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WASHINGTON Fifty years ago today, President Richard Nixon signed into law Title IX, which sought to end sexual discrimination against women in education, particularly athletics.

The bill was pushed through Congress by U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, of Hawaii, and has since become a lasting part of her legacy while touching the lives of millions of women throughout the U.S.

Mink, who was the first woman of color elected to Congress, died in office in 2002 at the age of 74. In 2014, Minks daughter, Gwendolyn, accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of her mother from President Barack Obama, who said that the Hawaii congresswoman represented the best of public service and the Aloha spirit.

Every girl in Little League, every woman playing college sports, and every parent - including Michelle and myself - who watches their daughter on a field or in the classroom is forever grateful to the late Patsy Takemoto Mink, Obama said. I am particularly grateful because she was my congresswoman for a long time.

Gwendolyn Mink has since published, Fierce and Fearless: Patsy Takemoto Mink, First Woman of Color in Congress, a book about her mothers life in politics with Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

Mink herself was a professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and a professor of women and gender studies at Smith College in Massachusetts.

In an interview with Civil Beat, Mink described the many struggles her mother faced while navigating a political world dominated by men and the ways she worked to overcome those obstacles to become one of the nations most iconic if not always well known politicians.

She said that although Title IX is being celebrated today, it could face challenges in the future, particularly from those on the right who have been successful in attacking other bedrocks in womens rights, namely Roe v. Wade.

We always have to be on guard about Title IX, Mink said. It was never a one and done kind of situation. Title IX can always be reversed.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What compelled you to write a book about your mother?

I think my mother decided shortly after I published my first book, which was an academic book, that I would be a good person to write her biography. So for 20 years or so I kind of knew in the back of my mind that that was going to be a project that I would eventually take on, although not necessarily to write it but to make sure that it got written.

She was particularly concerned that a lot of the struggles that she had witnessed, that she had participated in, would be forgotten by history, not so much that she would be forgotten, but the struggle would be forgotten. It was very important to keep that storytelling alive, not only because its a track record of what has been tried before, but because it also could be inspiration to future generations about how to proceed towards the kinds of goals that she cared about, like peace and social justice and inclusion and equality.

When she passed away, my father and I were approached by the Library of Congress to donate her papers, which we did. It took them several years to process the papers and once that whole situation had shaken out there was an organized series of a million documents basically 2,700 boxes worth of material that I could start going through. It became clear to me that there was certainly a book length biography to be written. But I had a hard time sort of coming to a decision about how I would do that myself.

On the one hand, one of the benefits of having somebody who knew her so well write the biography is that you have this first person voice. But on the other hand, Im a trained scholar, and I write in the third person, and I write with a sort of distance and dispassion.

Melding those two contradictory impulses was a challenge, and fortunately along the way as I was dealing with that sort of push and pull of memoir-ish versus scholarly writing, I met the person who would become my co-author, a historian who I did not know before this, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu. She independently had developed a plan to write a biography on my mother and we connected and decided to collaborate.

Q: Your mother is well known for her work passing Title IX, but what were some of the other struggles your mother didnt want people to forget?

We had a word count, so we couldnt write about everything that we wanted to write about. Theres a chapter on her anti war activities during Vietnam, and theres a chapter on her participation in the emergent womens rights movement in the 1960s and 70s, and theres a chapter on her work on the environment. Those are all spheres of struggle that she witnessed or participated in that she did not want lost to history.

The nuclear testing in the Pacific in the 1950s, the struggles against that and the coercive power of the government in trying to suppress those protests. She didnt want that to be erased.

The ways in which multiple actors in different corners of the polity articulated their opposition to the war in Vietnam, she didnt want that to be forgotten. She didnt want it to be just a military history or just a protest in the street history. She thought it was incredibly more richly textured than that, and she wanted those struggles to be documented.

Similarly, the activism that she was part of with respect to womens equality and with respect to social policy innovations that recognized women both as public citizens but also as the bearers of the second day, the domestic work and so forth, that crystallized in her promotion of early childhood education and day care, which she began to work on in the late 1960s and almost succeeded in accomplishing except that Richard Nixon vetoed legislation in December of 1971.

She just didnt want the vantage point of the people who were central in the struggle to be lost in history. She didnt want those moments of a policy imagination and political imagination to be lost to future generations.

Q: Did you learn anything new or surprising during your research for the book?

I get asked that question all the time and I really dont have a satisfying answer that satisfies the person who asks the question.

