JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nigeria. Rwanda. Uganda. Ethiopia. Gabon. Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe has plenty of competitors for the title of “least democratic in Africa.”
Although he has been singled out for condemnation by the West, leaders of other autocratic states in Africa have largely been able to avoid sanctions and isolation. Many have friends in Western capitals, play a strategic role in the war against terrorist groups or sit on oil.
With corrupt and authoritarian governments close to the norm on the continent, it is not surprising that African leaders ignored Western demands that they censure Zimbabwe’s president at a summit this week and some welcomed him with hugs.
Although some African leaders have condemned Mugabe, who led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980, many admire him for thumbing his nose at the West and pointing out its perceived hypocrisies, such as the Bush administration appealing for human rights in Zimbabwe while facing criticism over the U.S. prison at Guantanamo.
“We Africans should learn a lesson from this,” Gambian President Yahya Jammeh said in praising Mugabe’s election to a sixth term.
“They (the West) think they can dictate to us, and this is not acceptable. Africans should stand for Zimbabwe. After all, what did the West do for Africa?” said Jammeh, a former army colonel who seized power in a 1994 coup.
Just a decade ago, much of Africa was gripped by hope as a wave of democracy swept the continent.
Today, only 21 states, including Botswana and South Africa, hold relatively free elections.
Many of the remaining 31 are ruled by despots, including many offering the illusion of democracy with elections such as those Mugabe held.
Rights activists put much of the blame on the West.
“It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the ‘victor’ is a strategic or commercial ally,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a recent report.
Among countries he singled out as sham democracies are oil-rich Chad and Nigeria; Uganda, whose President Yoweri Museveni’s friendship with President Bush has shielded him from criticism; and Ethiopia, a major U.S. ally against Islamic militants.
Other oil producers that have managed to avoid international condemnation include Angola, which hasn’t held a presidential election since 1992, and Gabon, where President Omar Bongo seized power in a 1967 coup and now reigns as Africa’s longest-serving leader.
