Former President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama has said, dictatorship system of governance is needed in some countries to facilitate their development as democracy encourages slow decision- making processes.
John Mahama said, even though democracy in today’s world is ‘ideal’, allows transparency, accountability, governance, free speech and stability, it comes with challenges ranging from leaders holding onto power by altering laws to the total “lack of sharp national focus” as well as high cost of organizing general elections and the egocentric behaviour of some elected leaders.
“Democracy is expensive, talking of the four-yearly ritual of election-related costs. Ghana’s National Electoral Commission earmarked about $200 million for the 2016 exercise, whereas Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission budgeted well over $550m dollars for the 2015 elections. But the benefit of political stability and its returns far outstrips the expense of these exercises,” he noted.
He said “while democratic and open governments are held up as the best system and dictatorships are frowned upon, I wish to state with emphasis, that there is no “one size fits all” system of governance. But while democratic societies are desirable, the question we ask is: are dictatorships all negative? There is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to what governance system is more appropriate for which nation.
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Delivering a graduation lecture on the theme, “Challenges of democracy and development in Africa”, at the Institute of Security Studies in Nigeria, the former President stressed that the continent’s challenges in attaining development are enveloped in factors such as, the quest for better leadership structures, formulation and management of strategic interests, the need for new paradigms of economic development, threats to democratic consolidation and challenges of Intra-Africa Trade and can be effectively addressed after the continent is able to identify the right governance mix.
He gave examples of countries under dictatorship that have developed as a result of their system of governance and mentioned, China which seemed to be faring well even though they are a one party state and do not have the kind of privileges democratic states enjoy.
“China is a dictatorship because it is a one-party state. China at the same time has used market rules, opened up and deregulation, to move the mass of its people out of poverty and move to the second place as the world’s second richest country,” he explained.
“History abounds with further examples of authoritarian leaders like Lee Kuan Yew, Suharto of Indonesia, Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia and Park Chung-hee, all from East Asia, who ruled their countries from the 1960s to the early 2000 in some cases. Today, we see Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and how rapidly they have progressed. In the period when that acceleration took place, they were under authoritarian governments,” he added.
The Ex-President said even though democratic governance was the best option, based on a nation’s dynamics, “it must not be imposed as a necessity that people should adopt democratic governance,” adding that dictatorship improved effectiveness of governance by increasing the pace in decision making.
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He, however, stressed that, for a stable and developed Africa, there was the need for a governance system that will promote security, peace and create a conducive environment for a market to thrive.
“Africa is better off operating an imperfect but highly effective leadership structure of democracy than to accept the high risk of dictatorial rule,” he maintained
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