Democratic Transition and Democratization in Francophone Africa

The upsurge in mass protests in favour of democratization in sub-Saharan Africa beginning from 1989 has served to bring democracy back in as a central focus in the analysis of Africa's political process thus vindication, albeit unwittingly, Richard S klar' s plea made in 1982 for this concept to be given a chance on the continent. 1 To reflect upon democratization is to inquire into the premises and promises of democracy within the countries that have embarked upon this political transformation. It seems to us that such an inquiry demands a critical examination of four basic issues: the context within which this quest has arisen, the expectations which underpin it as well as the imponderables confronting it, the mechanisms through which it is being realized and, last but not the least, the import of the whole process for a meaningful development in the states concerned.


Introduction
The upsurge in mass protests in favour of democratization in sub-Saharan Africa beginning from 1989 has served to bring democracy back in as a central focus in the analysis of Africa's political process thus vindication, al beit unwittingly, Richard Sklar's plea made in 1982 for this concept tobe given a chance on the continentl To reflect upon democratiza tion is to inquire into the premises and promises of democracy within the countries that have embarked upon this political transformation. lt seems to us that such an inquiry demands a critical examination of four basic issues: the context within which this quest has arisen, the expectations which underpin it as weil as the imponderables confronting it, the mechanisms through which it is being realized and, last but not the least, the import of the whole process for a meaningful development in the states concemed.
Because the democratic demands that have emerged are, in actual fact, manifestations of political upswellings from civil society we propose to situate this analysis within the framework of the interactions between these two conceptual variables. The reason for this choice is straightforward. The political system itself deals with relationships between the state and civil society. While a focus on the state is indis pe nsable, it is often static and gives only a partial view of the complexities of political processes. Thus we share the pre occupation of Victor Azarya and Naomi Chazan when they argue that an exclusive or an excessive focus on the state reveals how this entity acts upon the society without correspondingly paying an ad eq uate attention to how these societies in turn react to or co pe with the actions of the former.2 Second, there is merit in accepting Jean-Fran�is Bayart's contention that "it seems most profitable to explain the continued quest for democracy as a

Democratization is a long term process during which multiple processes are at work simul taneously thus permitting a differentiation between its varying phases. lt is in this light that Daniel Levine's two-tier delineation of the concept becomes quite apt
The first (sense) is temporal: democratization as a stage in the creation and maintenance of democracy. Relevant phases may nm from initial decay of the old regime and inauguration of a new system, through consolidation to (hoped-for) maturity. The second phase of democratization refers to the creation, nurture, and spread of more egalitarian social relations and norms of leadership and authority. These are rooted in greater social and economic equity, and worked out in associational life, especially through encouragement of participation, the development of new sources and styles of leadership, and generally in the way group Iife is linked to the big structures of national politics.19 To conceive of democratization along these lines permits us to argue that democratic transition, defined here narrowly as the outcome of this shift, is a sub-set of democratiza tion and, therefore, one of its vital phases. This is the sense in which Grugel's description of this process in Latin America ought to be taken. If this viewpoint is accepted, we could then distinguish between two basic types of democratic transitions: complete and incom plete or partial democratic transions. lt is cornplete when democratization results in the emergence in power of a new leadership with a new political orientation. The converse is true for a partial democratic transition. This describes a situation where an incumbent Contemporary democratic theories stress multipartyism, the institutionalization of the opposition as weil as the respect for this role and the application of political accountability especially through the electoral process.22 While the interpretation of the qualifying attributes of the first two conditions enunciated by Diamond et al is debatable, it is obvious that these underscore the extent to which transparency is considered as a democratic virtue.
This having been said, we precise that the focus of this essay is on sub-Saharan French speaking states and the reason for this choice is that democratic African states suggesting the existence of a certain level of criss-crossing influences. The nature of their specificity enables us to pose the following questions: What accounts for the high incidence of vehemence between the state and civil society in the quest for democratization in these states? Why is the use of the national conference as a mechanism for democratic transition exclusive to this group of states, some of them that is? Against the backdrop of the overall rationale for democratization. would a comparative analysis of the transition processes in these states reveal a significant shift in their regime types? What do all this portend. in the final analysis, for socio-economic development in the states concemed?
This essay is divided into four sections. In the first we undertake a general reflection on the context within which this democratization has arisen; the second discusses the differing patterns of the democratization process with a view to responding to some of our interroga tions and to examining the consequences of this for state-civil society relations in these states. Subsequently, we undertake an appreciation of this democratization as an enabling environment for a meaningful economic development within this group of states. The conclusion will serve as a kind of synthesis and will equally attempt to reflect upon the prospects for democracy in the states under consideration.

I. The Context or Democratization
To examine the context in which the demands for democratization have arisen in the sub Saharan francophone states implies accounting for the absence of democracy itself and an analysis of the circumstances which have thrown up these democratic demands. In fact, both are closely intertwined 21 L. Dimnond I JJ. Linz  lt is common knowledge that the new democracies in most of the post-independence states in sub-Saharan Africa were intolerant of the opposition, disrespectful of fundamental freedoms and therefore took political actions which contradicted the very premises on which ind epe ndence was granted to particularly the anglophone and the francophone states in the 1960s. Thus, it has been estimated that by "the early 1970s virtually all of the independent regimes in sub-Saharan Africa were either military or one-party". 2 3 How does one account for what Jean-Frani;ois Medard has qualified as the eclipse of democracy at the very moment of its triumph (at independence) in Africa? 24

