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10 Global Governance 403 (2004)
Citizenship, Political Violence, and Democratization in Africa

handle is hein.journals/glogo10 and id is 413 raw text is: Global Governance 10 (2004), 403-409 GLOBAL INSIGHTS Citizenship, Political Violence, and Democratization in Africa Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja he denial of full citizenship rights to selected individuals and groups in Africa has triggered political violence. In many in- stances, these conflicts have slowed down the democratization process, which is essential for pulling Africa out of poverty and plac- ing it more firmly on the path of stability and sustainable development. This failure to democratize has implications for national, regional, and global governance. During the current wave of democratization, incumbents bent on prolonging their stay in power have used exclusionary notions of citi- zenship to bar their most challenging rivals from the electoral process. The best-known examples of this practice are the disqualification of for- mer president Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and former prime minister Alassane Dramane Ouattara of C6te d'Ivoire from presidential elections in 1996 and 2000, respectively. Because one was a founding father and the other had served as head of government under the venerable F61ix Houphouet-Boigny, the incumbent regimes felt compelled to resort to constitutional gymnastics to justify their political exclusion on the basis of citizenship. In the Zambian case, that Kaunda's parents had migrated from Malawi when both countries were British colonies was held against him. Because his parents were not indigenous to Zambia, he was pro- hibited from running for a presidential seat that he had occupied for twenty-seven years (1964-1991).1 The Ivorians were more sophisticated in their legal arguments. Conscious of the legal complexities of indi- geneity in a territorial entity whose political boundaries had shifted and that was home to millions of immigrants, they excluded Ouattara from the presidential race not because he was not a citizen or had dual nationality, but on the grounds that he had in the past availed himself of another nationality by carrying a diplomatic passport from Burkina Faso.

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