Actu 24
Ghana’s Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia, conceded defeat in Saturday’s elections, congratulating opposition leader and former President John Mahama on his victory. Early results suggest it could be one of the heaviest defeats in decades for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), which had been in power since 2016.
Voters were frustrated by the rising cost of living, a series of high-profile scandals, and a major debt crisis that prevented the government from fulfilling its key promises. As a result, the NPP may have fallen below 45% of the presidential vote for the first time since 1996.
Ghana’s vote caps a remarkable 12 months of African politics, which have seen five transfers of power – more than ever before. This ‘annus horribilis’ for governments also saw the opposition win victories in Botswana, Mauritius, Senegal, and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland.
Beyond these results, almost all elections held in the region this year under reasonably democratic conditions saw the ruling party lose a significant number of seats.
This trend is due to a combination of factors:
– economic slowdown,
– growing public intolerance of corruption,
– and the emergence of increasingly assertive and well-coordinated opposition parties.
This trend is expected to continue until 2025 and cause problems for leaders such as Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera, whose country will go to the polls in September.
One of the most striking aspects of the 2024 elections is that many of them resulted in crushing defeats for governments that previously seemed to have a strong grip on power – including in countries that had never experienced a change in leadership.
The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which had ruled the country since its independence in 1966, was crushed in the October general elections.
In addition to losing power, the BDP went from holding 38 of the 69 parliamentary seats to near extinction.
After winning only four seats, the BDP is now one of the smallest parties in Parliament and must fight hard to remain politically relevant.
The ruling party in Mauritius also suffered a crushing defeat in November: the Alliance Lepep coalition, led by Pravind Jugnauth of the Militant Socialist Movement, won only 27% of the vote and secured just two seats in parliament.
With its rival, the Alliance for Change, winning 60 of the 66 available seats, Mauritius experienced one of the most complete political transformations imaginable.
Senegal and the self-declared Republic of Somaliland also saw opposition victories.
In the case of Senegal, the political turnaround was as striking as in Botswana, but in a different way.
A few weeks before the elections, key opposition leaders Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko were languishing in prison as President Macky Sall’s government abused its power in a desperate attempt to avoid defeat.
After growing national and international pressure led to the release of Faye and Sonko, Faye won the presidency in the first round, with the government candidate receiving only 36% of the vote.
Even in cases where governments did not lose, their reputation and political control were seriously undermined.
South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) retained power, but only after a bruising campaign that saw it fall below 50% of the vote in a national election for the first time since the end of white minority rule in 1994.
This forced President Cyril Ramaphosa to enter into a coalition government, ceding 12 ministerial posts to other parties, including powerful positions such as home affairs.
Recent elections in Namibia produced a similar scenario. Although the ruling party retained power, the opposition rejected the results and claimed the vote was mishandled after being marred by logistical problems and irregularities.
Despite these imperfections, the government suffered in the legislative elections, recording its worst performance in history, losing 12 of its 63 seats and barely retaining its parliamentary majority.
As a result, a region better known for governments that manage to stay in power for decades has experienced 12 months of dynamic and intensely contested multiparty politics.
The only exceptions were countries where elections were neither free nor fair, such as Chad and Rwanda, or those where governments were accused by the opposition and rights groups of using a combination of rigging and repression to avoid defeat, such as in Mozambique.
Three trends have combined to make this year particularly difficult for those in power.
In Botswana, Mauritius, and Senegal, growing citizen concern about corruption and abuses of power eroded the credibility of governments.
Opposition leaders were then able to tap into popular anger over nepotism, economic mismanagement, and the failure of leaders to uphold the rule of law to broaden their support base.
In Mauritius and Senegal in particular, the ruling party also undermined its claim to be a government committed to respecting political rights and civil liberties – a dangerous misstep in countries where the vast majority of citizens are committed to democracy and have already experienced opposition victories.
The perception that governments were mismanaging the economy was particularly important, as many people had a difficult financial year.
High food and fuel prices increased the cost of living for millions of citizens, heightening their frustration with the status quo.
In addition to causing some government defeats this year, economic anger was the main driving force behind the youth protests in Kenya that shook President William Ruto’s government in July and August.
This is not an African phenomenon, of course, but a global one.
Popular discontent with inflation played a role in the defeat of Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom and the victory of Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the United States.
What may have been more distinctive about the transfers of power in Africa this year is the way opposition parties have learned from the past.
In some cases, such as in Mauritius, this involved developing new methods to try to protect the vote by ensuring that every step of the electoral process was carefully monitored.
In other cases, it involved forging new coalitions to present a united front to the electorate.
In Botswana, for example, three opposition parties and a number of independent candidates came together under the banner of the Umbrella for Democratic Change to outmobilize the BDP.
A similar set of trends is expected to make life particularly difficult for leaders who have to go to the polls next year, such as Malawi’s President Chakwera, who is also struggling with growing public anger over the state of the economy.
With the defeat of the NPP in Ghana, Africa has seen five transfers of power in 12 months. The previous record was four opposition victories in 2000.
It is particularly striking that so many governments are being dealt an electoral blow in a context of global democratic decline that has seen a rise in authoritarianism in some regions.
This suggests that Africa has much higher levels of democratic resilience than is often recognized, despite the number of entrenched authoritarian regimes that continue to exist.
Civil society groups, opposition parties, and citizens themselves have mobilized in large numbers to hold governments accountable and punish those that have failed economically and democratically.
International governments, organizations, and activists seeking new ways to defend democracy around the world should pay more attention to a region that is often seen as an inhospitable environment for multipartyism and yet has experienced more examples of democratic turnarounds than other parts of the world.
Nic Cheeseman is the director of the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability, and Representation at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
