What Djibouti's Election Means: A Q&A with Professor Jennifer Brass

[caption id="attachment_10156" align="aligncenter" width="607"] Ismail Omar Guelleh, president of Djibouti, in Somalia with Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. Guelleh coasted to a fourth term this weekend in the tiny East African nation. Photo by Ahmed Qeys / AMISOM Photo, via Flickr. Creative Commons.[/caption]

On April 8th, Djibouti's Ismail Omar Guelleh extended his 17-year presidency for another five years after securing 87 percent of the vote. This will be the president's fourth term leading the country, a feat made possible by a change he made to the constitution in 2010 that unraveled previous efforts to set a two-term limit for Djibouti's leaders.

Wedged between Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and a narrow strip of ocean that supports over a quarter of the world's international shipping, the government of this tiny state, which is home to around a million people, wants Djibouti to be more than just a focal point in globalized trade networks.

Djibouti also serves as a major hub enabling the projection of American military power in Africa, and Guelleh has welcomed military installations from Japan and China as well. Combined with an ongoing French military presence, Saudi interest and an array of military contractors, Djibouti is looking to define itself as the ultimate African security partner. The United States pays Djibouti's government $63 million a year to locate the bulk of its military in Africa at Camp Lemonnier. The camp sits on the footprint of an older French Foreign Legion base, and it enables the United States to rapidly deploy manned or unmanned aircraft to Yemen, Somalia, or further afield. This transactional relationship, in which the Djiboutian government gets funding and the United States gets a low-key and central location for its only permanent military base in Africa, has placed the Obama administration in the an uncomfortable position. In an effort to increase their perceived legitimacy as an actor in African security environments, they have bolstered a leader whose practices run directly against the democratic ideals the United States aims to uphold.

If Ismail Omar Guelleh's unsurprising landslide victory at the polls has any message for the foreign militaries that pay rent to his government in return for their Djiboutian military installations, it is this: if you are going to be here, so am I.

In a tight-lipped press release following Djibouti's elections, the State Department took care to emphasize that "while elections are an integral component of all democratic societies, democracy is also built on the foundation of rule of law, civil liberties, and open political discourse between all stakeholders" – none of which Guelleh seems to be concerned about. The statement also made a pointed reference to "improving future electoral processes in Djibouti," adding "we encourage the Government of Djibouti to support the freedoms of peaceful assembly, association, and expression for all of Djibouti's citizens."

We called Dr. Jennifer Brass an assistant professor in public and environmental affairs at Indiana University Bloomington who has written extensively on Djibouti's political space, to add context to this all-but-pre-determined yet deeply important election, and to discuss more broadly what it says about continuity and change in Djibouti itself.

This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.

How would you describe Djibouti's president, Ismail Omar Guelleh?

Dr. Jennifer Brass: He is an extremely skilled politician, and he has been very successful at keeping lines of communication open with all sorts of states — so Djibouti and Iran have a cordial relationship or even a warm relationship, the United States has a warm relationship with Djibouti, and so does China.

I think that Guelleh knows that people want access to Djibouti's location. [Camp Lemonnier] is the U.S.'s only military base on the entire African continent, and it's really absolutely crucial in the 'War on Terror,' in particular for the drone operations over Somalia and also parts of the Arabian Peninsula. It's so strategically important to the United States that the relationship is quite cordial.

Will this election get a response from Djibouti's military partners, particularly the United States?

I don't think there will be much effect. In the past few election cycles in Djibouti there have not been free and fair elections, or at least people consider them not to be free and fair, and it hasn't affected the U.S. relationship with Djibouti. It hasn't impacted China's relationship with Djibouti either — China is in the process of opening a base, France has a base there, a number of other countries have bases, so I don't expect that this [election] will change much of anything.

To what degree does rent from foreign militaries play a role in insulating Guelleh from domestic pressure?

I think that it plays quite a big role, and part of the reason why it plays such a big role is because rent from these foreign bases is paid directly to the government of Djibouti. The citizens of Djibouti don't have any accountability mechanisms, or any way to get in between or interrupt those flows. It very much insulates [Guelleh].

