Do "The People" Have Power In The Modern State?

Introduction

About three and half years ago, millions of people poured out onto the streets from Johannesburg to Sydney against the impending invasion of Iraq. This was the biggest ever simultaneous global protest — more than 40 million around the world, and it was one of the biggest of its kind. It was an amazing and deeply inspiring expression of “people’s power” in the modern state. Millions were prepared to come out onto the streets to make their voices heard. The image of huge crowds, peacefully protesting against certain issues, has become an icon of the modern age. Starting in the Philippines in 1986 where the term People Power was coined and taking wing in 1989 when a sea of people seemed to swamp the old guard communists in East Berlin or Prague, the myth of popular revolution took flight. In Ghana, 1995 and 2005 witnessed the “Kume Preko” and the “Wahala” protest. Other protest of recent times include; The “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon and the Nepalese protest. All these protest were undertaken by ordinary citizens which toppled the government in the case of Ukraine and resulted in change of policy in Lebanon and Nepal.

In 1995 many Ghanaians poured out onto the streets of Accra in protest against the NDC government’s decision to implement the Value Added Tax (VAT) system. The demonstrations termed “Kume Preko” (that’s Twi for, “kill me at once”) were focused on the VAT system and its impact on living conditions. The protest forced the government to suspend the implementation of VAT. Last year also saw a series of demonstrations dubbed "Wahala" (that's Hausa for "suffering" or "hardship"), organized by the Committee for Joint Action (CJA) over the prices of petroleum products. The so-called “Orange revolution” which came about as a result of disputed election results saw the opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko becoming the president of Ukraine. The mass protest in Lebanon resulted in the implementation of a UN resolution which saw the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanese soil after 29 years stay and, finally the mass protest in Nepal culminated in King Gyanendra accepting popular sovereignty, reinstated parliament and invited the mainstream seven-party alliance to implement its roadmap including election of a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution in line with the parties’ five-month-old agreement with the Maoists.

Notwithstanding the successes chalked in the above cited examples, do these carnival-like revolutions really demonstrate people’s power in the modern state? This article will attempt to provide answers to the following questions. Who are ‘the people’, what sort of power do the people wield , forms of people’s power and what are the successes or failures of people’s power in the modern state?

Who are the people?

The phrase the people is used in this context to refer to the ordinary citizens of any state. These people constitute the unelected, they do not wield direct political power but to a large extend they decide who wields political power. According to Heffernan (2005), citizens mostly exercise an indirect or retroactive influence on political life. The modern state while subject to citizens influence, is granted the power and responsibility to act in the people’s interest. The citizens in a modern state show their power in the form of participation.

Participation involves citizens assenting to or dissenting from the policies and decisions of political leaders and the social values they represent. Qvortrup (2005), divided participation into reformist /transformist and conformist. The former is aimed at changing society (e.g. Kume Preko, anti-globalization protest), while the latter is directed at maintaining the status quo (e.g. protest in support of fox-hunting in the UK). Both forms of participation can be beneficial for democratic governance. Demonstrations, vigils and other direct action protests remains highly visible forms of participation that still enable the more dedicated citizenry to have an impact on policy issues. These forms of participation by the ordinary citizens produced new governments in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Krygyzstan. In each country, a similar scenario occurred: elections were disputed, crowds came out on to the streets brandishing iconic symbols and colours (the clenched fist in Serbia, the rose in Georgia, the colour orange in Ukraine, the tulip in Krygyzstan), and then an authoritarian strongman fell.

The problem is that all ‘the People’ cannot rule. Only some amongst the lot of the people (the elected representatives) can do that. People’s Power can eject one set of rulers and propel other people into high office, perhaps worst than the former. Citizens politics is based on the premise that citizens can and do play an effective and efficient role in the political process. Voting is but one form of power the people have in the modern state. Elections have increasingly become an occasion for the expression of general opposition to mainstream politicians and the rejection of established parliamentary processes. Growing numbers of voters ignore elections completely and simply do not vote. Many citizens vote for a political party to ensure it forms a government which will enact and implement desired policies. Others engage in what Smith (2005), terms knee-jerk politics to register dissent with the political system. For instance, it was claimed that the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) lost the Odododiodio bye election because Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) ‘asked’ street hawkers to leave the Central Business District. The ruling Republican party in the US lost the November mid-term election partly because of the government handling of the Iraq crisis. Participation can take place in a variety of ways and contexts beyond that of voting and active party membership. New forms of engagements are taking the place of voting and joining political parties. Citizens form Pressure groups (e.g. “Concerned Youth Association of Upper Region” “Concerned Citizens” of Dagbon, La, etc) or other Social Movements to channel their issues of concern to central government.

Why do people protest?

In contemporary liberal democracies, it is clear that citizens feel more disengaged from core political processes and alienated from the centres of political powers. Citizens’ protest, and protest, after all, is about showing dissatisfaction about an issue. When VAT was first introduced in 1995, the finance minister at that time admitted that prices of goods then had risen by between 300 and 400 per cent. “Wahala” demonstrations came about when the NPP government announced they were abolishing the subsidies that kept petrol prices at about 15,000 cedi, per gallon. The effects of the price hike send shocks throughout the country. The people do not give up on politics because they are dissatisfied, they participate by either assenting or dissenting. The reasons why citizens participate are varied, but several distinct patterns can be discerned. More citizens focus their participation in ways that are more likely to achieve their objectives or which respond directly to the issues that most concern them. The success of group activity is not easy to measure. Power and influence are related both to access to policy-making communities and to the capacity of a group to mobilize resources for exerting an influence. The power and influence of groups can be used to keep political institutions in touch with the concerns of citizens.

