Shackled voices, inflated votes: Is democracy under threat in Africa?

Tanzania’s sham presidential election held last week, through which President Samia Suluhu secured a second term with nearly 98 per cent of the vote, once again highlighted the struggle between pro- and anti-democracy forces in Africa.

Among the youth, who dominate the continent’s demography, there is a renewed drive to advocate democratic principles and resist growing inequality. Protests across Kenya, Morocco, Madagascar, and Tanzania have been driven as much by unemployment as democratic idealism.

In Kenya, demonstrations against President William Ruto, initially protesting proposed tax increases but which morphed into broader calls for better governance, were driven by the belief that citizens have the right to exercise their democratic power, as enshrined in the constitution.

“The Gen-Z are fighting for their space. They have been oppressed and stayed quiet for too long until their dissatisfaction blew up. I don’t see them stopping until they achieve change,” said Dr Timothy Onduru, who teaches history at Moi University.

This agitation has not gone well with the continent’s leadership, desperate to cling to power in the face of the wave of youth-led dissent. Among this crop, the continent’s leadership, democracy seems to be going out of style. They mostly view the protests as attempts to depose them through ‘undemocratic’ means. Dr Ruto’s administration has shunned Generation Z protesters who participated in demos mid this year and last year as “treasonous.”

That is largely the same message coming from Tanzania, whose president has faced widespread criticism for stifling dissent and has been labelled an “autocrat.” Such fears emerge from the different uprisings that have forced unpopular regimes out of power, the latest being in Madagascar.

Tanzania’s electoral commission reported an unprecedented 87 per cent voter turnout in last week’s election despite evidence of low turnout countrywide and amid disruptions that suppressed it further.

Suluhu, 65, reportedly secured some 32 million votes in a country whose total registered voters number is 36 million, a figure observers argued was significantly inflated, casting doubt on the very legitimacy of that election.

In their preliminary report, observers from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) took note of the low turnout, noting that some polling stations had more police officers than voters, with others lacking voters, and found evidence of ballot stuffing.

“The Mission observed that in some polling stations, there were multiple orderly stacked ballots in the ballot box during voting, which created a perception of ballot stuffing, and an impression that individual(s) cast more than one vote at a time with the intention to cheat the election system,” said Richard Msowoya, the head of SADC mission, who also highlighted the harassment of observers, who “were forced to delete mission-related photographs from their official gadgets.”

A countrywide  internet shutdown made it difficult for them to relay the situation on the ground, as it aided, to some extent, the masking of the atrocities committed by Tanzania’s security forces, the most gruesome of which was the reported killings of hundreds of protesters, as seen in the images emerging from the East African nation.

As Tanzania’s election came and went, competition, a tenet of democratic principles, was shunned. Suluhu’s main competitor, Tundu Lissu of the Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) remained jailed facing treason charges for demanding reforms before the October 29, elections.

The other major contender, Luhaga Mpina of the Alliance for Change and Transparency-Wazalendo (ACT-Wazalendo), had his candidature blocked by Tanzania’s electoral body in violation of two court orders.

The electoral commission appeared to be subservient to Suluhu, as Maria Sarungi, a Tanzanian activist based in Kenya, implied when she stated that Suluhu was “forcing the electoral commission to announce fictitious results” ahead of the official announcement.

A speech by former United States President Barack Obama, delivered in South Africa seven years ago and widely shared recently, resonates with Tanzania’s situation.

“We have to stop pretending that countries that hold elections where sometimes the winner, magically, gets 90 per cent of the vote because all the opposition is locked up or can’t get on TV, is a democracy,” he had said.

As she was sworn  into her second term in office on Monday, Suluhu would celebrate the sham election as free and fair. As democratic. It mattered little that the SADC had shunned it as falling short of the body’s “principles and guidelines governing democratic elections.”

It mattered less that the main opposition party,  Chadema had said it did not recognise her legitimacy, as a growing number of Tanzanians expressed similar views on social media platforms.

“We need to fight for our country,” a young man shouts in one viral video clip, which The Standard could not independently verify, as other young men join. “Why (do) you kill us? Why (do) you kill us?”

The situation is not unique to Tanzania. In Cameroon, President Paul Biya, 92, recently extended his 43-year rule by another seven years, winning a heavily disputed election.

In 2023, Madagascar’s deposed President Andry Rajoelina secured a controversial third term in an election the opposition boycotted.

In 2027, in Kenya, the late Raila Odinga sat out a repeat election that saw former President Uhuru Kenyatta re-elected with 98 per cent of the vote. Raila refused to go into the election, presided over a commission that bungled the original one.

Uganda, which heads to the polls next year, has had its fair share of alleged bungled polls, which have kept President Yoweri Museveni in power since 1986. “Most African presidents don’t want democracy,” said Dr Onduru, the historian. “They want to stay in power forever. That is their undoing.”

Democracy has long been sold as imperfect, but better than the alternative – anarchy. But the sustained coups in several African states and the rise in autocracy have put into question the commitment of African countries to democratic principles.

That owes to many factors, which include the fact that the West has largely withdrawn its focus on Africa, as argued by Tom Mboya, a governance consultant. “Countries that would have stepped in are battling their own demons… and they lack the moral authority given the turmoil in their countries,” he said.