The Domestic Setting a) Historical Fatalism
Some of the existing explanations for the absence of democracy in sub-Saharan Africa are fatalistic in the sense that there is a certain ring of the inevitability of dictatorship about them and to that extent they are rationalizations. To begin with, the academic argument that pleads the necessity of national unity and the exigencies of economic development as advanced by the ind epe ndence leaders themselves is, at best, a rationalization and not an explanation for the coll ap se of democracy. To Mugyenyi, for example, democracy thrives in its minimalist form in the various forms of govemment prevalent in the Third World as a result of its adaptability to changing environments. 2 5 Like the thesis of African socialism, that of democratic flexibility has proved to be an apologia for all kinds of state dirigism whose consequence has been the gross misrule that has afflicted most sub-Saharan African states.
lt was indeed the absence of democracy or its failure in most of these states and not its presence which influenced some analysts to recommend developmental dictatorship in the past as the way forward for Africa. 2 6 If democracy was present in all African states even in its "minimalist" form, how then does one account for the intermittent and, in some cases, persistent struggles since decolonization within some sub-Saharan African states -the "second independence" movements -whose objective has been to force the revocation of the imposition of de facto and de jure one-party states and military dictatorships, in a word, the restoration of democracy?27 From a purely historical perspective, Michael Crowder would consider the quick collapse of democracy after inde pen dence in particularly the anglophone and francophone states The Gambia, Botswana and possibly Senegal being exceptions -as a matter of course. Two major reasons lay behind this inevitability. First, the idea of democracy was, to him, uniquely the dream of most of the nationalist leaders whose real conception of the term was as an instrument for the realization of their own personal political ambitions. Second, as a successor to the colonial state the post-independence African state was a model of the former by encompassing all its anti-democratic attributes: free use of violence, legitimacy based on force, denial of basic freedoms, electoral manipulations, economic exploitation and neglect2 8 In their collective volume on democracy in Africa, L. Diamond, J. Linz and S. Lipset upheld M. Crowder's submissions by identifying the causes of the failure of democracy in post-ind epe ndence African states as the "immense challenge with which they were immediately confronted" as weil as "historical and structural handicaps" all of which reflected the fundamental weakness of the state.29 More importantly, the origin of this variety of handicaps which stretched from ethnicity through corruption, economic de pen dence and inefficient political institutions to incompetent political leadership, was located in colonial conquest and rule.30 That this was indeed so was quite obvious since by definition colonialism was both non democratic and anti-democratic although its harshness differed from one colonial territory to the other. The shortcomings of colonialism were the very reasons which triggered the ind epe ndence struggles in the first place. Certainly, the weak foundation which this laid for ind epe ndence especially in Zaire was responsible for the quick political reversal which engulfed many of these states shortly afterwards. Hence, the salient lesson to be drawn from an examination of this concatenation of factors is that it is not enough to set up democratic institutions for democracy to prevail. Nationalism has always been a poor substitute for individualism on which premise the liberal variant of the democratic theory is erected. To harp ceaselessly on the perversities of colonialism unwittingly justifies the arguments of those in authority whose set objective has always been to expand and to Above all, the foregoing factors do not constitute an integral explanation. For this we turn to a consideration of neo-patrimonialism whose depiction of the state shows a deliberate blurring of the analytic distinction between the public and the private realms by the political actors.

b) The Sociological: the Neo-patrimonial State
How does the concept of neo-patrimonialism account for the absence of democracy in the sub-Saharan francophone states? Neo-patromonialism is a variant of Max Weber's patri monialism, itself a sub-type of his ideal traditional domination. 1ne leading French Africanist in the use of patrimonialism to interpret political processes in sub-Saharan Africa, Jean-Fran�ois Medard, appears to share Zaki Ergas' contention that "in virtually all African states, at this particular stage of their historical development, state-society relations are primarily defined by patrimonialism".3 1 As a variant of the latter, neo-patrimonialism describes a hybrid situation within which the patrimonial logic combines and mixes with other modern logics.32 Medard identifies two fundamental characteristics with the concept. The first is the deliberate blurring of the analytic distinction between the public and the private splteres in the adrninistration of the state including that between public and private norms. This situation culminates in the personalization of political power by office holders and in the primitive accumulation of political. economic and symbolic resources. The second is the weak autonomy of the two fields.33 This double telescoping as it were has grave consequences for the administration of the state and, furthermore, for civil society as weil.
According to this theory, access to the state becomes a highly prized goal since its conquest permits its patrimonialization or privatization. The wielders of political power, the African leaders, conceive of politics as a means to wealth and they have to redistribute the resources in order to reinforce their hold on power thus enhancing further primitive accumulation. In the light of this, holders of public positions at diverse levels of govemment consider these as points for the exaction of prebendes. Under such circumstances, the democratic space is severely constricted as the principle of financial and political accountability falls into 31 Z. abeyance. Both economics and politics do not operate according to the logic of free choice.3 4 The neo-patrimonial state is both arbitrary and authoritarian and is often charac terized by violence whose pervasiveness within the political process has led Claude Ake to qualify political competition in Africa as warfare.3 5 To be sure, the level of patrimonialism differs from one state to the other and this is also a fu nction of the amount of resources including those from the "aid industry"36 available to the political leaders for pill ag e and distribution. Most recent studies on the French-speaking states point to an abundant evidence of patrimonialism. Yves-Andre Faure, for example, takes exception to the economistic interpretation of the lvorian conjuncture to the utter neglect of its socio-political (patrimonial) underpinnings. finds its logic in the perverse workings of the neo-patrimonial state especially for most members of civil society who bear the brunt of this practice.
Doubtless, the arguments of the neo-patrimonialists are attractive and cannot therefore be dismissed lightly in the search for the failure of democracy in the sub-Saharan African states. Certa.inly, the explanation which this theo ry offers appears more cohesive and coherent than the preceding one yet it has some limitations. First, it is ahistorical in its treatment of the trajecto ry of this democratic collapse. Second, it falsely assumes that the African leaders and, indeed, the African states act independently of the intervening variables in the international environment. While these leaders bear the ultimate responsi bility for their domestic political and economic policies, it is widely accepted that many of them pander to and are propped by external interests. Finally, the existence of varying shades of neo-patrimonial practices in some of the matured democracies raises the question of its critical tresh-hold for the demise of democracy. Hearing these comments in mind, we turn to an exarnination of the significance of the external setting for the upsurge in democratization in the states under consideration. lt is only the foregoing which can explain satisfactorily the sudden volte-face of such leaders as Felix Houphouet-Boi gn y (Cote d'lvoire), Paul Biya (Cameroon), Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire) and Gnassigbe Eyadema (fogo) whose initial rejection of multipartyism and of any form of political opering was as vehement as the waves of mass protests that assailed their administrations. President Eyadema in particular would go as far as to claim that the Togolese people did not want multi par tyism and, therefore, he was not prepared to impose one on them! Beyond this, the democratization protests in these states were propelled further by the democratic 'revolutions' in Eastem Europe and in the forrner Soviel Union which ended the hegemony of the communist party and somewhat, by the unfulding events in South Africa in so far as these held prospects for a democratic solution to apartheid

