As Africa battles COVID-19, Dr Chris Fomunyoh calls on African leaders to take measures to soften the economic blow of the pandemic as fear of social unrest loom.
Dr Chris Fomunyoh is an expert on democratization in Africa; Senior Associate and Regional Director for Central and West Africa, National Democratic Institute; a non-profit and nonpartisan organization working to strengthen democratic institutions worldwide.
He shares his views on governance techniques during this period from Washington D.C., United States of America, where he has been able to co-ordinate, organize and advise international election observation missions in almost all African countries working alongside heads of state and government, ministers, elected officials and civic leaders.
Some African countries are likely to postpone elections as they may face challenges made worse by increased costs and unplanned circumstances during COVID-19. How can they handle the situation?:
Dr Fomunyoh: Well so far we have seen 3 different approaches from African countries. We have seen countries such as Mali and Burundi that went ahead and organised elections in April and May. We have other countries such as Tanzania and Malawi that are still trying to figure out whether to maintain their electoral timelines till now. We have a country like Ethiopia where the issue of the postponement of the election is being currently debated. So this is definitely a pandemic that will impact the electoral calender in multiple African countries.
How can we use technology and creativity to bring down costs during elections in Africa, because some elections risk being cancelled due to insufficient resources?
Dr Fomunyoh: Sure there is the question of resources but there is also the difficulty of respecting some of the measures to curb the further contamination of populations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For reasons of social distancing for example you can no longer hold massive political rallies because populations will be exposed. And so a lot of communication will need to be done by political parties and candidates, using the media and using modern technology; and even citizen organisations that traditionally monitor elections will have to do a lot of their work including the transmission of their reports using technology, telephones, mobile phones and computers to transmit information. And so we all are going to be compelled to rely on innovation and new technology to help us cope with our election.
Do we have any reason to be scared that Democratic Institutions will be weakened in any way due to the COVID-19 pandemic?:
Dr. Fomunyoh : Well I wouldn’t be that scared, but the truth is that democracy and democratic institutions are going to be tested. And in some countries because political space will be shrinking, some regimes that are not very committed to democracy will use the pretext of the pandemic to try to re-enforce the powers of the executive branch of government. But in countries that are committed to democratic govern
