cialis cheap

To say that Africa is still in the woods as far as the well-being of its 1 billion people is concerned is to state the obvious. At the conclusion of the 15th AU Summit in Kampala last month, it was crystal clear that the continent needs a re-think, the re-engineering of policy and practice and commitment to eschew lip service and implement the said policies. Only this way will Africa make a clean break with its image of the sick continent of the world.

While many players have crafted a multiplicity of interventions, it goes without saying that the buck stops at the doorsteps of Africa’s leaders. In turn, leadership must derive from the entrenchment of representative democracy, often an alien principle on a continent where elections engender violence rather than peace and prosperity.

We hold that without the benefit of the democratic dividend delivered through free and fair elections, issues such as mother and child health, the theme of the last AU Summit, will continue to plague the continent.

If democracy is the highway to progress, then elections are the vehicle. It needs no belabouring the undeniable link between democracy and elections. Africa’s history is however replete with incidences of pre and post election violence to the extent that these plebiscites have become the bane rather than the boon for the continent.

This year alone, elections have raised the spectre of tensions in the eastern Africa nations of Burundi and Sudan. Campaigns started in Rwanda last month against the backdrop of accusations and counter accusations of subversion of democratic ideals, grenade attacks and allegations of assassinations and attempted assassinations. Earlier in 2008, Kenya, hitherto the island of peace in a sea of turmoil, along with Zimbabwe, experienced post election violence on a scale unimaginable before.

Uganda goes to the polls early next year and already, various opposition groups are raising the red flag over the electioneering process. Zanzibar goes to the polls in October against the background of a history of election related violence dating back to the 1960s. Across the continent, by the end of the year, some 13 elections would have been held with complains about impartiality being the denominator to nearly all of them.

Given the direct continuum between democracy, elections and the desirable socio-economic development, it is important that the AU, East African Community (EAC) and individual countries commit to putting in place mechanisms for upholding the will of the people. As the AU Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra puts it, elections are the means by which people make choices about who should represent and lead them, as well as express preference for competing policies.

African politicians will do a great service to their nations and the continent as a whole if they shun their excessive appetites for state power, often exhibited in their employment of dirty tricks in the electioneering processes. In the eastern Africa region as elsewhere on the continent incidences where sham elections are organised particularly through manipulation of state apparatus, legal structures and election management bodies are the order of the day. Yet minimum electioneering standards and benchmarks abound as generated by the UN, AU and EAC.

There is no contradiction in stating that Africa is the world’s flashpoint for armed conflict. An analysis of the trigger for these wars shows that they revolve around and emanate from election related tensions. Being competitive means by which a people express their opinions through the ballot on diverse issues such as resource sharing, elections must of necessity be tense. The point of departure is that these inevitable tensions need not lead to deaths, displacements and collapse of law and order.

Indeed, at the AU Summit, it was announced that an African standby army will be in place by the end of the year to address these armed conflicts. ust think of the resources that would be saved as a result of having smooth transitions of power as compared to dollar-intensive conflict resolutions, not to mention the degeneration of society wrought by disputed polls.

In the long run, Africa will be as good as the elections in its 53 countries