JOHANNESBURG – AFRICAN countries must shun China’s model of “authoritarian control combined with mercantilist capitalism”, former United States President Barack Obama has warned.

Delivering the Nelson Mandela lecture in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Obama said Africans must embrace democracy as the only model to advance their economic interests as well as individual rights and freedoms.

“Strongman politics are ascendant suddenly, whereby elections and some pretence of democracy are maintained — the form of it — but those in power seek to undermine every institution or norm that gives democracy meaning,” Obama said.

In the audience sat Nkosana Moyo, a presidential candidate for Zimbabwe’s July 30 elections.

After a military takeover in November last year which ousted former President Robert Mugabe, his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa has tried to steer Zimbabwe towards the Chinese model – emphasising economic development over civil liberties and strong independent institutions.

Said Obama: “Many developing countries now are looking at China’s model of authoritarian control combined with mercantilist capitalism as preferable to the messiness of democracy. Who needs free speech as long as the economy is going good?

“The free press is under attack. Censorship and state control of media is on the rise. Social media — once seen as a mechanism to promote knowledge and understanding and solidarity — has proved to be just as effective promoting hatred and paranoia and propaganda and conspiracy theories.

“So on Madiba’s 100th birthday, we now stand at a crossroads — a moment in time at which two very different visions of humanity’s future compete for the hearts and the minds of citizens around the world. Two different stories, two different narratives about who we are and who we should be. How should we respond?”

Nelson Mandela understood that “democracy is based on the majority principle. At the same time, democracy also requires the rights of political and other minorities be safeguarded.”

He added: “He understood it’s not just about who has the most votes. It’s also about the civic culture that we build that makes democracy work.

“We have to stop pretending that countries that just hold an election where sometimes the winner somehow magically gets 90 percent of the vote because all the opposition are locked up or can’t get on TV is a democracy.

“Democracy depends on strong institutions and it’s about minority rights and checks and balances; freedom of speech and freedom of expression and a free press; and a right to protest and petition the government; an independent judiciary and everybody having to follow the law.”

Conceding that democracy “can be messy”, Obama insisted that “it is the only form of government that has the possibility of making that idea real.”

“Yes, democracy can be messy, and it can be slow, and it can be frustrating. I know, I promise. But the efficiency that’s offered by an autocrat, that’s a false promise. Don’t take that one, because it leads invariably to more consolidation of wealth at the top and power at the top, and it makes it easier to conceal corruption and abuse. For all its imperfections, real democracy best upholds the idea that government exists to serve the individual and not the other way around.”

Obama’s speech would have been closely watched across the border to the north in Zimbabwe, where the Zanu PF government has refused the opposition access to state media with threats to crack down on social media ahead of a vote on July 30.

Former United Nations secretary general Koffi Annan, who also attended the Obama lecture, arrives in Zimbabwe on Thursday hoping to persuade the government of Emmerson Mnangagwa to even the electoral playing field to avoid a disputed election, which would ravage the country’s economy further.