Lawrence Hamilton is the SA UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, based at the Universities of theWitwatersrand and Cambridge. He contributes to rethink political theory from and for the Global South. His works include Amartya Sen (2019), Freedom is Power (2014) and The Political Philosophy of Needs (2003).
In this month’s podcast I interview Professor Federico M Rossi about social movements and political change in Argentina. We discuss the emergence of the Piquetero Movement which is arguably the most significant unemployed workers’ movement in the world and the concept of Peronism in the country.
Also, not to be missed, in our monthly feature called the Political Agenda, political studies scholar Moshibudi Motimele looks at the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Lawrence Hamilton is the SA UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, based at the Universities of theWitwatersrand and Cambridge. He contributes to rethink political theory from and for the Global South. His works include Amartya Sen (2019), Freedom is Power (2014) and The Political Philosophy of Needs (2003).
In this month’s podcast I interview University of Pretoria Philosophy Professor Bernard Matolino, about democracy by consensus versus majoritarian democracy looking at issues of representation and equality.
Matolino casts a critical eye on misgovernance on the continent, even touching on the subject of the controversial former South African President Jacob Zuma and his late counterpart Robert Mugabe.
Also, not to be missed, in our monthly feature called the Political Agenda, political studies scholar Moshibudi Motimele looks at the recent coup in Niger.
David B Moore is a professor of Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg. He has been researching and writing about Zimbabwe’s political history and political economy Zimbabwean politics since the mid-1980s. His new book Mugabe’s Legacy: Coups, Conspiracies, and the Conceits of Power in Zimbabwe, was released in mid-2022.
Opposition supporters calling for free and fair elections outside the offices of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in Harare in 2018. Jeksai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images.
Few were surprised as, near midnight on 26 August, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced incumbent president Emmerson Mnangagwa’s reelection in yet another of Zimbabwe’s tendentious contests. His inauguration on 4 September sanctified his return to power.
Fewer still were shocked when South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, attended Mnangagwa’s inauguration regardless of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) election observation team’s critical report and the absence of most of his peers from the SADC and the African Union.
Mnangagwa gained 52.6% of the 4,561,221 votes cast. Nelson Chamisa, head of the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), garnered 1,967,343 or 44%. Zanu-PF’s 136 of parliament’s 210 seats is just under the two-thirds needed to change the constitution.
I’ve observed and written about all Zimbabwe’s elections since 2000, when Zanu-PF first faced strong opposition from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) under Morgan Tsvangirai. My book Mugabe’s Legacy: Coups, Conspiracies, and the Conceits of Power in Zimbabwe covers nearly 50 years of Zanu-PF’s propensity to gain power by any means – even genocide.
This election displayed many of these patterns. However, each election has registered variations as Zimbabwe hovers between open democracy and fully shut authoritarianism. Zanu-PF’s score, with contemporary variants, ranges from pre- and post-election intimidation to electoral “management” and playing off its regional neighbours. The CCC and civil society choirs also shift their tone in response: from outright rejection and court challenges to pleas for reruns and transitional governments.
Long-term, immediate and post-election intimidation
The post-2017 coup period foreshadowed many of Zanu-PF’s contemporary strategies. First was the soldiers killing at least six demonstrators (and bystanders) just after the mid-2018 elections. In January 2019, a “stayaway” kicked in just after Mnangagwa announced a 150% increase in fuel prices. Planned chaos ensued as riots, looting and protests were encouraged by a multitude of unidentified forces. More than 17 people were killed. As many women were raped. Nearly 1,800 other bodily violations ensued amid mass trials and convictions.
Since then, Zanu-PF has reminded many people not to engage in opposition.
By mid-2020 the targets moved towards women in the MDC. The case of CCC activist Moreblessing Ali’s murder in May 2022 indicates a new variant on “silent murder”. Ali’s brother, Washington, a long-time MDC-CCC activist in the UK, gained the help of CCC MP and lawyer Job Sikhala to publicise his sister’s murder. Sikhala has been imprisoned since his campaign on behalf of Ali.