In Ghana, for example, a wide range of organisations represent the interests of their members and lobby on their behalf; they include business associations (GPRTU etc) and trade unions (TUC), churches (Christian Council of Ghana), professional associations (NAGRAT,GMA,GBA, GNAT etc) and campaigning groups. These groups tend to compete with each other for influence over policy. The disability group is an example of a social movement that emerged as the basis of a distinct political movement to champion the needs of disabled people.

The disabled people’s movement operates at the boundaries of conventional politics. It is a pressure group that tries to influence politics and win policy reforms that will improve the lot of disabled people. These disabled people’s movements have campaigned for civil rights for disabled people and anti-discrimination legislation have been the focus of much of the political actions taken by disabled people throughout the world. At the roots of these campaigns has been a demand for basic citizenship rights for disabled people. Campaigning by the Ghana Federation of the Disabled and other bodies led to the passing of the Disability Bill by parliament. With the passing of this legislation the government of Ghana, for the first time, has acknowledged that disabled people were discriminated against.

People’s power in the African context

Power in Africa today resides with national governments. In the modern state the people have the power to decide the type of government they want and can influence policy formulation and implementation, among many others. In most African states the most visible form of participation is voting in general elections. Even here, the people are sometimes cheated because of rigging. Between 1990 to 2000, over 65 elections (multi-party) were conducted in Africa. Most of these elections did not produce new leaders as several regimes reverted to violent repression and election-rigging to cling to power. The following ‘civilian dictators’ refused to be blown away by the “wind of change” that blew across Africa in the 1990s. President Omar Bongo of Gabon, the ‘god father’ of African politics has been on his ‘throne’ for the past 37 years and there is no sign that he is about to give up. José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola (1979- ), Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea (1979–), was ‘reelected’ in 2002 with 97.1% of the vote and rules the continent’s only Spanish-speaking country with an iron hand. Equatorial Guinea is now essentially a single-party state, dominated by Obiang's Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE). All but two members of the 100-seat national parliament belong to the PDGE or are aligned with it. Around 90% of all opposition politicians live in exile. Others include Paul Biya of Cameroon (1982- ), who has extended his 22 years grip on power with yet another seven years. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, President of Tunisia (1987–), ‘reelected’ for a fourth term in 2004 with 94.48% of the vote. Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, President of Sudan (1989–), the man presiding over the extermination of black Africans in Darfur, then there is Yahya Jammeh, President of The Gambia (1994–), Lansana Conté, President of Guinea (1984–), Blaise Compaoré, President of Burkina Faso (1987–), among others. Elections brought about change in governments in Ghana (2000), Senegal (2000) and Kenya (2002). These are unique examples by African standards. Change was possible largely because of the participation of the people. Decades of military dictatorship have reduced the once proud African people into ‘cowards’. Most issues that demands the collective action of the people is often times looked upon and no action taken. For example, an issue like corruption which is so endemic in Africa and which has deprived most citizens of the basic necessities of life has seen no action by the people.

But would it be right to assume that the people wield considerable power in the modern state? As illustrated above, there have been some great successes when the people presented a united front. Failures also abound, the people in mass movements such the ‘Stop the War Coalition’ and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament(CND) were not able to stop the so-called “coalition of the willing” from invading Iraq and of equally important is the inability of the CND to stop governments from upgrading their nuclear arsenals.

On the whole however, democracy implies that politics also includes the participation of ordinary people. Political actors in government are never free agents. They are subject to public opinion and electoral pressures. In the modern state the policies that the political elite formulate are at least to some extent dependent on the will of the people. Public opinion plays a decisive role in politics. In November when the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) announced an increase in utility prices, within days the government announced that it would absorbed the price increase. Why? The expression of opinion in the periphery influence policy making at the centre. Politicians and the media often point to polls or surveys as examples of public opinion on issues. In the last few years, six elected heads of state have been ousted by the people in mass protest, something nearly unheard of in the previous decade. The main source of the discontent is the widespread feeling that elected governments have done little. Further, many people believe that the main centres of power reside beyond the state in a small number of Multinational Corporations (MNC) and financial institutions with strong links to major decisions makers. African governments have for years ignored the interest of their citizens to implement policies of IMF and World Bank.

All liberal democratic governments are subject to any number of checks and balances, foremost among them public opinion, upcoming and anticipated electoral reactions. Governments find themselves unseated if electors (the people) do not approve of their record in office or support their political opponents. Despite the influence of MNCs and other private interests, it is still the people – Ghanaians,Nigerians,South Africans among others – who at the end of the day decide who occupies the Osu Castle, 10 Downing Street, The White House, Aso Rock Villa, The Executive Mansion, The Kremlin, the Élysée Palace,Groote Schuur, or 24 Sussex Drive among others. In short, ‘the people’ still have considerable power in the modern state despite some constraints.