Upcoming Africa Elections
Mozambique Presidential, Legislative, and Provincial – October 15, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 27.2 million
Mozambique’s politics have been dominated by FRELIMO, which has been in power since 1975, when Mozambique became independent, and the main opposition RENAMO. The parties evolved from armed groups that fought a civil war between 1976 and 1992 (and have engaged in clashes since then until an August 2019 peace accord). The Soviet Union backed FRELIMO, while Rhodesia and then apartheid South Africa backed RENAMO.
Mozambique faces an Islamist insurgency in the north and devastation from two tropical cyclones in spring 2019. The country discovered natural gas in 2009, and while major companies are interested in prospecting, it will be a long time before Mozambique sees gas wealth. Russia has ramped up its involvement in Mozambique’s energy and security sectors.
RENAMO disputed the results of the October 2018 local elections, where it received its best-ever result, winning eight of 53 municipalities, but lost several others it had expected to win. RENAMO alleges the losses were due to fraud and irregularities. In the upcoming elections, in addition to voting for president, citizens will elect provincial governors directly for the first time – previously, they had been appointed by the president. A breakaway faction of RENAMO has threatened violence if the elections proceed, but the government has no plans to delay or cancel the polls.
The Economist: “A violent election in Mozambique threatens a hard-won peace: Conflicts old and new have dashed hopes of a free, fair and peaceful vote.”
Updated October 15
AP: “Polls opened across Mozambique on Tuesday, with 13 million voters registered to cast ballots in presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections seen as key to consolidating peace in the southern African nation.”
Zenaida Machado, Human Rights Watch: “Insecurity in Mozambique Leaves Thousands Unable to Vote: Authorities Fail to Ensure All Voters Can Cast Ballots”
Al Jazeera: “Mozambique counts votes after polls seen as test of peace deal: Acceptance of presidential, legislative and provincial polls seen as key test of ceasefire deal signed in August.”
The Africa Report: “Mozambique’s bloody election holds no surprises: The brutal murder of an election observer ahead of Mozambique’s 15 October poll is the jagged point of faultlines that run deep into the country’s history.”
Botswana Parliamentary – October 23, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Free
Government Type: Parliamentary Republic
Population: 2.2 million
Botswana, the world’s second-largest producer of diamonds, is a stable democracy with regular free, fair, credible elections. In 2018, President Ian Khama stepped down exactly 10 years after his inauguration, in keeping with the constitutional limit of two terms in office (his predecessor had done the same thing).
Mokgweetsi Masisi, the former vice president, is filling the role of the presidency until after the elections, when the National Assembly will choose a new president. Khama’s Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) – founded by his father, Seretse Khama – has dominated politics since independence in 1966, but soon after leaving office, Khama left the BDP to support a new party, the Botswana Patriotic Front (BFP), which has ties to the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), Botswana’s main opposition coalition. The split has the opportunity to open up debate on actual policy, but it could devolve into a personal power struggle. There is concern that some of Botswana’s institutions are eroding.
The National Assembly will elect a new president following the parliamentary elections.
Mqondisi Dube, Voice of America: “Botswana Braces for High-Stakes Election Later This Month”
AFP: “Botswana’s influential former president Ian Khama on Sunday [October 13] threw his weight behind the opposition, a fierce critic of his when he was leader, in a bid to oust his handpicked successor in the country’s upcoming elections. Earlier this year Khama dramatically defected from the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which has ruled the southern African country since it gained independence from Britain in 1966.”
Kenya Kibra By-Election – November 17, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 48.4 million
Kenya’s next general elections are not due until 2022. The August 2017 elections were disputed, and the presidential poll was re-run in October 2017. President Uhuru Kenyatta after opposition leader Raila Odinga encouraged his supporters to boycott the re-run. Kenyan politics is highly polarized with a strong ethnic component.
Kibra constituency is located in Nairobi County and includes Kibera, often called “Africa’s largest slum.” The seat became open when incumbent Ken Okoth died of cancer in July 2019. Okoth was a member of Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
Morris Kiruga, The Africa Report: “Kenya: A win in Kibra by-election could shape the ruling party structure.”
Guinea Legislative – 2019 and Presidential – October 2020 (due)
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 11.9 million
Elections in Guinea routinely see significant delays and have historically been surrounded by ethnic tensions and violence. President Alpha Condé, a former opposition leader who came to power in 2010 following a transition from military to civilian rule, is prevented by the constitution from running for a third term in the presidential polls due in 2020. However, he wants to change the constitution to allow him to do so (which Russia is encouraging because Russian companies have mining interests in Guinea).
The terms of the current legislators expired in January 2019. Condé extended their mandates, and a new election date has not been set. The election commission has proposed holding them on December 28, 2019, but the opposition says the date is not realistic.
Saliou Samb, Reuters: “At least one policeman and a protester were killed on Monday [October 14] during demonstrations in Guinea against a possible change to the constitution that could let President Alpha Conde seek a third term, officials and residents said.
Updated October 15, 2019
DW: “Guinea: Several killed in protests against new constitution: Guinea’s continued crackdown on opposition protests led to several deaths on Monday. Police opened fire on demonstrators opposing a new constitution that could allow President Alpha Conde to run for a third term.”
Boubacar Diallo, AP: “9 dead as Guineans protest president’s bid to extend power….It is not clear how many people have been killed and wounded overall in the protests, which have drawn thousands of people into the streets.”
