Africa’s Democratic Momentum

To judge by the tone of commentary coming out of Africa in recent times, liberal democracy could not be in a more perilous state, so perilous indeed that anywhere you look across the continent, disenchanted Africans are desperate to replace it with a “homegrown” alternative. According to this narrative, disgruntlement with liberal democracy in Africa stems from its perceived failure to move the needle on the all-important question of economic development, particularly material well-being for the continent’s teeming millions.

Although Nigerian statesman Olusegun Obasanjo has been the most visible and insistent advocate of this narrative, using successive local and international fora to announce the shortcomings of liberal democracy—at least as he sees it—as well as make the case for what he calls “Afro-democracy,” he is by no means alone. Across the African academy, there is considerable sympathy for the idea that an exhausted, ineffective, and culturally incommensurable “Western” liberal democracy has run its course on the continent.

Team Obasanjo is not wrong about popular frustration; its error is to interpret it as proof of rejection of liberal democracy. Au contraire, and as evidenced by events and incidents from various parts of Africa (on which more in a moment), Africans’ support for the tenets of liberal democracy has never been sturdier, notably contradicting the trend in the advanced liberal democracies where, for various reasons too complex to get into here, cynicism about liberal democracy has been rising. According to Afrobarometer’s inaugural flagship report for 2024 [PDF], support for democracy in Africa remains robust: “Two-thirds (66 percent) of Africans say they prefer democracy to any other system of government, and large majorities reject one-man rule (80 percent), one-party rule (78 percent), and military rule (66 percent).” Thus, what appears as rejection of liberal democracy is in fact understandable frustration at the slow pace of economic reform and democratic consolidation. In other words, a wish for more democracy, not less.

Periodic elections, together with increased interest in their outcomes, are one manifestation of this wish. In a record for the continent, by the end of 2024, “twenty-two African countries will have held some form of electoral contest, either for president, national legislators, or local leaders.” Granted, elections in and of themselves do not mean much, especially if they do not generate the economic “dividends” that, data show, continue to elude the majority of Africans. Nevertheless, their significance in a region once (still?) largely reputed for sit-tight regimes, and as the most trusted and effective means of arbitrating political competition, cannot be underestimated. The importance of elections is rightly magnified in situations where, for whatever reason, they are either rarely held (Somalia has not had a democratic poll for fifty years and Mozambique only held its first ever multi-party legislative and presidential elections in 1994), or are not held on schedule (last month’s presidential election in Somaliland took place after a two-year delay); where holding them is a matter of civic pride and national defiance (see Somaliland), or their outcomes are more or less guaranteed.

There are other reasons to celebrate elections in Africa, the furor that has followed in the wake of several of them notwithstanding. The smooth transition of power in Botswana, where the Botswana Democratic Party had been in control since independence from Britain in 1966, marks a political maturity that appears to be on the decline, particularly in the advanced liberal democracies. The election of seventy-two-year-old Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as Namibia’s first female president is a giant step toward gender equality in a continent where, for the most account, women continue to get short shrift. Somaliland, whose total national budget for 2023 was $421.5 million (and where, incidentally, the legal voting age is fifteen [PDF]), is a permanent reminder that poverty need not be a deterrence to democratic consolidation.

Outside the polling booth, the passion for equal representation across Africa is unstinting. In Somalia, where the Islamist group al-Shabaab has been in control for the better part of two decades, setting the country back for way much more, women have continued to push for gender equality and against all forms of gender-based violence, including domestic abuse, rape, and female genital mutilation. In northern Nigeria, the social devastation unleashed by Boko Haram [PDF] and its terrorist fellow travelers has brought much-needed attention to the need for religious freedom and education, especially girls’ education. Across the Sahel, juntas appear to have quickly worn out their welcome, and, in the ultimate paradox, military rule and the abuses that invariably attend it have sparked calls for a transition back to democratic rule.

To be sure, challenges abound. Post-election discontent (think Mozambique and Namibia) is a reminder of how ruling parties continue to use the power of incumbency to shape electoral outcomes. For too many African leaders, the temptation of tenure elongation via constitutional engineering is still too strong to resist. In various parts of the continent, Islamist terrorism looms large as a menace to long-term political stability.

Yet, all told, the arrow points firmly in the direction of progress. The United States can help (it remains the world’s most vibrant democracy, after all) insofar as it understands that it can be a student as much as it is a mentor, learning from African countries (for instance, should it take a cue from Somaliland and lower the legal voting age?) even as it continues to help strengthen their democratic forces and institutions.

Liberal democracy is strengthening across Africa. One just needs to know where to look.

Nathan Schoonover contributed to the research for this article.