'An alien inheritance'

In the Prospect Richard Dowden analyses the continents dysfunctional 'democracies':

The core of the problem is not inexperience in electoral procedure; it is the nature of the African nation state. Successful democratic systems depend upon a group of people—judges, civil servants, election officials—who stand outside party politics and serve the state and people as a whole, irrespective of who is in power. In Africa this class barely exists. Only a few countries maintain a distinction between the ruling party and the state...[continue reading]