The E:aernal Setting
In the final analysis then, one could submit that the upsurge in democratic demands in these francophone states was due to factors within their domestic and extemal settings. The neo patrimonial nature of the state as this was sustained by extemal interests and not necessarily colonialism, as evidenced by the wast of resources and the unbridled corruption and mismanagement characteristic of the former, led inevitably to economic collapse and to the introduction of the SAP. While the extemal factors have been important, these have merely supplemented and complemented the domestic pressures, without which democratization would have remained both isolated and mostly rethorical events.
lt remains to account for the level of violence which accompanied these protests and which has continued to dog the process of democratic transition in some of these states. Because the use of violence has been widespread but not exclusive to the francophone states one is inclined to argue that it was the clash of will between the political leadership intent on conserving its privileges and an opposition determined to end these which accounted for violent irruptions in Cameroon, Togo, Zaire, Cöte d'lvoire, Gabon, and Kenya for example. While the democratic outbursts are unprecedcnted, their significance lies in the way in which the demands have been addressed.

II. Tbe Mecbanlsms or Francopbone Democratlzatlon
The democratization pressures which erupted from the members of civil society in Benin, Niger, Mali, Zaire, Gabon, Cöte d'lvoire and Congo and the muscled response to these from the political authorities signalled the onset of a crisis of legitimacy for these regimes in the sense, on the one hand. of a dysfunction or a breakdown un the usual duster of representations which gave support to then an, on the other hand. of a politicization of these mainly socio-economic grievances. 42 The Problem which confronted the presidents whose legitimacy had thus been challenged seemed to be how to go about this shift to political pluralism once they had been forced to accept it, without jeopardizing their grip on power. In the light of the experiences from the 'third wave democratization', Samuel Huntington has conceptualized three dominant modes of democratic transition: transformation, replacement and transplacement. According to him, transformation occurs when the elites in power take the initiative to bring about democracy while replacement takes place after the opposition has initiated the collapse or the overthrow of a non-democratic regime. Transplacement, on the other hand. is the result of a joint action, through negotiation, between the govemment and the opposition groups.

This particular mode is marked by cycles of protests and repression 43 as has been the case in all the francophone states under reference.
To argue that the transplacement mode of democratic transition has so far prevailed in the francophone states is to recognire that their political authorities were not prepared on their own initiative to democratize -as their public unerances suggested -in a marmer radically different from their pseudo-democratic overtures in the past lt is equally to recognize that their civil society lacked the decisive blow which single-handedly could bring the whole patrimonial architecture to grief. Consistent iressures from this same civil society but also from the extemal environment as we have argued.. forced the political leadership to concede the introduction of multipartyism. With the advantage of hindsight, it was obvious that the political leadership and the elements in civil society had conflicting ideas of what democratic transition and, indeed, democratization were all about. lt seems to us that this was at the root of the choice of the modality for achieving this objective. Whereas some countries resorted to the use of the national conference others invoked the extant constitu tional provisions for effecting this democratic transition. What were the rationale for each choice and what kind of transition has it yielded?

The NaJional Conference
The decision as to whether or not to convene anational conference was ce:rtainly influenced by a number of political calculations and by the peculiar circumstances of the countries concerned. The idea of a national conference was invented by Benin whose former Presi dent, Mathieu Kerekou, saw it as a mechanism for resolving the paralysis which the opposition protests had forced on his seventeen year old military dictatorship. lt was obvious that the renunciation of "Marxism-Leninism" by his regime and the legalization of multipartyism were not sufficient to stem the tide of economic cum democratization pressure from below which assailed his administration. Certainly, by the time the Beninese leader took the decision to convene a national conference in December 1989 the state's economic predicament was catastrophic as public servants went unpaid f or months on end, and pressures for political Iiberalization were coming from both the IMF, the World Bank and France. The latter was initially pressing not for multipartyism but for a broadening of the base of Benin 's single party, the Revolutionary People's Party of Benin (PRPB), but shom of its marxoid rhetoric. In the light of the foregoing, the decision to convene anational conference by Kerekou was based on a number of political calculations. First, the conference was meant to serve as a catharsis to the ebullient civil society intent on forcing his resignation thus permitting a quick retum to political dicris palion and ultimately to national reconciliation by all sides in the political contest Second, it was intended to generate ideas with which to address the thomy political and economic grievances in the society thereby permitting the country once more to move forward. Whichever was the dominant motive, it was clear that Mathieu Kerekou envisaged that the outcome of the conference would still leave him in effective control of the state. In the event, the national conference whose membership had been drawn from the voluntary associations, the human rights leagues, religious bodies, and from the newly registered political parties except the Dahomean Communist Party (PCD) but including the PRPB, proclaimed its sovereignty and went ahead to incapacitate Kerekou's presidency by cir cumscribing his exercise of executive powers. that Mathieu Kerekou ran for the presidency under the new democratic dispensation is prove conclusive that his speech already referred to was a mere political manoeuvre.

