholar with a doctorate in public law. He had served as vice president to Dilma Rouseff, who was impeached and removed from office in 2016. All of this had helped lay the ground for Bolsonaro to take advantage of the widespread cynicism and public disenchantment with the “cosmopolitan political elite” running and “ruining” Brazil. Bolsonaro’s populist manifesto played straight into the people’s fear and anxiety, who had craved identifiable “enemies” of society to assuage their immediate concerns. Bolsonaro gave them plenty to chew over, and was rewarded with a thumping victory.
Latterly, in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, a 41-year-old comedian, who was a star in a satirical television series called, “Servant of the people”, in which his character accidentally becomes president after being heard denouncing corruption and ineptitude of the elected politicians on screen. Unfortunately for the incumbent and outgoing president, Petro Poroshenko, fiction and reality became too closely intertwined just as the country embarked upon a campaign in the country’s general election. Zelensky was smoked out of his television hideout by popular demand. So, without ever having held any political office, and no political party platform to stand on, he threw his proverbial hat into the ring and waited with bated breath whether the fairy tale could indeed become reality. He had no political ideas on any of the fundamental issues facing the country, and did not organise rallies and billboard commercial advertisements like Poroshenko and several others did. His chosen communication methods with the electorate were random postings via Instagram and other social media outlets. The more elusive he was throughout the election campaigns, the more attractive he became to the electorate. In short, Zelensky won the first round by 34%, and the run-off between himself and Poroshenko by a landslide: 74%. Poroshenko is a dollar billionaire and an influential businessman in and outside Ukraine. Several other prominent politicians also contested the election, but they all got swept aside by the comic magic of Zelensky. What are all these telling us about democracy and change generally, and particularly in our own society?
First is that change can indeed happen where votes (not money, not rigging) count. Furthermore, the chasm between the political elite and the electorate is growing everywhere; it is a universal phenomenon. Once in power, the ruling elite often forget and lose sight of the purpose of government. They talk over the heads of the electorate most of the time. Those who try the evolutionary approach to governance amongst them do so without giving proper articulation to the frustration of their electorate. This then often leaves a vacuum which clever demagogues move into, and fill with their own toxic combination of hate, prejudice and xenophobia.
The last but not least, is the ‘danger’ that democracy, full participatory democracy, portends. In order to advance an inclusive programme of economic development for all, the democratic space needs to be expanded and opened up to all comers. The question in many African societies is, given the fragility of ethnic harmony on the continent, should ethnic grievances be given expression within the usual political power play without “heating up the polity” as they say in Nigeria? Can we afford to have a political structure where jingoistic ethnic sentiments can be aired, debated and (hopefully) defeated in an open contest? Or is the risk of “dismemberment” and “break-up” of our imperfect colonial states enough for us to curtail our democratic participation?
When democracy throws up barbers, carpenters and shoemakers as presidents, (no disrespect to the artisans engaged in those honourable trades), should that be a cause for celebration or anxiety? I mean, could the people’s voice be heard just as well through celebrity and comic figures as much as through the “golden voice” of the intelligentsia? Should wielding power be the preserve of the articulated, well-educated, suave and ‘safe’ politicians alone, or should it be left to all comers? Is it time to allow for independent candidacy in our electoral system so we can gleefully elect our own popular barber-cum president? Shoemaker-cum president? Or, for that matter, “Dancing-Senator”-cum president?
Our electoral system is designed to weed out “mushroom candidates” of the kind we have seen in the three examples in the heading. It is also, paradoxically, designed to marginalised individual figures of stature and standing in society with no political base to propel them. How much is too much democracy? It gave America Donald Trump. Is it a luxury we cannot afford in Africa, or is it a necessity we cannot do without?
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