Michelle Gavin: “The status quo is unsustainable and change will eventually come to Uganda.”

Michelle D. Gavin ist Senior Fellow für Afrika-Studien beim Council on Foreign Relations. Sie hat über zwanzig Jahre Erfahrung in internationalen Fragen in Regierungs- und Non-Profit-Organisationen. Zuvor war sie Geschäftsführerin von The Africa Center, einer multidisziplinären Einrichtung, die sich für ein besseres Verständnis des heutigen Afrika einsetzt. Von 2011 bis 2014 war sie Botschafterin der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika in Botswana und diente gleichzeitig als Vertreterin der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika bei der Southern African Development Community (SADC).

In unserem GP Interview spricht Frau Gavin über die Forderungen der afrikanischen Jugend nach politischer Partizipation, aktuelle Trends in der Regierungsführung und die Menschenrechtssituation, insbesondere in Uganda.

Der enorme Altersunterschied zwischen der Bevölkerung und der Regierung in verschiedenen afrikanischen Staaten führt dazu, dass sich viele junge Afrikaner von der aktiven Teilnahme an der Politik ausgeschlossen fühlen. Michelle Gavin fordert einen Wandel: “Die Führung muss sich stärker an der Gesellschaft orientieren, die sie zu führen vorgibt.”

Der jüngste Ibrahim Index of African Governance zeigt zum ersten Mal seit einem Jahrzehnt einen Rückgang der afrikanischen Governance-Leistung. Afrika ist Teil eines globalen Trends, wonach die Qualität der Demokratie nachlässt und der Autoritarismus zunimmt – besonders in Zeiten einer Pandemie zu beobachten. Wie Gavin in unserem Interview anmerkt, haben verschiedene afrikanische Staaten jedoch Fortschritte gemacht. “Es ist nicht so, dass es keine positiven Meldungen über die Demokratie und die Achtung vor allem der bürgerlichen und politischen Rechte auf dem Kontinent gibt.”.

Wie Michelle Gavin analysiert, “steht es außer Frage, dass der Wahlprozess [in Uganda] höchst fehlerhaft war”. Die Bedingungen vor der Wahl, die konsequente Einschüchterung von Oppositionskandidaten wie Bobi Wine und ihren Anhängern unter Einsatz staatlicher Mittel sowie das Verschwinden, die Entführung und Folterung von Oppositionsanhängern offenbaren tiefe Probleme im Regierungssystem in Uganda. Doch Gavin hat große Hoffnungen: “Der Status quo ist unhaltbar und der Wandel wird letztendlich auch in Uganda Einzug halten.”

Um das Regierungssystem in Uganda und anderswo zu stärken und so Menschenrechtsverletzungen zu verhindern und faire Wahlen in der Zukunft zu ermöglichen, fordert Gavin die internationale Gemeinschaft auf, sich mehr “mit jungen Menschen in afrikanischen Staaten auszutauschen, um ein besseres Verständnis dafür zu bekommen, wie sie über die Regierung, den politischen Prozess und ihre Möglichkeiten, sich zu engagieren, denken”.

 

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Lesen Sie das gesamte englische Interview hier:

GPI: The African continent has the youngest population in the world with a median age of 19.5 years, whilst the average age of an African president is 62 years. Many young Africans feel excluded from active participation in politics. What are your thoughts on this?

Michelle Gavin: I actually think this is one of the most important issues to wrap our minds around if we’re really going to understand the trajectory of most African states. The population skews incredibly young. The leadership – more so even than in other regions – tends to be quite old. And that gap in lived experience is where I think we’re going to see the kind of drivers for political change going forward. There is an awful lot of young people looking for opportunity and a sense of ownership and a stake in their society. So, I think that has not only serious economic structural implications, but big political implications. And it’s going to have to change the society – the leadership is going to have to start looking more like the society it purports to lead.

GPI: The newly published Amnesty International report states that authoritarian leaders are increasingly violating human rights. The COVID-19 pandemic is being used to facilitate these violations. These findings are in line with the latest Ibrahim index, which shows a decline in African governance performance for the first time in a decade. What is your interpretation of the state of human rights across Africa in 2021?