I think its partly a reflection of the fact that Ive been working in the materials for so long that everything is familiar. But also as I try to think back on any sort of moments of revelation or surprise that I experienced along the way, I really honestly have to say not really except in the period of her life in which I was preconscious.

There was the stuff that went on about her inability to initially get a law license, because she was married to a haole from Pennsylvania. The granular detail and, really, horror of that particular struggle was a little bit new to me, but not totally new. That happened in 1953 when I was not even 1 year old. But once we got to a point where I can remember anything, you know, from a bus ride to a political rally, I had a sense of everything that went on and so nothing in a big way surprised me.

We talked about everything as it was happening. Also, I was an extremely nosy child. When I heard my mother and father talking I would eavesdrop on their conversations, process the information and then participate the next time the subject came up. So the combination of being nosy, being wired for politics myself and being an only child meant that I witnessed or discussed almost everything that was going on.

Q: Title IX is now 50 years old. How should we look at the law today?

I dont think that the forces of support and advocacy for Title IX could have predicted in 1972 the scale of change and the impact that Title IX would have on society as a whole and in opening opportunities for women and girls. But they knew that they were creating an important lever for girls and women who underwent discrimination or had doors shut before them because they were female.

Title IX would provide a lever for them to challenge that discrimination and subordination.

Most of the advocates were intent on making sure that the equality language the 37 words that ban discrimination on the basis of sex in educational institutions that receive federal funds would be as comprehensive as possible, that there wouldnt be ways to fashion loopholes or exit strategies for bastions of male power and activity in educational institutions. So that was a powerful motivating force.

I have to say Title IX was enacted without too much controversy. The initial controversy erupted after it was enacted, when pockets of male privilege discovered that they would be affected by this new promise of equity by the federal government, and the principal bastion of that male privilege was mens athletics.

Q: So do you think we need to worry about Title IX today? Are there any ways in which it is being undermined that concern you?

Title IX has been attacked throughout its history. In the 1980s, it was attacked. In fact, it had to be reaffirmed by legislative action in the late 1980s after the Supreme Court pretty much gutted Title IX in a case called Grove City College v. Bell.

In that situation, the issue was whether discrimination in one corner of an educational institution would impair access to federal funds for the entire institution. Obviously, if you localize the punishment to the one corner of the university in which the discrimination has been found, and the rest of the institution goes scot free it significantly weakens the promise of equality to only those pockets where women have been able to mount challenges that have been validated by higher authorities.

The court kneecapped Title IX in the Grove City College v. Bell case and a couple years later the Congress had to enact the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which made it clear that Title IX applied to whole institutions, that no part of an institution was the sole bearer of responsibility for equality, that whole institutions were being held accountable.

In the 1990s, there were all kinds of challenges about athletics. The myth began in the 1990s that mens sports were losing out because of Title IX so you had to fight against that.

When George Bush became president there were all sorts of efforts to change the way in which the athletic equity rights of girls and women would be calculated. Theres too much detail to go into, but there were big fights about that too.

And then of course with Donald Trump we had the rewriting of regulations with respect to sexual harassment and sexual assault, especially that undercut all the advances that had been made toward giving sexual assault and sexual harassment victims, mostly female, the right to vindication when they were victimized inside education institutions.

So, yes, we always have to be on guard about Title IX. It was never a one and done kind of situation. Title IX can always be reversed. I have no doubt in my mind that if U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, was in charge of the world, he would repeal Title IX. You always have to be on guard about that possibility just like you have to be on guard about the reversal of Roe v. Wade with respect to abortion rights.

Q: Your mother has been credited with helping pave the path for Roe v. Wade when she opposed the nomination of Harold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe, being appointed instead. If she were alive today, what would she think of the courts draft decision overturning Roe?

Im sort of uncomfortable speaking for her in contexts that she did not live through. However, I can say that with every appointment of a woman justice, my mother was very pleased. She was thrilled when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the court.

What would she think of the draft opinion? I think that she would be horrified. I mean, Im violating my own policy of not reading her views into contemporary issues, but I think that we sort of knew all along what the arguments were going to be against Roe, that were chipping away at Roe all along since 1973.

We saw the trajectory culminate in an extremely dangerous supreme court challenge in 1992 when the court ultimately upheld Roe v. Wade but seriously weakened it in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

When were talking about what the judges are doing now, they are really pulling the rug out from under Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which in turn, while reaffirming Roe, circumscribed the rights that were available to women by changing the trimester system to really a pre- and post-liability system.

