Celebrating five years of promoting electoral democracy

It has been five years since the formation of the WIPHOLD-Brigalia Bam Chair in Electoral Democracy in Africa, a much needed vehicle for researching and exploring elections within Africa.

As the fourth annual three-day colloquium kicked off on 24 April 2017, incumbent of the chair, Professor Kealeboga J Maphunye, highlighted the important milestones made. He said since its inception in 2012, the chair has played (and continues to play) a critical role in South Africa’s evolving democratisation and Africa’s elections. “It has contributed immensely to our understanding of contemporary debates, innovations and dilemmas of democratisation through elections in Africa.”

Maphunye said the chair and the annual colloquium had tackled topics ranging from the evolving role of elections and democracy in Africa and the role of election management bodies in Africa’s democratic consolidation to ethics, accountability, and fairness in Africa’s elections.

“The chair has produced publications in accredited periodicals, a book, and hosted numerous seminars and initiated an election observer mission to train Unisa staff, students and members of civil society on elections in Africa. These initiatives are in line with its mandate of promoting electoral democracy regionally and continentally through the Chair’s four main pillars of research, capacity building, community engagements, and academic citizenship.”

Additionally, he said, the discussions of the annual colloquia have resulted in conference papers, articles in accredited publications and a book. Such colloquia have also cemented relations with election management in SADC and other parts of Africa, the African Union, and other international election bodies and role-players.

This year’s colloquium, themed Local government democracy dynamics in Africa: What works, what doesn’t, and why, was hosted at Unisa and brought together the input of participants from far and wide across the continent, from government, electoral commissions, civil society, and the academy.

Topics ranged from electoral management and governance, to cooperation and to participation, including gender issues, as well as the crucial and contemporary issues of violence and the role of technology, focusing on social media and the internet.

Keynote speaker, the renowned Professor Mogobe Ramose, delivered a paper entitled Numbers trump human equality and reason in democracy. He said it was unfortunate that fair elections cannot ensure the removal of a tyrant from power or the election of irrational individual. He stressed that in a democracy, leaders had to listen to their electorate, adding that in political leadership, as with everything in life, honesty breeds integrity. He also said there would be no democracy without adequate and sustainable understanding of what democracy was all about.

Dr Britta Zawada, Deputy Executive Dean of the College of Human Sciences in which the chair is hosted, said it was important for the colloquium to contribute to the ethics and values that can shape and re-orient the South African democracy at grass-roots level, emphasising how this aligns to Unisa’s vision of shaping futures in the service of humanity.

*Compiled by Rivonia Naidu-Hoffmeester

Professor Kealeboga Maphunye, incumbent of the WIPHOLD Brigalia Bam Chair in Electoral Democracy in Africa, speaks to Power Fm’s Sebenzile Nkambule. Click here to listen to the interview.

Professor Kealeboga Maphunye, incumbent of the WIPHOLD Brigalia Bam Chair in Electoral Democracy in Africa, speaks to Rowena Baird on SA Fm’s Morning Talk. Click here to listen to the interview.

Click here to read the Pretoria News article on the fourth annual WIPHOLD Brigalia Bam Chair in Electoral Democracy in Africa colloquium.

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