At the end of its ten day deliberations, the national conference had suspended the existing constitution and the political institutions derived from it and, in their stead, set up three organs of govemment during the transitional period: A High Council of the Republic (HCR), a transitional Govemment and a President of the Republic. The HCR was made up of important personalities drawn from civil society including past Presidents of Benin and was headed by a Monsignor
That the Beninese model was indeed attractive was evidenced by the clamour by the opposition groups in the french-speaking states for the convening of anational conference a la beninoise. Given this, one could argue that the decision by some of these states to convene the national conference and by some others not to convene one was based on the outcome of the Beninese democratic transition experience. In the first category of states to which Togo, Niger, Congo, Zaire, 'Gabon', Burlcina Faso, and 'Mali' belong. the political elements within civil society viewed this model as a painless mechanism for resolving the problems thrown up by the democratic transition. In the second category of states, the political authorities in the Cöte d'lvoire and Cameroon in particular appeared averse to seeing the democratic transition conducted in such a manner and. a fortiori, produce the same results. First, we examine aspects of the national conferences in the former category of states.
Apart from the Gabonese and the Malian national conferences whose agenda were lirnited (and to which we shall retum later), the democratization �ses in the rest of these states have followed or are still following the Beninese model with variations, however, in the duration of their national conferences, in the kinds of problems these have run into and. in one or two cases, in the attribution of functions to the transitional organs. These conferen ces always proclaimed their sovereignty as the Zairian oft-postponed conference did once it reconvened in April 1992. Furthermore, they proceeded to suspend the existing constitution and political institutions and, like in Benin, establish sirnilar organs to assure the transition.
Unlike in Benin though, the President of the HCR in Niger was named the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and the organ itself as the guarantor of the independence and of the territorial integrity of the nation. In Togo, this function was still left with the incumbent President, Gnassingbe Eyadema, but with the proviso that in situations of grave crisis, this responsibility would have to be exercised jointly with the President of the Presi di um of the national conference, that is to say, the HCR. The Armed Forces were equally put at the disposition of the transitional Prime Minister.46 The transition process in Congo reflected sirnilar provisions.
Another striking feature of these conferences has been the prominent role which the Catholic clergy has played in support of the democratic protests or in the democratization process itself. Some of its higher clergy (Monsi gn ores) have been elected presidents of these national conferences and invariably of the HCR in all the states except in Mali and Niger which have predominantly muslim populations. As part of civil society, the Church has used its Episcopal conferences to issue pastoral letters, widely disseminated in the local and foreign news media, in support of democratization. Nevertheless, the kind of role which some of its higher clergy played in the past or are still playing within these societies and states has been at variance with this new advertired official role as Corni Toulabor and J.-F. Bayart have stressed in recent contributions.4 7 lt is apropos to begin reflection on the national conference as a mechanism for democratic transition by exarnining its claim to sovereignty. We have argued that the democratic protests represent a crisis of legitimacy for both the self-imposed military regimescivilianired or not -and for the long-serving authoritarian one-party regimes in these francophone states. In a situation of non-rule in which many of these regimes found themselves as a result of prolonged campaigns for democratization, legitimacy could only be restored to them after an electoral legitimating process within civil society. In principle, the claim to sovereignty -defined as In swnmary, one can assert that the use of the national conference as a mechanism for democratic transition became popular among the francophone states once it proved its mettle in Benin. Its use in Togo, Congo, Niger and Zaire has encountered or is still encountering difficulties. This is not because of its inherent defects but because, on the one hand, the serving presidents have put up a more or less undisguised resistance to this mechanism and, on the ot her hand, the transitional Governments in particularly Niger, Togo and Zaire have encountered logistical difficulties in the implementation of the decisions of the conference.
lt could therefore be argued that the f actor of irnitation more than any other acounted for tis popularity among this category of states. This means that Tessy Bakary's contention that the Cöte d'lvoire could not use this mechanism because it had no economic and political exiles to make soch a demand is a mere simplistic explanation. development, Bongo's long tenure was never seriously challenged as he insisted that the resolutions of this conference were mere propositions which he was at Iiberty to accept or reject. Although multiparty legislative elections were held amidst boycotts and accusations of fraud from the opposition parties, the presidential election will not come up until it is due in December 1993. The outcome of the Malian national conference was never in doubt once the new military regime under Amadou T. Toure committed itself to a democratic transition unlike that of Moussa Traore which did not hesitate to use force to attempt to suppress the democratic demands. For Cöte d'lvoire, Burkina Faso and Cameroon, their leader's opposition to the idea of anational conference merits a separate consideration.