Burundi Presidential and Legislative – May 20, 2020
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 11.8 million
Burundi’s 12-year civil war ended in 2005, but since then, President Pierre Nkurunziza has turned the country into a dictatorship that former U.N. rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein described as one of “the most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times.” In 2015, Nkurunziza ran for a third term, a move critics said was unconstitutional. Nkurunziza’s decision sparked a political crisis, and the election was marred by violence and a coup attempt. Nkurunziza won. Nonetheless, some opposition lawmakers did take their seats in parliament.
The upcoming elections are taking place in a climate of fear, with citizens, and especially opposition and civil society activists, being terrorized by state security apparatus and the Imbonerakure, a youth militia connected to Nkurunziza’s National Council for the Defense of Democracy–Forces for the Defense of Democracy party (a party that in fact does the opposite of defending democracy). Nkurunziza has said he would step down in 2020, but some are concerned that he will run for a fourth term. There are also fears that Nkurunziza – a former Hutu rebel commander – is ethnicizing the country’s politics, which could reignite conflict.
John Harrington Ndeta, The Star (Kenya): “Burundi’s 2020 election coming up amidst fears of political violence. Not many believe Nkurunziza when he says he won’t run.”
AFP: “Diplomatically isolated and its economy on the skids, Burundi is cautiously reaching out to its opponents in a bid to ease a deepening four-year-old crisis. In the past few days, President Pierre Nkurunziza’s government has met with CNARED—a forum of exiled opposition figures that opposed Nkurunziza’s decision in 2015 to defy constitutional limits and seek a third term in office.”
Ethiopia Parliamentary – Due May 2020
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Federal Parliamentary Republic
Population: 108.4 million
In 1974, communist rebels deposed Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie and instituted the Derg (“Committee”), a Marxist military junta led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, which brought forth famines and a collapse of Ethiopia’s economy. It governed brutally, even genocidally. Following a civil war, the Derg was ousted in 1991 by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of ethnically-based rebel militias. The EPRDF took power and morphed into a coalition of four ethnically-based political parties: Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara Democratic Party (ADP), Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), and Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (SEPDM). In power, EPRDF instituted a controversial ethnically-based federalist system that has led to a current climate of tension and unrest.
EPRDF has held elections regularly, but aside from the 2005 polls, none were competitive or credible. In the last elections, in 2015, the EPRDF won 100 percent of the parliamentary seats. However, following three years of protests, the EPRDF chose reformer Abiy Ahmed as prime minister in 2018. Abiy began a historic process of democratization, including releasing political prisoners, opening up Ethiopia’s previously closed political space, and holding free and fair elections in 2020. However, Ethiopia’s reformers face many obstacles, including entrenched opposition to democracy within EPRDF. However, ongoing ethnic conflict could threaten Abiy’s reforms. Nonetheless, many Ethiopians are hopeful.
Mark Lewis and Elias Meseret, AP: “Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019 in recognition of his efforts to end his country’s long-running border conflict with Eritrea. The Norwegian Nobel Institute on Friday also praised the ‘important reforms’ that Abiy, Ethiopia’s leader since April 2018, has launched at home.”
Terrence Lyons, Foreign Policy: “Abiy’s Nobel Achievements Are Real but Brittle: Ethiopia is on the right course. But there’s much more to be done.”
Côte d’Ivoire Presidential and Legislative – October 31, 2020
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 26.3 million
These elections are taking place in a heated political context, and the personalities gearing up to contest the presidential election have been fixtures in Côte d’Ivoire’s politics since the death of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who served as Côte d’Ivoire’s president from independence in 1960 until his death in 1993.
Until 1999, the country was stable and seen as a model of economic prosperity in the region, but two civil wars – first beginning in1999 and the second ending in 2011 – have created political instability, although the economy remains strong as Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans..
Democratization began in 1990, and Houphouët-Boigny and his Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire – African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) trounced Laurent Gbagbo and the socialist Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in the first multi-party elections that year. Following Houphouët-Boigny’s death, Henri Konan Bédié, then speaker of the National Assembly and a member of PDCI-RDA, became president after a brief struggle with then-Prime Minister Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, a technocrat who had joined PDCI-RDA. Ouattara then took a job abroad with the International Monetary Fund and joined the liberal Rally of Republicans (RDR) party. Bédié was deposed in a military coup in 1999, which kicked off the first civil war.
Houpouët-Boigny’s development of cocoa farming planted the seeds of the conflict. He had a policy of encouraging immigrant laborers from neighboring Burkina Faso, and now Burkinabés, as these families are called, constitute 30 percent of the country’s population. In the mid- and late-1990s, politicians pushed the idea of Ivoirité, a concept that imagines national identity as fundamentally southern and Christian.
Gbagbo lost the 2010 election to Ouattara, but he refused to step down even though the international community recognized Ouattara’s victory. The surrounding violence led to 3,000 deaths and half a million displaced people. Gbagbo was arrested four months after the polls and charged with war crimes (he was acquitted in 2019, but the prosecution is appealing the verdict). In 2015, Ouattara won re-election in relatively peaceful and credible polls. Gbagbo and Bédié had a meeting in Brussels in July 2019 that sparked rumors about a possible alliance ahead of the 2020 elections.
