Burkina: Compaoré resistiu ao motim de Abril

Blaise Compaore is still the President of Burkina Faso despite an army mutiny and riots that sent him fleeing from Ouagadougou for few weeks.
Some analysts predicted that revolts rocking the Arab World would take place in the landlocked West African nation. They believed Compaore would be the next longtime African dictator to fall after Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosein Mubarak of Egypt.
The premise was that the people-power wave had a contagious effect and that it was catching onto other parts of the continent. The unrest in Bukrina Faso, however, seems to have subsided and Compaore clings on to his over two-and-half-decade-long power.
In another landlocked East African country President Yoweri Museveni was being sworn in at Entebbe for the fifth time to extend his rule of Uganda to three decades by 2016.The opposition leaders and members of the public were being sprayed with canon water in Kampala in a violent attempt by the Ugandan forces to chase protesters away from the streets.
Few expected Museveni's iron grip rein in Uganda would suddenly fall. But the excessive force the police and army applied against the "Walk-to-Work" demonstrators would not prevent Mubarak from being toppled in Egypt.
This raises a question whether the Arab World spring that started in North Africa is ready for Sub-Saharan Africa.
The significance of this question lies in the number of sub-Saharan African countries with all elements that attract mass revolts in the Arab World.
Significant elements in the North African revolts include long term patrimonial dictatorships - whereby nepotism and corruption had become part of the state culture; wide spread poverty and unemployment; and a large youth population. Over 60 per cent of the population in Uganda is under 18 years of age.
Historically both Museveni and Compaore are a group of leaders, who came to power in military coups in 1980s. They both promised wholesale changes, but the pledges have with time become empty words. As the people of North Africa rose against their dictators, analysts thought many other African countries would follow suit, but the prediction is yet to be seen.
A political scientist John Harbeson of the City University in New York wrote in Sunday Nation: "One of the reasons why uprising may not cross to sub-Saharan Africa is regular elections, which are missing in North Africa."
Nkwabi Ng'wanakilala, who lectures Current Affair at St Augustine University of Tanzania, believes this is partly true.
"There are fundamental differences between the Arab World and sub-Saharan Africa that make the North African mass revolts less likely to cross to the later."
Basically Sub-Saharan dictators have taken some steps to enhance democracy, while families seem to have monopoly of power in the Arab World.It is easier for the masses to rally against a family rather than groups of people ruling parties, which have lost direction, in sub-Saharan Africa.
The ruling party used to have an ideologue guiding it in Tanzania, but since the Zanzibar Declaration, the ruling party does not have any useful ideologue, enabling every Dick and Tom with dirty money to lead it. Opposition parties are more or less built along the same lines. Fifty per cent of all eligible voters didn't vote in the last General Election mainly because they could never differentiate them.
It will take time for people to realise that there is no difference among the ruling elite and to resort to class struggles.Such a scenario already has started at North Mara where five people were recently shot dead by the police allegedly for invading the mine.
Another factor, according to Ng'awakilala, is less declined tribalism in the Arab world compared to Sub-Saharan Africa. It is easier for the Arabs to team up than is the case with black Africans, who still embrace ethnic groups.
A political analyst Anna James says another factor that is the former colonial regimes, which still determine the balance of power in Sub-Saharan Africa.
"The French support for Alassane Quatara was decisive against Laurent Gbagbo. The French influence in former colonies of west and central Africa is an important factor any dictator needs to remain in power."
Copyright © 2011 The Citizen. Tanzania