Citizen rights and the upcoming presidential elections in Africa

It is a big year for democracy on the African continent. Millions will head to the polls in at least eight presidential elections. In many of these countries there are big aspirations for political change, while in others there are concerns about whether the elections will be fair and transparent.

It is unlikely that many of the elections will lead to a political sea change like the kind of transition we recently saw in Liberia, which experienced its first democratic transition in over 70 years. Civil society played a large role in mobilising the masses to elect the ex-football star, George Weah to office. If we are going to see more changes in power in the upcoming African elections, voters will need to have their democratic rights of free speech, association and assembly protected. These rights are being violated across all of these countries to varying degrees, and the CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks these rights in close to real-time, has produced the following index on civil society conditions ahead of the elections: