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 p.c 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 towards a broader context of many different necessary electoral races throughout Africa this yr. Presidential elections have already taken place within the Comoros, Senegal, Chad and Mauritania. South Africa held a parliamentary ballot in Could.
Elections at the moment are developing 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 provide necessary classes.
Two victories for democracy
Senegal and South Africa noticed two of essentially the most beautiful election outcomes to this point this yr. 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 Could, 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 robust incumbency benefit suffered main losses, Senegal and South Africa’s elections could be thought-about two victories for democracy. But additionally they illustrate the fragility of democracy as neither was a easy 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 no less than affect the polls’ final result. In South Africa, after the vote, no less than 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) Celebration, ominously warned towards “beginning bother the place there is no such thing as a bother”.
Like in Mali, Benin, Niger and even Kenya, democracy in Senegal and South Africa has typically been taken without any consideration. These instances present the bounds of American political scientist Samuel Huntington’s “two turn-over” take a look at for assessing the steadiness 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 not afford but. The identical conclusion could 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 navy pedigree, have been re-elected amid claims of fraud. Violent demonstrations towards the ends in the Comoros reportedly resulted in no less than one dying and 25 injured. In Chad, no less than 12 individuals have been killed in pre- and post-election violence amid threats and intimidation.
The dangers of an incumbent race
Whereas optimistic developments may very well be noticed in some African electoral races, elsewhere there are causes for concern, particularly in international locations the place incumbents are operating. Excessive-stakes, winner-takes-all races like presidential elections could 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 more likely to leverage the total benefits of incumbency similar to 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 constantly ensured an uneven taking part in subject that favours him by removing candidates who, arguably, might 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 considered one of Kagame’s most vocal critics at the moment – citing irregular paperwork. In the course of the 2017 race, she was subjected to systematic intimidation and ultimately barred from operating over alleged signature irregularities. In April, a Kigali court docket additionally blocked the candidacy of one other fierce Kagame critic, Victoire Ingabire, citing previous convictions for genocide denial and terrorism fees.
By the top of the yr, 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
It’s also necessary 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 navy coups in Africa, with putschists who’re clearly in no hurry to return to the barracks.
Mali and Burkina Faso’s navy leaders have indefinitely iced polls initially scheduled for February and July this yr, promising a later date however leaving little doubt about their intention to be candidates each time polls happen.
In Guinea, it is rather doubtless that Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who took energy in a coup in 2021 and not too long ago minted himself as a normal, might be a candidate within the December election. In Niger and Gabon, putschists are additionally operating the present whereas the federal government within the Democratic Republic of Congo not too long ago averted a coup.
Worrying developments elsewhere on this planet may additionally have a detrimental impression on the African continent. The US, with greater than 200 years of liberal democratic traditions, dangers a democratic retreat because it appears 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 world realities and dynamics underscore why we should double down efforts to advertise and shield democracy.
Consolidated or not, democracy is greater than a prize to seize and sit again. Somewhat, it have to be conceived as a everlasting course of to continuously 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 via the poll field can’t be overemphasised. But, that is solely potential when safeguards, similar to 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 robust civil society, resilient political opposition and a brave constitutional court docket could be in the end instrumental in triggering spectacular outcomes in a fancy political and electoral context.
The South African case demonstrates how an knowledgeable citizenry and a strong and resilient political opposition can progressively chip away the ability of a as soon as dominant celebration.
A sturdy and knowledgeable civil society, political events, sturdy establishments and political dialogue processes are clearly sine qua nons for sustainable democracy. Certainly, this is applicable not solely to Africa but additionally past, contemplating – for instance – the worrying developments rising in previous democracies within the West. They have to be strengthened and supported in any respect value.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
