n his first, foot-in-the-mouth incident of 2026, President Duma Boko used part of his podium time to explain the concept of ‘social contract.’ He did so on the basis of public perception that his government is failing to meet its obligations in terms of a ‘social contract’ that the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) entered into with voters in the 2024 general election. To whittle down Boko’s more detailed legalistic definition into digestible bits, a social contract is actually no more than a legally unenforceable gentleman’s agreement. On such basis, government is not legally obliged to deliver on its electoral pledges. As opposed to a social contract, a legal contract is enforceable and more importantly, spells out penalties that a defaulting parties would be subjected to.
While there has been public outrage over Boko’s statement, the fact of the matter is that he was right with regard to how a social contract operates. Thus, the actual problem is not what he said but how democracy works against the interests of voters.
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