US election: Africa expecting more of the same whoever wins
- Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden is expected to prioritise ties with the continent, political analyst says
- And in Zimbabwe that means there is unlikely to be a lifting of sanctions any time soon
In Zimbabwe, many citizens attribute their economic troubles to the sanctions imposed by the US on the southern African country because of former president Robert Mugabe’s human rights abuses and policy of seizing land from white farmers.
In the two decades since then, China has been bankrolling Harare and pushing for the sanctions to be lifted to help heal its economy, which is forecast to contract by 10.4 per cent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
China renews call for Zimbabwe sanctions to be lifted
“If Biden wins, he will seek to restore and strengthen ties with traditional allies and not perceived pariahs like the regime in Harare,” Hofisi said.
But nobody in Harare believed “a change or lack thereof in the US presidency will result in any changes for Zimbabwe since the sanctions regime enjoys bipartisan support”, he said.
A Biden victory might mean the Zimbabwean situation getting more attention in the US but “that will only harden rather than soften the stance on sanctions”, he said.
Michael Chege, a political economy professor in Nairobi, said “most right thinking and well informed Africans should be hoping for a Biden victory and looking forward to seeing the last of the Trump presidency”.
Africans had not forgotten the moral outrage Trump caused in 2018 by calling African countries “shitholes” or his insults of Africans and African-Americans as revealed in the memoirs of his former lawyer and confidante, Michael Cohen.
Chege said there had been some high points in Trump’s Africa trade and investment policy, like the US$60 billion Prosper Africa private-sector led infrastructure programme, but the US was still lagging behind China.
China lectures Zimbabwe on environmental duty and transparency
Obert Hodzi, an international relations scholar at the University of Liverpool, described Trump’s policy towards Africa as “ambivalent at best”.
Apart from the Africa strategy announced by former national security adviser John Bolton, nothing tangible had happened, he said.
“There is no clarity on what the US wants in Africa because in Trump’s plans, Africa is peripheral,” he said.
Previous US presidents had nurtured ties with the continent, such as the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, while Obama was regarded as a son of Africa because his father was from Kenya, Rupiya said.
“We need Africa to engage directly with Washington but not in the Trump way,” Rupiya said.
Hodzi said that Africans cared about the US election, as America is still seen as a model for democracy, but attitudes were changing.
“The US is losing the high ground to lecture Africa on democracy and elections,” he said. “The US’ loss of a moral legitimacy to lead the global democracy agenda is what I think is the biggest challenge for Africa.”
American democracy was now facing the same challenges most African countries had been facing, he said.
When Trump voiced concern about the fairness of the electoral process, he was raising the same concerns that opposition political leaders had been raising across Africa, Hodzi said.
“With America showing that it is not easy to restore their legitimacy, I think we are going to see a more sustained attack on democracy and elections,” he said.