I examine this horrific assassination in the next issue of the journal Transformation. It illustrates how the move towards land-baron-led gangsterism in Harare connects with Zanu-PF hierarchies of power.
The August 2023 pre-election murder by stoning of CCC activist Tinashe Chitsunge indicated this sort of politics running wild.
After the election, demonstrators and soldiers did not encounter each other en masse: no shootings. However, residents visiting pubs in “high density suburbs” encountered rough treatment from unidentified people with guns and brand-new uniforms. Later, Glen Norah councillor Womberaishe Nhende and fellow activist Sonele Mukuhlani were left naked after their abduction, whipping and injection with poison on 3 September. Their lawyers, Douglas Coltart and Tapiwa Muchineripi, were arrested when visiting them in hospital.
The well-funded “Forever Associates of Zimbabwe” (FAZ) earned its keep by intimidating folks during the pre-election phases. FAZ is a Zanu-PF mix of semi-intellectuals and aspirant entrepreneurs. They are Mnangagwa enthusiasts needing connections to the Zanu-PF state.
The clouds over liberal horizons darkened further in the legal spheres of repression. The “Patriotic Act”, passed ahead of the elections, makes too much opposition-talk with foreigners treasonous. The still unsigned amendment to the Private Voluntary Organisations Bill promises to end all hints of civil society support for opposition parties.
The gerrymandered delimitation exercise remapped mostly urban constituencies so they stretch to peri-urban and nearly rural areas. Zanu-PF hoped the majority would thus support it, as in the countryside. This tactic linked well to election day’s improprieties. Up to 75 urban polling stations experienced unexpected and unprecedented shortages of ballot papers. This caused long and uncertain waits. Some stations extended voting to the next day.
In Glenview, a Harare suburb, hundreds of poor voters walked kilometres to vote by 7am. They waited – peacefully, fortunately – eight hours for the ballot papers.
At other stations, night-time voting added to voters’ roll problems due to the hasty delimitation exercise that left many in the wrong constituency. They were advised to find the correct one.
Where voting continued to 24 August, how many returned?
The V11 forms
Widespread concerns about the V11 forms came on top of worries about the thousands of people giving up on the lost ballot papers. These sheets are posted on the outside walls of the 12,000 polling stations. They show all the votes. They are meant to enable anyone to keep score at the first polling stage. Then the official counting moves on to ward, constituency, and provincial counting centres, and finally to the national “command centre” where the presidential vote is tallied and announced. Suspicion runs rampant about what happens at the links in this chain.
Election NGOs and other organisations were collecting and tabulating images of the V11 forms for digital release. Too late: Zanu-PF conducted on-the-night raids as they were at work.
As the Institute for Security Studies’ southern Africa programme head Piers Pigou noted in conversation with me, if the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was worried about the election’s legitimacy, the V11 forms would have been on its website immediately. But they are not there – or anywhere.
Regional responses, CCC plans and democracy’s future
As noted, the election observers’ reports do not paint a pretty picture of the election. The Citizens Coalition for Change hoped to exploit the split between the SADC observers and their SADC masters. But the SADC’s council of elders seems unable to help the CCC’s plans to arrange a rerun guided by an international committee. South Africa’s enthusiasm for its neighbour gives little solace to northern democrats. Given Zimbabwe’s courts’ past biases on the legality of elections, the CCC did not bother taking the judicial route.
Mnangagwa’s inauguration has put all those plans to rest. No reruns. No new versions of government of “national unity”, modelled after the disputed, violence-marred 2008 contest, or transitional councils. At most, the election observers’ reports portend further critique. The Zimbabwean democratic forces have to think again, and harder, about ways to a better future.
