Incumbents' greed, bloated egos threaten Africa's democracy

Paul Biya, 92, president of Cameroon since 1982, recently secured a controversial eighth term in office. Already the world’s oldest ruler, Biya will be 100 by the end of this new term.

In Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, 83, who has been in power since 2010, is also pushing to extend his rule with a contentious fourth term. 

In East Africa, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan—who, as vice-president, succeeded John Magufuli after his death in 2021—was recently sworn in for a new five-year term.

Her election was marred by the treason trial of main opponent Tundu Lissu and followed by a brutal crackdown on pro-opposition protesters, leaving hundreds, possibly thousands, dead. The opposition party Chadema claims that between 1,000 and 2000 people were killed in the protests.

Arrests of key opposition figures across East Africa, including in Uganda and South Sudan, where the regimes of Yoweri Museveni and Salva Kiir have recently put opposition leaders Kizza Besigye and Riek Machar on trial for treason, only begin to describe the parody that’s African democracy.

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In Tanzania, for instance, the constitution offers no guarantees for the opposition or even independent, public-spirited actors to challenge an incumbents’ election victory in court.

In the recent polls, the Samia Hassan administration followed a familiar, incumbent-directed script typical across Africa: the brutalisation of opposition figures, militarisation of opposition strongholds, suppression of the media and shrouding institutional operations in internet blackouts.

Such an environment, and the habitual conduct of incumbents before, during and after elections means that observers often arrive only to witness a stage managed reaffirmation of power.

In much of the region, democratic elections largely serve as a popular stamp of approval for incumbents’ self-proclaimed authority. Some leaders who cling to power through rigged, often controversial terms portray themselves as the darlings of their entire population.

In Rwanda, for instance, Paul Kagame, whose opponents largely live abroad for fear of persecution, despite constitutional requirements that candidates reside in the country for a set period before elections, once claimed that only ten people in a nation of nearly 15 million wanted him out of office. 

In The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, who ruled from 1996 to 2017, publicly claimed that God had chosen him to govern for a billion years. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe (1924–2019), in power for nearly 40 years until 2017, was defended by ruling party stalwarts who argued his long reign was a ‘right’ for having ‘liberated’ the country from colonial rule.

Such is the sense of entitlement among many African incumbents that it is deemed ‘treasonous’ and ‘unpatriotic’ to question their expected victory in every election.

Even when voters reject them at the ballot box, corrupt electoral officials often hand them victory, while the judiciary, police and, sometimes the army ensure that the results stand.

Opponents, rights advocates, whistleblowers, journalists and critics of incumbent rulers often face the combined force of Parliament, the judiciary,  security forces, the army, intelligence agencies, revenue authorities and anti-corruption bodies, intimidated and brutalised, or bankrupted, into silence and submission.

In several countries, including Uganda, Tanzania, Congo-Brazzaville, and Equatorial Guinea, incumbents have installed family members in top state positions to guard against insurrection or ouster. This is not just abuse of power, but also a disregard for voters.

Others, like Kenya’s President William Ruto, have adopted a different tactic: co-opting opponents and critics into government to neutralise pressure on issues such as governance failures, policy overreach, rights violations, institutional capture and the privatization of state firms.

Barriers to Africa’s long-awaited democratic progress include weak institutions. But the greater threat comes from unbridled megalomania, greed, overambition and ego among incumbent rulers, who do not merely hinder democracy but actively subvert it, turning the very systems meant to protect the people into tools for perpetuating their own power.

Baraza is a writer and historian