The New Democrats

As colonialism draws to an end, one of the strangest features of the African states is their formal adherence to democracy. From Abidjan to Cairo, from Accra to Kinshasa, the young republics have argued about almost everything, yet even when the debate is hottest they seem never to question the representative institutions inherited from their former European masters. Heads of states both north and south of the Sahara are anxious to have their rule legitimized by the people.

At the same time, however, contests among political parties are almost non-existent. Nearly all the governments in power subscribe to the one-party system. In Ghana last year Nkrumah—always a swinger—went so far as to declare the Legislative Assembly “re-elected” to office, in toto, since no opposing candidates had come forward. And with good reason. They were all in jail! This bit of expediency was so characteristic of both rightist and leftist African states that it aroused no astonishment at the time, in Ghana or elsewhere. Democracy is everywhere the justification for everything, and everywhere the ruling power is consolidated in the hands of one man.

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Gilbert Comte

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As colonialism draws to an end, one of the strangest features of the African states is their formal adherence to democracy. From Abidjan to Cairo, from Accra to Kinshasa, the young republics have argued about almost everything, yet even when the debate is hottest they seem never to question the representative institutions inherited from their former European masters. Heads of states both north and south of the Sahara are anxious to have their rule legitimized by the people.

At the same time, however, contests among political parties are almost non-existent. Nearly all the governments in power subscribe to the one-party system. In Ghana last year Nkrumah—always a swinger—went so far as to declare the Legislative Assembly “re-elected” to office, in toto, since no opposing candidates had come forward. And with good reason. They were all in jail! This bit of expediency was so characteristic of both rightist and leftist African states that it aroused no astonishment at the time, in Ghana or elsewhere. Democracy is everywhere the justification for everything, and everywhere the ruling power is consolidated in the hands of one man.