National Results

Constituency Results

National Parliament Composition

Methodology:
All data in this dashboard is sourced from Cape Verde’s official electoral authority (CNE). Historical results are compiled from publicly available CNE reports. When new official results are released, they are added manually to ensure accuracy and consistency across the series. All visualizations use a standardized Africa Elects template designed for rapid replication across countries.

Note: This dashboard may publish partial results as released by the CNE. Such results may be provisional and be certified at a later date. Certified results will be displayed after they are officially declared by the CNE. Some Flourish charts include automated timestamps. Unexpected errors may occur; treat all partial results with caution until final certification.

Africa Elects • Election Dashboard v1.0 Data: CNE (official electoral authority)

(Africa Elects is not affiliated with CNE or any electoral authority)

Last updated: 10:43, 23 May UTC

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This election could serve as a general indicator for Benin’s political trajectory. In its 2026 report for the year 2025, the V-Dem Institute downgraded the country’s status from an “electoral democracy”  to an “electoral autocracy” with a score of 0.49 out of 1 on its electoral democracy index. This, combined with the support and political networks of outgoing President Patrice Talon (Independent, *), suggests that Wadagni is the clear favorite heading into the election. 

Democratic Emergence.”

After losing the election of 1991, the first free election in Benin’s independent history,  the then-president, Matthieu Kérékou (independent, *), election and stepped down in favor of the victor, Nicéphore Dieudonné Soglo (PRB, liberal).  Five years later, however, Kérékou staged a political comeback, winning a free and fair election in 1996 (though the 2001 election saw some irregularities), and stepping down after his constitutional term limits had been reached. 

Such a transition is globally relatively rare. It requires that a regime be too weak to ignore the demands of the opposition, but strong enough that a political deal can actually be reached (Geddes, 1999, What do we know about Democratization After Twenty Years? (p.136)). It was only after he was given immunity that Kérékou finally acquiesced and held democratic elections. 

Talon’s Emergence

Patrice Talon (Independent, *) began his career not as a politician, but as a businessman, establishing his first company in the 1980s. Following the reforms of the 1990s, Talon rapidly expanded into the country’s cotton industry and established a substantial financial empire, with an estimated net worth of between 400 and 600 million dollars, which provided him with considerable political leverage. These connections may have helped him acquire two former state-owned enterprises, Sodeco in 2009 and PVI in 2011.

Talon emerged as one of the chief financial backers of Kérékou’s immediate successor, Thomas Boni Yayi— who was an Independent in 2006. However, after also backing Boni Yayi’s re-election bid in 2011 Talon and Yayi would have a falling out. In 2012, Talon fled to France after being implicated in an 18-million-euro embezzlement scheme and was later accused of a plot to kill Boni Yayi. In 2014, however, Boni Yayi pardoned Talon.   

Talon ran as an Independent in the 2016 presidential election, facing off against Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou (FCBE, centre-right) with over 65% of the vote in the runoff. Once in power, he used his networks to help re-engineer the country’s political system.

A tilted playing field

In 2018, the Beninese government passed a new electoral code, increasing the electoral threshold for parties to win seats to 10% and increasing the amount of money needed for a deposit to contest elections. Protests against these changes were banned, and the government arrested protesters, journalists, and opposition figures in the lead-up to the 2019 parliamentary election. On election day, widespread internet outages and social media bans were reported throughout the country. The election saw several smaller parties coalesce into the Talon-aligned Progressive Union (centre-left) and the Republican Bloc (centre). All other parties were effectively barred from contesting the election, and an election boycott was organized, leading to a turnout of only 27% in this election, down from almost 66% in the previous election.

In December of 2025, a coup attempt against Talon’s government was eventually thwarted by security services loyal to Talon. This led to several people in connection with the coup being arrested, including prominent opposition figures such as Canadide Azzanai, and the Vice President of Les Democrates (left-wing) Alassane Tigri. Civic space shrank due to attacks on the media and other violations of civil liberties, such as peaceful assembly, which were curtailed.

While the opposition would recover from 2019’s complete shutout in the 2023 parliamentary election, the FCBE—which had been the largest party in parliament before Talon’s election— collapsed to less than 5% of the vote. This occurred largely because the party was cut out from parliament in the previous election, a lack of voter engagement that saw a turnout of only 38% in 2023, and the opposition coalesced around the new party Les Democrates, headed by former president Boni Yayi between 2020 and 2026. After Les Democrates failed to win seats in the January 2026 elections due to an even higher threshold, and subsequently failing the sponsorship and registration requirements, Boni Yayi retired from politics altogether, citing health concerns. 

Wadagni’s previous occupation as finance minister mainly serves as a “safe” succession choice, given that his technocratic background makes him dependent on Talon’s networks. 

It’s in this context that the FCBE candidate in this race, Paul Hounkpe, is facing an uphill battle in this election. If recent elections are any guide, particularly given the January parliamentary elections, turnout is expected to remain well below the historical peak for Beninese elections due to voter disillusionment.   

Post-election scenarios

Throughout Talon’s two presidential terms, Benin’s democratic norms and institutions have been seriously weakened. The post-Kérékou transition era, which, for two and a half decades, ensured a stable democratic system, was systematically eroded during Talon’s tenure. Benin’s opposition and civil society remain alive, even if they have been largely shut out of the halls of power. Though Wadagni’s main priorities are unlikely to include political reform, owing in part to his dependence on Talon and his ministerial background, his perception in the eyes of the Beninese public could vary widely depending on how well he manages Benin’s economy.

All in all, though, Benin’s future democratic backsliding is not set in stone. Autocratizing states can reverse course, given that some formerly autocratizing democracies like Brazil and Poland improved in V-Dem’s rankings, often after elections. The pragmatism that Wadagni likely developed as Talon’s finance minister could result in future openings that civil society and/or the opposition could use to re-establish democratic practices. In that likelihood, however, Wadagni will be incentivized to protect his former boss’s liberty and substantial material wealth, much like Kérékou decades earlier. This lowering of the risks of losing power could result in more genuine political competition in the future. 

Academic references:

Geddes, B. (1999). What do we know about democratization after twenty years? Annual Review of Political Science, 2, 136.

The post Benin’s 2026 Presidential Contest in Perspective appeared first on Africa Elects.

Background:

Nguesso has occupied the post of President since 1997; however, he previously had a 13-year-long presidency between 1979 and 1993. Shortly thereafter, mounting pressure from labor unions forced him to hold multiparty elections, ending the period of Marxist-Leninist dominance of the RC’s political and ideological life. After losing power in the 1993 election, two civil wars broke out in quick succession. It was during the conduct of the second civil war in 1997 that Nguesso returned to power after ousting his successor. 

In 2015, Nguesso’s government introduced a new constitutional referendum over whether to adopt a new constitution that would reset term limits for Nguesso. Amid an opposition boycott, the constitution was passed overwhelmingly in a vote that was criticized for being neither free nor fair.

Political system

Formally, the country’s government aligns with the semi-presidential model common to France and many former French colonies in Africa. In reality, Nguesso’s power is centralized around him personally. Both the presidential and parliamentary elections use the standard two-round system. 

