Upcoming Elections in Africa

Author: James Croll

In 2024, the global political landscape is marked by pivotal elections; the anticipated rematch

between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the United Kingdom's general election, and India's

general election. Africa is also hosting a number of elections this year, which will likely play a

seminal role in shaping regional and international politics. Let’s take a closer look at three of the

most important elections happening this year on the continent: elections in Ghana, Senegal,

and South Africa.

The Ghanaian Presidential Election is scheduled to take place on December 7th, 2024. The

incumbent President, Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), is term-limited and

ineligible to run for reelection. Ghana is a prime example of a successful African democracy,

with this upcoming election representing the fifth consecutive peaceful presidential succession

since the formation of the Ghanaian Fourth Republic in 1992.

There are two main political parties in Ghana: the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National

Democratic Congress (NDC). The market-oriented center-right NPP is associated with the

Akans, Ghana’s largest ethnolinguistic group with over 47% of the country’s population

(including the prominent Ashanti and Akim subgroups). This party has enjoyed great electoral

success in Southern Ghana with most of its base in Ashanti and Eastern Provinces. Meanwhile,

the economically populist and center-left NDC is heavily associated with the Ewe ethnic

subgroup of its founder, former President John Rawlings. This group enjoys the support of the

Volta Region, along with many smaller ethnic groups in northern Ghana.

While ethnicity plays a major role in the makeup of the two main Ghanaian political parties,

there are also demographic factors at play; the NPP tends to attract well-educated, wealthy

urban voters while the NDC appeals to less-educated, economically disadvantaged rural voters.

In Ghana, presidential elections are held every four years in a two-round system (if no

candidate reaches 50% of the vote in the first round of voting, then the top two candidates enter

a runoff election). The two major candidates for the 2024 elections are Vice President

Mamamudu Bawumia of the NPP and Former President John Mahama of the NDC. Bawumia,

the current Vice President of Ghana, serving alongside President Akufo-Addo, was former

Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ghana and has run alongside Akufo-Addo in every

election since 2008. His opponent is John Mahama, former President of Ghana from 2012-2017

(ascending from the position of vice president after the death of President John Atta Mills in

office). He was replaced by the current President after narrowly losing reelection the previous

year. Mahama is a Christian from the Northwest of Ghana, who says he was inspired to join

politics after the death of the Ghanaian Pan-African political icon Kwame Nkrumah, who served

as the first Prime Minister of the fledgling nation after decolonization in the 1960s.

There are two other less popular notable candidates in the race: Alan John Kyerematen, former

NPP Minister under President John Kuofor’s administration in the 2000s, has split from his

former party and established the Movement for Change to back his presidential campaign. The

other candidate, Nana Kwame Bediako (also known as Cheddar) gained notoriety for appearing

as a masked figure on billboards around the country announcing a run for president under the

New Force Party. This election is expected to be highly competitive between Bawumia and

Mahama just like the previous presidential contests with several pertinent issues defining the

political battlefield. Due to factors such as the COVID pandemic, the disruption of grain and

other supply networks from the Russia-Ukraine War, and financial irresponsibility, Ghana has

faced massive inflation that has required an emergency 3 billion dollar IMF bailout, which has

been a large point of attack against the incumbent NPP. Additionally, violent extremist

organizations in the Sahel have grown in both power and lethality, sparking fears of violence

spilling into Ghana through its northern border with Burkina Faso. Government officials have

been forced to be proactive and engage with border communities to counter anti-government

messaging spread by these organizations.

Finally, the 2023 coups and subsequent suspension of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from

ECOWAS (the economic and political cooperation agreement between West African nations)

has put additional stress on the Ghanaian leadership to protect their citizens from external

pressures and maintain their status as one of the most democratic and equitable states in the

region. It is too early for high-quality polls, but the evidence suggests that the various economic

and political factors will put the NPP on the defensive (not to mention the siphoning of voters

from former NPP politician Kyerematen’s candidacy). Ghanaians are already intimately familiar

with both candidates and their policies, so time will tell whether they choose to extend the rule

of the NPP or allow Mahama to return to his former position as President of Ghana.