The ConstituJional Approach
Two aspects of the proceeding at the national conference would certainJy have dissuaded President Felix Houphouet-Boigny (Cöte d'lvoire) and Paul Biya (Cameroon) from embarking on democratization through this mechanism: the self-proclamation of sover eignty with its attendant incapacitation of the iresident and his public trial aired often with passion. That this was especially the case for Cöte d'lvoire was ironical in a way; this country had established "days of dialogue" akin to the national conference as an informal gathering where individuals could freely express themselves before Houphouet-Boigny on the ills of the lvorian society. The vehement opposition of these two leaders to multi partyism was weil known but once intemal and extemal pressure made political reform inevitable, both leaders argued that there was no reason why this pluralism should not be sought on the basis of the existing constitutional provisions. Considering their governments duly elected to office and renerally respectful of the rule of law, the political leaders of these two countries interpreted democratization to mean a shift from a de facto one-party state to ade jure multipartyism. The contention that a democratic transition can be achieved without necessarily passig through the mechanism of a national conference is correct as has since been demonstrated in Cape V erde and Zambia.

Moreover, both Cameroon and Cöte d'lvoire but also Niger and Burkina Faso could claim to have deliberately embarked upon differing forms of political liberalization in the l 980s and consequently, could not be in the same category as that of the inflexible regimes. To be sure, these countries witnessed differing levels of political opening but this was part of the continuing quest for consensual politics under a single party hegemony. To use this reason ing to resist further democratization would seem highly erroneous because these various brands of liberalization were not comprehensive enough to check the political deficiencies which culminated in the democratic protests. lt has been shown sufficiently that the reforms within the Parti Democratique de Cöte d'lvoire (PDCI) and the Union Nationale Camerou naise (UNC) which transformed itself in 1986 to become the Rassemblement Democratique du Peuple Camerounais (RDPC) were not unqualified democratic openings since they merely permitted elite circulation and a reinforcement of the iresidential monopoly on power. Yves Faure's submission on the introduction of semi-competitive elections within the lvorian single-party, the PDCI, captures succintly the essence of this political liberali zation:
In his battle to reimpose his leaderhsip Houphouet-Boigny has known how to meet the circumstances remarkably weil. In an economic situation of austerity and rigour, he has had the tactical sense to Jet the electors do some of the 'dirty work', by en�ting them with the task of ousting the extravagant prebendalists of the political class whose stability was threatening the presidential monopoly. 5 4 lt is obvious that we are far from a situation which Tessy Balcary has enthusistically described as one of incremental democratization. 55 Similarly, Rene Otayek has argued convincingly that the "rectification" embarked upon by Blaise Compaore in Bmkina Faso in the wake of the assassination of Thomas Sankara did not inaugurate democracy and was, in fact, itself rectified. 5 6 All the same,

it was this 'opening' initially endorsed by the opposition in this country which permitted the government and its supporters regrouped under the Allaince for the Respect for Democracy and the Constitution (AROC) to reject the calls for the convening of a sovereign national conference. Given the foregoing situa tions in the Cöte d 'lvoire and Burkina Faso and given also the illusions engendered by Paul
Biya's much-vaunted overture towards political liberalism. the case for democratization cannot be over-emphasized.

reactivation of article 7 ofthe 1960 lvorian constitution automatically made demands for a national conference a non-issue57, is to si de-track the crucial poi nt While this argumenta tion is not an uncritical endorsement of the national conference, the question to which a scholarly analysis ought to respond but which Bakary does not address, is why the lvorian leader consistently opposed multipartyism despite its entrenchment in the 1960 lvorian constitution.
In Cameroon, a plethora of political parties which emerged from civil society following the legalization of integral multipartyisrn, the Union Nationale pour Ja Democratie et Je Progres (UNDP), the Social Democratic Front (SDF). and the long-standi ng Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC), among others, regrouped under the Co-ordination of Opposition parties to demand for a national conference. More importantly, they campaigned cease lessly through "operation dead cities" to fon:e the hands of the Biya govemment over this issue. The failure of the latter to devide or to weaken the opposition parties and, indeed, to sit out the political storm with the loss of revenue which this implied, led to the convening of a Tripartite Meeting in November 1991 in an attempt to break the political deadlock.

The Tripartite Meeting was not a national conference in the usual acceptation of the term since it could not claim sovereignty, but the forty political formations out of the forty-eight registered parties, the Government and the independent personalities (traditional chiefs, Church leaders and the captains of industry) who participated sought to reach a compromise on the way forward in Cameroon's democratization process.
With agreement secured on the lifting of military command over the provinces, the discontinuation of the ruinous 'dead cities' campaign, the revision of the constitution and the electoral code, amnesty fot detained democratic campai gn ers, a tax moratorium but not the unbanning of the Co-ordination of Opposition Parties, among others, the way was cleared for the holding of legislative, municipal and presidential elections according to the schedule announced by the govemment The refusal of the SDF to endorse the Tripartite accord and to participate in the legislative elections held in March 1992 has so far not affected the substance of the democratization process.

lt is instructive though that unlike the francophone states which opted for democratization through the national conference, those within the constitutional paradi gm do not experience transitional governments and consequently, do not face the pcriod of uncertainty which has been the bane of Togo, Niger, and until recently Congo, for example. The difference in approach means !hat the countries in the former category have greater possibilities, despite their difficulties, of evolving a complete democratic transition than those in the lauer category. That this is indeed so is seen from what has happened in Cöte d'lvoire and to a less extent in Cameroon after their multiparty democratic elections.
In Cöte d'lvoire, the FPI and the other opposition parties suffered defeat at the hands of the ruling POCI at the three levels of these elections. Afterwards, they demanded the con vening of anational conference in order to set out the parametres for a genuine democratic transition. This kind of proposition was an afterthought and, therefore, untenable because by accepting to participate in these precipitated elections, the opposition had deprived itself of the arguments for the convening of a national conference. This equally applied to a similar demand made by the Gabonese opposition parties after the hollowness of their national conference became evident.

