By Tonderai Maruke
The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly ordered American diplomats to stop pretending that they care about the integrity of foreign elections, unless it really matters to Washington.
In an internal cable dated July 17, Rubio told diplomats to stop commenting on whether elections are “free and fair.” The only time the US should bother is when there is a “clear and compelling” foreign policy interest.
“When it is appropriate to comment on a foreign election, our message should be brief, focused on congratulating the winning candidate and, when appropriate, noting shared foreign policy interests,” said the cable, marked “sensitive”.
The new directive bars US embassies from issuing statements on elections without top-level approval. It even spells out what diplomats must not do: “Messages should avoid opining on the fairness or integrity of an electoral process, its legitimacy, or the democratic values of the country in question.” A State Department spokesperson added: “Consistent with the administration’s emphasis on national sovereignty, the Department will comment publicly on elections only when there is a clear and compelling U.S. foreign policy interest to do so.”
One US media outlet reported this as a “significant departure” from America’s tradition of promoting democracy. But really, this is hardly a departure. This is Washington finally saying out loud what it has always done: democracy matters, but only when it doesn’t interfere with American interests.
Take 2022, when Angola’s ruling MPLA won an election the opposition claimed was rigged. The US issued a quick congratulatory message to President Joao Lourenco: “We commend the millions of Angolan voters…demonstrating their commitment to strengthening democracy.” Did it matter that opposition polling agents shut out from vote counting centres? Not really. Angola is oil-rich and happens to be co-hosting the US$5 billion Lobito rail project with America, key to accessing minerals from DRC and Zambia and shipping them off across the Atlantic. That’s Rubio’s “foreign policy interest” has always meant.
In Mozambique, around the time opposition parties were raising hell about vote rigging, the US was announcing US$5 billion in guarantees to help American firms land contracts in Mozambique’s gas sector. Then there’s Egypt, where President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi won an eye-watering 97% of the vote. There was no condemnation of how the opposition was treated – including mystery deaths of key figures in jail. In Cameroon, after Paul Biya won another term in 2018 – in an election in which half of his country did not vote due to an ongoing genocide, while the opposition leader had been jailed – the US State Department was among the first to congratulate him as an ally. Within weeks of the sham poll, the Director General of General Electric Africa, accompanied by the US ambassador, called on Biya to discuss an energy deal.
Rubio himself has been a long-time critic of questionable polls, so long as they’re held by leaders he doesn’t like. Just last year, he dismissed the re-election of Venezuela’s Maduro as “a complete fraud.”
Back in 2023, the US Embassy in Harare had a lot to say about Zimbabwe’s own shambolic elections. The Embassy said it would take its “our concerns” to regional leaders, threatened to cut off “efforts to reengage the Zimbabwean government”, arming Zanu-PF’s propagandists. In 2024, Ambassador Pamela Tremont said “we had some real problems with the election here”, and that the US had “pressed pause” on debt talks because “we did not find the elections free and fair”. Today, Tremont and fellow diplomats would be told to tone it down, tweet a polite “congrats,” and move along.
Many in the opposition will be dismayed. The US embassy has long been an outlet for them. Yet, this isn’t a new chapter in US diplomacy. As the directive itself put it: “The President made clear that the United States will pursue partnerships with countries wherever our strategic interests align.”
Translation: You can rig all you want, as long as you’re our guy. In the end, what we’re witnessing is not a pivot, but a confession. The US isn’t changing its ways, it has just dropped the act. And in the theatre of foreign policy, at least there’s finally some honesty.
