Democratic Principles in Africa Slipping

By Gregory Simpkins

When the Soviet Union dissolved more than three decades ago, hope rose globally that an end to the Cold War would allow democracy writ large (including the rights to free speech, association, assembly and religion, as well as due process) to flourish around the world. For a brief period in the first half of the 1990s, it looked like that hope would be realized.

Unfortunately, democratic practices have ebbed and flowed since then and now are again on the wane. I was blessed to be part of the American effort to instill democratic practices in Africa beginning in the 1990s.

Working with colleagues from the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and the Carter Center, we trained election observers, observed elections, managed election arrangements, trained political party operatives, helped manage civil society organizations and more. We had initial success, but democratic principles are difficult to plant and grow, even in developed countries such as the United States.

Poverty and ignorance of laws and rights making voter vulnerable to manipulation and coercion, as well as the apparently unquenchable lust for power among officeholders often throws democracies off track.

Global Trends and African Realities

Freedom House, the global governance monitor, has noted the 20-year decline in democracy worldwide.

“Today, the most obvious examples of this backsliding can be found in Asia, where an increasingly assertive China is attempting to redraw the regional rules of the road, and in Europe, where Russian rubles and wan Western politicians have helped prompt the rise of illiberal parties. But nowhere is this backsliding more potentially consequential than in Africa, where the continent’s 54 countries appear to be undergoing a pronounced drift away from democracy – with profound consequences for global geopolitics,” Freedom House reports.

The widely-respected public opinion pollster Afrobarometer has focused on measuring attitudes across the vast and diverse continent, but while quick to note that support for democracy “remains robust” in Africa in general, that study nonetheless points to some deeply troubling trends.

In the developed world, we lament the African tendencies toward military overthrows of civilian government, but Afrobarometer has found that countries across the continent appear increasingly amenable to military rule and the stability it can provide.

Afrobarometer found that across 30 countries, “support for democracy has declined by 7 percentage points” over the past decade. In others, like South Africa and Mali, it has fallen dramatically, by 20 points or more.

Relatedly, support for elections – a key hallmark of democratic processes – has dried up as well, shrinking by eight percentage points across 30 nations during the same time period. And in some of Africa’s highest functioning democracies, political satisfaction with pluralistic systems has dropped precipitously.

These include Botswana (-40 points), Mauritius (-40 points), and South Africa (-35 points).

Lessons From the Ground: Why Democracy Struggles

Having worked on African democracy and provided analysis gained from close connections on the ground for more than 40 years, I have acquired somewhat of an insider’s perspective on why democratic principles have no taken root as we hoped.

First of all, donor nations have not assisted electoral process in the holistic manner they deserved. Elections are more than an event – they represent an ongoing process.

Too often, I have noted a frugal strategy to helping to establish a transparent election process. I have been on missions not funded until too late in the process to prevent systematic problems that showed up on election day.

Uneven voter registration, inequitable districting, flaws in election security – all of which could have been caught and corrected long before voting started – were allowed to creep into the system, dooming the outcomes to questionable status.

Having had free and fair elections promoted as the solution to African problems, their failure diminished public support for what we told them they would produce. Not only were the voters’ choices often denied, but elected governments did not fulfill their promises to make life better for their citizens.

In working on the election process in Uganda in the mid-1990s, we were told that ethnic rivalry would prevent free and fair elections from taking place. That turned out to be true, but that was because ethnic leaders usually felt they had to compensate for the inequities caused by colonial governments.

Certainly, that is a self-serving excuse for holding onto power, but I found that it actually was what their voters thought they deserved. On the coast region of Kenya, one politician told me: “It’s our turn to cut the national cake.”

Such attitudes make it difficult to overcome problems created in the past from intruding on the present and the future. To be honest, donor nations abetted this unfair “slicing of the national cake” when it suited their purposes.

If “our guys” hold onto power when they shouldn’t then, oh well, we’ll change when a new crew comes in that is more receptive to our interests.

A lack of understanding of the differences between Western and African social and political conditions rendered too much of our advice unworkable. For example, in the United States, Democrat and Republican administrations would include people from the opposite party in their administrations after elections, but never tried to put the two main adversaries in government together.