Updated October 16
North Africa Post: “Former Ivorian rebels’ leader Guillaume Soro has announced he will run in next year’s presidential election — the first major politician to do so….Guillaume Soro is seen as Côte d’Ivoire’s youngest and most media-savvy opposition figure. The 47-year-old led the rebels that unsuccessfully attempted to oust former President Laurent Gbagbo in 2002, dividing the country for nearly a decade.”
Aaron Ross, Reuters: “Soro has served in the past as prime minister and speaker of parliament. Analysts say his relative youth and charisma could make him a strong candidate. He also retains the loyalty of many former rebel commanders who now hold senior positions in the national army and control access to large stocks of weapons, analysts say.”
Uganda General – February 2021
Freedom House Rating: Not Free (downgraded from Partly Free this year)
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 40.9 million
President Yoweri Museveni has held power since 1986 and looks likely to seek a sixth term. Musaveni is seen as an ally to Western governments on counterterrorism issues, despite concerns about human rights and civil liberties.
Musaveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), an authoritarian nationalist party, was originally a militia involved in the struggle to topple the government in 1986. In the last presidential election in 2016 (which was marred by an uneven playing field and government use of state resources and security services for political purposes), Kizza Besigye of the main opposition center-right Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) won 35.6 percent, coming in second. NRM holds 293 out of 426 seats in parliament, and FDC holds 36 (other opposition parties hold 21).
For the upcoming elections, 37-year-old pop star Bobi Wine has emerged as a leading opposition candidate. Wine campaigned with the FDC candidate in a recent parliamentary by-election.
Jasmine Andersson, I News (Kenya): “Uganda’s plans to revive LGBTQ death penalty bill branded a ‘political game’ by prominent campaigner”
Bukola Adebayo, CNN: “’Dictators must be resisted’ Popstar Bobi Wine says to Ugandans”
South Sudan General – 2021
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 10.2 million
South Sudan has been struggling since independence in 2011, and has been in an ethnically-based civil war since 2013, when President Salva Kiir and his former vice president, Riek Machar, fell out. A peace deal in 2015 did not end the conflict. In 2018, Kiir and Machar signed another peace agreement, but the implementation has been marred by delays.
The country has not held elections since independence. Kiir had been president of the semi-autonomous region while it was still part of Sudan, and he remained in office following independence. The legislature’s mandate expired in 2015 (it had been elected in 2010, before independence), and has been extended several times. The latest extension goes through May 2022. Kiir and Machar are discussing the formation of a unity government until elections can be held.
Radio Tamazuj: “Machar’s opposition group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In-Opposition (SPLM- IO), on Monday [October 7] expressed its opposition to a unity government on 12 November. Manawa Peter Gatkuoth, deputy spokesman of Machar’s group, told Radio Tamazuj that they reject a push for a new coalition government without addressing challenges facing the 2018 peace deal.”
Updated October 16, 2019
Sam Mednick, AP: “South Sudan’s fragile peace deal is faltering less than a month before the country’s president and armed opposition leader are meant to form a coalition government and begin the long recovery from a five-year civil war. Some doubt it is safe enough for opposition leader Riek Machar to return to the country by Nov. 12, when he would again serve as President Salva Kiir’s deputy, an arrangement that has collapsed in fighting more than once.”
Past Africa Elections
Malawi Parliamentary By-Election in Lilongwe South – November 5, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 19.8 million
A series of protests (which are ongoing) followed Malawi’s May 2019 presidential, legislative, and local elections. Protesters alleged that Peter Mutharika’s re-election was fraudulent, dubbing it the “Tipp-Ex Election” after a popular brand of correction fluid that they allege officials used to change the results. However, the use of Tipp-Ex might not actually have been the smoking gun that it looks like. The opposition is also challenging the election results in court.
Malawi’s last few elections have taken place in a tense political environment, and it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Political parties are weak and based more on personality than ideology. The Lilongwe South by-election is taking place because one of the candidates for the constituency died in the lead-up to the May general elections.
AFP: “Six foreign ambassadors in Malawi on Friday condemned a spate of violent protests that have rocked the country since presidential elections in May, in an unprecedented diplomatic reaction to the crisis….The ambassadors of Britain, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Norway and the United States issued a joint statement on Friday [October 11] condemning ‘any form of violence.’”
South Africa General – May 8, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Free
Government Type: Parliamentary Republic
Population: 55.4 million
Dirk Kotze, The Conversation: “A turbulent transition: South Africa’s opposition party faces a rocky future”
Lester Kiewit and Paddy Harper, Mail and Guardian (South Africa): “The Democratic Alliance’s most important decision- making body — its federal executive — will meet next week to elect a new chairperson, and unpack the party’s disappointing showing in this year’s national elections. A report will also be tabled, which could recommend that its current leadership be removed. The meeting is increasingly being seen as a precursor for a battle for the party leadership in 2021.”
Africa This Week – October 14, 2019
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Last Updated: October 23, 2019 by 21votes
October 14, 2019
Each day, 21votes gathers election news, analysis, and opinions from a different region of the world. We explore Africa elections on Mondays. Click the map pins.
