Light From Senegal



Accra Mail (Accra)

August 28, 2001
Posted to the web August 27, 2001

Kwaku Sakyi-Addo


Written in March last year after the Senegal elections.

The Senegalese have done it. They've demonstrated that peaceful change is
possible and feasible. Abdou Diouf has been as gracious in defeat, as he's
graceful in boubous, conceding victory early to the opposition leader
Abdoulaye Wade. They even met for two hours subsequently, hugging and
offering each the other's best wishes for the future. In Africa, that's
rare. It's saintly.




If we went by the usual post-electoral reflexes of defeated candidates in
Africa, Diouf should be swapping his white boubous for military fatigues,
and heading off into the thickets of Zigenchor, along with sympathetic
platoons, to plant the seedlings of an intractable conflict. Or he could row
over to Goree and call Robin White on BBC's "Focus on Africa" to declare the
island an independent People's Enclave of Abdou. Otherwise, with some luck,
if he likes writing he could issue Le Verdict Vole - L'Edition Senegalaise
(The Stolen Verdict - The Senegalese Edition).

I wonder if we can replicate the Diouf example here in Ghana, if Kufuor
should win. Perhaps. If Mills is the candidate, as indeed he will be for the
NDC, I can see them in a bear hug whichever way the verdict should go. The
sight of Rawlings locked in an embrace with Kufuor is just a bit more hazy
in my mind's eye. Don't get me wrong. It's just the way the guy is. Men with
macho inclinations and excess testosterone prefer a feather-light handshake
invariably without eye contact when they lose. Which is fine, so long as
they'll get lost afterwards and go and focus on their memoires.

As for Communications Minister John Mahama's prediction that "Senegal (i.e.
an opposition victory) won't happen here," it shows there's quite a
risk-taker in the man with the choir-boy countenance. I guess risk is
fundamental to politics.

But so is discretion. Ian Smith and Erik Hoenecker learnt that a mite too
late. "There'll be black majority rule over my dead body," said former
Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith when Mugabe was in the bush fighting for
Zimbabwe's independence. There's been majority rule for nearly 20 years and
Smith's body isn't quite cold and blue yet. Sadly, though, Mugabe is
sounding and acting increasingly like his Rhodie predecessors. Just months
before the Berlin Wall went down, Hoenecker, then leader of the former East
Germany said "Die Mauer bleibt noch hundert Jahre." (The Wall will remain
for another hundred years.) We know where the wall went. Very down. Even I
have a piece of it. So, all the best, John.

But anyway, before the Senegalese, it was the Beninois who did it. Twice.
First, they voted out the Marxist military strongman, Mattieu Kerekou in
1992, and brought in Soglo. And then they switched again back to Kerekou
after four years. And both elections were peaceful and civil.

So we are capable of democracy. All it takes is exemplary leadership.
Leadership that builds bridges rather than overturns them. Leadership that
strengthens the wage-earner without spewing hatred against the wage-payer.
Leadership that doesn't play God but, instead, fears Him. Leadership that
shines in spite of their opponent's light. Abdou Diouf shone in spite of
Wade's glow. The result is two sources of light, bearing democracy and
enlightenment, wisdom and common sense. I believe that much of Africa,
including Ghana, is still searching for that kind of Sun-bright leadership.
What the Senegal and Beninois examples demonstrate is that We Too Can find
it.




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