Nguesso’s government has been marred by allegations of torture, the arrest of opposition figures, and the 2016 bombings by the government in the Pool region of southern Brazzaville in the aftermath of that year’s presidential election.

Nguesso dominates the country’s formal institutions. Together with the military, in which Nguesso was a former general, the PCT is the main vehicle for coordinating and managing the elites at various levels of government. 

The election

The absence of viable competitors contributes to the lack of meaningful competition. Historically, there have been only three major parties that have posed any sort of challenge to Nguesso, according to the official vote share received by Nguesso or the PCT since Nguesso returned to office in 1997. These are UPADS (centre-left), UDH-Yuki (liberal|centre-right), and MCDDI (liberal). Ngeusso’s worst electoral performance came in 2016 when he secured 60.2% of the vote against the two main candidates, Guy Brice Parfait Kolélas of the MCDDI and Jean-Marie Mokoko, an independent, with roughly 15% and 13.7% of the vote, respectively. As of the last parliamentary elections, only UPADS and UDH-Yuki of the three have the largest number of seats for an opposition party in the parliament, with 7 seats each. 

While there are currently six candidates cleared to run in this election, the three major parties that had previously fielded candidates in previous elections have all elected not to participate, according to the final candidate list. This non-participation effectively voids any sense of competitiveness in the upcoming election. Of the candidates that also stood in 2021, all besides Nguesso had failed to win more than 1% of the vote individually. 

Implications

Together, these suggest that the election will be far from competitive. However, these elections are meaningful due to Ngeusso’s advanced age, having turned eighty-two last November. Many observers had speculated that Nguesso was grooming his son, Denis-Christel, to take over the reins of government from him. 

In the event of Nguesso’s death, incapacitation, or even retirement, there is a non-zero chance that the political elite of the country could start to fragment. Though in theory, a succession could create openings for the opposition, in reality, the opposition is too fragmented. Like many of its neighbors, namely the Central African Republic, the party system, aside from  Nguesso’s own PCT party and the opposition UPADS, remains weak and often highly personalized. Such parties typically fade into obscurity without their individual founders. This fragility has often made past election boycotts challenging in the past, even as it seems a new boycott could be taking shape for the presidential vote. 

Conclusion

While a victory is all but assured for Nguesso due to the nature of the election, how the opposition responds will be indicative of the future of the country once Nguesso eventually leaves office. The succession question is more consequential than the outcome of the upcoming election.

The post A Managed Vote in an Aging Autocracy: Republic of the Congo’s 2026 Election appeared first on Africa Elects.

Due to the country’s ongoing struggle against insurgents, weak economic and political institutions, and state repression, the results of the December elections are unlikely to be fully free or fair. 

Background

The Central African Republic has been in a state of near-constant warfare since the country’s former president, Francois Bozizé (KNK, right-wing), was ousted in 2013. Bozize’s ousting was orchestrated by a rebel group calling themselves “Séléka” — “union” in the Sango language.

A former rebel leader himself, Bozizé initially seized power in 2003 after having ousted the previous president, Ange-Félix Patassé (MLPC, centre-left). Bozizé’s first term as president began a year before the outbreak of the Central African Bush War (2004-2007); however, after three years, Bozizé was able to negotiate a ceasefire with many of the rebel groups that opposed his rule.

Months before being ousted by Séléka, Bozize agreed to a national unity government with the group. Touadera, then serving as prime minister, was removed as a result of the document signed in January 2013. Days after the signing, both the government and Séléka blamed each other for the ensuing resumption in hostilities. By the end of March, Séléka had seized control of the government, inaugurating the CAR’s first Muslim president, Michel Djotodia.

Séléka rule lasted barely a year; Djotodia and his government eventually resigned due to international pressure from the Economic Community of Central African States. Djotodia was replaced by Catherine Samba-Panza as interim president. For some time, Séléka and its main opponents, the “anti-balaka,” accepted her presidency, but the country would quickly be in the midst of a new conflict for the next six years.

In the midst of renewed conflict, in 2016, Touadera was elected president in the second round of voting. Since then, he has invited Russian mercenaries to shore up his government and implemented a new constitution that effectively abolished term limits, allowing him to run again in the upcoming election despite already having served two terms.

Political Institutions

The Central African Republic, under the 2023 Constitution, operates as a unitary presidential republic. Before the 2023 Constitution, the president was elected to a five-year term, which was increased to seven after the new constitution’s adoption.

The country has a nominally independent Constitutional Court. But in the run-up to the 2023 constitutional referendum, the Court found that Touadera’’s referendum could not legally be held. Touadera then sackedthe Chief Justice in a move that was described as a “self-coup” by the opposition. 

Other provisions in the 2023 constitution, besides abolishing term limits and lengthening the President’s tenure, included the introduction of the Vice President as a position, requiring both the presidential candidate and their parents to be born in the country, and the de jure abolition of the country’s Senate. 

The State of Democracy

According to V-dem, the CAR’s score places it in the “electoral autocracy” category with a rating of 0.3 out of 1. This puts it slightly ahead of Cameroon, at 0.29 out of 1. The country’s Freedom House comparison, meanwhile, gives it only a 5 out of a possible 100, making it one of the least free states in the world according to the metric.

Measuring press freedom brings similar conflicting results.  According to RSF’s Press Freedom Index, in 2025, the CAR has a score of 60.15/100, giving it the “Satisfactory” rating, putting it ahead of Senegal, one of West Africa’s more stable democracies. 

At the same time, according to RSF, the government has criminalised certain press offences and passed a “foreign agent” law akin to Russia’s. Journalists and independent media have routinely been harassed and intimidated in its wake. 

Due to the fact that literacy rates are so low, radio is the main source of news for much of the country. Radio Ndeke Luka is one of the nation’s most trusted sources and currently receives the vast majority of its funding from international donors like the EU, which contributes 70% of the outlet’s budget according to the station’s website. 

The NGO scene is highly active; however, much of it is in the form of foreign aid to the point where there isn’t much space for home-grown organisations. Armed conflict, a lack of organisational infrastructure, and state repression have all contributed to the lack of homegrown civil society organisations in the CAR.

The Security Situation

All of this is exacerbated by the difficult security situation in the country.

The military, while on paper comprising around 10,000 soldiers, is largely ineffective. Its most capable troops, the Republican Guard, serve mainly as Touadera’s personal security service, a task shared with the Russian mercenaries in the country. Even with the presence of UN peacekeepers, much of the country’s northern and eastern regions remain in rebel hands.

In April of 2025, a peace deal was reached between the government and several rebel groups, although fighting remained sporadic in much of the country. The Chair of the African Union Commission welcomed the agreement as being an example of “African solutions to African Problems” as the two rebel groups involved were among the most powerful in the country.

The Election

The elections come amid an attempt earlier this year to clamp down on the country’s opposition. Parliamentarians have been arrested, and opposition parties have been barred from holding rallies, according to Siegle and Whila from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Between the general election and February of 2025, the UN’s mission in the CAR (MINUSCA) was able to register an additional 570,000 voters in a country of 5.7 million. In contrast, only 655,054 voters turned out in the last general election out of roughly 1.86 million registered, or a turnout rate of around 35%. The increase in eligible voters by itself does not indicate a significant swing in support in favour of the opposition or the government. Furthermore, the pan-African pollster Afrobarometer, essentially the only pollster in many African countries, does not publish data from the CAR. Parliamentary election results have frequently been announced without including which parties received which share of the vote. The security situation also makes conducting useful opinion polls extremely difficult.