Mozambique Presidential, Legislative, and Provincial – October 15, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 27.2 million
Mozambique’s politics have been dominated by FRELIMO, which has been in power since 1975, when Mozambique became independent, and the main opposition RENAMO. The parties evolved from armed groups that fought a civil war between 1976 and 1992 (and have engaged in clashes since then until an August 2019 peace accord). The Soviet Union backed FRELIMO, while Rhodesia and then apartheid South Africa backed RENAMO.
Mozambique faces an Islamist insurgency in the north and devastation from two tropical cyclones in spring 2019. The country discovered natural gas in 2009, and while major companies are interested in prospecting, it will be a long time before Mozambique sees gas wealth. Russia has ramped up its involvement in Mozambique’s energy and security sectors.
RENAMO disputed the results of the October 2018 local elections, where it received its best-ever result, winning eight of 53 municipalities, but lost several others it had expected to win. RENAMO alleges the losses were due to fraud and irregularities. In the upcoming elections, in addition to voting for president, citizens will elect provincial governors directly for the first time – previously, they had been appointed by the president. A breakaway faction of RENAMO has threatened violence if the elections proceed, but the government has no plans to delay or cancel the polls.
Botswana Parliamentary – October 23, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Free
Government Type: Parliamentary Republic
Population: 2.2 million
Botswana, the world’s second-largest producer of diamonds, is a stable democracy with regular free, fair, credible elections. In 2018, President Ian Khama stepped down exactly 10 years after his inauguration, in keeping with the constitutional limit of two terms in office (his predecessor had done the same thing).
Mokgweetsi Masisi, the former vice president, is filling the role of the presidency until after the elections, when the National Assembly will choose a new president. Khama’s Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) – founded by his father, Seretse Khama – has dominated politics since independence in 1966, but soon after leaving office, Khama left the BDP to support a new party, the Botswana Patriotic Front (BFP), which has ties to the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), Botswana’s main opposition coalition. The split has the opportunity to open up debate on actual policy, but it could devolve into a personal power struggle. There is concern that some of Botswana’s institutions are eroding.
The National Assembly will elect a new president following the parliamentary elections.
Kenya Kibra By-Election – November 17, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 48.4 million
Kenya’s next general elections are not due until 2022. The August 2017 elections were disputed, and the presidential poll was re-run in October 2017. President Uhuru Kenyatta after opposition leader Raila Odinga encouraged his supporters to boycott the re-run. Kenyan politics is highly polarized with a strong ethnic component.
Kibra constituency is located in Nairobi County and includes Kibera, often called “Africa’s largest slum.” The seat became open when incumbent Ken Okoth died of cancer in July 2019. Okoth was a member of Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
Guinea Legislative – 2019 and Presidential – October 2020 (due)
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 11.9 million
Elections in Guinea routinely see significant delays and have historically been surrounded by ethnic tensions and violence. President Alpha Condé, a former opposition leader who came to power in 2010 following a transition from military to civilian rule, is prevented by the constitution from running for a third term in the presidential polls due in 2020. However, he wants to change the constitution to allow him to do so (which Russia is encouraging because Russian companies have mining interests in Guinea).
The terms of the current legislators expired in January 2019. Condé extended their mandates, and a new election date has not been set. The election commission has proposed holding them on December 28, 2019, but the opposition says the date is not realistic.
Burundi Presidential and Legislative – May 20, 2020
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 11.8 million
Burundi’s 12-year civil war ended in 2005, but since then, President Pierre Nkurunziza has turned the country into a dictatorship that former U.N. rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein described as one of “the most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times.” In 2015, Nkurunziza ran for a third term, a move critics said was unconstitutional. Nkurunziza’s decision sparked a political crisis, and the election was marred by violence and a coup attempt. Nkurunziza won. Nonetheless, some opposition lawmakers did take their seats in parliament.
The upcoming elections are taking place in a climate of fear, with citizens, and especially opposition and civil society activists, being terrorized by state security apparatus and the Imbonerakure, a youth militia connected to Nkurunziza’s National Council for the Defense of Democracy–Forces for the Defense of Democracy party (a party that in fact does the opposite of defending democracy). Nkurunziza has said he would step down in 2020, but some are concerned that he will run for a fourth term. There are also fears that Nkurunziza – a former Hutu rebel commander – is ethnicizing the country’s politics, which could reignite conflict.
Ethiopia Parliamentary – Due May 2020
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Federal Parliamentary Republic
Population: 108.4 million
In 1974, communist rebels deposed Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie and instituted the Derg (“Committee”), a Marxist military junta led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, which brought forth famines and a collapse of Ethiopia’s economy. It governed brutally, even genocidally. Following a civil war, the Derg was ousted in 1991 by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of ethnically-based rebel militias. The EPRDF took power and morphed into a coalition of four ethnically-based political parties: Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara Democratic Party (ADP), Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), and Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (SEPDM). In power, EPRDF instituted a controversial ethnically-based federalist system that has led to a current climate of tension and unrest.
EPRDF has held elections regularly, but aside from the 2005 polls, none were competitive or credible. In the last elections, in 2015, the EPRDF won 100 percent of the parliamentary seats. However, following three years of protests, the EPRDF chose reformer Abiy Ahmed as prime minister in 2018. Abiy began a historic process of democratization, including releasing political prisoners, opening up Ethiopia’s previously closed political space, and holding free and fair elections in 2020. However, Ethiopia’s reformers face many obstacles, including entrenched opposition to democracy within EPRDF. However, ongoing ethnic conflict could threaten Abiy’s reforms. Nonetheless, many Ethiopians are hopeful.
