TOO BAD WE WON'T HAVE AN AFRICAN AMERICAN PRESIDENT APPLYING THE PRESSURE ANYMORE:

The other side of Africa (Independent, 6 January 2009)

There is no news out of Ghana, at least no news of the usual sort we have come to expect from modern day Africa. They have just had a general election there and the ruling party lost, so its leader has stepped down to make way for the opposition. No violence in the streets. No mass stuffing of ballot boxes. No mediation by the United Nations. No bogus power-sharing deals which will subsequently be slyly abrogated by some gerontocratic madman. Nothing like we have seen in Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe or several of the other powerhouses of the African continent.

The truth is that there are increasing numbers of countries like Ghana which do not fit our easy African stereotypes. It has a strong unicameral Parliament. It has vibrant and autonomous newspapers and radio which place it in the top quartile of world indices on press freedom. It has a resolute and respected electoral commission, which recently investigated claims of vote-rigging and intimidation from both main parties and ruled them to be insubstantial – and persuaded the nation to abide by the outcome of the poll, even though there was barely 40,000 votes out of 9 million between the presidential candidates.

Contrary to rumour, democracy is flourishing in much of Africa. Many factors combine in this. Economic growth has been strong across much of the continent. A new entrepreneurship and a stronger middle class is emerging. A rich variety of pressure groups and community organisations are learning how to hold their governments to account.

Score another for wooly-minded liberalism, of the George W. Bush sort.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 6, 2009 12:58 PM