On New Year’s Day two years ago, few would have expected that the forward projections for Africa in 2023 and 2024 would be so dramatically upended.
Islamist insurgents in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado seemed to have been checkmated by Rwandan and Southern African Development Community (SADC) intervention forces.
In January 2022, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok resigned in Sudan amid continuing protests against the military’s power grab after the 2021 coup that sought to hijack a popular revolution. In July 2022, de facto military ruler General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dismissed most civilian members of the Sovereignty Council, aiming to establish a “Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.” Entering 2023, Sudan was expected, at worst, to continue muddling along.
A handful of presidential elections were scheduled, the most significant of which was in Nigeria on February 25, 2023. Votes were also scheduled in DR Congo, Zimbabwe, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Eswatini (Swaziland), and Liberia.
But, as the saying goes, man plans, and God laughs. President Bola Tinubu won an acrimonious Nigerian election, keeping the All Progressives Congress (APC) in power as its two-term leader Muhammadu Buhari retired. Then hell broke loose on the continent barely two months later.
On April 15, 2023, what turned out to be an extremely bloody and destructive civil war erupted between two major rival factions of Sudan’s military government, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Gen. Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under his former ally, the warlord Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, more popularly known as Hemedti.
Then in quick order, on July 26, 2023, Niger President Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown by the military led by General Abdourahamane Tiani. A month later, on August 30, 2023, senior military officers in Gabon announced they had seized power and annulled the recent disputed presidential election results, removing President Ali Bongo and installing his cousin General Brice Oligui Nguema as the new military leader.
Gloomy outlook for 2024
The Zimbabwe election was predictably violent and marred by malpractice, but there was a bright spot in Liberia. Liberian opposition leader Joseph Boakai eventually beat incumbent President George Weah in a run-off election in November. Boakai and Weah emerged neck-and-neck from the first round of the presidential election but below the 50% needed to secure an outright victory. In defeat, Weah, a former global star footballer, was uncharacteristically gracious. The outcome in Liberia wasn’t enough to brighten the outlook for 2024, which was quite gloomy.
With more than 80 countries – more than half the world’s population – set to vote in 2024, it was the biggest election year in human history. The United Nations dubbed it a “super year” for elections. In early 2023, it was projected that up to 20 of those elections would be held in Africa in 2024. With coups and war, that was whittled down to 17. Still, it was a record, with the 17 countries equivalent to almost 30% of Africa, hosting 21.1% of the continent’s population, going to the ballot. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation described it as Africa’s “ultimate” election year.
Multinational insurance giant Allianz, while seeing some opportunity for stability in the African elections, warned of increasing risks of political violence, particularly in South Africa. The South African elections in May “are a potential flashpoint,” it said. With opinion polls indicating the ruling African National Congress (ANC) could dip below 50%, forcing it into a coalition after being in power for 30 years. “South Africa suffers from high unemployment, particularly among the young, and significant wealth inequality,” said Etienne Cheret, Regional Practice Group Leader, Crisis Management France and Africa at Allianz Commercial. “Crime, corruption, and blackouts have caused widespread frustration. There is already a high level of disillusionment among the population, so we are watching the situation very closely.”
The South African Police Service (SAPS), civil society organisations, and entities like Oxford Economics also added their voices to warnings of an increased risk of violence and unrest during the elections.
In Senegal, West Africa’s most stable country, there were fears it would all finally come apart. Senegal faced unrest due to the arrest of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko mid-year and the subsequent political instability, raising fears of violence surrounding the elections that then-president Macky Sall postponed. Faced with an explosive backlash, Sall backtracked and called the vote for March 24, 2024.
In the end, the elections in military-ruled Mali were cancelled over security issues, and South Sudan too again postponed its poll as it struggled to stabilise a unity government set up to end its deadly conflict. In Sudan, the war had killed at least 62,000 people as the year drew to a close and uprooted 12 million. Nearly 9 million of those were displaced within Sudan, and the rest fled as refugees to neighbouring countries. Sudan has few voters left. In Guinea, the junta not only postponed elections but dissolved 53 political parties and organisations.
Senegal’s grand opening
When polling stations opened, starting with the first African election of the year in Comoros on January 14, 2024, the sky didn’t come down. It was business as usual. President Azali Assoumani won a fourth term, with a miserable turnout of 16%, and the opposition rubbished the vote as fraudulent. The apathetic islanders went back to fishing and farming to tend to the more serious business of putting food on their families’ tables.