Côte d’Ivoire Presidential and Legislative – October 31, 2020
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 26.3 million
These elections are taking place in a heated political context, and the personalities gearing up to contest the presidential election have been fixtures in Côte d’Ivoire’s politics since the death of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who served as Côte d’Ivoire’s president from independence in 1960 until his death in 1993.
Until 1999, the country was stable and seen as a model of economic prosperity in the region, but two civil wars – first beginning in1999 and the second ending in 2011 – have created political instability, although the economy remains strong as Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans..
Democratization began in 1990, and Houphouët-Boigny and his Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire – African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) trounced Laurent Gbagbo and the socialist Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in the first multi-party elections that year. Following Houphouët-Boigny’s death, Henri Konan Bédié, then speaker of the National Assembly and a member of PDCI-RDA, became president after a brief struggle with then-Prime Minister Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, a technocrat who had joined PDCI-RDA. Ouattara then took a job abroad with the International Monetary Fund and joined the liberal Rally of Republicans (RDR) party. Bédié was deposed in a military coup in 1999, which kicked off the first civil war.
Houpouët-Boigny’s development of cocoa farming planted the seeds of the conflict. He had a policy of encouraging immigrant laborers from neighboring Burkina Faso, and now Burkinabés, as these families are called, constitute 30 percent of the country’s population. In the mid- and late-1990s, politicians pushed the idea of Ivoirité, a concept that imagines national identity as fundamentally southern and Christian.
Gbagbo lost the 2010 election to Ouattara, but he refused to step down even though the international community recognized Ouattara’s victory. The surrounding violence led to 3,000 deaths and half a million displaced people. Gbagbo was arrested four months after the polls and charged with war crimes (he was acquitted in 2019, but the prosecution is appealing the verdict). In 2015, Ouattara won re-election in relatively peaceful and credible polls. Gbagbo and Bédié had a meeting in Brussels in July 2019 that sparked rumors about a possible alliance ahead of the 2020 elections.
Uganda General – February 2021
Freedom House Rating: Not Free (downgraded from Partly Free this year)
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 40.9 million
President Yoweri Museveni has held power since 1986 and looks likely to seek a sixth term. Musaveni is seen as an ally to Western governments on counterterrorism issues, despite concerns about human rights and civil liberties.
Musaveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), an authoritarian nationalist party, was originally a militia involved in the struggle to topple the government in 1986. In the last presidential election in 2016 (which was marred by an uneven playing field and government use of state resources and security services for political purposes), Kizza Besigye of the main opposition center-right Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) won 35.6 percent, coming in second. NRM holds 293 out of 426 seats in parliament, and FDC holds 36 (other opposition parties hold 21).
For the upcoming elections, 37-year-old pop star Bobi Wine has emerged as a leading opposition candidate. Wine campaigned with the FDC candidate in a recent parliamentary by-election.
South Sudan General – 2021
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 10.2 million
South Sudan has been struggling since independence in 2011, and has been in an ethnically-based civil war since 2013, when President Salva Kiir and his former vice president, Riek Machar, fell out. A peace deal in 2015 did not end the conflict. In 2018, Kiir and Machar signed another peace agreement, but the implementation has been marred by delays.
The country has not held elections since independence. Kiir had been president of the semi-autonomous region while it was still part of Sudan, and he remained in office following independence. The legislature’s mandate expired in 2015 (it had been elected in 2010, before independence), and has been extended several times. The latest extension goes through May 2022. Kiir and Machar are discussing the formation of a unity government until elections can be held.
Malawi Parliamentary By-Election in Lilongwe South – November 5, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 19.8 million
A series of protests (which are ongoing) followed Malawi’s May 2019 presidential, legislative, and local elections. Protesters alleged that Peter Mutharika’s re-election was fraudulent, dubbing it the “Tipp-Ex Election” after a popular brand of correction fluid that they allege officials used to change the results. However, the use of Tipp-Ex might not actually have been the smoking gun that it looks like. The opposition is also challenging the election results in court.
Malawi’s last few elections have taken place in a tense political environment, and it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Political parties are weak and based more on personality than ideology. The Lilongwe South by-election is taking place because one of the candidates for the constituency died in the lead-up to the May general elections.
South Africa General – May 8, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Free
Government Type: Parliamentary Republic
Population: 55.4 million
Upcoming Africa Elections
Mozambique Presidential, Legislative, and Provincial – October 15, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 27.2 million
Mozambique’s politics have been dominated by FRELIMO, which has been in power since 1975, when Mozambique became independent, and the main opposition RENAMO. The parties evolved from armed groups that fought a civil war between 1976 and 1992 (and have engaged in clashes since then until an August 2019 peace accord). The Soviet Union backed FRELIMO, while Rhodesia and then apartheid South Africa backed RENAMO.
Mozambique faces an Islamist insurgency in the north and devastation from two tropical cyclones in spring 2019. The country discovered natural gas in 2009, and while major companies are interested in prospecting, it will be a long time before Mozambique sees gas wealth. Russia has ramped up its involvement in Mozambique’s energy and security sectors.