Touadera’s United Hearts Movement (centre-left) currently controls 44 out of 140 seats in the nation’s de facto unicameral body. It is the largest single party by far, although the party system in the country is exceptionally weak. Minor parties and independents together occupy 64 seats, about 46% of the total. The second strongest party in parliament, Kwa Na Kwa (right-wing), was and continues to largely be a vehicle for ex-President Francois Bozize and his allies in the country. The third strongest party in parliament is the Union for Central African Renewal (liberal), founded by Anicet-Georges Dologuélé. In practice, Dologuélé has been the runner-up in the last two elections featuring Touadera, and as of this writing, is cleared to run again.

In July of 2025, the government announced that the first local elections in 40 years would take place on the same day as the general election in late December. Repeated delays have caused concerns from civil society and the opposition. At the same time, the government has argued that holding the local elections on the same day would streamline logistics and save resources. 

Going Forward

In a report to the UN Security Council in June 2025, Under-Secretary General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix argued that the December elections would “represent a crucial opportunity” for the country going forward. 

However, given the weak institutions of the state, successful elections cannot solve the CAR’s political and security situation overnight. Years of committed reforms aimed at shoring up the country’s political and economic institutions, along with international engagement, will be needed if the CAR is to ever emerge as a functioning liberal democracy.

The post Inside CAR’s 2025 Elections: Weak Institutions, Rebel Control, and a Controversial Third Term appeared first on Africa Elects.

In late 2024, rumors of his poor health and possible death were floating around the Cameroonian civic space. However, these rumors abated when, in what has become a common theme with Biya, he emerged alive and reasonably well after weeks of public absence amidst allegations of his premature death.

Biya’s Rise

Cameroon’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, was a former mentor of Biya after the latter entered Cameroonian politics. For twenty-five years, Cameroon was effectively governed as a one-party state, first under the Cameroon National Union (CNU, centre-right) and later its successor, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM, centre-right). However, by the early 1980s, after Ahidjo’s resignation in 1982, the two men had a falling out. After Ahidjo resigned the presidency for health reasons, Biya officially became president. Biya would increasingly assert his political independence, drifting more and more away from Ahidjo. In August 1983, Biya claimed to have discovered a coup plot, allegedly supported by Ahidjo, a claim that would result in a death sentence for Ahidjo, carried out in absentia one year later. Ahidjo died five years later in exile in Senegal. 

After obtaining full control over Cameroonian politics in 1985, Biya embarked on a series of economic and social reforms known as the “New Deal.” Civil liberties, including freedom of speech, were expanded, and the worst abuses of the Ahidjo regime were removed. New independent media outlets also emerged during this time, and Cameroon began a program of infrastructure and health care modernization. 

Soon after implementation, Biya would reverse course. In addition to reneging on his promise of supporting free speech and a free press, he was also reluctant to carry out some of his other promises. The economic downturn of the late 1980s and Biya’s decision to change the name of the country to the Republic of Cameroon — which ended any pretense of continued federation with the English-speaking regions of Cameroon — saw broad opposition coalesce against his rule.

In 1992, the country officially had its first multi-party presidential election. The election was also notable in that Biya won without a majority of the vote, and won by a margin of only 119,000 votes out of a total of nearly three million cast. This would be the last time that Biya would win the Presidency without an official majority of the vote, winning just under 40% of the vote. The election was also the closest Biya has come to losing re-election so far. It would also mark the highest percentage of the vote that any opposition candidate would win in a presidential election thereafter, with the main challenger John Fu Ndi (SDF, centre-left) having won 36%. Although the Cameroonian Constitution stipulates that a candidate needs to receive a majority of the vote to be elected, a constitutionally required runoff has never been held. 

The political system

Cameroon is run effectively as a unitary presidential system. Under this system, the prime minister is appointed by the president as head of government, but has little power. Regional assemblies, in theory, act as decentralized, autonomous units, but in practice, the Cameroonian political system is highly centralized. Some prominent politicians in government have called for Cameroon’s further decentralization, and others have called for a return to a federal system that was formed after independence. Despite this, the government has been slow to grant more regional autonomy due to a lack of political interest in Biya’s inner circle — as well as a lack of specially earmarked funds.

The Cameroonian Parliament is a bicameral one, consisting of the Senate as the upper house and the National Assembly as the lower house. Of the 100 seats in the Senate, 70 are elected indirectly by the country’s regional councils, while an additional 30 are appointed by the president. Unlike many other bicameral regimes, the Senate has significant legislative powers more akin to the United States Senate than the upper houses of other countries. Both the Senate and the directly elected National Assembly are heavily dominated by the CPDM. If the post of president is ever vacated, the next in line of succession is the president of the Senate.

In December 2020, promised regional elections were held for the first time. Each region was given an equal number of regional councillors, sitting at 70 for each. In these elections, nine out of ten regions were won by the CPDM, with one regional council going to the allied UNDP (centre-right). Regional governors, meanwhile, are still appointed by the President. The heads of the 58 departments are also appointed directly by the president.

Municipal governments are likewise dominated by the CPDM. The communes, which are the third tier of government, are the country’s third-level entities below regions and the national government. 316 communes out of 340 are currently under the control of the CPDM. Municipal elections are held under a modified party-block-vote system, where parties submit lists of candidates to stand for election. If a party’s list wins a majority of seats in the district, all of the seats go to that list. If no party wins a majority, the party with a plurality of the votes gets half the seats, and the remaining half are distributed proportionally to the other parties’ lists. 

Opposition Dynamics

Historically, only two opposition parties have won more than 10% of the vote in a presidential election. These include the Social Democratic Front (SDF, centre-left), a party that also represents Anglophone interests, currently led by Joshua Osih, and the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM, liberal), headed by Maurice Kamto. A prior attempt to create a coalition to unseat Biya in 2018 ultimately failed, and Biya officially won with over 70% of the vote. 

According to polls conducted by English Cameroon for a United Cameroon (EC4UC), Kamto was well in the lead for the presidential race, with 53% of voters polled preferring him in their most recent poll from September 24. However, these polls need to be met with healthy skepticism for three reasons. The first is the potential for polling error or bias, given the pollster’s preference for a federal Cameroon. Second, a poll conducted by the more respected Afrobarometer in 2025 showed the CPDM comfortably in the lead ahead of opposition parties. Third, the lack of quality polling, especially in a country considered an “electoral autocracy” by V-dem, makes accurately assessing the political climate difficult.

In late July 2025, ELECAM rejected Maurice Kamto’s candidacy for president. Resting on a technicality in the initial application, the move triggered a large amount of coverage in the Cameroonian press and triggered large-scale opposition to the move. 

