Are Europe’s voters
growing up?
Like any self-respecting West
Africa trickster, Anansi registered to vote
in elections in both France and Britain. As
he duly exercised his democratic duty as
a global citizen, he ruminated on what
Europe’s changing political landscape
might portend for Africa.
Europeans are touchingly naïve when it
comes to election security. You turn up at
the polling station without any ID, and the
serious-looking official asks you where you
live and then solemnly hands you a ballot
paper and a pencil. You are then directed
to an open table to choose your candidate.
A political activist friend in London’s
trendy Notting Hill is convinced that last
year’s referendum vote to leave the EU
was entirely fraudulent. But the upside,
he told Anansi over a pint of bitter at the
Uxbridge Arms, is that suddenly European
elections are consequential. Voters in both
France and Britain in May and June went
to the polls against a backdrop of terror
attacks and deepening social divisions.
Days after Britain’s elections, a fire broke
out at a tower block with a loss of at least
79 lives. Many of the residents were ref-
ugees from the Middle East and Africa.
Most poignantly, the first confirmed death
was of a young Syrian who had fled his
country’s inferno for what he had hoped
would be sanctuary in Europe.
The Royal Borough of Kensington &
Chelsea, which owns the block, is one
of the richest local authorities in Europe.
It has treated families displaced by the
fire with soul-destroying parsimony. This
follows years of council officials haughtily
dismissing residents’ concerns about the
building’s safety.
This absolutely avoidable tragedy re-
minded voters in Britain why they had de-
fied the wishes of a handful of tax-dodging
billionaire media barons and voted for a
humiliation of the incumbent Conservative
prime minister, Theresa May. Now heading
a minority government, May has to rely
on the votes of a dozen right-wing Ulster
Unionists to pass laws. After her electoral
debacle, May had to field a call from an
amused Brussels mandarin inquiring when
she might be ready to start negotiations toleave the EU. The French term ‘emmerdée’
neatly covers her political predicament.
Not that the rest of Europe has much to
smile about. French voters faced a serious
choice between the ‘extreme centre’ under
Emmanuel Macron,recherchésocialism and
workers’ rights under Jean-Luc Mélenchon
and a hybrid of Mussolini and Berlusconi
underla familleLe Pen. Voters unenthusi-
astically avoided the worst, but President
Macron’s celebrations have been discreet.
Preternatural policy analyst and poly-
math though he is, Macron’s workload
will be overwhelmingly to fix the
economy. International policy,
especially African matters, will
come a distant second. Already,
there is an ugly battle between
France and the US over who
finances a five-country counter-
terror force in the Sahel.
African leaders are wisely turn-
ing their eyes towards Germany,
Europe’s strongest economy,
which is organising a season of
development summits this year
ahead of a grand Euro-Africa con-
vocation in October. Chancellor
Angela Merkel has promoted a
series of trade and investment
compacts with Côte d’Ivoire,
Ghana and Tunisia, Ethiopia,
Morocco, Rwanda and Senegal.
Sitting on the biggest national
development fund in Europe,
Germany is financing a new
network of renewable power projects
and proselytising on how apprenticeship
programmes could speed up Africa’s in-
dustrialisation and cut joblessness.
It was music to the ears of African trade
negotiators when Merkel conceded in June
that there were grave flaws with Europe’s
Economic Partnership Agreements. Before
this gets too Teutonic and starry-eyed,
remember that Germany has its own elec-
tions this year. But the good news is that
the main choice is between the credible
Merkel and a candidate who is still more
liberal and internationalist, Social Demo-
crat leader Martin Schulz. So don’t seek a
refund for that Lufthansa ticket just yet.Suddenly
European
elections are
consequential.
Voters in both
France and
Britain went
to the polls
against a
backdrop of
terror attacks
and social
divisions42