Senegal will be electing its next President on March 24, 2024. Senegal has served as a shining

example of a successful West African democracy, as the country is the only West African nation

never to suffer a coup d'etat since gaining independence in 1960 and one of the few African

nations to have peaceful transitions of power since the early 1990s. However, this cycle, that

tradition came dangerously close to being broken by outgoing incumbent President Macky Sall

of the Alliance for the Republic Party (APR). The presidential election, originally scheduled for

the 25th of February of this year, was indefinitely postponed by presidential decree on February

3rd. This sparked public outrage, with protestors and prominent political opposition figures

accusing Sall of acting in a dictatorial and self-interested way to extend his term of office and

initiating a “soft coup” against Senegal and its democratic norms. Sall relented after a month of

violent protests, political chaos, and the resignation of several prominent leadership figures in

his party, setting the new date of the first round of the election on March 24th.

These events occurred only a month after the Senegalese Constitution Council barred over 25

major opposition candidates from running for President. Some of the prominent candidates

banned include Karim Wade, a former minister and son of former President Abdoulaye Wade

(2000-2012), and Ousmane Sonko, leader of the opposition and one of the most controversial

political figures in the nation. Originally a tax collector, Sonko gained notoriety in Senegal for

acting as a whistle-blower against offshore tax havens. In 2018, Sonko published Solutions, a

political manifesto in which he called for transformative reform of the Senegalese political and

civil societies including a call to replace the franc with a new domestic currency. He contested

the 2019 Presidential election, placing third with 16% compared to Sall’s dominant 58% re-

election victory. In 2021, Sonko founded the current major opposition coalition known as Yewwi

Askan Wi (YAW or Free the People in English), which experienced a sizable electoral victory in

the 2022 local elections and was one seat away from a majority within the National Assembly.

However, Sonko was detained in early 2021 due to sexual assault allegations, leading to mass

protests across the nation claiming that the charges were politically motivated. In 2023, Sonko

was again accused of “disturbing the public order” and “corrupting youth,” sentencing him in

absentia to two years of imprisonment which led to mass protests and chaos due to the

implication that he would be barred from contesting the upcoming election.

A great deal of the current political strife in Senegal is between allies of President Sall’s faction

and those in Sonko’s faction establishing the foundation for the battlefield of the 2024 elections

in which neither political figure is running. President Sall, initially elected in 2012, is the leader

of the Benno Bokk Yakaar (BBY or United in Hope in English) parliamentary coalition and

leader of the Alliance for the Republic Party (APR). The BBY is known for its liberal policy and

focus on serving Western business interests, but in recent years has become increasingly

known for rampant corruption and public sector graft. Sall’s chosen successor is Amadou Ba,

the current prime minister with history as a financial and foreign minister picked to serve as a

unifying candidate for the APR. The major opposition coalition founded by Sonko, Liberate the

People, is comprised of PASTEF (Sonko’s party which was banned when he was convicted),

and several smaller parties including Manko Taxawu Senegal, led by former Mayor of Dakar

(from 2009-2019) Khalifa Ababacar Sall. Sall has been an outspoken opponent of President

Macky Sall (no relation) and the BBY coalition, prompting the YAW to select him as their chosen

candidate for the 2024 elections due to the removal of Sonko and Wade from the ballot. Former

Mayor Sall was sentenced to five years in jail in 2018 for embezzlement of funds, preventing

him from contesting the February 2019 election, but he was later pardoned by President Sall

after demonstrating that the conviction was likely to remove a prominent political opponent from

the ballot. Additionally, Wallu Senegal, the alliance led by the now 97-year-old former President

Abdoulaye Wade, entered an alliance with the YAW in order to form a majority after the results

of the 2022 election. The third main candidate in the upcoming election is Idrissa Seck, a former

protege of President Wade who grew disillusioned with his party before founding his own known

as Rewmi (Wolof for “the country”). Seck ran against his former mentor in 2012, endorsing

President Seck in the runoff against Wade, and ran again in 2019, coming in second place with

just above 20% of the vote. Seck has spoken out against President Sall in recent months,

advocating for Ousmane Sonko’s right to stand as a candidate and coming out in favor of Sall

not running for reelection.

