The Dilemma of African opposition Parties.

As Africa and the rest of the world shifts focus to the Nigerian elections due next month, focus will turn to African opposition parties. Can they get into power through a free and fair election? While its hard to unseat a sitting government anywhere in the world, it is even harder in Africa. Former DR Congo strongman, Mobutu Sese Seko, in a reaction to an election loss by Zambia's founding President Kenneth Kaunda, remarked that "How could someone lose an election that they had organised". To Mobutu, there is no way an opposition party could emerge victorious in an election that was organised by the State. African opposition party chiefs such as Kizza Besigye of Uganda, Raila Odinga of Kenya, and Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe are just some of the opposition leaders that have found it next to impossible to unseat a sitting government. Can Opposition parties in Africa rebrand and ensure that they can capture power, or are they fighting a losing battle?

Elections are organised by the State, and in Africa, there is no much distinction between the state and the ruling party. They are one and the same thing. The electoral referees are picked by the state, and the opposition figures do not trust these referees. Even in times of election disputes, it has been more prudent to
call for mass action than going to the courts. In two countries, Kenya and Zimbabwe, election disputes resulted in post election violence that led to loss of thousands of lives. The two opposition figures in the respective countries then managed to craft a power sharing agreement that made it possible to create a semblance of stability.

However, the big problem is that elections in Africa are organized around tribes, rather than around issues or ideology. It is why each side is normally ready to defend their strongman to death, a fact that has seen Africa branded the most unstable continent in the world. However, there are broad areas where the opposition parties in Africa could improve if they hope to capture power anytime soon.
As a first step, they could rally around the youth vote, since increasingly, there are more young Africans that are choosing to vote with their minds rather than with their emotions. In fact, an enlightened youth voting bloc constitutes the future of Africa. Finally, and perhaps most portently, the African opposition parties must campaign for reforms in the judiciary and in the electoral commissions so that they are deemed to be beyond reproach. As things stand now, unless a candidate wins an election by a landslide, it becomes extremely hard to predict who the actual winner in an election is. It's why election times are too often tumultuous times in many African countries.