Rwanda’s Paul Kagame has gained a landslide victory within the presidential elections held on July 15. His Rwanda Patriotic Entrance (RPF) celebration additionally emerged victorious within the legislative vote, retaining its parliamentary majority. With greater than 99 % of the vote in Kagame’s favour, this presidential election seems to be a repeat of the earlier three, the place the incumbent secured anticipated victories.
Kagame’s re-election unfolds in opposition to a broader context of many different essential electoral races throughout Africa this 12 months. Presidential elections have already taken place within the Comoros, Senegal, Chad and Mauritania. South Africa held a parliamentary ballot in Might.
Elections at the moment are arising in Algeria (September), Mozambique, Tunisia and Botswana (October), Somalia’s breakaway area of Somaliland, Mauritius, and Namibia (November); and Ghana, South Sudan, Guinea Bissau and Guinea (December).
With this excessive focus of nationwide votes, 2024 can function an indicator of the place democracy in Africa is heading and supply essential classes.
Two victories for democracy
Senegal and South Africa noticed two of probably the most gorgeous election outcomes up to now this 12 months. In March, Senegalese voters elected 44-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye because the nation’s youngest president ever. Simply 10 days prior, he was a political prisoner and Senegal’s democracy appeared on the sting of a precipice.
In Might, South Africa’s African Nationwide Congress (ANC) misplaced its majority in Parliament for the primary time for the reason that finish of apartheid and the start of free elections in 1994. This compelled the celebration to barter its first coalition authorities ever with the Democratic Alliance (DA) celebration, its ideological reverse, which got here second within the polls. That is untested waters for the nation’s political system and democracy.
On condition that in each instances ruling events with a powerful incumbency benefit suffered main losses, Senegal and South Africa’s elections may be thought of two victories for democracy. But additionally they illustrate the fragility of democracy as neither was a clean sail.
Months earlier than the election, Senegal was experiencing a significant political disaster as retiring President Macky Sall engaged in political manoeuvring, presumably to increase his tenure or at the least affect the polls’ end result. In South Africa, after the vote, at the least 20 events claimed rigging and referred to as for a recount of the vote. In the meantime, former President Jacob Zuma, chief of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Social gathering, ominously warned in opposition to “beginning hassle the place there is no such thing as a hassle”.
Like in Mali, Benin, Niger and even Kenya, democracy in Senegal and South Africa has typically been taken with no consideration. These instances present the bounds of American political scientist Samuel Huntington’s “two turn-over” check for assessing the soundness of a polity’s democracy – that’s having two consecutive political transitions with out the democratic constitutional order collapsing.
They illustrate that democratic complacency is a luxurious we can’t afford but. The identical conclusion may be reached additionally from the contested outcomes within the Comoros and Chad votes.
The Comoros’ President Azali Assoumani and Chad’s President Mahamat Deby, each incumbents with a army pedigree, have been re-elected amid claims of fraud. Violent demonstrations in opposition to the ends in the Comoros reportedly resulted in at the least one demise and 25 injured. In Chad, at the least 12 folks have been killed in pre- and post-election violence amid threats and intimidation.
The dangers of an incumbent race
Whereas optimistic tendencies could possibly be noticed in some African electoral races, elsewhere there are causes for concern, particularly in international locations the place incumbents are working. Excessive-stakes, winner-takes-all races like presidential elections may be problematic, and much more so in instances of so-called incumbent polls the place sitting presidents are additionally candidates.
Given their private stake within the course of, sitting presidents are prone to leverage the complete benefits of incumbency reminiscent of state assets and the executive equipment for his or her profit.
This – as Rwanda’s elections illustrate – reduces the prospects of an opposition win. In precept, Kagame has by no means run unopposed. But, a tightly managed state equipment has persistently ensured an uneven enjoying discipline that favours him by hunting down candidates who, arguably, may pose the best problem to his rule.
Forward of the July 15 vote, for instance, the election fee rejected the candidacy of Diane Rwigara – probably certainly one of Kagame’s most vocal critics as we speak – citing irregular paperwork. Throughout the 2017 race, she was subjected to systematic intimidation and ultimately barred from working over alleged signature irregularities. In April, a Kigali courtroom additionally blocked the candidacy of one other fierce Kagame critic, Victoire Ingabire, citing previous convictions for genocide denial and terrorism expenses.
By the tip of the 12 months, there might be a number of different presidential contests the place this unlucky actuality – or a lot worse – could unravel. These will unfold in contexts of maximum democratic fragility like Tunisia, Guinea Bissau, the breakaway area of Somaliland, South Sudan, Guinea and Algeria.
Coups and conservative resurgence
Additionally it is essential to level out that these 2024 electoral contests are unfolding in a broader regional context, with less-than-ideal dynamics. Extra particularly, there was a resurgence and normalisation of army coups in Africa, with putschists who’re clearly in no hurry to return to the barracks.
Mali and Burkina Faso’s army leaders have indefinitely iced polls initially scheduled for February and July this 12 months, promising a later date however leaving little doubt about their intention to be candidates at any time when polls happen.
In Guinea, it is vitally seemingly that Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who took energy in a coup in 2021 and lately minted himself as a basic, might be a candidate within the December election. In Niger and Gabon, putschists are additionally working the present whereas the federal government within the Democratic Republic of Congo lately averted a coup.
Worrying developments elsewhere on the planet may additionally have a unfavourable impression on the African continent. The USA, with greater than 200 years of liberal democratic traditions, dangers a democratic retreat because it seems to be set to re-elect Donald Trump, a convicted felon, with brazenly authoritarian tendencies and an unapologetic “America First” agenda.
Labour could have returned to energy within the UK and France narrowly escaped a far-right takeover, however the far-right surge – with its menace to liberal democracy – is an plain actuality in Europe.
For Africa, the constellation of those dynamics is each harrowing and alarming. The (re-)election of far-right, populist, inward-looking regimes within the West impugns its claims as a world mannequin, particularly to these in Africa and past who already problem the Euro-American conceptualisation of democracy.
Supporting civil society and establishments
Thus, whereas Senegal and South Africa’s electoral experiences encourage hope, regional and international realities and dynamics underscore why we should double down efforts to advertise and defend democracy.
Consolidated or not, democracy is greater than a prize to seize and sit again. Relatively, it have to be conceived as a everlasting course of to consistently nourish and cater to even when, on the floor, there is perhaps no crucial for it.
This calls for creativity, innovation, concertation, fixed revision of approaches, and, above all, resolute motion. The potential, for instance, of nonincumbent polls to extend the probability of political alternation by means of the poll field can’t be overemphasised. But, that is solely doable when safeguards, reminiscent of time period limits, are constitutionally entrenched and revered. A compelling incentive thus exists to actual penalties when these are disregarded.
Senegal and South Africa additionally present classes on curbing assaults on democracy and the values that underpin it.
The Senegalese case illustrates how fearless pushback from a powerful civil society, resilient political opposition and a brave constitutional courtroom may be in the end instrumental in triggering spectacular outcomes in a posh political and electoral context.
The South African case demonstrates how an knowledgeable citizenry and a strong and resilient political opposition can regularly chip away the facility of a as soon as dominant celebration.
A sturdy and knowledgeable civil society, political events, robust establishments and political dialogue processes are clearly sine qua nons for sustainable democracy. Certainly, this is applicable not solely to Africa but in addition past, contemplating – for instance – the worrying tendencies rising in outdated democracies within the West. They have to be strengthened and supported in any respect price.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.