All of those things were part of struggles that she lived through and that, in retrospect, we can see as part of an onward march of anti-choice opposition up to this moment where they think theyre going to be able to celebrate the undoing of womens bodily sovereignty.

Q: Do you feel that your mothers legacy gets the attention it deserves?

She doesnt get the attention she deserves, but you cant force feed people somebody elses legacy. I can only hope that when people are talking about her, when there are books and documentaries and so forth out there in circulation for people to watch, that it will light a flashbulb in some peoples minds about what they can aspire to, or how to think about politics or what a socially just agenda would look like and that theyll build consciousness.

But I dont want to get into the business of saying so and so didnt pay enough attention to her.

Part of the challenge of teaching history the right way which is being attacked by so many people on the other side of the political spectrum is to get the stories out there of the heroic work of people of color, of women, of anybody whos been on the margin, to tell those stories so that they are in wide circulation so that people have this treasure trove of human courage to dig from, to plot their own contributions for humanity going forward.

Q: What do you think your mother would think of todays political landscape and, if she were alive and in Congress today, how do you think she would respond to whats happening in our country?

I think shed be doing more of the same. The attack on democracy in our current moment is over the top and probably nothing she had ever before seen.

But there were experiences in the 60s and early 70s in which people were encouraged to stand up and to decide what the framework for defending democracy needed to be and she was there for those struggles. Im sure that she would transpose many of those efforts into the current moment.

They are the same things that people are talking about now: the rule of law, the necessity of defending a constitutional structure, the importance of affirming Congresss right to ask questions to oversee other aspects of the government, the importance of strengthening voting rights to guarantee participation in the process.

The dynamics of the contemporary situation are somewhat different in that were living in a technological age where people can be vituperative in public in a way that they were less able to in the olden days.

And we live in a time where its hard to consistently count on political courage. I think that she would be pulling for people to stand up and stand firm as the Jan. 6 committee seems to be doing.

Q: So then what do you think of the state of the union?

Oh, gosh. I think that the state of the union is fragile. I think that were very vulnerable. Our institutions are vulnerable. The effectiveness of our Constitution is vulnerable to all kinds of forces of division and corrupt intent. On the other hand, theres also a lot of political energy out there that is being harnessed by different forces over different issues, whether its the climate or gun regulation or womens rights and the like.

That gives me hope that mobilizations of the people who are the target of the anti-Democrats will ultimately prevail. But it will be a long struggle and everybody needs to keep on keeping on in the course of that struggle.

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Title IX And The Future of Democracy: A Conversation With Wendy Mink - Honolulu Civil Beat

Theres been deserved praise for the House Jan. 6 committees production values, yet the two leading players in these hearings are just as riveting: one descended from enslaved Black people, the other from a Puritan property owner in 1640 Massachusetts. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) each have centuries of wildly divergent family history in the United States, which makes them the most inspirational of partners.

Last fall I watched Cheney speak in Manchester, N.H. She is a lawyer with a crisp delivery and the job shes contemplated since she was an undergrad at Colorado College: representing Wyoming in the House like her father, who later became vice president. Cheneys political career was, and is, in peril, but on this day, she wanted to discuss her visit to the Eliot Burying Ground in Bostons Roxbury neighborhood, which dates to 1630. Fifteen Cheneys are buried there.

William Cheney, the 1640 property owner and Liz Cheneys ancestor, was an Englishman in search of religious freedom. Her great-great grandfather, Samuel Fletcher Cheney enlisted with Gen. William T. Shermans army in 1861 and spent four years fighting for the Union, including Shermans 60,000-soldier March to the Sea in 1864. They knew the price of freedom, Cheney said. They knew that it had to be fought for and defended. And they knew that they were the ones who had to do it.

She was talking about the troops on that 285-mile march, but also about herself and others defending the union today. I can tell you without a doubt that the task for which so many generations have fought and have sacrificed now falls to us, Cheney said.

Thompson, 74, may have family roots that reach as far back as Cheneys, but they are tough to trace. His office did confirm that one of his great-grandparents was born to enslaved parents in Alabama in 1862. His mother was a teacher, his father an auto mechanic who died when he was a teenager. In a 1989 event at the University of Mississippi. Thompson reflected on growing up in Bolton, Miss., where he still lives. The public playground and pool were for whites only; the first new textbook he ever got was in 10th grade, and he had to travel 51 miles from his home, past two white high schools, to get to the Black high school.