According to the results from the 2018 election, Biya’s stronghold comes from the southeastern cabralportion of the country. In Littoral and West regions, where Biya fared relatively poorly, Kamto and Cabral Libii (Univers,*), a syncretic party, won pluralities in some of the departments and denied a majority to Biya in others. Among these departments is Douala City, the country’s largest metro area and capital of the Littoral Region. What’s surprising is that Biya won majorities in the departments of the Anglophone Northwest Region. This result is counterintuitive and may seem unusual given the strong opposition to Biya in the Region. However, the combination of threats of election-related violence and political repression in the region undoubtedly contributed to this electoral result. 

The Anglophone Crisis

What began as demands for autonomy by the English-speaking population of Cameroon in late 2016 eventually developed into a full-blown insurgency featuring “violence and abuses against civilians,” according to France24. The protests that broke out during that period were consequently repressed by the Cameroonian authorities, with militant activities beginning in September 2017. The 2018 presidential elections were the first to be held after the start of insurgent activities that ended up killing nearly 5000 people. Though largely believed to have been in a low-level insurgency since then, a piece from the Africa Confidential reported that the crisis remained a “bloody stalemate.” The conflict is one where separatists have attempted to enforce a boycott of Cameroonian elections in the departments they claim as their own. By prospective voters being forced to stay home, the legitimacy of the electoral results from these regions will be called into question.

So far, separatist groups aligned with the Ambazonia movement — the name of the English-speaking state they wish to create — control much of Cameroon’s Northwest and Southwest regions. There is a strong chance that the ongoing fighting will prevent the conduct of elections in the regions under Ambazonia control, which is likely to hurt Osih’s candidacy in particular.

Increased engagement?

Since 2015, internet penetration in Cameroon has risen to nearly 12.5 million people, more than 40% of the total population. According to the country’s elections body ELECAM, 8.2 million people are registered to vote, compared with 6.7 million in 2018. Between January and June 2025, around 373,000 new voters were registered. Civil society groups such as the Network for Solidarity, Empowerment, and Transformation for All (NEWSETA) have sprung up to increase political participation in the electoral process.

Regime Defections

In late June 2025, two ministers serving in Cameroon’s government officially resigned and declared their intention to run for the presidency: the former Minister of Vocational Employment Issa Bakary (FSNC, centre) and Minister of Tourism Bello Miagari (UNDP, centre-right). Bakary and Miagari each hail from Cameroon’s north region and are heads of their respective parties. Both of these parties have furthermore been in the CPDM’s parliamentary coalition. If the opposition can coalesce around a slate of candidates to target the multimember districts of the country’s parliament in next year’s regional election, it could see a substantial reduction in seats for the CPDM and its control over the country’s legislature, independent of the October presidential election. This would require a broad coalition encompassing the centre-left SDF alongside the centre-right UNDP, as well as the main opposition CRM party, and likely some smaller parties, which may prove difficult to form an agreement or a platform around.

Conclusion  

Though these resignations are signs that the regime is fragmenting, the President and his party enjoy strong institutional support. Biya possesses strong and historic connections with the ruling elite of the country. Consequently, limitations on critical media and the targeting of political opponents using state resources have been and will continue to be features of Cameroonian public life through the election period. Biya is widely expected to win an eighth term, contingent on his health. The opposition, splintered during the 2018 election, is expected to remain so in this year’s election, although the exact degree of fragmentation is uncertain. Biya’s victory would see the continuation of his pro-French foreign policy and a preservation of the status quo. If Biya, or a replacement CPDM candidate, were to lose, it would send a wake-up call to neighboring countries that autocracy need not be a permanent fixture in their politics.

The post Biya vs. the Opposition: Cameroon’s High-Stakes 2025 Vote appeared first on Africa Elects.

The Road to Democracy

A former British colony, Malawi was originally part of a colonial federation known as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1953 to 1963. When the federation dissolved, Malawi formally gained its independence. Upon independence, its first prime minister — Hastings Kamuzu Banda (MCP, conservative) — soon reorganized Malawi’s system of government into a presidential republic. Throughout the rest of the 1960s, Banda would consolidate his hold over the country by establishing a one-party state in 1966. In 1971, Banda’s Malawi Congress Party declared him “President for Life.”

Decades later, in March 1992, a letter was written by some of the country’s most prominent Catholic Bishops expressing their concerns about the state of human rights and poverty in the country. This letter served to galvanize Malawi’s domestic opposition as well as the international community when Banda, having read the tea leaves, announced a referendum that saw the introduction of multi-party democracy. In 1993, the referendum on multiparty democracy resulted in almost ⅔ of the total vote cast in favor of democracy.

Democratic consolidation
 

Despite being the third-poorest country in sub-Saharan Africa by GDP per capita, Malawi has managed to score a V-Dem index rating of 0.58/1 in 2025, categorizing it as an “electoral democracy” according to that index. Malawi’s democracy is unusual in that, despite being one of the world’s poorest countries, it has managed to sustain democratic government since multiparty elections were first held in 1994. The reason is that Malawi has many of the elements of a successful democracy with a strong civil society, respected political institutions (such as the Constitutional Court), and widespread support across Malawian society for its democratic form of government. 

Malawi’s status as a democracy got a boost on February 3, 2020, when the Constitutional Court annulled the presidential election due to evidence of widespread voting irregularities. The parliamentary election results were allowed to stand, however. The Court also ruled that the president must be elected by a two-round system as mandated by the constitution; previous elections were frequently won by candidates without a majority of the vote. Lazarus Chakwera’s win in 2020 over Peter Mutharika in a free and fair election served to bolster the institution of the Constitutional Court and the conditions surrounding the rule of law more widely.

The Presidential Election

As of the time of this writing, three recent or current presidents have officially announced their bids for the presidency in the 2025 elections. Lazarus Chakwera, the incumbent, is facing ex-President Peter Mutharika and former President Joyce Banda (PP, centre-right). Like in most presidential systems, the President and Vice President appear on the ballot as one unified ticket. 

Chakwera’s background as a theologian, combined with his humble persona, won him a sizable support base among evangelical leaders in a country where around 80% of the population identifies as Christian. During the most recent election season, his campaign promised to bring the country together, fight poverty and corruption, and uphold the rule of law.

In the years since, Chakwera’s promises have not delivered the results many Malawians have hoped for. Almost two-thirds of the country, according to a 2022 Afrobarometer poll, now believe that corruption has worsened in the country under Chakwera’s leadership. Successive Afrobarometer polls since 2020 have highlighted this trend, with a nearly 17-point gap between the DPP and the MCP according to respondents expressing a preference for a political party in the country’s Round 10 Afrobarometer summary of results. The MCP’s coalition partner, the UTM (liberal), which also holds the office of the Vice-President, has also seen a drop in support, according to this same Afrobarometer data.

In contrast, Peter Mutharika is a former jurist, having specialized in international law at Yale University, where he earned his doctorate. He is the younger brother of the late former president Bingu wa Mutharika, who served as Malawi’s president from 2004 until his death in 2012. If elected, Mutharika would be the first president of Malawi to serve two non-consecutive terms. Most of Muhtarika’s policies as president in his first term were aimed at addressing the country’s low level of economic development with mixed results: the pace of reforms was slow, and corruption was still endemic even as economic growth began to pick up again between 2016 and 2020.

