African democracy withering?

During the 2020 Presidential elections in the United States of America, President Donald Trump established a precedent by claiming that the election was fraudulent and that he did not accept the results. Following the riots on Capitol Hill aimed at disrupting the counting of electoral votes by Trump supporters, the very idea that the United States remained the bastion of democracy was shattered. More worrying is the fact that this trend has now been adopted by many governments who are not prepared to accept the outcome of democratic elections. For example, in Samoa in 2021, the incumbent Prime Minister, Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, after losing the election refused to vacate office. In that case, it was an independent judiciary that prevailed, and a transition of power occurred after months of a political standoff and considerable tension that now extends to the relationship between the two main parties.

In 1991, Samuel Huntington wrote that a Third Wave of democratization had taken root and that had changed the nature of authoritarian rule in Africa as well as radically altering the coup culture that pervaded politics on the continent (Huntington, 1991). In 2010s, following a series of protests, uprisings and armed rebellions, the Arab spring was inaugurated in Tunisia to combat economic stagnation as well as corruption. From Tunisia, the Arab spring movement rapidly escalated with several nations witnessing regime change throughout the region.

The original optimism and change that saw democracy take root was soon met with greater repression and authoritarianism in the Arab world. For example, by the time of the 2022 referendum much of the democratic gains had been eroded by the President and the 2024 elections appear fraught with a crisis of legitimacy. Alarmingly, coup culture has revisited West Africa in particular with a vengeance with six successful and two attempted coups since 2020. Indeed, during that time military coups have effected regime change through the ousting of elected presidents of Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger. This year Africa is slated to have 19 elections but there remains little optimism that there will be much that will change. The principal reason being that the underlying institutions of the state are not robust enough to withstand authoritarian manipulation and resist military intervention. Africans have clearly lost faith in democracy. Nevertheless, being the most youthful continent in the world, it remains to be seen how long its people will continue to be subjugated at a time when the world is increasingly globalised and social media dominates the social imaginary.

For democracy to have any legacy, state institutions must be reformed, global superpowers must not manipulate the continent for their own geopolitical interests and the structural reforms imposed upon African peoples must be tempered. The West can no longer hold its own political systems as sacrosanct at a time when its own foundations have been fundamentally altered. Simply having elections in 19 African countries does not mean a triumph for democracy. In many of these countries the elections will be neither free nor fair. As Larry Diamond has noted, we are experiencing ‘democratic recession’ (Diamond, 2015, 2020). Elections are by no means the litmus test of how a nation is fairing in terms of its democratic success. Above all else, the neo-colonial tendencies which continue to dominate the continent must be rethought and voice given to Africans so that they can choose their own destiny.