Support for democracy in Africa shows signs of waning

Support for democracy is falling in Africa amid a string of military coups and dissatisfaction with corruption and mismanagement, according to a report by Afrobarometer. However, Africans still have a stronger preference for democratic governance than many parts of the world. Two-thirds of citizens in 30 African countries prefer democracy, surveys conducted in 2021 or 2023 found. That’s down seven percentage points from a decade earlier. The Guardian reports that there have been eight successful military takeovers since 2020, mostly in west Africa in what has become known as the ‘coup belt’. The last few years have also seen an increase in protests against tax rises and subsidy cuts by the continent’s increasingly youthful population, often in countries where leaders are also seen as corrupt. The report by Afrobarometer said the preference for democracy remains resilient to deterioration on many indicators of socioeconomic performance. ‘Instead, shifts in popular support over the past decade are related to changes in political conditions such as declining election quality, increasing levels of corruption and failure to promote the rule of law,’ it noted.

The surveys found Africans have also become less satisfied with the way democracy works in their countries over the last decade, with the growing discontent linked to perceptions that economic conditions have worsened and that corruption and impunity have increased. The biggest falls in satisfaction were in some of the continent’s most stable democracies – South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius. Meanwhile, more citizens said they were happy with the way democracy was working in six countries, including Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Morocco. The Guardian notes that young people on the continent are more likely to support military rule. ‘A combination of trust in the military, frustration with poor governance, and waning (or lacking) memories of the harsh realities experienced during a previous era of military governments may be chipping away at resistance to this particular form of authoritarian rule,’ the report said. Despite the poor performance of many elected governments, Africans still prefer democracy to a greater extent than people in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, it said. 

Full analysis in The Guardian