Finally, there is Joyce Banda. Originally, the Vice President under Bingu wa Mutharika, when the elder Mutharika died, Banda became president. In the 2014 election, she lost the office to Peter Mutharika, coming in third place behind both Mutharika and Chakwera, who also ran at the time, where she secured 20.2% of the vote.

Geographic spread

Malawi is divided into three distinct regions and 28 districts. Historically, the DPP’s stronghold has been in the districts of Malawi’s Southern Region. Meanwhile, the more conservative MCP has traditionally performed best in the country’s Central Region, where the capital Lilongwe is located. The more rural, northern districts have often been won by the PP and the UTM, respectively, in the two most recent elections. It is worth mentioning that the PP and the UTM both have fielded vice-presidential candidates alongside the presidential candidates of the two largest parties. 

Runoff potential?

There have been only two elections for president since Malawi adopted multi-party elections, in which the elected president won with a majority of the vote on election day. Consequently, the likelihood of a runoff needing to be held this time around is high. Moreover, both the PP and the UTM are running in this election. Having won significant shares of the vote in the last elections they contested, in combination with the entry of the smaller UDF (liberal) into the race, the likelihood of a first-round election result triggering a runoff is higher than it has been in recent years.

Parliamentary Elections

Unlike the presidential poll, the Malawian parliamentary election will continue to be held under the first-past-the-post system. This system has allowed for a large number of independents to win seats in the parliament. 55 out of 193 seats belong to independents, the same number that belong to the MCP in the parliament. No single political party has won an outright majority of the seats in parliament since the 2009 general election.

Conclusion

Regarding the presidential race, the odds that no candidate receives an outright majority on election day are substantial. With the parliamentary elections, independents are still expected to win a significant number of seats. The effect of having candidates from the five largest political parties could eat away at the share of voters electing political independents, as partisan candidates for parliament might “ride the coattails” of the top ticket. Nevertheless, the “hung parliament” that currently exists is expected to persist through the election, and independents could still hold the balance of power, such as in electing the Speaker of the National Assembly, which they did in 2019 with the election of Catherine Gotani Hara (MCP). The 2019 legislative election returned a parliament where the share of the seats won required an MCP majority to have either DPP support or at least some independents in electing the National Assembly’s speaker. 

National Assembly Composition

Successful elections in September would go a long way in shoring up faith in Malawi’s democratic institutions. Despite challenges, the election would serve as an example to other countries in the region of the potential for democratic development in one of Africa’s poorest regions.

The post Malawi at the Crossroads: Another Test for Democracy appeared first on Africa Elects.

Background

Ali Bongo’s father Omar Bongo ruled Gabon as the country’s second president after the death of his predecessor and first president of Gabon Leon M’ba (PDG, centre). The elder Bongo would maintain his post as president until his death in 2009 when he was succeeded by his son Ali. At the time of Ali’s ascension to the presidency, the younger Bongo won the subsequent election with around 42% of the vote in one round of voting. In his first re-election bid in 2016, Bongo won by a slim margin against his main rival Jean Ping (UFC, *). Allegations of fraud were rampant as Bongo’s home province officially saw a nearly 99% turnout, with 95% of the votes cast in favor of Bongo. The court ruling confirming Bongo’s victory would further sow distrust in both Bongo and the Gabonese political system.

This political controversy would come to a head in January 2019 after a coup attempt launched by the military against Bongo’s government. After the putsch failed, Bongo became increasingly erratic and isolated key members of the Gabonese political establishment. In October 2018, Bongo suffered a stroke which caused him to leave the country for medical treatment and spend the next five months outside Gabon. In the years after, Bongo’s influence on the country’s politics would gradually weaken. When Bongo ran for a third term in 2023 and won according to official results, the Gabonese military launched a coup d’etat against Bongo just minutes after the announcement — the second successful coup since independence.

The military’s putsch aimed at removing what they called an “irresponsible, unpredictable government”  saw protests break out in support of the putschists. Bongo’s opulent lifestyle, closeness with the French government, political history, and personal image as that of a “prince” much like his father all contributed to his removal from office. 

The Transition and Constitution

Within days, the junta appointed Colonel Brice Nguema to take up the post of transitional President. Though parliamentary elections had also been held alongside the presidential one scheduled for 2023, the results were quickly and are to this day not publicly available, presumably because the second round of the legislative elections was never held. In April 2024, the transitional government announced a national dialogue aimed at drafting a new constitution, a referendum on which was held in November of that year and saw 91% favor the new draft.

The approved constitution came with several stipulations. To run for president, candidates must be between the ages of 30 and 70 and be born to a Gabonese parent. The post of prime minister was abolished and an executive vice president became second-in-line of succession. The presidential term was reinstated to seven years, renewable only once. Finally, the presidential race would be decided in a runoff if no candidate achieved a majority of the vote in the first round of voting.

The latter stipulation was likely intended as a response to the failure of Bongo to win a majority in his first two elections. Such a majoritarian system could also increase the perceived legitimacy of the elected President. The two-round runoff system will continue to be used to elect the 143 deputies in the country’s National Assembly. 

Complications

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the transition has not come without controversy. Not all NGOs and civil society groups were invited to take part in the transitional process. Further concerns have been raised about the centralization of power under the post of president. Finally, there is a provision in the draft constitution that bars members of the transition from running in the presidential race, besides Nguema himself.

On 3 March, Nguema made use of this exemption, announcing his candidacy for president. By 10 March, the interior ministry released a list of four candidates, including Nguema out of a total of 23 individuals that applied to contest the election. Notable among them was Jean Rémy Yama, an academic and president of the Dynamique Unitaire trade union federation. Yama was also an outspoken critic of the Bongo regime who, according to an assessment from the International Federation of Human Rights, was subjected to arbitrary detention by the government for over a year beginning in 2022.

The Elections

Of the three opposition candidates running in the election, two of them are formally independent. One of them, Stéphane Germain Iloko Boussengui, was a spokesperson for the Gabonese Democratic Party before the coup d’etat ousted Bongo in 2023. The other, Joseph Lapensée Essigone, was a lawyer and a tax collector before the coup. 

Nguema’s main challenger according to Africanews is former Gabonese prime minister Alain-Claude Bilie By Nze. Though a prominent member of Bongo’s administration, By Nze has sought to distance himself from his former association with the Bongo government, founding a new, pro-business party called Together For Gabon (centre-right). Simultaneously he has been a critic of Ngeuma’s administration, though relatively muted, has asserted that Nguema took power “without a real project” and that the transition had not lived up to its promises.

Though parliamentary elections were last held in 2023, the last election where parliamentarians took their seats was in 2018. As of this writing, there is little information about which active political parties will be contesting the legislative races. 

Conclusion

Going into the elections, the favorite to win the presidential race is Nguema, by far. Not only does Nguema command the support of the military, but he also has substantial support from much of the population for removing Bongo and conducting a crackdown on corruption, as well as promised reforms to the political process. Though the constitution provides for one, there likelihood that the election will go to a runoff is relatively low.