RENAMO disputed the results of the October 2018 local elections, where it received its best-ever result, winning eight of 53 municipalities, but lost several others it had expected to win. RENAMO alleges the losses were due to fraud and irregularities. In the upcoming elections, in addition to voting for president, citizens will elect provincial governors directly for the first time – previously, they had been appointed by the president. A breakaway faction of RENAMO has threatened violence if the elections proceed, but the government has no plans to delay or cancel the polls.
The Economist: “A violent election in Mozambique threatens a hard-won peace: Conflicts old and new have dashed hopes of a free, fair and peaceful vote.”
Updated October 15
AP: “Polls opened across Mozambique on Tuesday, with 13 million voters registered to cast ballots in presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections seen as key to consolidating peace in the southern African nation.”
Zenaida Machado, Human Rights Watch: “Insecurity in Mozambique Leaves Thousands Unable to Vote: Authorities Fail to Ensure All Voters Can Cast Ballots”
Al Jazeera: “Mozambique counts votes after polls seen as test of peace deal: Acceptance of presidential, legislative and provincial polls seen as key test of ceasefire deal signed in August.”
The Africa Report: “Mozambique’s bloody election holds no surprises: The brutal murder of an election observer ahead of Mozambique’s 15 October poll is the jagged point of faultlines that run deep into the country’s history.”
Botswana Parliamentary – October 23, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Free
Government Type: Parliamentary Republic
Population: 2.2 million
Botswana, the world’s second-largest producer of diamonds, is a stable democracy with regular free, fair, credible elections. In 2018, President Ian Khama stepped down exactly 10 years after his inauguration, in keeping with the constitutional limit of two terms in office (his predecessor had done the same thing).
Mokgweetsi Masisi, the former vice president, is filling the role of the presidency until after the elections, when the National Assembly will choose a new president. Khama’s Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) – founded by his father, Seretse Khama – has dominated politics since independence in 1966, but soon after leaving office, Khama left the BDP to support a new party, the Botswana Patriotic Front (BFP), which has ties to the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), Botswana’s main opposition coalition. The split has the opportunity to open up debate on actual policy, but it could devolve into a personal power struggle. There is concern that some of Botswana’s institutions are eroding.
The National Assembly will elect a new president following the parliamentary elections.
Mqondisi Dube, Voice of America: “Botswana Braces for High-Stakes Election Later This Month”
AFP: “Botswana’s influential former president Ian Khama on Sunday [October 13] threw his weight behind the opposition, a fierce critic of his when he was leader, in a bid to oust his handpicked successor in the country’s upcoming elections. Earlier this year Khama dramatically defected from the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which has ruled the southern African country since it gained independence from Britain in 1966.”
Kenya Kibra By-Election – November 17, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 48.4 million
Kenya’s next general elections are not due until 2022. The August 2017 elections were disputed, and the presidential poll was re-run in October 2017. President Uhuru Kenyatta after opposition leader Raila Odinga encouraged his supporters to boycott the re-run. Kenyan politics is highly polarized with a strong ethnic component.
Kibra constituency is located in Nairobi County and includes Kibera, often called “Africa’s largest slum.” The seat became open when incumbent Ken Okoth died of cancer in July 2019. Okoth was a member of Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).
Morris Kiruga, The Africa Report: “Kenya: A win in Kibra by-election could shape the ruling party structure.”
Guinea Legislative – 2019 and Presidential – October 2020 (due)
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 11.9 million
Elections in Guinea routinely see significant delays and have historically been surrounded by ethnic tensions and violence. President Alpha Condé, a former opposition leader who came to power in 2010 following a transition from military to civilian rule, is prevented by the constitution from running for a third term in the presidential polls due in 2020. However, he wants to change the constitution to allow him to do so (which Russia is encouraging because Russian companies have mining interests in Guinea).
The terms of the current legislators expired in January 2019. Condé extended their mandates, and a new election date has not been set. The election commission has proposed holding them on December 28, 2019, but the opposition says the date is not realistic.
Saliou Samb, Reuters: “At least one policeman and a protester were killed on Monday [October 14] during demonstrations in Guinea against a possible change to the constitution that could let President Alpha Conde seek a third term, officials and residents said.
Updated October 15, 2019
DW: “Guinea: Several killed in protests against new constitution: Guinea’s continued crackdown on opposition protests led to several deaths on Monday. Police opened fire on demonstrators opposing a new constitution that could allow President Alpha Conde to run for a third term.”
Boubacar Diallo, AP: “9 dead as Guineans protest president’s bid to extend power….It is not clear how many people have been killed and wounded overall in the protests, which have drawn thousands of people into the streets.”
Burundi Presidential and Legislative – May 20, 2020
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 11.8 million
Burundi’s 12-year civil war ended in 2005, but since then, President Pierre Nkurunziza has turned the country into a dictatorship that former U.N. rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein described as one of “the most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times.” In 2015, Nkurunziza ran for a third term, a move critics said was unconstitutional. Nkurunziza’s decision sparked a political crisis, and the election was marred by violence and a coup attempt. Nkurunziza won. Nonetheless, some opposition lawmakers did take their seats in parliament.
The upcoming elections are taking place in a climate of fear, with citizens, and especially opposition and civil society activists, being terrorized by state security apparatus and the Imbonerakure, a youth militia connected to Nkurunziza’s National Council for the Defense of Democracy–Forces for the Defense of Democracy party (a party that in fact does the opposite of defending democracy). Nkurunziza has said he would step down in 2020, but some are concerned that he will run for a fourth term. There are also fears that Nkurunziza – a former Hutu rebel commander – is ethnicizing the country’s politics, which could reignite conflict.
