Third Term Craze and Democratic Diplomacy in Africa; East and Central Africa as Case Study

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume II, Issue V, May 2018 | ISSN 2454-6186

Third Term Craze and Democratic Diplomacy in Africa; East and Central Africa as Case Study

Gideon O. Adeniji (Msc)

Abstract: We cannot really say democratic practice has matured in Africa the way it has in the West because in comparison to European and American countries, democratic practice in Africa is still in infancy. However, most African countries have been long enough in the game to at least move towards the strengthening of the rudimentary prerequisites of democratic practice such as: free and fair elections and high regard for constitutional provisions. Some scholars have argued that the reason for the aberrations we find in the practice of democracy is because the system of government is alien to Africa and was an imposed system. While this may be true to some extent, the question to be asked is whether a preferable system of government does exist asides democracy that really takes cognizance of the rights of the masses and imbues the people with so much freedom and power?

Key Words: Democracy, Central Africa, East Africa, Third Term Craze, Democratic Diplomacy

I. INTRODUCTION

The consciousness of democratic rule as the ideal form of government seems to have spread, and is still spreading around the globe especially since the end of Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in the early 90’s. Africa has not been left out in this new consciousness and seems to have caught the democratic bug even faster than some other continents. However, whether these democratic ideals have been well internalized is another matter altogether. That is, whether we are still on the level of Democratization- which is the process of establishment and erecting of democratic structures, or whether we have advanced to the level of Democratic Consolidation-in which democratic ideals and principles have become routine and face lesser challenges (F. Imuetinyan, 2015:13). In reality, the former is still quite peculiar to mostly developing countries especially in Africa, while the latter is the norm in developed countries, especially in the West. We cannot really say democratic practice has matured in Africa the way it has in the West because in comparison to European and American countries, democratic practice in Africa is still in infancy. However, most African countries have been long enough in the game to at least move towards the strengthening of the rudimentary prerequisites of democratic practice such as: free and fair elections and high regard for constitutional provisions (A.K. Fayemi, 2009). This is however, hardly the case in many African countries of which we shall examine a few during the course of this work. What we see rather, is the reformulation of democracy to suite authoritarian tastes.

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