Putting Rwanda elections in economic democracy context

In order to properly analyse Rwanda’s August 4 elections, one needs to have two principles in the background. The first one is the Jude 10 principle which teaches us that wicked people “speak abusively against whatever they do not understand”. (NIV)
Political analysts who express scornful views about both president Paul Kagame and the Rwandan presidential elections do so because they do not understand the type of democracy Mr Kagame is pursuing, or at least which he should ideally be pursuing.

The second principle which one should have in the background while analysing Rwanda’s election is based on my people, the Banyarwanda saying, that “Urusha nyina w’umwana imbabazi aba ashaka kumurya”, loosely meaning that if one shows more compassion to a child than its own mother, he or she may be planning to eat the child.
And this principle applies to non-Rwandans who pontificate on Rwanda’s political and economic direction in general and on president Kagame in particular, which even makes some Rwandans raise their eyebrows.

False definition of democracy
Some people peddle a false definition of democracy. For example, journalist Andrew Mwenda told viewers on NBS’ Frontline talkshow on August 10 that there are two brands of democracy:
1. The one attributed to Abraham Lincoln (16th US president, 1861-1865). This brand of democracy holds that “democracy is the rule of the people by the people” elected on the principle of consensus.
2. The second brand of democracy, according to Mwenda, is the one which holds that democracy is achieved through various forms of elections like the selection of the US president through the Electoral College. Therefore, any leader elected within the laws established by his or her country, external indignation notwithstanding, is deemed to have been democratically elected.

To start with, the gist of democracy is the rule based on consensus of a people. Therefore, the above definitions are definition of one and the same thing. The truth is that democracy is a form of political categories but not two different political types.

Real democracy is built on two categories and in corollary way: The first category is “development economic democracy” followed by “political democracy”. This is what the Europeans and Americans followed.

In the very beginning they started off by being economically democratic, which allowed merit to lead in the economic field, while they were politically intolerant to women, the poor and black people. But as their economies developed, they became prosperous, tolerant, reformative and eventually achieved inclusive democratisation.
Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, Gen Park in South Korea, Deng Xiaoping in China and Mahathir Mohammad in Malaysia were political hardliners but democratic when it came to issues of economic management.

Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi were politically intolerant, but allowed the Mwai Kibaki’s from the London School of Economics and others from Harvard University to build the national economic cake. As Kenya became prosperous, it became democratic as well. On the other hand, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere who was politically tolerant but intolerant to those with alternative economic ideas such as the late Abdul Rahaman Babu and the late Justin Rweyamamu succeeded in building a politically democratic society without the benefits of economic prosperity.
And this brings me to Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame. He is a man with both the political and economic zeal to ‘Singaporerise’ Rwanda, but unfortunately he lacks the people to give him the right economic advice which would have made him a Lee Kuan Yew in the making.

Lee Kuan Yew banished unemployment in only 20 years (1966-1986). South Korean’s GDP income per capita increased from $79 (1961) to $5,199 in 1989, which was within a period of 28 years. In the next seven years (2022) Kagame will have been in power for 28 years, yet chances of achieving a GDP income per capita of $5,000 appear to be remote.

Rwanda has no bank of communication to power the communication economy like China has. There is no bank of agriculture in Rwanda like it is in China to empower farmers. The money available for domestic credit in Rwanda as percentage of GDP is as low as 10 per cent which has led to higher interest rates. In Japan, it is 290 per cent and in USA about 240 per cent which leads to very low interest rates.
How then, will Rwandans achieve total economic prosperity when they are starved of cheap capital to realise their potential to produce goods or provide services?

Therefore, Kagame’s advisers should help him achieve the following seven fundamental economic indicators:
1) Low interest rate, say 2 per cent,
2) Low unemployment rate below 10 per cent,
3) Low and stable exchange rate,
4) Positive balance of trade,
5) Real industrial growth (output),
6) Low consumer prices which is inflation-adjusted,
7) High wage economy to drive domestic consumption on the economies of scale. Anything outside this strategy is just background music.

Conclusion
It is because both the pro-Rwanda and the critics of Rwanda analyse Rwanda’s elections within the second part of democracy (political democracy) that they do not get it. The pro-Rwanda cannot convince people that president Kagame is a tolerant political democrat in the real sense of the word.

At the same time, the critics of Rwanda democracy cannot convince anyone that president Kagame is not the best person for Rwanda as of now. It’s only when you analyse Rwanda’s elections within the context of economic democracy (which is part one of democracy) that one can point out some shortcomings.

This is the most fundamental problem. If Kagame fails to get economic indicators correct, then he may end up squandering his political opportunity like many African presidents have done and continue to do up to today. The current gains can be reversed by population growth, as it has happened in Uganda.

The goal of any leader is to achieve development for his country and richer population, which live longer than its previous generation. It is not how efficient a country is or how investors get their licenses in one day.
The biggest portion of global Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) goes to countries such as China with a cobweb of laws and regulations. France has 3,000 page labour code which investors follow yet it does not repel them. As to whether Rwanda will be a Singapore in 30 years (1994-2024), only time will tell. And that will be the litmus test for Kagame’s successive presidential elections.

The writer is a journalist