In sum, if Zimbabwe’s 2023 election foreshadows future battles between authoritarianism and liberal democracy, the former has gained the upper hand. Zanu-PF’S iron fist remains, with a velvet coating, albeit fraying. As a woman overheard discussing this election observed, the only hope may be Zanu-PF destroying itself as it almost did in 2017.
This article is republished from the The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Lawrence Hamilton is the SA UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, based at the Universities of theWitwatersrand and Cambridge. He contributes to rethink political theory from and for the Global South. His works include Amartya Sen (2019), Freedom is Power (2014) and The Political Philosophy of Needs (2003).
In this month’s podcast I interview Dr Camilla Vergara, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Cambridge on the ongoing quest for constitutional reform in the South American country. She breaks down the challenges with systemic corruption and talks to us about the need for plebian democracy in the world.
And in the political agenda segment political studies scholar Moshibudi Motimele goes to Senegal where there has been an internet shut down since June 1 due to widespread protests.
Nicole Beardsworth is a lecturer in Politics at the University of the Witwatersrand and an honorary research fellow in Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick. Her PhD research focused on opposition parties and electoral coordination in Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and her broader research is on the history and politics of sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on political parties, governance, democratisation and elections in Southern and Eastern Africa.
In this month’s episode of Critical South, Dr Nicole Beardsworth from the University of the Witwatersrand interviews Aili Tripp, a Professor of Political Science, Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin, who explains why African autocracies adopt gender reforms. She tell us if there are any differences between how autocracies and democracies on gender in the promote women as leaders to gain traction.
And in our political agenda segment this Time, Dr Laura Martin takes a quick look at how democracy is faring in West African country of Sierra Leone.
Lawrence Hamilton is the SA UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, based at the Universities of theWitwatersrand and Cambridge. He contributes to rethink political theory from and for the Global South. His works include Amartya Sen (2019), Freedom is Power (2014) and The Political Philosophy of Needs (2003).
In this month’s podcast I interview Professor Lasse Thomassen from Queen Mary University of London and Professor Laurence Piper from University West Sweden about radical democracy, representation and populism.
We discuss the Cape Town suburb of Hout Bay to understand how the residents there are not being represented and what it means for their citizenship.
And we talk about Donald Trump’s brand of populism.
Also in this episode, in the political agenda segment, political studies scholar Moshibudi Motimele gives a rundown of the conflict and the never ending road to democratic government in the North Eastern African state Sudan.
Lawrence Hamilton is the SA UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, based at the Universities of theWitwatersrand and Cambridge. He contributes to rethink political theory from and for the Global South. His works include Amartya Sen (2019), Freedom is Power (2014) and The Political Philosophy of Needs (2003).
In this month’s podcast Professor Lawrence Hamilton interviews Professor David Moore on his new book Mugabe’s Legacy: Coups, Conspiracies and the Conceits of Power in Zimbabwe.
Moore talks about modes of production in Africa, corruption, violence and rent-seeking and gives us his views on exceptionalism in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Robert Mugabe is known as the anchor of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle and problem child in its post-colonial politics.
But what is the real legacy of his long 37 year rule of Zimbabwe?
Nic Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham. He was formerly the Director of the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. His research addresses a range of questions such as whether populism is an effective strategy of political mobilization in Africa, how paying tax changes citizens’ attitudes towards democracy and corruption, and the conditions under which ruling parties lose power
Sishuwa Sishuwa is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow on Political Parties in East and Southern Africa at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and a Lecturer in African History at the University of Zambia. He holds a PhD in Modern History from the University of Oxford. His scholarship locates current political developments in a historical context, showing that the roots of contemporary democratic politics in Africa lie in the early post-colonial and even late-colonial periods.
King Mswati III of eSwatini, Africa’s last absolute monarch, is facing growing demands for democracy and rule of law. EPA-EFE/Yeshiel Panchia
It has become common to argue that most Africans are not that committed to democracy. Commentators often suggest that Africans care more about development than democracy, and that voters – especially those in rural areas – don’t really understand democracy. They would thus happily trade away their political rights for a “strong man” who can get things done.