The situation in Cameroon was somewhat more complex; the opposition was devided on the Question of a national conference. While the SDF and some other groupings who are not represented in the National Assembly called for anational conference, the UNDP which is the official opposition party in this Assembly considered this as of little immediate interest preferring instead to concentrate its efforts on fighting the municipal and the presidential elections which were initially scheduled for October 1992 and April 1993 res pectively. In a deft political move, the ruling RDPC -the former si ng le party -which failed to obtain an outright majority in the March 1992 legislative elections (88 out of 180 seats), entered into a coalition arrangement with the Movement for the Defence of the R ep ublic (MDR), once a member of the Co-ordination of Opposition Parties. By this volte face, the MFDR automatically nullified the victory which the opposition political forma tions won at these legislative elections since a combination of the seats obtained by the UNDP, the MDR and the UPC would have given them an absolute majority in the National Assembly thereby permining them to form the govemment within a precarious co-habita tion arrangement
The wranglings within the Cameroonian opposition ranks can be interpreted as an objective sought by Biya 's govemment by encouraging the proliferation of independent parties; at the last account about seventy of these existed. Moreover, the appointment of Simon Achidi Achu as prime minister was designed to funher deepen the discomfiture of this opposition. The latter hails from the same village as John Fru Ndi, the leader of the SDF, whose bastion is the anglophone North-West province lost to the RDPC by default in the last legislative election.
In opting out of the national conference mechanism, therefore, the political authorities in these three states expressed unwillingness to accept defeat in advance in a political contest which has shown transitional prime ministers to be as ambitious power seekers as anybody eise.
Beyond this, how does one explain the convening of the national conference or even the adoption of the constitutional approach within the context of state-civil society relations? Of course, the arguments which have been presented so far correctly depict the adoption of these two mechanisms as the results of concerted pressure brought to bear on the political authorities of these states from civil society mainly and., additionally, from the IMF, the World Bank. France, Belgium and the United States. If one recalls existing interpretations of political processes in Africa, nothing suggests that civil society in these states is capable of embarking upon such a large-sale political transformation.
As a matter of fact, despite the intermittent struggles for the "second independence" in Zaire as has been analysed by Nzongola-Ntalaja5 8 , the more recent and dominant interpre tations of state-civil society relations in this country insist on the disengagement of elements of civil society from the state and, in fact, on the incapacity of the Zairian political leadership to exercise control over the wide expanse of its national territory.5 9 Here, one is back to Goran Hyden' s image of the "uncaplured peasantry".

Whether one is analysing the concepts of inccrporation or that of disengagement or the Hirschmanian 'exit' option from organization theory, as survivalist strategies adopted by the members of civil society vis-a-vis the state, the overwhelming impression remains that of the state dictating the tune because the foregoing concepts describe responses to its policies.
The driving force of the state, it is often asserted, is its quest for hegemony within civil society. Whereas this quest is attained at varying degrees within different countries, the prevalence of the foregoing reactions within civil society marlcs the limit to this hegemonic In the final analysis, what one can say with certainty is that the upsurge in democratic protests from civil society has broken the myth of the invincibility of the chains of mystic solidarity which supposedly bind the elites straddling this society and the state. In other words, the existence of such ties does not �sarily si gnify a coincidence of political interests all the time between these elites. Furthermore, the democratic outbursts have affected state-civil society relations by virtue of the kind of response they have elicited from the political authority whether or not such countries have gone through the national conference as a mechanism for achieving democratization. lt is to an examination of the import of such changes for meaningful develo pm ent within the states concemed that we turn our attention.