At historically Black Tougaloo College in Jackson, Thompson studied political science, joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and organized voter registration drives for African Americans. He became a high school civics teacher, but politics was his calling. As he put it dryly at the committees second hearing, he is someone whos run for office a few times. Make that a few dozen times. He was an alderman at 21, a mayor at 25, a county supervisor at 32, a congressman at 45 and ever since.

The path was challenging from the start: It took the Voting Rights Act and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to resolve that he and two other Black candidates a majority on the five-member board of aldermen had legitimately won their seats. It took eight lawsuits and six months for him to be installed as mayor, Mother Jones reported of that 1973 race.

The person Thompson beat for mayor had an eighth-grade education and Thompson had a masters degree, he recalled in 1989, but there was still some question in the community as to if I was qualified to run. What else stuck in his mind? The budget for Mississippi State Universitys veterinary school, with less than 100 students, was bigger than the budget for the entire student body of over 2,000 at historically Black Mississippi Valley State University. And his mother, a schoolteacher, was told she didnt know enough about the Constitution to vote. She finally was able to register at age 46.

One way or another, Thompson has been dealing with great replacement paranoia since the day he registered his first Black voter, the day he ran for his first office, the day the first white candidates insisting theyd been robbed sued him and his fellow Black winners. More than 50 years later, as America confronts white supremacist extremism, he chairs both the Homeland Security Committee and the committee investigating the unprecedented attempt to keep a losing president in power a revolution within a constitutional crisis, as conservative Judge Michael Luttig put it last week.

All Thompsons life, he has been up against white people trying to hold on to their power. Leading this investigation is the capstone of a pioneering career.

By contrast, Cheneys vote to impeach Donald Trump and her decision to serve on the Jan. 6 committee likely will end her congressional career. Though she is as conservative as her deep-red state, polls ahead of Wyomings Aug. 16 Republican primary show her losing badly to Harriet Hageman, a former Cheney supporter who has been endorsed by Trump.

Cheney will speak June 29 in Simi Valley as part of a Ronald Reagan library series on what the GOP should stand for. To understate the case, Cheneys vision is not ascendant nationally these days. Roughly seven in 10 Republicans say President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected Will that ever change? Cheney is only 55. She has time on her side, and seriousness of purpose.

Thats something she and Thompson have in common, despite their stark political differences. Their hearings are not merely a competition between truth and lies, the Constitution and some crackpot interpretation of it. Our democracy is at stake, just as it was in the American Revolution and the Civil War. Thankfully, Cheney and Thompson understand this to their bones.

Jill Lawrence is a writer, an editor and the author of The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock. @JillDLawrence

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Op-Ed: Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney understand the stakes of democracy - Los Angeles Times

"People are going to be surprised," Rep. Adam Schiff promised us, preceding the first primetime televised hearing of the January 6 committee. "The American people know a great deal already," he said, but there is a "great deal they haven't seen yet."

If the tantalizing promise of juicy evidence sounds familiar, it's because Adam Schiff is a one-trick pony. How many times did Schiff promise "proof" of Trump-Russia collusion only to produce... nothing?

Any inquiry that boasts Rep. Adam Schiff as a member should be outright rejected.

"Our goal is to present a narrative of what happened in this country," Schiff continued. "How close we came to losing our democracy. What led to the violence."

Which is it, Mr. Schiff? Will your committee serve up evidence to bolster your outrageous allegations? Or are you weaving a political "narrative" to serve your party's agenda?

The Jan. 6 committee under the helm of Chair Bennie Thompson, flanked by Schiff and pseudo-Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, among others, is more dangerous than Jan. 6th itself. We're less than two weeks into their televised kangaroo courtduring which they've already admitted they do not plan to make any criminal referrals to the Department of Justiceand they've given us at least five reasons to suspect they pose a greater threat to our country than the events of Jan. 6th ever did.

The first reason is the abuse of power wielded by the committee in its targeting of Trump adviser Peter Navarro. When the committee subpoenaed Navarro, he refused it, citing executive privilege on behalf of President Trump. Navarro has a legal right to make this claim. The Jan. 6th committee can contest it, but the appropriate venue to do so is in the courts. Schiff, Thompson, Cheney, Kinzinger, and the rest have no legal authority to simply dismiss Navarro's claim because they don't like it. Yet the DOJ indicted Navarro and the FBI arrested him at the airport without the due process necessary to adjudicate his claim.

So much for the Jan. 6th committee's claim to care about democracy.

