CNN started an interesting series today with this article online. As stated in the article, the answer to the question is much shaped by the definition of democracy.

Editor's note: This year 17 African nations mark 50 years of independence from their former colonial rulers. Eight of those countries celebrate their anniversary in August, they include Benin, Ivory Coast and Gabon. CNN.com is marking this major milestone with special coverage in August analysing the continent's past, present and future.

(CNN) -- When African countries gained independence from 1960 onwards, they faced the challenge of building their structures from scratch.

Their former European masters had mostly not encouraged the idea of accountability and any pre-colonial institutions had been destroyed, according to most historians.


Recent events in Rwanda echo my concerns that President Kagame may be his own worst enemy: he just was reelected President for another 7 years but key leaders whom I was relatively close to in the 90s have now been arrested on various charges. That is a significant drift toward the arbitrary decision-making common to big man politics away from the consensus building that used to be the norm.

Time will tell

Tom