{"id":17970,"date":"2021-08-29T07:47:53","date_gmt":"2021-08-29T07:47:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barazalab.com\/?p=17970"},"modified":"2023-09-04T05:40:30","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T05:40:30","slug":"elite-disorganization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tuwele.com\/baraza_update\/elite-disorganization\/","title":{"rendered":"Elite Disorganization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings, friends:<\/span><\/p>\n

This week, I\u2019ve been thinking about the Court of Appeal\u2019s ruling against the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) in Kenya last week, and yes – I know numerous think pieces have been written and panels convened already about the BBI. But I would like to argue for a broader reading of the whole saga, and especially to recognise that the court ruling was by no means a foregone conclusion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the discouragement of voters and elites\u2019 capture of the system in Kenya, subjecting a proposed political project to a judicial process for which those in power cannot predict the outcome, is quite rare in Africa.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Take for example, third-term presidential bids in Africa as a genre of executive overreach (like the BBI) that is mostly done through some kind of formal, legal or constitutional process \u2013 although the outcome generally favours the incumbent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Few presidents are like Eritrea\u2019s Isaias Afwerki who completely ignore the constitution and stay in power regardless. Most follow a procedure, whether pushing through a parliamentary bill, a court decision, or a referendum, riddled as these may be with co-optation, vote-buying, or irregularities. Over the past three decades, incumbent African presidents have challenged term limits 50% of the time they reach them, once they do, they have a 75% chance of success.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the conditions in which such initiatives succeed or fail depend not just on matters of law and procedure but on the messy realities of how power has been settled among the political elite, whether in a stable or disorganised and unpredictable way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most African countries with a strong authoritarian bent wouldn\u2019t bother to subject a politically-driven project to the uncertainty of a court case. Many other countries have too many institutions with their own deep authority for the elite to attempt such a brazen and unconstitutional process as has been attempted with the BBI. But in Kenya, the political consensus is genuinely unstable.<\/span><\/p>\n

The effect of this elite disorganisation and instability has in the past produced both political violence in Kenya and vital opportunities for democratic reform and consolidation. Either way, the battles will be hard fought.<\/span><\/p>\n

I extend these arguments more in\u00a0<\/span>this piece<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in The Africa Report (paywalled, but this newsletter is a way for you to read a summary of the article – don\u2019t tell them); shout out to Charles Onyango-Obbo and Ngala Chome for helping me think through this.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the meantime, here\u2019s:<\/span><\/p>\n