Nguema’s seeming popularity among the public suggests that he could win a free and fair election, despite widespread expectations that the elections will not meet these standards. However, the true test will be whether he fulfills his promises of a democratic transition and establishes a government that genuinely reflects the aspirations of the Gabonese public.

The post Gabon’s Political Transition Finally Comes to an End appeared first on Africa Elects.

In May 2024, Chadian voters went to the polls to elect their president in an election that was not recognized as fully free or fair by the international community. Chadians will again head to the polls on 29 December 2024 for the National Assembly elections. The election will be the first time in 13 years that the body, whose term is officially limited to four years, will face an election by the Chadian electorate. It will be the fourth time in the history of independent Chad — which gained its independence in 1960 — that multiple parties will be allowed to compete in legislative polls. In addition to parliamentary elections, Chad will conduct provincial and local elections simultaneously.  

Due to the government’s heavy-handedness and numerous institutional advantages, these elections are not expected to be free or fair. 

Background

Chad has historically been a country plagued by violence and civil strife. The ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS,*) first came to power in 1990 after a coup against the previous Chadian government. In 2005-2010, the country was engulfed in a civil war that pitted various rebel groups against the MPS government. With intervention from Libya, France, and neighboring Sudan, the war became a proxy conflict — one out of which the incumbent MPS leader at the time Idriss Déby eventually came out on top.  

The MPS is not a traditional political party in that its roots are personal and clientelist, owing much to the tribal and ethnic links that exist within the MPS structure. In 2021, Déby was killed while commanding Chadian forces against an anti-government rebel group known as the Front for Change and Concord or FACT. Immediately after his death, the military launched a coup, dissolving the parliament and placing the country under a military-led transitional government with Déby’s son — Mahamat Déby — at its head.  

When the transition that was supposed to have been completed by the end of 2022 was extended for two more years, demonstrations broke out in which security forces beat dozens of demonstrators. This was condemned by Amnesty International as a disproportionate use of force, forcing opposition politicians like Succès Masra to flee abroad. The killing of Yaya Dillo, an opposition leader and a relative of Déby, in February 2024 further contributed to the atmosphere of repression that the military government sustained. The transitional government officially ended with Mahamat Déby being formally elected as president in May 2024.  

Electoral System

In the parliamentary elections, Chad uses a mixed electoral system to elect its 188 deputies. The country is divided into single and multi-member constituencies. Constituencies with only one seat are won through the two-round system where candidates need a majority to win outright. If no candidate wins a majority, the election in these constituencies goes to a second round with the top two candidates contesting. Multi-member constituencies are separately elected through a modified form of proportional representation. If a party list wins over 50% of the vote in one of these districts, that list gets all the seats. If no list gets at least 50%, the seats are awarded by proportional representation using the largest remainder method.

This system effectively encourages parties to ally together on joint lists where they believe they will have the greatest chance at winning an outright majority in the contested district. In the 2011 election, the MPS allied itself with the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP, centre-right) and Viva-National Rally for Development and Progress (Viva-RNDP, centre) and occasionally included all three parties on a joint list. Similar to MPS, neither the RDP nor Viva-RNDP advocated for specific policy proposals and are linked together by a generally vague commitment to “development” and ensuring “national unity.” 

Provincial councils meanwhile are set to be elected on a department basis, with each department entitled to send three councilors to the regional councils.  

Media Landscape 

According to RSF’s World Press Freedom Index in 2024, Chad’s media landscape is in a “difficult” situation and is ranked 96^th out of 180 countries surveyed. According to the BBC, radio is the main source of information for Chadians living outside the capital, N’Djamena. Though recent years have shown an increase in the number of privately owned media, the government-owned radio and TV stations Radio Tchad and Tele Tchad respectively are the only networks with truly nationwide coverage. Although Chad has a comparatively vibrant print media in comparison to the government’s domination of networked media, only about 28% of the population above the age of 15 is literate — rates which are substantially lower in the rural departments and serve to confine readership to the more urban areas like the capital. Social media usage has increased over the past few years, notably in the 2024 presidential election, but only 22.5% of Chadians currently have internet access. 

Though independent media in theory have a wide scope of action, material that is critical of the Chadian government has met with reprisal. Outlets such as Alwihda Info, in 2023, have faced arbitrary detentions of journalists and operational shutdowns. In the case of Alwihda, this has been in response to pieces deemed too far out of line with what authorities consider acceptable reporting.  

The Opposition 

The Chadian opposition is highly fragmented, with over 100 registered parties contesting the last parliamentary election. According to the national electoral agency ANGE, there will be 179 parties contesting the parliamentary elections this time around. 

There are four major opposition parties generally considered to be left-of-centre as tracked by Africa Elects. Two of these parties, the Party for Liberties and Development (PLD) and the National Union for Democracy and Renewal (UNDR), joined forces in the 2011 election on a joint list. Together, they won 12 out of 188 seats available, making them the second-largest bloc in the National Assembly. However, during the transition period, the UNDR leader Saleh Kebzabo was briefly prime minister, and his party did not field a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. The PLD differs from the UNDR in that it is a party representing Muslim interests.

A third, RNDT-Le Reveil had previously cooperated with the MPS in government before Idriss Déby’s death. On the presidential level, they have been among the most successful opposition parties. Under the leadership of Albert Pahimi Padacke, the party has consistently come in second or third place in every presidential election since 2006, besides 2016 in which they did not field a candidate, with their strongest performance occurring in 2024.  

The fourth, the Union for Renewal and Democracy (URD), is generally regarded as the most critical opposition party of the four and is described by Africa Elects as being “anti-nepotism.” Since 1997, the URD has the record of having won the most seats of any opposition party in a legislative election, having won 29 out of 125 seats in the National Assembly that year. These elections were held under the two-round, majoritarian system for election rather than the current hybrid party-bloc vote system. 

The other two opposition parties of note are the Les Transformateurs (LT, liberal) and the federalist Federation, Action for the Republic (FAR, federalist) parties. Les Transformateurs was founded by former transition prime minister and runner-up presidential candidate Succés Masra. Masra had been widely regarded as the main challenger to Mahamat Déby’s candidacy even as he held the post of prime minister, leading some to question his opposition credibility. This is similar to the situation with Kebzabo in the run-up to the election.   

Over a dozen different parties contesting the 2011 parliamentary polls won only one seat. This spoke magnitudes both to the fragmentation of the country’s opposition, but also to the MPS support base. The ability of these minor parties to win seats suggests that the larger, multi-member constituencies are attributed more proportionally than the smaller departments, meaning that the MPS coalition did not win a majority of the vote in many of these constituencies. To make up for this, MPS would have had to sweep the single member and smaller departments in the countryside in order to maintain the majority it had in parliament after 2011. 

Opposition Boycott 

In mid-October, it was announced that fifteen of Chad’s smaller opposition parties would be boycotting the December polls, citing the lack of a democratic climate. Most of these parties were not included in the post-coup transition process. However, on 21 October, Succés Masra announced that his party, Les Transformateurs, planned to participate in the opposition boycott. 

The inclusion of what is arguably Chad’s most popular opposition party comes as a major boost for the other fifteen that initially announced the boycott. The last election with turnout data for a parliamentary election was in 2002, at about 52%. Though, with Les Transformateurs no longer contesting the parliamentary election, the result of the December poll is in even less doubt than it would have been otherwise.  

