Cote d’Ivoire: The real tragedy is that we’ve seen this so many times before

Jenerali Ulimwengu

The tragedy that has become Cote d’Ivoire is unfortunately one of those déjà vu situations that continue to haunt the African continent. We have been here before, in Zimbabwe, in Kenya, in Zanzibar, and in many other places where stoic societies suffer without exploding.

Cheating at polls is nothing new; almost all our countries engage in electoral fraud, some more subtly, others more crudely.

The more egregious samples have come from Harare and Nairobi, and now Abidjan, where cheating has become more transparent and in-your-face.

It’s this brazen nature of electoral rape that especially worries one.

It’s as if we have grown a species of humans who, in spite of all the talk about ending impunity and the threat of international sanctions, still believe that they can do what they pretty much wish.

The vote thieves have employed different styles. There are those that have simply removed ballots in favour of one candidate and turned them in favour of another, quite simply.

There are those whose manner is more wholesale, who strategically remove whole populations from the electoral process, annul results from entire polling stations, impound hundreds of ballot boxes and run into the night, et cetera.

Then there are those who tally the ballots, gaze upon the results, hate what they see and take out a fresh piece of paper, scribble more convenient numbers and proceed to announce their “results” and their “winner.”

In the Zimbabwean case, the style was simply not to announce the results.

For a continent that is not renowned for creativity, in this area we are great inventors.

There is certainly nothing African about this type of cheating — remember the pregnant “chads” in Florida? — but the Africans have embraced it with gusto.

It may soon be written into our constitutions, that whoever happens to be in power can steal votes the same way he has been raiding the national Treasury.

We even have a tested script ready for what happens, blow for blow: An election is held; the incumbent loses; he is declared the winner; the people riot; the international community cries foul; babysitters are trotted out to go and clean up after the naughty brats of the moment; the babies are brought together and talked into forming a government of “national unity.”

Thus the thief and the rightful proprietor shake hands and become partners, now free to quarrel at close quarters.
Half a century after putative Independence we are still toddlers, dependent on a clutch of babysitters who now seem to be on some AU, EU or UN roster: Kofi Annan, Thabo Mbeki, Joachim Chissano, Graca Machel.

In Haiti — another miserably African country — naughty children would be quieted at night by being told that tonton (uncle) Macoute would come from the hills and snatch them.

Macoute, a mythical ogre, found shape in Papa Doc’s terrifying secret police.

In our time and place, that Uncle Macoute has taken the form of Louis Moreno Ocampo, of ICC fame.

But this our Macoute is not just yet interested in vote stealers, who may, come to think of it, be at the very heart of all the demons that Ocampo seeks to exorcise.

It may be high time that the committee of baby sitters and Macoute Ocampo got together and compared notes with a view to tackling their problem at source.

In the case of Kenya, for instance, it may be futile to prosecute those who whipped up sectarian violence without at the same time dealing with the authors of the botched elections that were, honestly, the casus belli of the fracas.

In the meantime, at least we can congratulate the African Union and the West African economic bloc on their declared position on the Cote d’Ivoire fiasco.

Time was when the continental body and its regional partners would helplessly look on such events as the internal concern of squabbling toddlers, an attitude that helped feed the culture of impunity.

* Jenerali Ulimwengu, chairman of the board of Raia Mwema newspaper, is a political commentator and civil society activist based in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: jenerali@gmail.