As far as elections go, this year would be the biggest global election year in history. More than 60 countries are scheduled to stage executive and legislative elections at the national or subnational level, or both.
In Africa, 22 countries — including major economies such as South Africa, Senegal and Ghana — are supposed to hold elections this year. Given the varying levels of democratic consolidation in the region, not all of these contests would be meaningful.
In some countries, voting would merely serve to rubber-stamp predetermined outcomes. Others would be more genuinely competitive and reflect the will of voters.
Illustration: Mountain People
Despite these differences, all of this year’s elections are likely to further reveal African voters’ deepening dissatisfaction with democracy.
Discussions of democratic decline in Africa and elsewhere typically focus on the role of populist or autocratic leaders. However, there is a need to address an even more pernicious enemy of democratic consolidation: popular perceptions — based on experience — that democracy does not solve people’s everyday problems.
Two factors are likely behind this growing dissatisfaction with democracy. First, it is logical that the novelty of increased electoral competition, and the end of restrictions on freedoms of assembly and association have worn off since the reintroduction of multiparty elections in the early 1990s. Voters have come to take these features of political life for granted.
Second, African economic growth has stalled since 2014 due to stagnating or declining commodity prices, domestic policy missteps and a host of shocks — from climate change to pandemics to recessions in major importers of African products. At the same time, elected governments in several countries have proven unable to protect their citizens.
While democracy does not guarantee material prosperity, much of its promotion in the region was premised on the idea that the end of autocracy would lead to a flourishing of political liberty and freedom from material want. The fact that neither of these goals have been realized poses a real danger.
The evidence appears in both public opinion data and voter turnout. Since 2015, a majority of Africans surveyed in dozens of countries expressed dissatisfaction with democracy. Ominously, in the last round of surveys (2022), a majority also supported military intervention in politics to arrest political dysfunction. These two data points contrast sharply with respondents’ consistent rejection of regularized military rule.
Declining turnout in African elections also points to dissatisfaction. Take the example of Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and democracy. In last year’s elections, a mere 26.7 percent of registered voters showed up at the polls. This was a steep decline from the peak of a 69.1 percent turnout in 2003. According to Afrobarometer surveys, satisfaction with Nigerian democracy declined to a low of 20.6 percent in 2022 from a high of 83.6 percent in 1999.
Not even South Africa, which is arguably Africa’s most institutionalized large democracy, is spared these trends. In 2022, only 24.6 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with the Rainbow Nation’s democracy. This was about half of the 53.6 percent who were satisfied with South African democracy in 1999, four years after the end of apartheid.
These trends are corroborated by declining support for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) ahead of this year’s election. The latest available survey data suggest that the ANC is, for the first time, likely to dip below 50 percent of the vote share and be forced into forming a coalition government at the national level.
So, what is to be done? The starting point should be to listen to African voters. Like voters all over the world, many Africans view politics as a means of shaping their material conditions for the better. We should therefore not expect that they will continue to back democracy when their countries’ political systems cannot guarantee basic physical security, let alone broad-based economic prosperity. Eventually, charismatic populists will come along and convince enough voters to give alternatives to democracy a chance.
Second, African civil society organizations working on democracy promotion (along with their foreign partners) should upgrade their approach. Having largely won the battle against entrenched autocracy, their next cause should be making democracy work.
“Democracy Promotion 2.0” in the region should focus on strengthening African states’ capacity to deliver essential public goods and services. Instead of the near-exclusive focus on rights and good governance (which are certainly important), there is also an urgent need to invest in effective government. This should come in the form of visible and attributable investments in critical sectors that touch voters’ lives — from agriculture to education to healthcare to infrastructure.
Simply stated, the best defense for African democracy is to make sure that elected governments can demonstrably deliver on improving voters’ quality of life.
Ken Opalo is an associate professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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