It appears that there has been a growing shift in people’s perceptions of democratic governance. The ideals of democratic values seem to be losing popularity among people all over the world. We seem to be living in a moment where people are increasingly questioning the legitimacy of democratic values. If you were to have a look at the sort of discourse around democracy on social media, you would find that it often posts disparaging democracy that receive the most likes and engagements.
You could argue that social media has already made up its mind on democracy and has come to the conclusion that it does not work. There is a constant stream of anti-democracy posts and influencers whose voices have been increasingly amplified on sites like X and TikTok. Undoubtedly, many of these posts are manipulated in one way or another, most likely by bot farms seeking to prop them up, giving them the illusion of these sentiments being more popular than they genuinely may be. However, it would be false to just disregard these sentiments entirely for that reason.
A recent study by the Pew Research Centre found that the majority of people in the countries around who were surveyed were dissatisfied with democracy. Their survey found 62% of Americans were dissatisfied with the state of their democracy. Similar trends of dissatisfaction could be found in France (66%), Italy (67%), Spain (69%), South Korea (71%), Japan (76%), etc. The median rate of dissatisfaction among the 23 countries surveyed resulted in 58% of respondents reporting that they are dissatisfied with the state of their democracy.
This same trend could also be found in the African countries that had been surveyed by the Pew Research Centre. Their survey found that 58% of Kenyans are dissatisfied with the state of their democracy, compared to 42% who reported being satisfied. Likewise, in South Africa, 63% of respondents reported being dissatisfied with the state of their democracy, compared to 36% who reported being satisfied.
Naturally, there would be a whole host of reasons for these survey results, such as the preferred party of a survey respondent failing to win in their country’s recent elections, for example. While the results of the survey do not necessarily indicate a sort of broader loss of faith in the idea or principles of democracy, it should still be considered a very concerning trend that so many people have become dissatisfied with the state of democracy within their nations.
Even though it’s true that social media is heavily manipulated to make it seem like everyone has basically just given up on democracy, that doesn’t mean that it should just be immediately disregarded, because we can see that survey data also shows that people are becoming more and more dissatisfied with democracy. If anything, what social media does is significantly amplify these sentiments of dissatisfaction to a level where it becomes anomalous to the true nature of people’s feelings towards principles of democratic governance.
Within Africa, the most common way this phenomenon has manifested itself is in the fawning coverage the military rulers of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) receive online. All over social media, there are thousands of posts praising the military rulers for their putative accomplishments. Consequently, these regimes are portrayed as shining examples of the supposed benefits of undemocratic governance. However, what is often touted as progress is, in reality, a calculated propaganda campaign crafted to elevate their standing, particularly in the eyes of younger Africans.
Based on the supposed accomplishments spread online in these propaganda campaigns, the finger is then pointed at Africa’s civilian governments and the claim is made that it has been democratic governance that has led to the massive amounts of corruption that has held back the development of African countries. However, in reality the opposite is true; it is rather due to our lack of observance of democratic principles that has held African countries back all these years. This is where the false conflation of civilian government and democratic governance is made by so many.
Just because our rulers may don formal attire rather than military fatigues does not equate to us living in democratic societies. In genuinely democratic societies, you don’t see rulers winning elections with 80% or even 90% of the vote. Such high margins of victory would be virtually unattainable in truly democratic elections; however, they are not uncommon to see in numerous African countries. You, likewise, don’t see rulers hanging onto power for multiple decades like you have in many African countries in genuine democracies.
In many of our countries, there are major restrictions placed on the press, preventing them from doing their duty of holding the government accountable for their actions. There are many communities that lack access to information about the government entirely due to poor infrastructure. There are likewise numerous communities that have been displaced due to things like conflict. Corruption is endemic in many of our countries, with officials never being held accountable for their actions, either by the courts or by voters. These are not examples of what democratic societies look like.
The fact that our governments lack any form of accountability is the root of many of our problems. Our legal systems are more a tool for the regimes to entrench the grip on power rather than a mechanism for holding the government to account. Elections are often nothing more than a performance put on every few years aimed at lending our government the veneer of democratic legitimacy in the eyes of Western governments and the international community at large.
The cycle of performative elections, in which citizens vote with the hope of change only to be met with the same entrenched leadership, has led to a deepening disillusionment with democracy itself. However, that is a distortion of democratic governance that should not be viewed as the way a genuinely democratic society would operate. It is also important to note that while there is a cohort of people who have become increasingly disillusioned with the idea of democracy, it would still be wrong to conclude that what most people are hoping for is to live in a dictatorship.
What most people tend to hope for is the idea of an undemocratic regime that is not necessarily authoritarian but altruistic in its nature. What many hope for is for an altruistic figure to be able to gain power to implement his agenda as quickly as possible, without any checks on his power that may prevent him from doing so. That is what is behind much of the outpouring of sycophantic praise we have seen for Ibrahim Traoré in particular online. Traoré has been portrayed as a messianic figure, improving his country by fighting back against imperialism all over social media.
However, as has been proven time and time again with politicians and rulers who seek to portray themselves as these magnanimous figures, the reality on the ground can often be quite different. It is only natural for human beings to lie and steal, the idea of there being such a benevolent leader is a fantasy, and it is dangerous to try to craft government policy around the idea of such a figure existing. That is why it is vital to have accountability mechanisms available; whether it be through a robust judiciary system or through elections, where voters hold the government accountable.
The worst thing about this sentiment that undemocratic regimes work better than genuine democracies is that we can easily just look around at the African regimes currently in power to see that it is not true. Some of the current longest-serving leaders in the world are from the African continent. For example, the President of Equatorial Guinea has been in power for around 46 years. Is there anyone arguing that Equatorial Guinea has so greatly benefitted from his nearly 5 decades in power? The current corruption row with his son’s seized property in Paris may say otherwise.
How about Eritrea, which has been led by Isaias Afwerki for over 30 years, ever since Eritrea gained independence? A country that has been compared to North Korea for the totalitarian nature of its government, where forced labour, extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests and detentions are the norm. The decades-long authoritarian rule has resulted in a mass exodus of Eritreans who get the ability to flee. It is believed that as much as one-third of the Eritrean-born population live abroad, with many seeking refugee status across East Africa and Europe.
In Togo, we have recently seen major protests against the rule of President Faure Gnassingbé. President Faure Gnassingbé had inherited the presidency from his father, after his father died in office. For decades, Togo has essentially been a one-party state. According to the antidemocratic voices on social media, that should mean that Togo should be a thriving state right now, since it doesn’t have to deal with all the problems of democracy. However, we have seen the outpouring of anger and the calls on Faure Gnassingbé to step down as leader of the Togolese government.
The answer to fighting against corruption in our countries would be by making our governments more transparent and accountable to the people it is supposed to be serving, not placing even more power and ensuring there is even less accountability for bad actors in government. Very often, the biggest concern many of these long term leaders have is how they can best maintain their grip on power. They are typically more concerned about paying off all the right people in order to prevent military coups from taking place rather than improving the lives of their citizens.
What we truly need are governments that serve the people and are accountable to them. This can only be achieved through genuine democratic governance, not the hollow civilian regimes that offer the illusion of democracy, but real, veritable democracy rooted in transparency and accountability.