This narrative has proved to be durable despite being wrong.
In our new journal article for the Keywords series of the African Studies Review, we investigated three issues. First, is there support for democracy in Africa? Second, what kind of democracy do people want? Third, why are the desires of African citizens so often silenced?
Drawing on survey data collected by the Afrobarometer between 2016 and 2018, we show that strong majorities think that democracy is the best political system for their country.
Contrary to claims that “Western style” democracy is “unAfrican”, we find widespread support for a form of consensual democracy, which combines a strong commitment to political accountability and civil liberties with a concern for unity and stability.
Support for democracy remains strong
Democracy in Africa has come under considerable pressure over the last decade. Satisfaction with the way that democracy is performing has fallen. This is in part due to a decline in public confidence in the quality of elections – how free, fair and credible they are.
We argue that this has only had a modest impact on support for the principle of democratic government, in part because African citizens continue to view authoritarian rule as a worse option. Of the 35 countries surveyed, the proportion of citizens who suggested that non-democratic political systems might be preferable only exceeded 20% in eSwatini and Malawi.
This figure is now likely to have declined in both countries. Malawians faith in democracy was revived by a peaceful transfer of power in 2020. And the people of eSwatini have been protesting against a failing authoritarian regime.
Even in states in which the reintroduction of multiparty politics has been associated with political controversy and conflict, such as Cote d’Ivoire, Togo and Uganda, more than three quarters of citizens say that democracy is preferable.
Consensual democracy
It is, therefore, time to stop doubting that African citizens want democracy, and start asking what kind of democracy people want. We argue that there is widespread demand for a form of consensual democracy, in which a desire for elections and checks and balances on those in power goes hand in hand with a concern to maintain national unity.
Consensual democracy has four main features:
Multiparty elections
We show that the vast majority of Africans support selecting their government through multi-party elections. Three-quarters of those surveyed agreed that
We should choose our leaders in this country through regular, open and honest elections.
Almost 65% also agreed that “many political parties are needed to make sure that (the people) have real choices in who governs them”. Most rejected the idea of one-party rule.
Political accountability
Our article also shows that most Africans want political accountability and the rule of law. Over three quarters of respondents agreed that
The constitution should limit the president to serving a maximum of two terms in office.
Only 34% agreed that the government getting things done was more important than being accountable to citizens.
Civil liberties and political rights
Respondents also wanted to be able to express their own opinions and engage in political activities. Over three quarters (76%) agreed that a citizen’s freedom to criticise the government was “important” or “essential” for a society to be called democratic.
Ugandans in Kenya demand freedom for opposition leader Bobi Wine in 2018. EPA-EFE/Daniel Irungu
This extends to the right of association, with over 60% of individuals believing they “should be able to join any organisation, whether or not the government approves”.
Consensual politics
Strong support for rights, elections and accountability goes hand-in-hand with a concern to prevent “excessive” freedom and competition, lest they lead to disunity and instability. Many citizens worry about violence around elections; they want parties to put aside their differences and work for the common good.
Most respondents were therefore against the use of street protests to settle disputes, even though they often sympathised with protesters’ aims.
The exceptions that prove the rule
There are of course variations in how people feel about these issues, both across the continent and within countries.
Respondents in eSwatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique were less committed to elections, but only in Lesotho did this drop below 50%.
Namibians and South Africans were more willing to trade accountability off against efficiency – perhaps because of majority support for the ruling party.
Yet, what is striking is the consistency of support for the four pillars of consensual democracy across the continent. What does this mean for African politics? Why is this reality not more accepted?
Our article outlines three key episodes in which support for democratic government has been silenced. We also identify vulnerabilities that authoritarian leaders could exploit.
Leaders who can persuade citizens that their country faces a grave risk of violence and instability may be able to legitimise backsliding on democracy – whether or not the risk actually exists. This is a cause for concern because supporters of democracy in Africa don’t always reject all authoritarian alternatives.
