38 Middle East & Africa The EconomistMay 16th 2020
21I
n 1957 ayoungair-forceofficerfromthe
highlandscalledHafezal-Assadmarried
a girlfromthecoastnamedAnisaMakh-
louf.Itseemeda goodfit:Assadwasambi-
tious;theMakhloufswerepowerful.And
indeed,afterAssadtookoverina coupin
1970 thetwoclansranthecountrylikea
familybusiness,propellingtheiresoteric
Muslim sect, theAlawites, from Syria’s
backwaterstothecentreofpower.
Halfa centuryon,though,thepartner-
shipisunravelling.Inaseriesofvideos
postedonFacebookRamiMakhlouf,Syr-
ia’swealthiesttycoon,accusedhiscousin
andHafez’sson,PresidentBasharal-Assad,
of confiscatinghisassets. Mr Makhlouf
even complained, unironically, that the
blood-soaked security forces, which he
longsponsored,weretreatinghisemploy-
eesin“aninhumaneway”and“attacking
thepeople’sfreedoms”.
Thingshad been moving against Mr
Makhlouffora while.ThedeathofAnisain
2016 deprivedhisclanofprotection.Maher
al-Assad,thepresident’syoungerbrother
andcommanderoftheRepublicanGuard,
coveted hisbusinessempire.The presi-
dent’swife,Asma,wantedtoempowerherTroubleinBasharal-Assad’sownranksSyriaFamilyfeud
are inclined to give the cards only to those
known to be party supporters.
There is little the opposition can do
about any of this. So Mr Nkurunziza, who
has had himself named “Eternal Supreme
Guide” and may attempt to rule through his
successor, is likely to see his gamble pay
off. His nominee, General Ndayishimye, is
all but certain to win.
Others will pay the price. Packing voters
into campaign rallies and polling stations
is hardly sensible during a pandemic, as
Guinea’s example shows. The country had
been relatively unscathed by covid-19
when voters went to the polls, with just two
cases recorded. It is now the eighth-worst
affected in Africa, with more than 2,300 re-
corded cases. The head of Guinea’s elector-
al commission and Mr Condé’s chief of
staff are among the 14 who have died. The
opposition now accuses the president of
spreading the virus.
Burundi, too, has apparently had rela-
tively few cases—only 15 confirmed ones by
May 13th, though just 284 tests had been
conducted. As in Guinea, those numbers
could easily jump. If they do, the presi-
dent’s cynicism will be partly to blame.
Covid-19 is the excuse that keeps giving.
John Magufuli, Tanzania’s president, is
likely to press ahead with an election in
October, when he is expected to fend off a
browbeaten opposition. Though he is as
casual as President Nkurunziza about the
virus, he could use it as an excuse to block
foreign observers. This would be particu-
larly handy in Zanzibar, a restive island
where elections were annulled in 2015 be-
cause of foul play.
The virus can also furnish a pretext for
dodging a ballot entirely. Uganda’s Yoweri
Museveni says it would be “madness” to
hold elections scheduled for next year. He
would probably win them because they are
unlikely to be free or fair. Even so, Mr Mu-
seveni is nervous. If he held an unfair vote
and still failed to win convincingly, he
could face calls from within his own party
to stand down.
Malawi’s president, Peter Mutharika,
risks defeat in an election on July 2nd that
he is being dragged kicking into. In Febru-
ary judges annulled his victory in a poll last
year after finding evidence of vote-rigging,
and ordered a re-run. On May 8th they
threw out his “embarrassing” and “unpro-
fessional” appeal.
Mali’s ruling party felt obliged last
month to go ahead with an election even
though it expected to lose seats. It did not
try to stop the ballot because it knew that
without a new parliament, a peace deal
with separatists could not go ahead.
Many Big Men are trying to exploit the
pandemic. The key to stopping their she-
nanigans, in times of sickness as in those
of health, is independent judges, uppity ac-
tivists and brave voters. 7E
ven in normaltimes Ethiopia’s plans
to hold national elections in August
would have been fraught with uncertainty.
Would they be free and fair? Would they
help restore peace to a country riven by eth-
nic violence? Now, with the polls post-
poned indefinitely by covid-19, Ethiopia is
approaching a constitutional crisis.
By law Ethiopia’s parliament will reach
the end of its constitutional five-year term
on September 30th. That could leave the
country without a legitimate parliament or
government. Abiy Ahmed, a young reform-
er who took office in 2018 promising de-
mocracy after massive protests, says that
because of the exceptional circumstances
of the pandemic his government will stay
in charge until elections can be held safely.
The delay has prompted a backlash
from opposition leaders. Many of them had
suspected long before the outbreak of co-
vid-19 that Abiy’s Prosperity Party would try
to rig or postpone the elections: its prede-
cessor suppressed the opposition so thor-
oughly in 2015 that it won 95% of the vote.
The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front
(tplf), which called the shots in the coun-
try for nearly three decades until it was
ousted by Abiy, accused the prime minister
of exploiting the pandemic to dismantle
the constitution and lay the groundwork
for one-man rule. It said it will press ahead
with polls in Tigray, the region it still con-
trols, in defiance of the federal govern-
ment. This squabble will further pull at the
seams of a federation that has been badly
fraying in recent years.
To avert a showdown the government
has asked the Council of Constitutional In-
quiry for an opinion on the postponement.
But this is not an independent constitu-
tional court. The council is merely an advi-sory body to the upper house of parlia-
ment, which is controlled by the ruling
party, notes Zemelak Ayele of Ethiopia’s
Centre for Federal Studies.
Although the constitution does not
spell out the circumstances under which
an election may be postponed, it still pro-
vides a “framework” allowing it , says Adem
K Abebe, an expert based in The Hague. But
such legal subtleties may count for little
without the support of opposition leaders.
To get this Abiy may have to bargain with
them on matters such as the timing of the
election, as well as allay their concerns
about its fairness and the independence of
state media and the security forces.
Jawar Mohammed, a popular figure
among the Oromo ethnic group, wants
Abiy to start talks about a caretaker admin-
istration taking charge until elections are
held, among other matters. Abiy has met
his opponents once to discuss the consti-
tutional impasse. But he has dismissed
calls for an interim government and
warned that “illegal elections” will “harm
the country and the people”. There is a risk,
however, that without a compromise his
prophecies become self-fulfilling. 7ADDIS ABABA
Postponed elections portend
constitutional limboEthiopiaDemocracy delayed
SOMALIASOUTH
SUDANETHIOPIA
UGANDA KENYASUDANDJIBOUTIERITREARed
SeaAddis
AbabaTigray300 km