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Graca queries Africa’s electoral system

Graca queries Africa’s electoral system
Written by Mwala Kalaluka
Thursday, February 26, 2009 5:42:53 AM

AFRICAN Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) lead specialist for Zambia, Graca Machel, on Tuesday said there seems to be a problem with Africa’s electoral system. And Graca said the effectiveness of the APRM process in Zambia would be dependant on how citizens recognise the legitimacy of the National Governing Council (NGC).

During a meeting with Chief Justice Ernest Sakala and other justices at the High Court, Graca said there were considerations to use the APRM process to adjust the electoral system.

“We realise that we seem to have a problem,” Graca told the meeting attended by Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) chairperson Florence Mumba. “We may consider the need to adjust our electoral system to be not only much more transparent but much fairer.”

Graca, who is also former South African president Nelson Mandela’s wife, said the African electoral system had alienated women and the youths.

“These are the issues we have to deal with,” she said.

Graca said apart from looking at the electoral system, the APRM Secretariat was also considering holding a meeting of all representatives of Judiciaries of different countries and identify the challenges in the sector and subsequently effect change.

Meanwhile, Graca said Ghana was one of the countries, out of the nine that had been reviewed so far that has positively concretised the reforms under the APRM process.

She was responding to a question from Chief Justice Sakala, who wanted to know how many countries had been peer reviewed so far and what the findings were.

Chief Justice Sakala said he had observed that in some of the countries that had been reviewed, there were still a lot of problems.

Graca said some of the problems were long-term and had been entrenched in the political fabrics of those countries.

She cited countries like Kenya, where she expressed doubt over that country’s resolve to concretise some of the multi-faceted political reforms it was urged to undertake following the ethnicity issues that arose from the last general elections.

“They are supposed to have elections in two years time but it is not certain that they will do the reforms in two years,” Graca said.

On the recent issue of xenophobic attacks in South Africa, Graca said the problem was real although the government in that country tried to overlook it in its initial stages.

However, Graca said South Africa was not prepared for the different type of influx of foreign nationals, particularly the one emanating from the problems in Zimbabwe.

Graca said there were good observations in some countries.

Graca said Ghana, for example, was already recording acceptable levels of economic stature when the review process was being undertaken.

Graca said Ghana managed to reduce the public service, which she said was actually heavy.

“They had an NGC, which was operating,” she said. “There is a positive mood of interaction and complimentarity among different stakeholders.”

Graca said the results of this positive interaction were noted in the recent Ghanaian elections, which were so close but had been accepted.

Chief Justice Sakala said the issue of the APRM had been made clear to the members of the Judiciary, some of whom perceived it as some ‘animal’ before the interaction.

Labels: APRM, ELECTIONS, ERNEST SAKALA, GRACA MACHEL

posted by MrK @ 5:43 AM