Yet, as our study shows, the overwhelming majority of Africans support consensual democracy.
Lazy argument
The argument that multi-party politics is incompatible with African ways of life stretches back to racist colonial officials. It was also used by nationalist leaders to justify creating one-party states after independence. But it is not true, and has become a lazy excuse for authoritarian regimes that are neither popular nor legitimate.
In a decade in which activists have risked their lives to advance democratic causes in Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, eSwatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, it is time to recognise that most Africans do not want authoritarian rule.
It is both misleading and patronising to suggest that democracy has somehow been imposed by the international community against the wishes of ordinary people. Instead, it has been demanded and fought for from below.
Albano Augustinho Troco is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the SA/UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory. He holds a PhD in Political Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. His research interests encompass issues on electoral politics, democratization and autocratization studies, secessionist conflicts and international relations.
President of Angola Joao Lourenco in Berlin, Germany in 2018. The powers of the president remain intact. Photo by Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Angola’s parliament recently approved a bill to review the country’s constitution 11 years after its promulgation.
President João Lourenço used his constitutional prerogative to initiate a review process by sending a proposal for revision to parliament in early March. His justification was that the supreme law of the land needed to be adapted to the current challenges facing the country.
These included the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to clarify some issues in the Constitution and the need to prevent some of the excesses from the presidency of José Eduardo dos Santos, his predecessor.
The revision introduces notable changes to the constitution. These include the clarification of the institutional relationship between parliament and the executive branch when it comes to political oversight. The 2010 Constitution was not clear on this.
Other key change is the institutionalisation of the independence of the Angolan Central Bank. The amendments would turn the bank into an administratively independent entity with regulatory powers separated from the president and the administration. It also includes involving parliament in the process of appointing the governor.
Under the current constitution, the president appoints (and can dismiss) the governor. The Central Bank is also administratively part of government and receives orders from the president in discharging its responsibilities.
Another change involves extending voting rights to Angolans abroad.
The changes also seek to resolve an ongoing bone of contention – how local government officials are selected. At present, the party that wins the general elections gets to appoint all the senior executive officials at national and sub-national levels (provincial, municipal and commune/district).
There have been efforts to change this in recent years. But the process has been delayed mainly by conflicting views between the governing People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), and opposition parties. The MPLA views the process – referred to locally as gradualism – in geographical terms. It envisages that local elections should start in selected municipalities and spread gradually to all municipalities. Opposition parties oppose this because it means that the ruling party will continue to appoint officials at all levels of governance for many years to come.
They argue that local elections should be implemented in all the 164 municipalities simultaneously. But that the transfer of responsibilities from the central government to local entities would take place as they get ready to take them up.
By and large, I think the changes being proposed are good. But I am of the view that the Angolan political elite lost an extraordinary opportunity to improve significantly the country’s constitution. The Constitutional Revision Bill fails to address crucial and divisive political issues effectively.
The most contentious of these is the extensive powers of the president, the method for his election as well as the fact that it leaves intact the way that local government is formed.
The extensive powers of the president
Contemporary constitutionalism emphasises the doctrine of the separation of powers. This means that the three arms of the state (executive, legislative, and judicial) are kept separate, while having certain powers to check and balance the powers of the other branches so that no arm of the state dominates.
Angola’s current political arrangement – as prescribed by the constitution – doesn’t match up to this. A raft of these flaws aren’t addressed in the amendments.
The Angolan constitution ascribes a wide range of executive powers to the president. It gives the position preeminence over the legislative and judicial arms of the state.
For instance, as the head of state, the president is considered to be the custodian of all executive power. Technically, there is no government but the president, who holds all executive powers. Ministers serve at his pleasure, assisting him in fulfilling his executive duties.
He can pass laws by decree, which means that he can bypass parliament in making them.
