by Joel Simon | Columbia Journalism Review
As President Obama arrived in Ethiopia in July, his National Security Advisor Susan Rice was asked if she considered the country to be a democracy. “One hundred percent,” she quipped, referring to the tally in favor of the ruling party in national elections in May.
Not everyone was amused. For the activists and journalists who face harassment, imprisonment, and exile, massive state repression in Ethiopia is no laughing matter. Indeed, while the government of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn released six imprisoned journalists in advance of Obama’s visit, it was able to effectively deflect criticism of Ethiopia’s human rights record, noting bilateral discussions were focused on trade, security, and entrepreneurship.
Rice’s joke was all the more troubling because it strikes at a larger challenge confronting the Obama administration and its efforts to strengthen civil society and press freedom in Africa. The president’s trip to Kenya and Ethiopia was his fourth to a region where a new generation of autocratic leaders is on the rise. These leaders have earned legitimacy and international support by winning elections. But in office, they govern with contempt for the independent institutions that define a democracy, the media foremost among them.
I call these elected autocrats “democratators,” and their influence is hardly confined to Africa. Globally the leading examples are President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and the late President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. All three won resoundingly at the polls and then used their popular mandate to consolidate control of the institutions that constrain their power. As I’ve shown elsewhere, Putin used punitive tax audits to pave the way for Kremlin-orchestrated takeovers of critical broadcasters; Chávez used his bully pulpit to rally opposition to critical media and vilify individual reporters; and Erdogan used his country’s anti-terror laws to round up and jail dozens of independent journalists, making Turkey the world’s leading jailer of journalists for several years.