At this point, it’s unclear how many of Chad’s “legacy” opposition parties — that is, parties that won more than 2 seats in parliament in 2011— will join the boycott. There are few signs pointing in this direction. Participation among the main opposition parties has been sporadic at times with groups like the FAR and the PLD choosing to boycott some, but not all elections. 

Conclusion 

Due to the planned boycott, anything less than a sweeping victory for the MPS-led coalition is highly unlikely. Even without the Les Transformateurs-led boycott, the electoral system and Chad’s fragmented opposition alone would probably have been enough for a sweeping MPS victory. The ultimate goal of the boycott is to put pressure on the Déby government in the wake of Déby’s decision in September 2024 to allow US forces to remain in the country. Though Mahamat Déby has insisted that he intends to chart an independent foreign policy, the reality is that Western countries, like France and the United States, are some of Chad’s most reliable security partners. If successful, the boycott could draw the attention of the West to these elections and even alter the dynamics of the US and France’s relationships with the Chadian government. 

The post Chad’s 2024 Parliamentary Elections – A Forgone Conclusion in the Face of Boycott appeared first on Africa Elects.

On November 27, 2024, Namibians will head to the polls to elect a new president and parliament. This will be the seventh general election since the country gained its independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.   

Despite being considered a consolidated democracy by V-Dem, Freedom House, and others, only one party has ever governed the country democratically at the parliamentary and presidential levels: that party is the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO, centre-left). Since Namibia won its independence, SWAPO has consistently commanded a two-thirds majority in the parliament except for the 2019 election. The country’s presidential elections have never gone to a runoff, with all of SWAPO’s presidential candidates being elected in the first round of voting.   

History

Namibia’s modern history traces back to the establishment of German Southwest Africa, a colony of its namesake founded in 1884. After the end of World War I, the region became part of the Union of South Africa, which was still under the British Empire at the time. South Africa was later granted a League of Nations mandate to administer the colony and, eventually, grant it independence.   

However, the apartheid government expressed little interest in relinquishing the trust territory. Decades before independence, in 1960, SWAPO was formed to create an independent state. It succeeded the short-lived Ovamboland People’s Organization (OPO) that was founded a year earlier. Protests, strikes, and even political violence were all tactics that SWAPO and its allies used against the South African apartheid government. After apartheid ended and Namibians gained independence, SWAPO’s anti-colonial credibility would allow it to retain power continuously since 1990.

The Frontrunner  

Single-party parliamentary majorities aren’t rare by themselves. They tend to be rare in countries that use proportional representation, where the share of votes cast directly matches the seats won by the party. In most countries, this usually means no single party gets over 50% of the vote and consequently, no party can govern alone. However, there are exceptions. The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, centre-left), the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO, centre-left), and, until recently, South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC, centre-left) are examples of left-leaning, national liberation movements in the region that managed to win single-party majorities under proportional representation consistently. It should be noted though that V-Dem categorizes Angola and Mozambique as “electoral autocracies.”  

Keeping in line with other similar movements, SWAPO is traditionally considered centre-left. In 2017, the party adopted the overarching goal of adopting socialism with a “Namibian character,” and pursuing social democratic policies, notably by retaining support for a market economy.   

In 2019, SWAPO’s share of the parliamentary vote fell to under 67% for the first time since independence, losing its parliamentary supermajority. However, with the inclusion of the eight members of parliament appointed by the recently deceased President Hage Geingob, it retained a working, de-facto supermajority in the body.  

Polling data for Namibia is relatively scarce. The most recent poll from Afrobarometer published in August 2024 reveals that roughly 65% of voters who expressed a preference for one of Namibia’s main political parties chose SWAPO. The poll’s findings match the vote share that the party won in 2019. This means that if the parliament members appointed in 2019 are excluded, SWAPO could repeat its 2019 performance and fail to get a supermajority in parliament for the second straight time. It should be noted that Afrobarometer polls frequently see large numbers of respondents who did not select a party preference, about 50% opted out of this survey.

SWAPO draws significant support from ethnic Ovambo voters in the north. Unsurprisingly, most of the country’s population lives in the northern region near the border with Angola. Much of this owes to SWAPO’s historical roots with the OPO.   

The Race for Second Place

Formerly called the Democratic Turnhalle alliance, the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM, centre-right) has consistently come in either second or third place in the parliamentary elections in every election since Namibia became a democracy. In 2019, the party scored its best results since 1994 — the country’s first post-independence election — at roughly 16.7% of the vote. The party is traditionally a centre-right, socially conservative party focused on economic liberalism. The party had previously won a landslide majority in the 1978 election under its old name, however, this election was carried out under the supervision of apartheid South Africa and in defiance of the UN General Assembly’s 1972 resolution recognizing SWAPO as the legitimate representative of the region’s people.   

The Independent Patriots for Change (IPC, *) is a political party founded by the runner-up candidate in the 2019 presidential race, Panduleni Itula, who ran as an independent in that election. The party supports grassroots democracy and has a strong stance against corruption. Economically, the IPC supports a mixed economy with a strong private sector and is critical of modern free trade policies. It also calls for free health care, expanded access to social services, wants to promote the use of domestic labourers in the economy, and calls for more public housing.  

Finally, there is the Landless People’s Movement (LPM, left-wing). Traditionally, the LPM says its target constituency is the landless working class, urban dwellers, and people dispossessed by the Namibian government’s land policies. By and large, the LPM stands for social equality and promotes a strengthened private sector according to the party constitution.  

The Other Parties  

None of the eight remaining parties with parliamentary representation have more than two seats each due to the parliament’s electoral system. Because there is no official threshold, parties can win seats in the 104-seat National Assembly with under 1% of the popular vote, as happened with the South West Africa National Union (SWANU, left-wing) and Christian Democratic Voice (CDV, Christian fundamentalism). Of the parties currently in parliament, only one other party — the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP, liberal) — has managed to come in second place in a presidential election, in 2009. 

The Presidential Race 

Namibian presidents since 2015 have been subject to a two-term limit. To win an election outright, a candidate must win more than 50% of the vote. Otherwise, a second round is supposed to be held between the top two candidates. Since independence, no election has gone to a second round. The worst electoral performance by SWAPO in a presidential race was in 2019 when it won with just over 56% of the vote, down from almost 87% in 2014.  

It was in 2019 that the independent candidate Panduleni Itula won almost 30% of the vote, the strongest vote share of any second-place candidate for president since independence. Itula recently announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election as did McHenry Venaani of the PDM.   

If elected, the current SWAPO candidate Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah would be the first elected female president of Namibia.  

Potential for a runoff?  

SWAPO’s comparatively poor performance in the 2019 presidential race owes much to Panduleni Itula’s candidacy. Up until the 2019 election, Itula had been a member of SWAPO. Despite this, Itula won the endorsement of both the centre-right Republican Party and the left-wing Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters. This support is illustrative of the current IPC manifesto which borrows policy ideas from both liberal economics and a social-democratic style welfare state.