No one would have predicted at that point that 2024 would turn out to be the most dramatic electoral year on the continent in decades.
In Senegal, the opposition PASTEF party nominated its general secretary Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was still in prison, to stand as their presidential candidate after their leader Sonko was disqualified. Faye was released from prison on March 14, 2024, just 10 days before the election on March 24, 2024. He went on to win a sensational victory, becoming, at 44 years old, the youngest democratically elected incumbent African leader. Between his release and swearing-in on April 2, it was just 19 days. A wave of euphoria swept Senegal.
Senegal didn’t go down in a bout of violence as many had feared. Instead, it seemed to soar.
On May 29, 2024, it was South Africa’s turn. It turned out to be a historic election, as the ruling African National Congress (ANC) – Nelson Mandela’s party – lost its majority status it had enjoyed nationally since the first democratic election in 1994, winning less than 50% (40.18%) of the vote. The outcome resulted in the formation of a government of national unity – a coalition of the ANC with the pro-capitalist, white-founded opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) and eight smaller parties.
On August 30, 2024, a dispute from the August 26, 2023 election in Gabon was resolved out of court – by a military coup that ousted incumbent president Bongo, who had won a third term with 64% of the votes.
The soldiers promised a quick return to civilian elected government, and on November 16, 2024, they held a constitutional referendum. Voters gave the draft charter a big thumbs up, with 91.64% in favour. Those might not be all numbers from military leader Gen. Nguema’s beret, because the draft constitution provides several popular reforms over the old order, including presidential term limits. Nguema will likely take off his military fatigues, don a designer suit, and present himself as a civilian presidential aspirant late next year.
Botswana, Mauritius set records
A more sensational outcome than Senegal’s lay ahead in Botswana. On October 30, the country went to the polls. Even before all the votes were counted, it was over. Duma Boko and his Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) ended the 58-year-long reign of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which had led the country since its independence in 1966. President Mokgweetsi Masisi made a gracious speech, sufficiently chastised and humbled as his party came off with a miserly four seats in Parliament. A country that hadn’t had a transition of power from one party to another in over half a century managed it with the practised ease of those who had been at it for generations.
Less than a fortnight later in Mauritius, a similar script played out. The island nation went to the polls on November 10, and the opposition Alliance of Change handed the governing Lepep alliance a hiding for the ages, winning 60 of the 64 seats. The governing coalition was punished more ruthlessly than the BDP in Botswana – it won zero (“0”) directly elected seats. Unprecedented.
Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth didn’t wait for the bad news. Early the next day, after he acknowledged his party was heading for a “huge defeat”, he threw in the towel.
On November 27, it was Namibia’s turn. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) was declared the winner with approximately 57% of the vote. The opposition rejected the election, which was justifiably considered a shambles with embarrassing delays, lack of voting materials, and errors on ballots, which led to days of voting in a country with fewer than 1.5 million registered voters. In the end, however, Namibia made history, electing its first female president.
Botswana’s Masisi settled quickly into life after State House, and wearing the African election observer’s trademark khaki jacket and sneakers was up and about keeping an eye on the December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana. The outcome would have looked familiar to him.
Former one-term president John Dramani Mahama of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) won the Ghanaian presidential election, securing 56.55% of the total valid votes. His main opponent, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), received 41.61%. Bawumia was as graceful as one could ever be in congratulating Mahama and conceding the race. Like Masisi and Jugnauth in Mauritius, he didn’t wait for the final tally to wave the white flag.
The only place where things went boom in the night was Mozambique. The election violence in Mozambique in 2024 was primarily triggered by the disputed results of the presidential and general elections held on October 9, 2024.
Opposition parties and independent observers claimed the elections were marred by irregularities, including ballot stuffing, and manipulation of voter lists.
The ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) candidate, Daniel Chapo, was declared the winner with more than 70% of the vote, continuing Frelimo’s rule which has extended for half a century. This result was challenged by Venancio Mondlane, an independent candidate who came second with about 20% of the vote, leading to widespread protests.
Mozambique has a history of contentious elections, with previous instances of violence and allegations of rigging. The 2024 election saw a continuation of this pattern.
