On July 21, 2005, in Tunis, in a straight election between two candidates, the Rwandan Donald Kaberuka was elected President of the African Development Bank (ADB). He obtained a decisive total of 78.2 per cent of the votes (55 out of 77 countries, both African and non-African), which included 68.20 per cent of the African votes, while his opponent, Olabisi Ogunjobi, received only a little over 20 per cent of the total votes and 31 per cent of the African votes. It was the most sweeping victory of any ADB presidential election. The vote was over in two hours, when it had been expected to take two days. It was convened because the main election, held at the Bank's annual assembly in Abuja, Nigeria, from May 16 to 18, 2005, had been deadlocked between regionals (Africans) and non-regionals, after five rounds of voting. This was the second time there had been such an eventuality when choosing the leadership of Africa's premier financial institution.
In the past twenty years the presidency of the ADB has been open for change only three times, as opposed to the early history of the Bank when there were more frequent changes. The election of 1985, held at the Bank meetings in Brazza-ville, was a fairly close contest, but it produced a winner in the form of the Senegalese, Babacar Ndiaye, who remained President for the next ten years.
In 1995, at the meetings in Abuja, the contest was more difficult and did not produce an outright victor because of the nature of the rules of election. These provide for the African members' voting power to be weighted according to their respective shareholdings, so that they have a voting power of 60.07 per cent while the 24 non-regionals, mainly Western countries, have 39.930 per cent. A winner, however, can only emerge if supported by 50.1 per cent of the Africans (the regionals) as well as 50.1 of the non-regionals; that is, a majority, however slender, of both camps. This is the device which ensures that the new president has a built-in assurance of majority African support, and that a candidate cannot succeed with only a majority from the non-regionals.
In 1995, as in 2005, the Governors had to be reconvened at another venue (in the earlier case the then headquarters of the bank in Abidjan) where, after considerable tractation, the 'third man' in the contest, the Moroccan Omar Kabbaj, secured the majority African support that he had not been able to command in Abuja, and broke the deadlock between the leading candidates - Timothy Thahane of Lesotho (who had the non-regionals' support), and Nigeria's Seyyi Abdullahi. The Southern Africans charged that there had been a stitch-up between Nigeria and the francophones (Morocco being the next best thing to francophone). But it was felt that Kabbaj was the candidate most likely to command support on all sides, having secured 63 per cent of all votes and a majority of the African vote.
To some extent, Abuja in 2005 was a less acrimonious affair. There were, in fact, six candidates in the field, including the two who reached the 'final.' There were K.Y.Amoako of Ghana, Simba Makoni of Zimbabwe, Theodore Nkodo of Cameroon, and Casimir Oye-Mba of Gabon. Nkodo was knocked out in the first round and Amoako in the second; Makoni went in the third and Oye-Mba in the fourth. The problem was in the fifth and last round, when Ogunjobi had received a majority of the African votes (32 of 53 African countries and 60.4 per cent of their votes but only 7 of the 24 non-regionals or 29 per cent of their votes). Kaberuka, on the other hand, had taken 17 of the non-regionals, but only 22 African countries (29 per cent).
Thus the voting turn-around between May and July was remarkable, especially Kaberuka's leap from under 30 per cent to nearly 70 per cent of the African votes. An analysis of the vote indicates that in Abuja, Nigeria's support came very strongly from North and West Africa, and least from Southern Africa. Interestingly, in the first vote Kaberuka reportedly had no support from francophone Africa, as he had been brought up in Uganda and, therefore, was consi-dered an anglophone.
What caused the switch, in spite of strong Nigerian lobbying, including the setting up of a support group which included former Commonwealth Secretary-General Emeka Anyaoku and former Head of State General Abdulsalami Abubakar? Some observers felt that the clear preference of the non-regionals, who included the US and Japan (the two largest non-regional shareholders), may have intimidated some of the smaller, poorer African states, especially as the ballot was not really secret.
There was also a case for saying that the better candidate won. Kaberuka has had a strong track record from eight years as Minister of Finance in Rwanda and had impressed those with whom he had worked in pan-African and international financial circles. He was also able to market his evident abilities, while Ogunjobi, the older man, had the disadvantage of having spent most of his professional career within the Bank, which has not always been a recommendation in the past. It is not known if the matter was discussed in early July at Gleneagles, where Obasanjo was present with seven of the bank's principal non-regional shareholders (only Russia is not in the AfDB). But whatever the circumstances in the weeks preceding the vote, the affair was a setback for Nigeria, which has sometimes found in the past that size and power can be a disadvantage when it comes to pan-African politics. There will, however, linger some new resentments over the Bank's voting system that seems to disfavour African-supported candidates.
Meanwhile, the new President has made some important declarations after his election. He said notably that the real challenge to the bank is "development effectiveness." The aim was to ensure that the bank is "the leading institution on development issues in Africa, the third pillar of the African Union and NEPAD." The Bank should identify its comparative advantage, which varies from country to country, he said. It should have a higher degree of selectivity and flexibility in the light of “complaints that, rather than tailor its operations to Africa's peculiar needs the AfDB copies Bretton Woods institutions."
Kaberuka also stresses that there is a need for intensification of efforts in developing local capital markets and financial deepening, as well as "widening our tax base by greater monetisation of our economies." The Governors had also adopted a 'road map' on decentralisation, as the Bank needs to be "present on the ground where its operations are taking place," which would lead to greater country ownership and "greater harmonisation with development partners." The Bank also had an important role to play in governance, including its own and is a critical supporter of the African Peer Review Mechanism.
Mr Kaberuka has also noted that reforms in the Bank over the past ten years had paid off. These should be preserved and strengthened, and the Bank should now move to "second generation reforms." Indeed, it is only fair to point out that observers of the bank have noted that Mr Kabbaj, the outgoing President, left the Bank in better condition than he found it in 1995. Accordingly he was given the unusual honour of Honorary President of the Bank at a special ceremony in Tunis when the election was over.
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