Just as the Africa Country Benchmark Report for 2017 amalgamated business, economic, political and social indexes to create an inclusive and holistic view of each African country’s performance, a review of this data also gives insights into which countries have successfully established politically stable governments. Platforms must exist for the public to report corruption and human rights abuses, and these bodies must have the power to investigate and rectify these evils. The media must be free, and freedom of expression be unconstrained. Strong governance institutions must provide checks and balances, with executive and legislature branches on equal footing and courts empowered to oversee the other two branches and rule on the constitutionality of new laws. The integrity of elections is another indicator of political stability, as are constitutional limits to presidential terms. These include the years of normal governance, where free and fair elections have yielded peaceful transfers of power and no coups d’état have occurred. There are several measures of a country’s political stability. Though in office less than two years, Tanzania’s President John Magufuli and Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu are showing alarming autocratic tendencies that will subsume their countries’ political freedoms if the Tanzanian and Zambian people allow. However, he must rely on security forces to suppress unprecedented resistance from political opposition groups. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, another family dynasty continues as Joseph Kabila remains in office more than a year after his last presidential term expired. In Togo, President Faure Gnassingbé whose family has ruled since 1967 is subject to massive weekly street demonstrations seeking an end to his dynasty. The pro-democracy movement that in 2011 rid North Africa of its despots during the Arab Spring and the subsequent removal of long-seated autocrats in Angola, Burkina-Faso, The Gambia and Zimbabwe, suggests that populations are willing to be denied their political rights only for a finite period of time. Is there a formula that allows an African country to sidestep the pitfalls of military coups d’état and ambitious tyrants that in an instant can upend years of progressive democratic governance? The answer lies within the collective will of the governed, the people of any country. The vast arid country has faced its own governance issues but remained committed to its constitutional roots that ensure a government that benefits the Botswana people rather than any one leader. The longest continuously stable democracy is Botswana. Political stability is also a relatively new factor in the governance of Africa. Politicians once taking office can hijack a democratic system to remain in power indefinitely, turning the country into a ‘paper democracy’ that has democratic institutions like a constitution, courts and legislature but in fact is an autocracy whose governance institutions serve the head of state. Political stability is a quality hard to acquire in African governments, and often fleeting once obtained. President Ian Khama is proving to be a successful leader for Botswana.
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