m. Democratlzation and Development
Many contributors have pointed out the exceptionally difficult circumstances under which democratization is being pursued in Africa as a whole. Crawford Y oung, for example, has noted the possibility that "ethnic, religious and racial cleavages are likely to find expression in party systems, and are difficult to accommodate in harmonious fashion". Hence, he submits that the "effort to promote democracy in the midst of accute economic distress ( in Africa ) is historically unprecedented".67 First, heterogeneity is not an insurmountable obstacle in the construction of democracy; it is a challenge to democracy and as such only makes this objective difficult to realize as Arend Lijphart has argued in his now classic study on plural societies.68 Yet, this does not suggest that such difficulties may not be compounded within the context of the feeble economic structures in the French-s peakin g states. Second, economic crisis itself is at the centre of the whole quest for democratization because the economic collapse which Benin, Niger, Togo, Mali and Zaire have suffered as weil as the acute discomfitures of Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire, for example, is the direct consequence of the bankruptcy of neo-patrimonial and neo-colonialist management. In principle then the objectives of democratization in these states ought to transcend the quest for power and, indeed, the simple mechanics of effecting political succession. The crux of democracy is to let the broad framework of the political and economic development of the state be decided by the majority of the people and, in addition, to restore rationality and coherence to the administration of public affairs.
Against the background of what has been happcning in the French-speaking states, Richard Sklar's advocacy of devel opm ental democracy69 as a pragmatic strategy for solving socio economic problems through a judicious and a judicious and incremental combination of democratic attributes appears now rather very modest and very cautious. lt is not that his observations then were not correct especially in the light of the failures of developmental dictatorship; it is simply that the problems that he addressed have since become desperate situations. lt was this consideration which led Zaki Ergas, writing at the same period and convinced that economic devel opm ent cannot really be separated from political develop ment to call for a 'Marshall Plan' for African devel opm ent provided that political condi tionalities -democratization -were imposed on the recipient states.7 0 This advocacy is exactly the position which the major donor nations and the multilateral lending institutions, the IMF and the World Bank, have taken in their dealings with the sub Saharan African states without of course drawing up another Marshall Plan. To be sure, this policy is in line with the content of both the 1981 (Berg) and the 1989 World Bank reports whose main thrust as has been stated earlier, is the de-statiution or the de-privatization of the African state in order to render it more efficient and more coherent This policy is at the crux of the debate as to whether or not democncy should be conceived as an instrument for economic transf ormation. 71 This debate is an old one in the literature and we shall merely make some observations. More recent studies argue that even if there is a correlation between democracy and the level of development which indeed is a common sensical observation, there is no causality between them since there is often no interaction between the variables used in arriving at such statistical conclusions. 7 2 Moreover, the fact that dernocracy thrives in such developing states as lndia and Botswana, for example, is a refutation of the level of development thesis. High growth rates and high levels of development have been achieved in some non democratic states in South-East Asia. While there are variants of dernocracy, this does not suggest that some economic conditions cannot indeed facilitate or, conversely, obstruct the realization and the practice of democracy. This is indeed so in spite of Vanhanen's conten tion that the "prospects of dernocracy are not so bleak for poor countries" because it is "difficult to establish any lower limit of GNP per capita that could be regarded as a necessary condition for dernocratization" .73 Democracy can be desired in itself because it is the only known means of checking the political nuisance 74 which neo-patrimonial abuses constitute even in democratic regimes.
We argue that to desire democracy in itself does not necessarily exclude its being desired for other reasons such as, for instance, economic development Tue one is a basic non negotiable rationale while the other is merely a supplementary rationale. Tue common denominator of both positions is the acr-� of democracy; the disagreement is about its end. Nevertheless, there is the risk that this supplementary rationale might, under certain conditions, be a poor substitute for the basic rationale thus serving as a justification for the kind of govemrnental excesses with which African politics is replete. Given the neo-patri monial anteredents of the current dernocratization processes in the French-spealcing states, it is understandable that democracy should be desired in itself in order to avoid the disillu sionment which will certainly set in when its instrwnentalist underpinnings fail to materia lize especially in the short term. lt is this caution which informs the Overseas Development Institute's contention that " ... developing comitry experience in the 1980s does not give firm assurance that greater dernocracy will result in better econornic management, effective adjustment policies, or faster economic growth".75 While the foregoing is true particularly in the short term, it should not be seen to reinforce the case against de-statization which some critics of the IMF and the World Bank economic structural adjustment prograrnmes have presented in a manner reminiscent of the kind of arguments which the neo-patrimonial leaders and monarchs in these states put forward. In To be sure, the SAP has inflicted untold sufferings on the populace in these French speaking states and elsewhere in Africa especially in so far as the political leaders whose actions led to and aggravated these problems are not seen to be malcing sacrifices them selves and, in fact, have devised ways of mmipulating aspects of the programme such as the comering of the privatization exercise. While the 1989 World Bank report identifies rather too closely good govemance and economic development, one should be wary of arguments which tend unwittingly to )end support to these same leadets some of whose overseas investments and bank accounts -from Felix Houphouet-Boigny, through Omar Bongo and Moussa Traore to Mobuto Sese Selm -are believed to run into several billions of United States dollars thus making the imposition of the SAP inevitable in the first place.84 The paradox of the SAP as a corrective measure remains that its harshness could underrnine the very economic and political reforrns on which it is rationalized. While the persisting socio-economic strife in Benin is further evidence that a successful democratic transition is not a panacea for economic ills, there is every reason to believe that the harshness of the SAP is likely to be more tolerated under a government freely chosen by the members of civil society than under one which denies them of basic freedoms. Moreover, the machinery of justice has already being invoked in Benin, Niger, Mali and Congo in quest of account ability from public officers under the contested or discredited regimes.
Having said this, it seems appropriate to deterrnine the extent to which what has been happening in the French-speaking states so far could enhance or obstruct the democratic transition and democratization itself. Going by the proceedings in the national conferences so far, one would be tempted to conclude that there is evidence of a new detennination on the part of the power elites to see accountability upheld in govemmenL But this might be a hasty conclusion in so far as the new democratic govemments have not been tested in office. The only completed democra tic transition that has been in office for up to one year is that of Benin and already, Mgr Isidore de Souza who presided this transition, is complaining that corruption is more widespread now than under Kerekou's administration.85 This seems then to confirm Bayart's assertion that the democratic demand has not really repudiated the practice of politique dll ventre (kleptoaacy) but has merely challenged its acquisitive and redistribu tive modalities.8 6 At another level, much has been said about the lack of a precise and a viable alternative societal project by most of this opposition.87 There can be no bigger project than that of democracy itself but the problem is that one is not sure whether this system will be institu tionalized. The deliberate search by some of the members of the opposition parties in these states to hold positions in govemment even when they have lost elections points to the continuing prevalence of consensual politics as opposed to the strict dichotomy between the govemment and the opposition in a democratic setting. Besides this, the utility of political parties is questioned when it is recalled that Nicephore Soglo won the presidential election in Benin without belonging as such to any political party. In the two states, the shift from a one-party state to multipartyism appears no doubt as a form of political liberalization but so long as the long-serving pr esidents have reuined their positions, a complete democratic transition amnot be said to have occurred. Houphouet Boigny' s electoral victory in October 1990 ensured that the subsequent legislative and municipal elections were mere formalities since his own position had already been secured. In Gabon, the presidential election was not on the immediate agenda since the presidency was excluded at the outset from the dernocratization bickerings at the non-sovereign national conference. On balance, the difficulties which confront democratic transitions in these francophone states are not fatal to the eventual restoration of democracy. As a matter of fact, these diffi culties were no altogether unexpected as Larry Diamond's quaint submission !hat progress towards a democratic transformation in Africa would be "gradual, messy, fitful and slow, with many imperfections along the way"91 reminds us.