How is China's role in Djibouti evolving?

I think right now the U.S. is looking at China, and [at] China's role in Africa and in Djibouti in particular. China is now Djibouti's main donor in terms of infrastructure projects. China is building the railway between the port and Ethiopia, which is where most of Djibouti's commerce flows to and from. They've almost finished the railway and are investing in [expanding] a massive container port, which currently has the most capacity of any port in East Africa. It is said that they are now investing in two different airports in the country, as well as their new military base. So there are reports that the U.S. is feeling a little tense about how much of a role China is playing in Djibouti, in terms of maintaining our strategic interests versus theirs. For its part, China says they are just using their base in Djibouti as a logistics center because of its position in relation to global trade.

How might the United States Government counter this dynamic in which it is, in effect, playing the role of President Guelleh's enabler?

The main thing that the U.S. has been trying to do is improve education levels in Djibouti. More educated people usually become more engaged in politics: they vote more, they speak out more. So USAID's program has been focused on education, rehabilitation of facilities, and expanding schooling. Since the U.S. opened the base in Djibouti following the terrorist attacks in 2001 — the base opened in 2003 — that's when investment really started picking up. Their main programs have focused on education and health, and enrollment rates in Djibouti are significantly higher than they were before that time. I think that's part of the strategy.

How would you characterize Djibouti's current relationship with its neighbors, particularly Ethiopia?

At times they have had slightly strained relations, but they seems to have fairly good relations right now. Ethiopia is producing a lot of hydropower and providing greater access to energy for Djibouti, which it very badly needed. The fact that they are revitalizing the railway, which should more than halve the travel time between Addis and Djibouti, is a sign that they are planning to continue [channeling] export and import traffic through Djibouti.

What makes it a precarious situation for Djibouti is that if relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea were to improve, that would create a great deal of competition for Ethiopian exports, because something like 70 percent of the business at the Port of Djibouti is going to or coming from Ethiopia. If the port in Mogadishu becomes viable or the port in Somaliland opened up, and Djibouti loses a vast portion of its trade, it could create quite a lot of tension between Djibouti and Ethiopia.

What do you make of Djibouti's ambitions to be another Dubai?

Djibouti sells itself as the next big trans-shipment point globally, and it could become that. Business at the port has grown substantially over the last decade, but there is still a lot preventing that from happening. They keep saying they will be the next Dubai, yet Djibouti is still among the lowest ranked countries in the World Bank's Doing Business report. It's not clear to me that it's actually going to make that transition.

How would you describe the opposition?

Extremely weak and relatively fragmented. The main opposition coalition is the Union for National Salvation (in English), which is known by its French acronym USN. Even in an election where it was almost guaranteed that they would lose, they did not band together to put forward one candidate. There were still multiple candidates under their umbrella and they are quite divided, largely, I think, because of successful repression strategies by the government.

Djibouti's elections received a lot of attention from the international press after a team of BBC journalists were detained and expelled. How would you describe the Djiboutian government's relationship to dissent?

Because Guelleh has such a personal stake in the economy, expressing any anti-Guelleh sentiment can put your job on the line. For your family and anyone dependent on you, their livelihoods are also on the line. And so people are afraid to speak out or express opposition views, generally speaking.

In addition, there is almost no free media in Djibouti, which is ranked 170 out of 180 in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. There is almost no freedom of assembly, freedom of expression — this is the kind of country that detains foreign correspondents without charges and then expels them.

What are some assumptions about Djibouti that you would want to push back on? What's missing from the coverage of these elections?

I think one of the elements that gets left out of the story is Djiboutians! The Djiboutian people, they know what's going on. They are completely aware of the role that Djibouti is playing, they are aware of the power that Guelleh has, and they know that it's in their best interests not to make tremendous waves.

Belinda O'Donnell is a Washington, D.C.-based writer and researcher with a focus on U.S.-Africa ties in the context of politics and security. You can find her on Twitter @brjodonnell.