Additionally, the constitutional revision bill reaffirms a 2013 ruling by the Constitutional Court, which effectively prevents parliament from summoning ministers or other members of the administration without the president’s consent.
This results in a system with minimal or meaningless executive accountability to parliament.
The president has the prerogative to appoint the presiding and the deputy presiding judges of all the highest courts. He also appoints (and can dismiss) the Attorney General, the deputy Attorney General, the prosecutors of the Supreme Military Court, and members of the highest body of the judiciary.
Despite these extensive powers, Angolans don’t elect the president directly. This function is ultimately limited to the vagaries of party politics.
This is just one major flaw in Angola’s electoral system which, as currently constructed, undermines voters’ ability to elect political representatives effectively.
Firstly, it fuses executive and legislative elections, preventing voters from splitting their votes for the presidency and parliament. Secondly, it shields the top executive officer – the president – from the direct judgement of the voters.
Lastly, it bars independent candidates from standing for political office unless they are included in a party list that has been cleared to run in the elections.
Efforts to fix at least one element of what’s wrong – the ability for Angolans to vote for their representatives at all levels of government – have run into the ground. Opposition parties, which hold roughly 38% (70 out of 220) seats in parliament, want to see elections held in all 164 municipalities simultaneously. They also want power and responsibilities to be progressively delegated from the central government. This would include taxation, policing and infrastructure spending.
The government, however, believes that not every municipality is ready to take up these and other responsibilities.
The repeal under the bill on this issue doesn’t solve the imbroglio.
A shrewd political manoeuvre
The president has rejected previous calls for constitutional revision from opposition parties and civil society. His announcement of a review, in early March, caught the country by surprise.
From this perspective, the president’s decision can be seen as a shrewd political manoeuvre by getting changes within timelines that best suit him.
The first factor here is that the ruling MPLA currently has the necessary majority to approve any constitutional review alone. But that might not be the case after the general elections scheduled for 2022 when most expect the ruling party to lose its qualified majority, thereby losing its ability to approve the constitution alone.
The second factor is that Angolans will have to wait for at least five years – a condition set out under the constitution – until any further reviews of the constitution can be initiated.
This means even further delays in Angolans being able to craft a constitution capable of uniting them around a common project of society.
This article was first published by The Conversation on August 11, 2021.
Albano Augustinho Troco is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the SA/UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory. He holds a PhD in Political Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. His research interests encompass issues on electoral politics, democratization and autocratization studies, secessionist conflicts and international relations.
Angola has a unique electoral system. Its main peculiarity is that it involves voters electing the president, deputy president and members of parliament simultaneously with a single mark on a single ballot paper.
This has a negative impact on the quality of the country’s representative democracy. It prevents voters from voting differently for the president and members of parliament. And it reduces the ability of voters to hold elected representatives to account besides keeping them in office, or voting them out every five years.
Hence, the need for reform.
An alternative electoral system would have the following components. It should provide for the direct election of the president. And it should allow for the representation of Angolan communities abroad. In addition, seats in the legislature should be allocated through direct election of representatives from constituencies combined with compensatory seats for political parties in proportion to their overall outcome.
How does the system work?
Angola uses a closed-list proportional representation electoral system. Voters cast ballots for lists of candidates drawn up by political parties. Parties are then allocated seats in the legislature in proportion to the share of votes that they receive at the polls.
This electoral system is used widely elsewhere. Examples include South Africa and Portugal.
The specific variant used in Angola is outlined in the country’s current constitution. It was approved in 2010 to replace the interim constitution, which had been in effect since 1992.
The constitution states that the individual occupying the top position on the list of the political party or coalition of parties that receives the majority vote is appointed president. The individual next on the same list becomes the deputy president.
The 220-member National Assembly is elected on a two-level constituency: 130 candidates from a single national constituency and 90 candidates from 18 provincial constituencies (five per province). The national assembly is unicameral.
Advantages and weaknesses
There are several advantages to the closed-list proportional representation system.
