Governments of National Unity (GNU) as the Democratic Governance Model in Selected Africa Countries

Abstract

This chapter interrogates the notion of government of national unity (GNU) as an emerging model for democratic and coalition governance in Africa. Considering Africa's dismal record of governance, coupled with socio-economic developmental challenges, coalition governance is imperative. African countries such as Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, and Zimbabwe were selected as case studies to demonstrate the opportunities and challenges of government of national unity or coalition governance. GNU is a co-governance mechanism often adopted over contested election results between the incumbent and opposition parties. Amongst the countries under study, only Kenya showcases a semi-successful story of how a coalition can be formed, maintained, and sustained to the next elections. Other governments of national unity, such as those in South Africa, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe, formed coalitions with opposition parties to unset the dominant parties. In the case of Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, and Lesotho, GNU was adopted as both a democratic governance and conflict resolution strategy to govern better and ensure peace and stability over contested election results and simmering political violence. This chapter argues that the dominance of the ruling parties and weak opposition parties undermines coalition formation to challenge the incumbent parties through electoral democracy. The chapter concludes that GNU in these countries not only showed dismal evidence of being notoriously tyrannical in creating pseudo-space but was also a pace-setter for bad and undemocratic governance in Africa. Data for this chapter was collected through secondary sources.