Second, many of the Jan. 6th defendants who have been rotting in jail for the past year are being charged under 40 U.S. Code 5104, which says no one may "parade, demonstrate, or picket in any of the Capitol Buildings" and 18 U.S. Code 1512, which bans protest that "obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so."

Yet consider the protesters circling the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Their demonstrations continue even in the wake of the attempted assassination of the Justice, and despite the fact that a federal law with nearly identical language prohibits this activity. That law, 18 U.S.C. 1507, bans "picket[ing] or parad[ing] in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer" when the protests have the intent "of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice."

Does the Jan. 6th committee care about selective application of the law, based on the political beliefs of those charged? No, it doesn't.

How can a congressional committee focused on Jan. 6th not care about what actually happened that day? This is the third reason. The real questions about Jan. 6th, 2021 remain:

Did cops open doors at the Capitol to allow protesters to enter?

Did somebody move barriers for people to enter the restricted zone around the Capitol? If so, who?

Did police beat anyone in the tunnel?

Did FBI informants encourage and/or organize violence or lawbreaking?

How extensively were federal agencies geotracking people in connection to Jan. 6th?

Why does the committee refuse to subpoena and release 14,000 hours of video footage from Jan. 6th?

Why won't the committee subpoena the communication between Nancy Pelosi, the FBI, the DCCP, and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser?

Why was the Capitol left unprotected?

How long will the Jan. 6th defendants be subject to solitary confinement and deprivation of due process rights?

(Will Schiff's narrative include this information? If not, why not?)

Most dangerous of all, and our fourth reason, the Jan. 6th committee is trying to criminalize free speech. Dubbing concerns about election integrity "the big lie," and accusing those who voice them of inciting an insurrection, is part of a blatant attempt to label any speech that contradicts radical leftist ideology as "actual" violence. This is the criminalization of free speech at the hands of partisan, dishonest politicians. Free speech is a bedrock value of our constitutional republic, without which our nation will certainly fall.

This is and always has been the goal of the Jan. 6th committee. Criminalize free speech, convict President Donald Trump of a crime so he can't run in 2024, and use the whole spectacle as a vehicle to push their own anti-American agenda through "voting" legislation like the For The People Act.

The federalization of elections is a sinister, calculated move, and our fifth reason. The Jan. 6th committee fully understands that federalizing our election system, mandating early voting, online voter registration, no-fault absentee ballots, and removing protections against ballot harvestingall while prohibiting voter ID laws, witness signature verification, and the cleanup of state voter rollswill empower Democrats to win elections in perpetuity and effectively snuff out the chances of a Republican ever winning elections again.

The Jan. 6th committee is far more dangerous to our democracy than what happened on Jan. 6th. If you're not yet convinced, keep watching.

Liz Wheeler is host of The Liz Wheeler Show.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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The Jan. 6th Committee is More Dangerous to Democracy Than Jan. 6th | Opinion - Newsweek

"A More Perfect Union" is a media project that explores the complexities of our democracy in order to help strengthen it. Through radio programs, podcasts, and oral histories, the collaborative project examines American democracys founding documents: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, through a cross-cultural lens.

"A More Perfect Union" invites all of us to reflect on our shared history and the American ideals that have animated our republic since its founding. How have different communities been included or excluded from our democratic systems? How have Washington cultural communities defined liberty based on their unique social circumstances? What challenges have these communities faced in their quest for liberty, and how have they tried to overcome them? How can we work to build a more just, inclusive, and sustainable democracy?

The project is presented by KUOW, Spokane Public Radio, Humanities Washington, and Northwest Public Broadcasting.

The first episode of "A More Perfect Union," explores concepts of civic engagement and participation in our region.

Reporters dive into civic education standards and share insight into the ways educators make civic education interesting, both in and outside the classroom.

Then, they'll explore the lives of some of Washington's early agricultural immigrants through a tour of the first museum dedicated to Chicano/a and Latino/a culture in Washington state, exploring how communities immigrated and reshaped our civic lives, and also how museums can tell the story of civic engagement.

Finally, they'll speak to a Washington activist about rights for people who are under-represented in many conversations about unalienable rights.

Hear the full episode by clicking the audio above.

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Exploring the complexities of our democracy - KUOW News and Information

BY WEALTH DICKSON OMINABO

Democracy in West Africa is in crisis, it is threatened by insecurity, human rights violation, digital repression, electoral fraud, institutional weakness and state capture. The region is becoming a flourishing ground for unconstitutional transfers of power, compounding the security challenges of the region. Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea are now governed by military leaders and ECOWAS has for the last two years been searching for a sustainable solution to the political impasse in the countries.