One is its simplicity. The design of ballot papers allows even illiterate voters to make effective choices. It is also fair in that political parties get seats according to the proportion of votes that they receive at the polls.
It also promotes inclusiveness. It ensures that political, gender, ethnic and other minorities are not excluded from the legislature.
But, as a political scientist and a student of Angolan politics, I am of the view that the current system undermines voters’ ability to elect political representatives effectively.
Firstly, fusing executive and legislative elections prevents voters from splitting their votes for the presidency and parliament. This forces them to choose a president and a deputy president from the party with the majority in the national assembly.
Secondly, the electoral system prevents voters from electing the president directly. Yet Angola has a presidential system of government with an all-powerful presidency that exercises executive powers without effective checks and balances.
Here Angola deviates from the norm. In countries that adopt presidential systems of government, the executive does not get its legitimacy from the legislature. That is why it is elected directly by the voters.
Thirdly, voters cast ballots for party lists rather than individual candidates. This arrangement privileges political parties rather than individuals in the political process. This means that, once elected, representatives are not personally accountable to the electorate because they aren’t directly linked to any territorial constituency. Rather they are beholden to party leaders who hold the power to compile the party list.
This results in a massive accountability deficit in the political system.
In addition, the use of party lists bars independent candidates from standing for political office unless they are included in a party list that has been cleared to run in the elections. But giving effect to this is extremely difficult. Realpolitik prevents parties from choosing independent candidates at the expense of party members in good standing.
There is also the practical use of the two-level constituency – provincial and national – instead of a single national constituency.
The adoption of the 18 provincial constituencies, which goes back to 1992, is premised on the idea that all provinces need to be represented at the national assembly. But this does not make sense, as Angola is a unitary state, with a unicameral parliament.
Among Lusophone countries, which inherited this system from Portugal, Angola is the only country that introduced the national and provincial level constituency system.
There are no provincial legislatures and no functional or formal distinction between parliamentarians elected at the provincial level and those elected at the national level. They all represent the whole nation, and should all be be elected from a single national constituency.
There are several types of electoral systems and each has advantages as well as disadvantages.
A system that best serves democracy in one country might not work in another country. Hence, the best electoral system for a country must be informed by its particular history, social cleavages and political realities.
In the case of Angola, this means breaking with the past to end the persistence of adverse practices. These include the unchecked executive power, concentration of state resources in the hands of a small politically connected elite, widespread corruption, a culture of impunity in which those in authority get away without being punished, and a government that is not responsive to the needs of the population.
In my view, the best way to address these issues is reforming the current system. This would require a return to the direct election of the president by voters and the reinstatement of a constituency for the representation of Angolan communities abroad. This was stipulated in the Constitutional Law of the Republic of Angola, an interim document revoked in 2010.
In addition, the 18 provincial-level constituencies should be scrapped. There is no practical reason for their existence. A constituency element should be added to ensure the direct election of deputies and compensatory seats introduced for the representation of political parties in proportion to their share of the votes.
The resulting mixed electoral system would promote accountability through the direct election of representatives from constituencies. It would also ensure the proportional representation of political parties.
This article was first published by The Conversation on July 5, 2021.
Lawrence Hamilton is the SA UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory, based at the Universities of theWitwatersrand and Cambridge. He contributes to rethink political theory from and for the Global South. His works include Amartya Sen (2019), Freedom is Power (2014) and The Political Philosophy of Needs (2003).
Nicole Beardsworth is a lecturer in Politics at the University of the Witwatersrand and an honorary research fellow in Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick. Her PhD research focused on opposition parties and electoral coordination in Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and her broader research is on the history and politics of sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on political parties, governance, democratisation and elections in Southern and Eastern Africa. 
Albano Augustinho Troco is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow under the SA/UK Bilateral Chair in Political Theory. He holds a PhD in Political Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand. His research interests encompass issues on electoral politics, democratization and autocratization studies, secessionist conflicts and international relations.
Critical South 