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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Electoral Democratisation in Guinea-Bissau since 1999
| Panel |
54. Guinea-Bissau: there must be a solution - djitu ten ke ten
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| Paper ID | 708 |
| Author(s) |
Rudebeck, Lars
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Last year, I presented a paper entitled Electoral Democratisation in
Post-Civil War Guinea-Bissau 1999-2006 to a conference on "Post-Conflict
Elections in West Africa" organised in Accra, Ghana, 15-17 May 2006, by the
Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden.
My conclusion was that well into 2006 there were as yet no visible signs in
Guinea-Bissau of such "horizontally organised pressure from below" as I
suggested to be crucial for democracy to become sustainable and for
substantial improvement of the conditions of life to take place.
In attempting a "one-year-afterwards" follow-up of my paper, I would
scrutinize the political and social evolution of Guinea-Bissau since May
2006 for possible signs in that regard. My tentative conclusion (January
2007) is in the negative. Guinea-Bissau remains a case of
democratisation/democracy without development. The public discourse and the political process in the country are focused on foreign aid and on
in-fighting between established actors. In spite of democratization,
ordinary citizens have no or utterly limited control over essential means
of improvement of their own lives.
All this is in glaring contrast to expectations or hopes once raised by the
independence struggle 1963-1974 under the leadership of Amilcar Cabral
(murdered in 1973). |
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