We outsiders often tried to see this done in an African country after elections so we felt we had done the best we could to make the former antagonists “play nice” with one another. Yet common sense would dictate that the two leaders and their supporters have no logical interest in making or allowing the other to be successful when presumably they will compete against one another in the next elections.

We can see how poorly this worked in South Sudan, where President Salva Kiir Mayardit and Vice President Riek Machar have repeated failed to abide by cease-fire and cooperation agreements.

In the developed world, we lament the African tendencies toward military overthrows of civilian government, but Afrobarometer has found that countries across the continent appear increasingly amenable to military rule and the stability it can provide. “More than half of Africans (53 percent across 39 countries) are [now] willing to accept a military takeover if elected leaders ‘abuse power for their own ends,'” the study details.

Geopolitical Implications of Declining Democracy

According to a March 3 report in Newsweek magazine, there are two primary reasons why this should be disturbing to Western policymakers.

“First, Africa is fast becoming a key global center of gravity. The continent already ranks as the world’s youngest, with a median age of just over 19 years of age.

It will soon also be one of the most populous, because its median fertility rate (4.05 births per woman) is the highest in the world. As a result, the U.N. is predicting that that by 2050, Africa’s population will surge to close to 2.5 billion, and make up more than a quarter of the world.

That makes the continent’s political disposition critical to the future of freedom,” the magazine states.

“Second, Africa’s declining support for democracy provides a clear opening for illiberal actors. China, for instance, has spent the past decade working diligently to curry favor on the continent – and build African dependency – via its Belt and Road Initiative.

We find ourselves collectively in a precarious time when the long-established global order is being overturned. That could and should be for the benefit of smaller nations and citizens worldwide, but it remains to be seen whether African nations and people will genuinely have a “seat at the table” or remain pawns in a reshuffled game of global power politics.

Billions of dollars in Chinese funds have bankrolled numerous infrastructure projects, even as the resulting debt has helped erode the independence of local states and made them increasingly beholden to Chinese political preferences.”

Then there is Russia, Newsweek reports. Although preoccupied with its war of choice in Ukraine, now in its fourth year, Moscow is simultaneously making a major play to expand political leverage on the continent.

Working through proxies like the Africa Corps (the new name of the infamous Wagner paramilitary group), Russia has played a critical role in bolstering assorted military juntas and authoritarian regimes. In the process, more and more regional governments have become reliant on continued Kremlin support, with all that that implies.

For Washington, the magazine suggests that Africa’s waning faith in democracy represents a major challenge. During its first term in office, the Trump administration focused on the continent strictly as an arena of strategic competition with the likes of China and Russia, as well as Islamic militants and Iran.

Despite lofty rhetoric, the Biden White House didn’t do much of substance either throughout its tenure.

“And now that Team Trump is back at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it is exhibiting a growing penchant for global disengagement – as well as a willingness to dismantle the machinery of government America has traditionally used to interact with the continent. As it does so, it risks feeding precisely the illiberal trends proliferating there,” according to Newsweek.

The Future of Democracy in Africa

But will African citizens continue to favor stability under military rule governments, such in Mali, where not only are all political parties dissolved, but there is a growing crackdown on dissent from government positions? Similar restrictions on political activity are happening elsewhere on the continent.

How long will African citizens accept limits to their freedoms as a tradeoff for security from extremist violence that largely hasn’t been realized?

We find ourselves collectively in a precarious time when the long-established global order is being overturned. That could and should be for the benefit of smaller nations and citizens worldwide, but it remains to be seen whether African nations and people will genuinely have a “seat at the table” or remain pawns in a reshuffled game of global power politics.

This is an opportunity that Africa must seize with both hands since such chances come around very rarely in history.

Gregory Simpkins, a longtime specialist in African policy development, is the Principal of 21st Century Solutions. He consults with organizations on African policy issues generally, especially in relating to the U.S. Government. He further acts as a consultant to the African Merchants Association, where he advises the Association in its efforts to stimulate an increase in trade between several hundred African Diaspora small and medium enterprises and their African partners.