At the foundation of the issue of democratic reversals is the crisis of governance. The inability of states to function effectively; the lack of capacity of institutions to carry out their functions, and the inability of political leaders to safeguard and protect the lives and properties of citizens are also seen as a major threat to the survival of democracy. Peace and security are the primary responsibilities of a state, and the governments relevance is to the extent to which it can guarantee the basic rights of the people. The crisis of governance is better explained in the context of the current reality in many countries, where citizens are daily confronted with miseries such as poverty, unemployment, insecurity and hunger. This has created a trust deficit between the government and the citizens. Trust is the threshold upon which the legitimacy of a government is built and sustained and the deficit of trust portends a crisis of legitimacy.

Democratic sustainability is tied to adherence to democratic principles which include the rule of law, separation of powers, credible elections, access to justice, equality and inclusive governance. These virtues help to reinforce the wheel of governance and maintain the state on the path of stability and national cohesion. Dictatorial instincts by political leaders have made many citizens lose faith in democracy, making citizens resort to the search for hope by all means even outside the constitutional democracy. In Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso, citizens trooped out to the street to celebrate when democratic governments were overthrown. In some instances like Mali, civil society groups and political party leaders were reported to have endorsed the actions of the putschist.

ECOWAS and the crisis of governance

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is threatened with legitimacy and governance crises this impacts its ability to deliver on its mandate and enforce its protocols. Democracy and security are major areas of interest for ECOWAS. Regrettably, the region has been a melting pot for insecurity and a flashpoint for democratic decline in recent years. Part of the challenge lies in the lethargy of presidents from member states to uphold democratic principles in their countries. Another factor lies in the absence of strong institutions in many countries which has made many presidents manipulate the state institutions for their interests.

The inability of ECOWAS leaders, especially those within the ranks of the authority of heads of state and government, the highest decision organ of the body comprising serving presidents to enforce its laws and protocols, has created a crisis of governance for ECOWAS. In recent times, most presidents of ECOWAS nations have defaulted on ECOWAS protocol on democracy and good governance through electoral malpractice and tenure elongation.

Some leaders have also captured democratic institutions in their countries subjecting state institutions to act according to their whims and caprices. President Alpha Condes decision to seek a third term has always been cited as the major reason for the coup in Guinea. ECOWAS today faces a legitimacy issue because many citizens in member states do not see the body as representing their interests because of their silence on the illegality of sitting presidents. For example, ECOWAS maintained sealed lips when Alassane Ouattara amended the Cte dIvoires constitution and sought a third term.

This practice by ECOWAS signals a departure from the old tradition when ECOWAS used to be assertive on issues of democratic principles involving member states. In 2009, ECOWAS suspended President Mamadou Tandja of Niger after the expiration of his two terms despite orchestrating a referendum and conducting a sham election to validate his third term. In 2010, ECOWAS also asserted its power and compelled President Laurent Gbagbo to vacate office after he was defeated by Alassane Ouattara in the 2010 presidential election of Cte dIvoire. Also in 2016, ECOWAS restored the presidential mandate of Adama Barrow of Gambia after Yahya Jammeh refused to vacate office after he was defeated in the presidential polls.

The deviation from this time-tested practice is what has created a legitimacy gap for ECOWAS among citizens of member states. Today, ECOWAS finds it difficult to enforce its policies and protocol on dissenting members. The failure and refusal of military authoritarians in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso to abide by the ECOWAS timeline of political transition despite sanctions imposed on them signal the irreverence of the body in the region.

The way forward

For democracy to flourish in the region, presidents from member states must commit to democratic principles in their own countries. This will translate to wider democratic gains in the region. One way to achieve this is through the strengthening of democratic institutions in a way that they can withstand pressures from African strong men and authoritarians. Strong institutions are the bulwark upon which democracy is preserved. The ECOWAS Commission and ECOWAS itself are in need of urgent reforms that will guarantee its independence from internal and external influences, so it can enforce its protocols without fear or favour.

Lastly, West African nations need to improve their level of statecraft, such that the government is able to deliver basic social goods to its citizens; this will help ensure trust and build faith in the hearts of citizens on the benefits and relevance of democracy.

Ominabo is the communications officer at the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation

Originally posted here:
ECOWAS: Democratic reversals and the crisis of governance in West Africa - TheCable