The residents of Tanzania’s capital, Dar es Salaam, are already querying the United States’ so-called “model” of democracy on Thursday as the U.S. President Donald Trump insisted without any actual evidence, that there were major problems with the voting and the ballot counting.
Samir Kiango, a Dar es Salaam resident, wants some answers, “We are asking ourselves why is the U.S. democratic process appearing so fragile when it is meant to be held up to us in the rest of the world as a beacon of perfect democracy?”
Peter Kagwanja, a policy expert on governance, security and African affairs, however, opines that democratic aspirations on the continent could be challenged by the U.S. President’s “Belligerence”.
Meanwhile, he further shared his political expertise on the subject, “America has exposed itself to doubts as to whether it is a global leader or, at least, a leader of what we used to call, in the Cold War era, the leader of the free world. America now appears more aligned to the leader of the unfree world, whatever that was, than a leader of the free world.”
In Zimbabwe, protesters outside the U.S. embassy demanded an end to sanctions imposed about two decades ago. With tents pitched outside the embassy in the capital Harare, the group, calling itself Broad Coalition Against Sanction has been camped there for 600 days.
Sally Ngoni, Spokesperson for the group, expressed her stance, “Whoever wins these elections should actually change their foreign policy towards Zimbabwe and remove these illegal embargoes that they put on our nation and consider that these sanctions are actually hurting ordinary citizens and they haven’t benefited the ordinary citizens in any way, they haven’t benefited the Americans in any way. So they should just remove these sanctions.”
As the rest of the world, most especially, Africans are waiting foe the final result of the election, it is noteworthy to see the poise of Joe Biden towards Africa if elected to the White House.
Dirk Kotze, a professor of political science at the University of South Africa, shared a few words, “We know what President Trump is and that is, he has made very nasty comments about Africa that some places are… I don’t want to repeat it here. We don’t know much about Joe Biden in terms of an African approach or African policy. They have not paid any attention to that during their election campaign. So it will be a wait and see the situation for African countries specifically for South Africa of what will be their approach.”
There is no doubt an abounding mixed feelings, questions, concerns and even indifference as far as the plans for Africa by the U.S. president-elect remains unknown.
