Younger voters push for less authoritarian governments

Younger voters are getting more involved in elections and leading protests, even as governments outside Africa are becoming more accepting of authoritarianism, writes Patrick Smith in the Africa Report. Smith says this will be put to the test again in 2025 when Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Comoros, Egypt and Togo hold elections. He notes that the rout of ruling parties in Africa in 2024 – driven by spiralling prices and distrust of political elites – reflects a global trend. ‘And there is little sign that it will let up in 2025 unless economic conditions improve markedly. Youth voters stepped up their role in elections and mobilised on the streets. They scored in Senegal, Botswana and Mauritius, where they helped defeat incumbent parties. Ruling parties in South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia took serious hits in polls as the demographic and political landscape shifted.’ Smith points out that starkest of all were the changes in Senegal. A year before the elections, the two leaders of Patriotes Africains du Sénégal pour le Travail, l’Ethique et la Fraternité – Ousmane Sonko and Bassirou Diomaye Faye – were in jail and there were indications that former President Macky Sall would run for a third term. ‘After young Senegalese demonstrated in the big cities in support of Faye and Sonko, Sall announced he wouldn’t run and named ex-Prime Minister Amadou Ba as his favoured Presidential candidate. Deemed ineligible, Sonko appointed Faye as his stand-in to run for President in the 24 March election.’ Smith says this was a spectacular defeat for the Benno Bokk Yakaar alliance of Sall and Ba. Released 10 days before the election and with no experience of holding public office, Faye won with 53.9% of the votes on the first ballot. ‘It gave electoral politics a much-needed shot in the arm – in Africa and beyond.’ ‘It sends a message to the juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso, which postponed elections set for 2024 and are delaying the transition to civil rule amid signs that they are losing popular support. L’effet Sénégal also resonated in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, where the legitimacy of ruling-party electoral victories has been energetically questioned by younger activists. This could shape developments in 2025 while Côte d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara is being urged by some of his allies to run for a fourth Presidential term.’

Smith states that fewer pundits predicted the victory of Duma Boko, heading the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), in Botswana in the 30 October election. ‘A younger cohort of voters, frustrated by the lack of jobs and questioning accountability, organised for change. Boko and the UDC won 36 seats in the 61-seat Parliament, trouncing the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), in power since 1966. The BDP was reduced to a rump of four seats, although it polled around 30% of the votes. Contrary to expectations in some quarters, the outgoing and mercurial President Mokgweetsi Masisi elegantly conceded defeat in a call to Boko within hours of the first results being broadcast.’ In Mauritius, says Smith, there was an even bigger cataclysm for the ruling Alliance Lepep coalition. ‘The opposition Alliance du Changement took 60 of the 66 seats in Parliament, leaving Pravind Jugnauth’s Militant Socialist Movement, which had led the alliance, with just two seats.’ According to Smith, localised political allegiances and constitutional issues were to the fore in President Muse Bihi Abdi’s defeat in Somaliland. ‘Protests, some violent, had been spreading ahead of Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi’s victory with 64% of the vote on 13 November. With Somaliland yet to win recognition as a sovereign territory from the AU or the UN, its politics have been infused with nationalism but also a determination to show it is far better run than its neighbour Somalia, from which it broke away in 1991. Muse Bihi’s repressive reaction to protests undercut his popular standing.’ But Smith says the most telegraphed loss of support for a once-dominant party was in SA’s elections on 29 May when the African National Congress lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994.

The countries that bucked the trend of incumbent party losses in 2024 – such as Chad, Rwanda and Tunisia – have faced tough civil-society critique but little serious diplomatic censure over the political climate and the credibility of their elections. From that, it seems that governments and agencies outside Africa are becoming more accepting of authoritarianism than the continent’s activists. Smith believes this will be put to the test again in 2025 when a string of authoritarian governments are due to hold elections – including Burundi, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Comoros, Egypt and Togo. 

Full article in The Africa Report