IV. Concluslon
The upsurge in mass protests in favour of democratization in the sub-Saharan French speaking states has, in principle, so\D"lded the death-knell for the variety of neo-patrimonial regimes with had hitherto held sway in them. Championed by a plethora of voluntary associations, students' groups, labour unions, and political formations which were excluded naturally from influencing decision-making in the de facto and de jure one-party states, the democratic protests have served to resuscitate civil society whose emasculation had more or less been confirmed by previous interpretations of politics in these states. That the political 91 L. Diamond, Beyond Democracy: Prospects for Democracy in Africa, in: The Carter Center of Emory University, Beyond Autocracy in Afri ca, p. 24.
scene has been affected one way or the other is evidenced by the various transitional processes which have been embarked upon in the countries concerned in response to inter nal, but also and importantly, to extemal pressure.
The ad op tion of the national conference as a mechanism for achieving this democratic transition has proved very problematical in all the countries except Benin and to some extent in Mali where good political judgment did eventually prevail. The problerns which this mechanism experienced in Congo and is still experiencing in Togo, Niger and Zaire are due mainly to the intransigence of the embaltled dictators but also to other geopolitical calculations between the opposition leaders in this quest for political power. lt is these which explain the intrusion of the military in the four countries under reference and in the political assassination which has marked this process in Togo.
The intransigence of Gnassingbe Eyadema and Mobutu Sese Seko in particular expresses their detennination to conduct the transition process in a manner similar to !hat which the Mauritanian and the Burkinabe leadets adopted, that is to say, the notional democratization (pluralization) of their regimes while the location and the character of political power remain unchanged. To a large extent too, this obstinacy feeds on the partial transition which has occurred in the Cöte d'lvoire through constitutionalism and in Gabon through a non sovereign national conference. The ease with which these various regimes !hat have achieved incomplete transition have got away with it reinforces the impression !hat appearances count more than substance in democratic transitions in sub-Saharan Africa.
lt is against the foregoing background !hat one could qualify the democratic transitions in some of these states as a mere decompression of authoritarianism. Besides, the tribulations of the lvorian opposition and the rearguard actions in Cameroon, Gabon, Togo and Zaire suggest that the risk of an authoritarian restoration or what Stephen Riley has dibbed a "drift back into veniality (sie) and authoritarian politics" is real.92 But given the failure of authoritarianism to promote development which itself has been at the root of the demands for democratization, it is unlikely that this risk will be concretized so long as, on the one hand, civil society remains politically conscious and, on the other hand, the multilateral lending institutions and the major Western industrial powers sustain the pressure for political liberalization. The problem becomes then how to sustain the political interest and the democratic consciousness of the elements in civil society. While a definitive pronouncement cannot be made on this issue at present, suffice it to say that the low turn out at the legislative and the presidential elections in Burkina Faso and Mali in particular raises serious questions over the ends of democratization as this is perceived by the ordinary and mostly rural voters in the two countries. 93 To ponder over the prospects of democracy in these states can be apprehended in two senses. First, it is an interrogation over the possibility that democracy will be installed in them. Second, it is a reflection upon the durability of this form of government once it has been established. The two are closely intercormected.
In the event of a successful or partial democratic transition, various institutional forrns of democratic govemance -multipartyism, competitive elections, independent press, checks and balances -are brought into being and are constitutionally guaranteed. But democracy is much more than the interplay between the institutions of govemment This essay has analysed the efforts being made to achieve democracy as weil as the impediments to the formalization of democratic govemance in the states under consideration. Whenever these hurdles are cleared, that is to say, a complete democratic transition is achieved in all of them, the problerns posed by democratization will remain.
Democratization has been conceived here first, as a long tenn process involving the inter nalization of the democratic ethos by individuals and groups in civil society as weil as by the operators of the system and, second, as a process of the institutionalization of the democratic structures. Tite realization of these objectives will depend to a !arge extent upon how three groups of players manage this JTIIICiple. First, the new power inheritors have to show the capacity to abide by the rules of the game. Second, those authoritarian leaders who have converted to democracy will have to operate on a frameworlc different from what they were used to. Third, the various structures of government, the groups and the indivi duals in civil society or straddling this entity and the state have to remain effective in order to counter the hegemonic ambitions of power.
An implicit presumption in the foregoing discussion is that democracy itself is likely to be achieved. This is not exactly so. The difficult economic circumstances under which this democratization is being pursued has been sufficiently underscored. These are not fatal to the realization of democracy but make this a rather arduous enterprise. In the midst of acute economic distress, democracy may not be exactly a panacea for these ills but it will lay the foundation for the populace to hold political leaders accountable for actions against the overall interest of the nation and to that extent, democracy will permit them to bear the burden of the economic structural adjustment programme with fortitude.
All the same, the past experiences of Nigeria and Ghana with elaborate democratic restora tion show that the military remains a mortal danger to democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. To be sure, the excesses of the civilian regimes play into the hands of the military but many members of the latter organization have their proper political projects and will only be glad to find a convenient pretext to pul these into operation Part of the ob jectives of democrati zation will be to socialize both the military and the heterogeneous groups in society into new role conceptions and obligations to the state and society at )arge.
In the final analysis, there will be need for the Western industrial nations who were once induced by Cold War considerations to condone the worst excesses of dictatorships in the French-speaking states and elsewhere on the continent, to continue to support the current democratic project as a means of stopping the patrimonialization of the aid offered to them. The latter tendency has been largely responsible for the crisis of under-development in these states.