John Harrington Ndeta, The Star (Kenya): “Burundi’s 2020 election coming up amidst fears of political violence. Not many believe Nkurunziza when he says he won’t run.”
AFP: “Diplomatically isolated and its economy on the skids, Burundi is cautiously reaching out to its opponents in a bid to ease a deepening four-year-old crisis. In the past few days, President Pierre Nkurunziza’s government has met with CNARED—a forum of exiled opposition figures that opposed Nkurunziza’s decision in 2015 to defy constitutional limits and seek a third term in office.”
Ethiopia Parliamentary – Due May 2020
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Federal Parliamentary Republic
Population: 108.4 million
In 1974, communist rebels deposed Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie and instituted the Derg (“Committee”), a Marxist military junta led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, which brought forth famines and a collapse of Ethiopia’s economy. It governed brutally, even genocidally. Following a civil war, the Derg was ousted in 1991 by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of ethnically-based rebel militias. The EPRDF took power and morphed into a coalition of four ethnically-based political parties: Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara Democratic Party (ADP), Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), and Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (SEPDM). In power, EPRDF instituted a controversial ethnically-based federalist system that has led to a current climate of tension and unrest.
EPRDF has held elections regularly, but aside from the 2005 polls, none were competitive or credible. In the last elections, in 2015, the EPRDF won 100 percent of the parliamentary seats. However, following three years of protests, the EPRDF chose reformer Abiy Ahmed as prime minister in 2018. Abiy began a historic process of democratization, including releasing political prisoners, opening up Ethiopia’s previously closed political space, and holding free and fair elections in 2020. However, Ethiopia’s reformers face many obstacles, including entrenched opposition to democracy within EPRDF. However, ongoing ethnic conflict could threaten Abiy’s reforms. Nonetheless, many Ethiopians are hopeful.
Mark Lewis and Elias Meseret, AP: “Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019 in recognition of his efforts to end his country’s long-running border conflict with Eritrea. The Norwegian Nobel Institute on Friday also praised the ‘important reforms’ that Abiy, Ethiopia’s leader since April 2018, has launched at home.”
Terrence Lyons, Foreign Policy: “Abiy’s Nobel Achievements Are Real but Brittle: Ethiopia is on the right course. But there’s much more to be done.”
Côte d’Ivoire Presidential and Legislative – October 31, 2020
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 26.3 million
These elections are taking place in a heated political context, and the personalities gearing up to contest the presidential election have been fixtures in Côte d’Ivoire’s politics since the death of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who served as Côte d’Ivoire’s president from independence in 1960 until his death in 1993.
Until 1999, the country was stable and seen as a model of economic prosperity in the region, but two civil wars – first beginning in1999 and the second ending in 2011 – have created political instability, although the economy remains strong as Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cocoa beans..
Democratization began in 1990, and Houphouët-Boigny and his Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire – African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) trounced Laurent Gbagbo and the socialist Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in the first multi-party elections that year. Following Houphouët-Boigny’s death, Henri Konan Bédié, then speaker of the National Assembly and a member of PDCI-RDA, became president after a brief struggle with then-Prime Minister Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, a technocrat who had joined PDCI-RDA. Ouattara then took a job abroad with the International Monetary Fund and joined the liberal Rally of Republicans (RDR) party. Bédié was deposed in a military coup in 1999, which kicked off the first civil war.
Houpouët-Boigny’s development of cocoa farming planted the seeds of the conflict. He had a policy of encouraging immigrant laborers from neighboring Burkina Faso, and now Burkinabés, as these families are called, constitute 30 percent of the country’s population. In the mid- and late-1990s, politicians pushed the idea of Ivoirité, a concept that imagines national identity as fundamentally southern and Christian.
Gbagbo lost the 2010 election to Ouattara, but he refused to step down even though the international community recognized Ouattara’s victory. The surrounding violence led to 3,000 deaths and half a million displaced people. Gbagbo was arrested four months after the polls and charged with war crimes (he was acquitted in 2019, but the prosecution is appealing the verdict). In 2015, Ouattara won re-election in relatively peaceful and credible polls. Gbagbo and Bédié had a meeting in Brussels in July 2019 that sparked rumors about a possible alliance ahead of the 2020 elections.
Updated October 16
North Africa Post: “Former Ivorian rebels’ leader Guillaume Soro has announced he will run in next year’s presidential election — the first major politician to do so….Guillaume Soro is seen as Côte d’Ivoire’s youngest and most media-savvy opposition figure. The 47-year-old led the rebels that unsuccessfully attempted to oust former President Laurent Gbagbo in 2002, dividing the country for nearly a decade.”
Aaron Ross, Reuters: “Soro has served in the past as prime minister and speaker of parliament. Analysts say his relative youth and charisma could make him a strong candidate. He also retains the loyalty of many former rebel commanders who now hold senior positions in the national army and control access to large stocks of weapons, analysts say.”
Uganda General – February 2021
Freedom House Rating: Not Free (downgraded from Partly Free this year)
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 40.9 million
President Yoweri Museveni has held power since 1986 and looks likely to seek a sixth term. Musaveni is seen as an ally to Western governments on counterterrorism issues, despite concerns about human rights and civil liberties.