Security forces responded with force, including the use of live bullets, tear gas, and rubber bullets. This escalation led to numerous deaths and injuries, further inflaming the situation. Reports indicated that at least 30 people were killed in the weeks following the election. Mozambique remains on edge.
Surprise? Africa is a happier continent
While specific local factors determined outcomes in the 17 African countries that held elections in 2024, there are also some broad continental commonalities. For one, there is a big contradiction: while voter disaffection seems higher than ever across most of the continent, simultaneously, people are generally less radical and prone to violence.
In the 1990s and even the early 2000s, the fallout from several of these elections in many parts of Africa would have led to guerrilla warfare, with Mozambique being the norm, not the outlier as it is today.
The explanations will emerge more clearly in the fullness of time, but there are several fuzzy indicators and signals that suggest the changes that have happened.
To list a few, despite the political pessimism, Africa on the whole is a happier continent. Earlier generations of African political firebrands were mostly men who were two-dimensional at best. They read revolutionary books all the time, took time off to briefly be unfaithful husbands and doting fathers, and did little else.
Today’s younger leaders are multi-dimensional; before they became presidents, they went to the gym, ran half marathons, read books about getting rich and how to be superwomen and supermen, attended TED Talks, engaged in human rights work, planted trees, and partied all night at least once a fortnight.
After Botswana’s President Duma Boko, 54, and Vice-President Ndaba Gaolathe, 53, had the bone between their teeth, they appeared to speak to a gathering of cheering supporters. They opened with a dance-off, with Boko throwing down a moonwalk. Possibly they were Michael Jackson’s teen fans.
These signs of a happy continent were best on display at the 2024 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), officially known as AFCON 2023 due to its original scheduling, which was held from January 13 to February 11, 2024, in Ivory Coast.
The tournament shattered viewership records, reaching a total of 2.2 billion viewers globally, according to a report by the organisers, the Confederation of African Football (CAF). A story that was as big as the games on the pitch was about the fans. The stands were teeming with beautiful young women from all over the continent and young men in statement fashions. The tournament became an Instagram and selfie festival.
Where there are beautiful women, young, hot-headed men tend to behave well. But the stands also speak to what could be described as a wider feminisation of sports fandom, economies, and several social endeavours like environmental activism on the continent. This has led to a decrease in flame-throwing activism and political expression in many places in Africa.
Another of the broad trends was evident in Kenya in June and July during the very effective Generation Z protests. In contrast to the protests of years past, these were less ideological and more programmatic. They were not calls for “workers unite” or to “usher in a democratic era”; instead, they focused on specific taxes, corruption, demands for jobs programmes, and an end to police brutality – issues that are tangible and measurable. These demands are easier to deal with (Kenyan President William Ruto suspended the contentious tax legislation and disbanded his cabinet), to make promises about, or to write into a political party manifesto. The political leadership can thus disarm angry protestors by taking action or selling the illusion that they are.
A post-Covid Africa?
We could also be seeing one face of the post-COVID-19 world in Africa. The ravages of the pandemic seem to have raised the pain threshold and reshaped expectations – especially the public’s expectations of the political class. If 10 three-inch deep potholes along a one-kilometre street pre-COVID triggered public outrage, today it takes 30 six-inch potholes to have the same effect.
These changes have combined with an accommodating attitude towards the ravages of climate change. Most citizens are taking the view that governments cannot be entirely blamed for floods, drought spells, and mudslides – although, in reality, they are partly responsible. Political action on reforestation would reduce erosion, and better infrastructure built for extreme weather would save lives and limit economic destruction from events like floods. The politicians are happy to take this pass.
African governments have also become quite adept at performative redistribution. African social media is from time to time flooded with breathless cheerleading videos of Burkina Faso’s military leader, Ibrahim Traoré, with pick-ups, ambulances, tractors, farm implements, generators, and other supplies for production lined up as far as the eye can see, distributing them to the people.
Folks like Traoré have to be credited for figuring out the game: with minimal anti-corruption governance and a passable level of efficiency, it’s possible to gather enough resources to fund these programmes – and to hire a few smart social media officers who will tailor the content for Instagram and TikTok.
It still leaves you with disgruntled voters, but they are not disgruntled enough to go out and burn it all to the ground. It might not be for much longer, though.