Michelle Gavin: These reports are really interesting because they do show us a set of worrying trend lines, but most of the reports, from the Ibrahim Index or the Freedom House, show sort of a divergence. There’s a set of African states that have been making progress. It’s not as if there are no positive stories about democracy and respect, particularly for civil and political rights on the continent. But there has been a lot of backsliding. Africa is part of a global trend of democratic recession and surging authoritarianism, and certainly the global pandemic, which requires measures of social control that are far outside the norm, does present opportunities for leaders with authoritarian tendencies to assert themselves and roll back freedoms. But I think it also shows us a lot about the importance of trust in the state. It’s hard to effectively impose public health measures over a long period of time without some social trust in the leadership. So, I think that there are real challenges to democratic governance all over the world, and Africa is no exception, but there are bright spots. The last thing I’ll say on this is, if you look at the polling in Afrobarometer there is some really great polling. Consistently, African populations, including those living in states that have been backsliding on democratic indicators, want democratic and accountable government. They also want a government that works. They want both.

GPI: That’s very understandable. I guess everybody is looking for a government that works, be it in Germany or in Uganda, where a presidential election occurred on January 14^th 2021. The Ugandan electoral committee declared President Museveni the winner. And however, opposition parties, including Bobi Wine, claim massive voter fraud and do not accept the election results. So how do you assess the current situation in Uganda?

Michelle Gavin: Well, there’s no question that that electoral process was deeply flawed, aside from what happened on Election Day itself. Just the pre-election conditions, that consistent intimidation of opposition candidates and their supporters at the use of state resources to bolster the incumbent. It’s a hugely problematic exercise. And what we’re seeing now in the wake of it is equally disturbing, the disappearances, opposition supporters being abducted, tortured, it’s a deeply worrisome echo of other periods of Ugandan history.

And I think that’s important to remember, too, that for quite some time it’s been clear that there are deep problems in the governance system in Uganda, that the state has become sort of more and more authoritarian, more sensitive to criticism. And over time this has been ignored largely by the international community, sort of acknowledged and then forgotten. I think in part because there’s this hope of that Uganda will be an island of stability in a very difficult region. President Museveni is a known quantity and but it’s clear that it’s unsustainable. The status quo is unsustainable and change will eventually come to Uganda. So I think that one doesn’t even have to be a critic of President Museveni to acknowledge that there’s got to be a conversation about Uganda’s future that isn’t wholly dependent on him in his authority.

GPI: Talking about a way forward, Bobi Wine and other opposition leaders are calling for an international audit of the election, drawing inspiration from a similar case that occurred in Afghanistan. How likely is if for such an international audit to take place in Uganda?

Michelle Gavin: Well, candidly, I am not optimistic that that will take place, in part because in the case of Afghanistan, you already had a tremendous amount of international intervention and stake in the process and the state. It’s a different story in Uganda. And I think the kind of reckoning that I was talking about, the acknowledgement that things are clearly going in the wrong direction, that is a process that’s still unfolding. So, what you definitely don’t have are a set of regional actors who will be very, very important, even decisive in a conversation like that, ready to impose on an unwilling President Museveni any kind of exercise like that. But that doesn’t mean that all hope is lost and it doesn’t mean that it’s not an effective strategy for Bobi Wine and others in the opposition to call for that kind of accountability.

GPI: You were talking about the international community. In your opinion, how could the international community engage more effectively to strengthen systems of governance in Uganda and elsewhere?

Michelle Gavin: The first prescription that I would make is a more honest look earlier, not a crisis response, but an honest assessment with all of our international partners about the nature of governance. Critically, hold more conversations with young people in African states to get a clearer understanding of how they feel about the government, the political process, their opportunities to engage. It’s tremendously illuminating to actually talk to the dominant demographic in a given place.

GPI: A reminder to consider the youth and young people and political processes. Thank you very much, Michelle Gavin from the Council on Foreign Relations.

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• GP Bericht "Jeff Kabondo: „Mit Korruption bleibt auch eine nachhaltige Entwicklung des afrikanischen Kontinents in weiter Ferne.“"
• Blogbeitrag / Prof. Dimie / Affenpocken