Musaveni’s National Resistance Movement (NRM), an authoritarian nationalist party, was originally a militia involved in the struggle to topple the government in 1986. In the last presidential election in 2016 (which was marred by an uneven playing field and government use of state resources and security services for political purposes), Kizza Besigye of the main opposition center-right Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) won 35.6 percent, coming in second. NRM holds 293 out of 426 seats in parliament, and FDC holds 36 (other opposition parties hold 21).
For the upcoming elections, 37-year-old pop star Bobi Wine has emerged as a leading opposition candidate. Wine campaigned with the FDC candidate in a recent parliamentary by-election.
Jasmine Andersson, I News (Kenya): “Uganda’s plans to revive LGBTQ death penalty bill branded a ‘political game’ by prominent campaigner”
Bukola Adebayo, CNN: “’Dictators must be resisted’ Popstar Bobi Wine says to Ugandans”
South Sudan General – 2021
Freedom House Rating: Not Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 10.2 million
South Sudan has been struggling since independence in 2011, and has been in an ethnically-based civil war since 2013, when President Salva Kiir and his former vice president, Riek Machar, fell out. A peace deal in 2015 did not end the conflict. In 2018, Kiir and Machar signed another peace agreement, but the implementation has been marred by delays.
The country has not held elections since independence. Kiir had been president of the semi-autonomous region while it was still part of Sudan, and he remained in office following independence. The legislature’s mandate expired in 2015 (it had been elected in 2010, before independence), and has been extended several times. The latest extension goes through May 2022. Kiir and Machar are discussing the formation of a unity government until elections can be held.
Radio Tamazuj: “Machar’s opposition group, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In-Opposition (SPLM- IO), on Monday [October 7] expressed its opposition to a unity government on 12 November. Manawa Peter Gatkuoth, deputy spokesman of Machar’s group, told Radio Tamazuj that they reject a push for a new coalition government without addressing challenges facing the 2018 peace deal.”
Updated October 16, 2019
Sam Mednick, AP: “South Sudan’s fragile peace deal is faltering less than a month before the country’s president and armed opposition leader are meant to form a coalition government and begin the long recovery from a five-year civil war. Some doubt it is safe enough for opposition leader Riek Machar to return to the country by Nov. 12, when he would again serve as President Salva Kiir’s deputy, an arrangement that has collapsed in fighting more than once.”
Past Africa Elections
Malawi Parliamentary By-Election in Lilongwe South – November 5, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Partly Free
Government Type: Presidential Republic
Population: 19.8 million
A series of protests (which are ongoing) followed Malawi’s May 2019 presidential, legislative, and local elections. Protesters alleged that Peter Mutharika’s re-election was fraudulent, dubbing it the “Tipp-Ex Election” after a popular brand of correction fluid that they allege officials used to change the results. However, the use of Tipp-Ex might not actually have been the smoking gun that it looks like. The opposition is also challenging the election results in court.
Malawi’s last few elections have taken place in a tense political environment, and it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Political parties are weak and based more on personality than ideology. The Lilongwe South by-election is taking place because one of the candidates for the constituency died in the lead-up to the May general elections.
AFP: “Six foreign ambassadors in Malawi on Friday condemned a spate of violent protests that have rocked the country since presidential elections in May, in an unprecedented diplomatic reaction to the crisis….The ambassadors of Britain, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Norway and the United States issued a joint statement on Friday [October 11] condemning ‘any form of violence.’”
South Africa General – May 8, 2019
Freedom House Rating: Free
Government Type: Parliamentary Republic
Population: 55.4 million
Dirk Kotze, The Conversation: “A turbulent transition: South Africa’s opposition party faces a rocky future”
Lester Kiewit and Paddy Harper, Mail and Guardian (South Africa): “The Democratic Alliance’s most important decision- making body — its federal executive — will meet next week to elect a new chairperson, and unpack the party’s disappointing showing in this year’s national elections. A report will also be tabled, which could recommend that its current leadership be removed. The meeting is increasingly being seen as a precursor for a battle for the party leadership in 2021.”
The Year Ahead: Africa Elections
Guinea legislative (overdue – mandates of current legislators expired January 13 – date not set for new elections); Chad legislative (originally due in 2015 but have been delayed several times – unclear when they will. actually happen); Cameroon parliamentary (due October but delayed – new date not set); Mozambique presidential, legislative, provincial (October 15); Botswana parliamentary (October 23); Somalia, Somaliland congressional and local (November 1, 2019 – postponed, new date not set); Malawi parliamentary by-elections (November 5); Mauritius parliamentary (November 7); Kenya parliamentary by-election in Kibra (November 7); Nigeria Kogi and Bayelsa state, plus Niger State local government (November 16); Guinea-Bissau presidential (November 24); Namibia presidential and legislative (November 27); Madagascar local (November 27); Guinea-Bissau presidential runoff (December 8); Cameroon parliamentary and local (early 2020 – postponed from October 2019); Comoros parliamentary (January); Togo presidential (April); Ethiopia parliamentary (May); Burundi presidential and legislative (May 20); Mali Parliamentary (due June but postponed indefinitely)
Campaign signs for the ruling Frelimo in the central market in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, in 2009. Photo credit: Wikimedia/Rosino (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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Category: This Week Tags: Botswana, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda