Africa's 'year of elections' has been hard to watch

By Justice Malala

It’s been a great two weeks for elections in Africa.

In a shock result a fortnight ago, the Botswana Democratic Party lost elections in the diamond-rich southern African nation for the first time in 58 years. President Mokgweetsi Masisi immediately called Duma Boko, the Harvard-educated human rights lawyer who leads the victorious Umbrella for Democratic Change, and conceded defeat. “I will respectfully step aside,” Masisi said. “I respect the will of the people.”

On Monday, Mauritius’ Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth conceded to the opposition coalition Alliance du Changement following parliamentary elections on Nov 10. “The population has decided to choose another team. I wish good luck to the country,” Jugnauth said.

Commentators have applauded these smooth transitions, but Botswana and Mauritius are among the exceptions rather than the rule. With 16 of the 21 scheduled African elections this year now concluded, it’s clear that most have been deeply flawed — and that the African Union and other continental actors need to do more to support and entrench electoral democracy. Except for four countries (South Africa, Botswana, Mauritius and, to a lesser extent, Senegal), elections have been marred by political repression, vote-rigging, ballot stuffing, corruption, violence, and discredited incumbents using nefarious means to keep themselves or their families in power.

The African Union (AU) and regional bodies such as the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have either rubber-stamped these flawed elections, failed to properly monitor polls, or kept quiet in the face of violations of the bodies’ own electoral codes, thus perpetuating autocratic rule in many countries.

Why have most elections this year been so flawed? Coups and rigged balloting declined in the two decades after African leaders decided in 2000 in Lomé, Togo to adopt the Constitutive Act of the African Union and the Lomé Declaration. The two declarations banned and condemned coups and undemocratic changes of government. They isolated and sanctioned undemocratic behavior while rules were energetically enforced by the AU. That is no longer happening and continental and regional election observation missions merely rubber stamp deeply flawed polls. Impunity has encouraged vote rigging, poor governance and other undemocratic actions.

How did this happen? In 2013 and 2017, the AU inexplicably and hypocritically allowed coups in Egypt and Zimbabwe, opening the door to more violations of the Constitutive Act. Institutional reforms in 2017 to increase the AU’s efficiency and effectiveness also had unintended consequences, including decimating key early conflict warning systems.

This is a betrayal of African citizens’ aspirations. “Across 39 countries, support for democracy remains robust: Two-thirds (66 per cent) of Africans say they prefer democracy to any other system of government, and large majorities reject one-man rule (80 per cent), one-party rule (78 per cent), and military rule (66 per cent),” according to research group Afrobarometer’s “African Insights 2024: Democracy at risk — the people’s perspective” report.

This year’s flawed elections are of concern in the wake of coups experienced by West and Central African states over the past four years. There have been 13 reported coups or coup attempts in the region between 2021 and August 2024.

Of elections held so far this year, there have been three transfers of power (Senegal, Mauritius and Botswana) and one where a governing party lost its majority, accepted the result and formed a coalition government (South Africa).

The rest of the field is concerning. Tunisia, which inspired the pro-democracy Arab Spring protests of 2010-2012, concluded an election in October in which opposition candidates were jailed or barred from contesting and “political choices were so limited that most people saw no point in voting,” according to one civil society organisation.

In the aftermath of the Oct. 9 election in Mozambique, protests turned violent, and the country shut down following ruling party Frelimo’s disputed win after 49 years in power. Frelimo allegedly won 71 per cent of the vote. Human Rights Watch says at least 30 people have been killed in ongoing post-election violence.

The first African election this year, in Comoros on Jan. 14, descended into deadly violence and a curfew after President Azali Assoumani was declared winner with 63 per cent of the vote. The Comoros Supreme Court overruled the electoral commission, saying the president had only won 57.2 per cent of the vote.

That was followed by violent protests in Senegal when President Macky Sall postponed elections scheduled for Feb. 25. Protests forced him to backtrack, and elections were finally held on March 24. Opposition leader Bassirou Diomaye Faye won and Sall peacefully departed. It was a belated win for democracy in the coup-riddled region.

In Togo, after blocking media and election observers, the ruling party won a parliamentary majority in April’s legislative elections, allowing President Faure Gnassingbé to extend his 19-year rule for as long as his party stays in power. Depressingly, his father, Gnassingbé Eyadema, ruled for 38 years from 1967 to 2005.

Some state house incumbents won by astonishing margins. Tunisia’s President Kais Saied won 90.7 per cent of the vote. The electoral commission that he handpicked approved only three of the 17 candidates who submitted preliminary paperwork to run. In Rwanda’s July election, President Paul Kagame won more than 99 per cent of the vote. The electoral commission barred three candidates from contesting.

In Algeria, after polls marked by allegations of fraud and irregularities by opposition politicians, the country’s election authority said President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had won a second term with 84.3 per cent of the vote. It had initially given him 95 per cent.

A warning light about the state of democracy on the continent was poor voter turnout. In Tunisia, only 28 per cent of the 9.7 million eligible voters participated. In South Africa, just 42 per cent of the 41 million eligible voters turned out. In Brazil this year, that number was 73 per cent, France in 2022 was 68 per cent, the US in 2024 was 65 per cent and India was 65 per cent. In Comoros, the turnout was just 16.3 per cent.

Most alarming, however, has been the fact that the African Union and regional election observation missions have failed miserably to stand up for free elections. In Mozambique, the SADC mission declared no problems with the poll despite having observed only 1 per cent of the country’s 25,000 voting stations amid widespread allegations of fraud. In contrast, the European Union Election Observation Mission noted of the same election the “tainted credibility of the electoral process.”

In Tunisia, the AU Election Observation Mission failed to condemn the suppression and jailing of Saied’s opponents and kept mum on the credibility of the election. It was a complete whitewash and a repeat of what it had said in Comoros in January when widespread protests led to violence. It declared the poll “peaceful and without major incidents.”

Ecowas, the west African regional body, has been silent as military governments in Burkina Faso and Mali postponed elections and announced extensions to junta rule.

Five more elections are due on the continent this year — Somaliland, Namibia, Chad, Ghana and Guinea Bissau all go to the polls in the next six weeks. One hopes the AU and regional observers will be more effective in these cases, but what we’ve seen so far in 2024 makes it hard to be optimistic.