Ideologically, SWAPO is still one of the closest major parties to the IPC in terms of policy. After over 30 years of rule, there are signs that Namibians are looking for alternatives to SWAPO. Despite their relative similarities, the 2019 results suggest that most voters who backed Itula voted for a party other than SWAPO in the parliamentary election. Should Itula not make the runoff if one is held, he could play kingmaker in endorsing either the SWAPO candidate, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, or the next most likely candidate to make the runoff, McHenry Venaani. If on the other hand, the runoff is between Nandi-Ndaitwah and Itula, it is possible that Itula could garner enough of the opposition vote in round two to defeat SWAPO in the Presidential election for the very first time.

Conclusion  

By and large, SWAPO is the clear favorite in this coming election. Not only have they dominated every election since independence, but the most recent polling from Afrobarometer suggests that they are on track to win both the presidential and parliamentary elections. The primary question is by how much. SWAPO currently sits on a knife’s edge regarding its ability to reclaim its two-thirds majority in parliament. And even if a runoff were triggered, the favorite to win would still be SWAPO’s Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.

For these reasons, few surprises are expected come election day on November 27. 

The post Namibia: A Dynamic, Yet Predictable Exercise in Democracy appeared first on Africa Elects.

Written by Alec Soltes, contributions from Li Zhi Rieken, Juan Mesa and Adrian Elimian

Algeria is scheduled to hold a presidential election on September 7. This is only the second election after the 2019 Hirak protests ousted former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika (FLN, centre-left) in March of that year, a veteran of the Independence War of the 1950s. Incumbent President Abdelmajid Tebboune (FLN, centre-left) announced his intention to seek re-election on July 11, 2024. The candidate registration deadline for the election was July 18 after which only three out of sixteen candidates that submitted paperwork were allowed to contest the election. Aside from Tebboune, also contesting is Abdelaali Hassani Cherif of the Movement of Society for Peace (MSP, Islamist) and Youcef Aouchiche of the Socialist Forces Front (FFS, centre-left).

The upcoming elections are unlikely to produce lasting change due to the lack of genuine competition in Algeria’s electoral environment. The country performs poorly on democracy indices, such as V-Dem’s 2024 electoral democracy index which gives Algeria a rating of .27/1, categorizing it as an “electoral autocracy.” A rating like this indicates restrictions on civil liberties and an uneven playing field for opposition parties in contesting elections.

Background

Between independence and the Civil War of the 1990s, Algeria was effectively run as a single-party state under the National Liberation Front (FLN). The military seized power in a coup in 1965 after the first president Ahmed Ben Bella alienated himself from the military by attempting to centralize power for himself at the expense of other elites in the political establishment. After the transitional period ended in 1976, Algeria formally became a one-party state under the government of the FLN.

The country’s first national multiparty elections were eventually scheduled for December 1991. Thirteen years earlier, the accession of Chadli Bendjedid to the Algerian presidency in 1978 would mark a turning point in Algerian political history. Though Bendjedid was primarily occupied with economic issues during most of his term, widespread popular opposition to his rule coalesced towards the late 1980s. Bendjedid became increasingly pressured by elements within the political establishment who opposed his economic liberalization measures. As a result, Bendjedid eased restrictions on the media and political organizing; he even drafted a new constitution that would codify a multiparty democracy as a means of ensuring his political survival. 

However, Bendjedid’s attempt failed. After the opposition party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS, Islamist) won the first round of the legislative election in 1991, the military launched a coup against Bendjedid and canceled the planned second round. The coup catalyzed a civil war that would engulf the country for the next decade.

Ultimately, the Algerian government won the war after Antar Zouabri, the leader of the Armed Islamist Group of Algeria (GIA) — an extremist offshoot of the FIS — was killed by Algerian security forces in 2002, an event that marked the end of the conflict. 

Since he took office, Bouteflika gradually increased his influence over the country’s administration with the implicit backing of the military. Up until the Arab Spring of 2010-2012, the government had ruled through a state of emergency that was lifted after protests broke out. In his early tenure, Bouteflika put down uprisings by the country’s Berber population and focused on reconciliation efforts with the country’s former insurgent groups. Bouteflika also positioned himself as a leader in African and Middle Eastern affairs while currying favor with Western governments.

This backing of Bouteflika and his policies by the military — and at times much of Algerian society — is what allowed Bouteflika to remain in power for such an extended period. In losing the support of both in early 2019, it effectively forced his resignation.

The Hirak

Terrafka, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
File:Hirak des algériens 2021.jpg – Wikimedia Commons

In early 2019, after Bouteflika announced he would seek a fifth consecutive term, protests erupted on the streets of Algerian cities demanding his resignation. Within weeks, the protestors had achieved their goal. For many in the movement, Bouteflika’s resignation marked only one step toward getting rid of “le pouvoir” (“the power” in French) — a term that refers to Algeria’s military-political establishment.

Despite not being a strong ally of Bouteflika, incumbent president Abdelmajid Tebboune was still seen as part of the old regime by many within the Hirak movement. This has occurred alongside his rhetoric borrowed from Hirak slogans, calling the old power a “kleptocracy” and a mostly cosmetic set of amendments to the 1989 Algerian constitution.

Current environment

Duma.gov.ru, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
File:Abdelmadjid Tebboune (2023) (cropped).jpg – Wikimedia Commons

Tebboune, the incumbent, is favored to win due to institutional advantages like a restricted national media environment, suppression of opposition political activity, and the backing of the country’s military. Abelaali Cherif’s MSP party is characterized as a “soft opposition” party by Africa Elects—historically supporting the FLN government during the civil war of the 1990s and participating in several governments since then. The FFS meanwhile has struggled to make major headwinds into Algerian politics, having won only 14 seats out of the 462-seat parliament in 2017, which was the last time the party participated in parliamentary elections.

Five years later, the Hirak movement did not meet its goals. Tebboune is still president, and the FLN officially leads a coalition government in the People’s National Assembly—the country’s lower house of parliament. The only parliamentary party outside the coalition with substantial numbers of seats is the MSP, due primarily to the election boycott of that year. Since the constitutional referendum of 2020, few reforms have been implemented. In addition, freedom of the press has deteriorated and opposition members as well as journalists remain in prison; these restrictions are further elaborated on in a letter penned by eleven senior opposition figures. Though several opposition candidates have refused to run in the presidential election, such as Louisa Hanoune of the Workers’ Party (left-wing), only a few parties have called for a boycott. There seems to be little chance that the opposition will coalesce around the Socialist Forces Front candidate, the only one of the three running that can be considered part of the opposition.

Conclusion

Given the current climate, it is unlikely that the election will require a second round. It is important to note that Tebboune would be term-limited should he win. The lack of unity in the Hirak movement has been a liability thus far. Although, that does not mean that the electorate is content with their political situation, as recent low turnouts have shown. Rather, a climate of apathy has set in among the country’s youth as many feel that political change is riddled with too many challenges and roadblocks. Any effort to promote democratic governance will have to address this obstacle if it is to be successful.

The post Algeria’s Presidential Election and the Power of Incumbency: Why the Old Guard Isn’t Going Anywhere appeared first on Africa Elects.