In addition to the political chaos, the three presidential candidates must deal with the major

economic crisis Senegal faces along with many other African nations; high inflation and food

prices have greatly increased the cost of living leaving a majority of Senegalese unhappy with

their government’s handling of the economy. Additionally, the recent political turmoil has likely

undermined support for the ruling BBY coalition, with polls suggesting only 60% of Sall’s 2019

voters are planning to vote for the BBY’s candidate Amadou Ba in this upcoming election.

However, it isn’t all bad news: Senegal is planning to launch oil and gas production later this

year, the administration of which has been of great debate between the candidates. While there

isn’t reliable polling data for this election yet, the momentum against the incumbent coalition

alongside the popular support for Ousmane Sonko’s oppositionist politics may very well result in

the fall of the BBY from their decade-plus long control of the Senegalese presidency.

The South African general election of a new National Assembly and President is scheduled for

May 29th, 2024. The governmental structure of South Africa is unique, as the parliamentary

legislature in the National Assembly directly elects the President through majority vote (who

serves as head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief). Since the abolition of

Apartheid in 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) has had thirty years of an

uninterrupted majority in the National Assembly, with civil-rights and anti-Apartheid activist

Nelson Mandela serving as the first President through most of the 1990s. After Mandela came

Thabo Mbeki, his handpicked successor and another ANC anti-apartheid advocate in the years

leading up to the abolition of the practice. Mbeki served almost two full terms before being

ousted by the leadership of the ANC due to allegations of improper interference in the state

prosecution of Jacob Zuma, his deputy president who was charged with corruption in a highly

publicized trial in 2006. Zuma led Mbeki’s ousting at the 2007 ANC elective conference, which

gave him the political momentum to run a successful campaign for president in 2009. While

Mbeki represented the neoliberal moderate wing of the ANC, Zuma was an avowed leftist and

populist, proposing major structural and political reform through land expropriation without

compensation and maneuvering South Africa closer to Russia and China through its

membership in BRICS, the geopolitical organization with the aforementioned nations alongside

Brazil and India. Zuma served from 2009 to 2018, when he resigned due to the threat of a no-

confidence vote by the National Assembly over corruption allegations. He was replaced by Cyril

Ramaphosa, his deputy president who has served from 2018 to the present day.

Ramaphosa rose to prominence as secretary general of South Africa’s largest trade union, the

National Union of Mineworkers, and was the ANC’s chief negotiator with the South African

government during the end of apartheid. Many South Africans who believed Ramaphosa would

be Mandela’s successor were surprised when he left politics in 1996 to become a businessman

in the private sector. Ramaphosa returned to politics in 2012, serving as deputy president under

Jacob Zuma until he was elected in his own right to the presidency in 2018. Ramaphosa has

dealt with a number of problems facing South Africa during his tenure, including the COVID-19

pandemic and massive economic strife. South Africa has the worst unemployment in the world

at 32% (with that number increasing to 59% for South Africans between ages 15 and 24), and

has the unfortunate distinction of being the country with the greatest wealth inequality. South

Africans are also dealing with an energy crisis dubbed "load shedding," characterized by

frequent nationwide electricity blackouts stemming from mismanagement within the state-owned

power utility, Eskom.

The ANC’s reputation has also been tarnished by corruption, particularly under Zuma’s

leadership in the 2010s. ANC leaders engaged in rampant graft of public resources and funds,

resulting in losses of billions of dollars and public trust in leadership. Ramaphosa has tried to

rebuild public trust in the party but has been mostly unsuccessful, with over 75% of South

Africans believing that the ANC has failed to significantly improve the lives of the millions of poor

Black South Africans during its thirty-year tenure. With the ANC’s vote share creeping down over

the past decades, many analysts believe that the party will not receive a majority of the vote for

the first time in the country’s history in 2024, which would force them to enter a coalition

government with other parties that are largely united in their opposition to the government’s rule.

The main opposition party is the Democratic Alliance, led by John Steenhuisen, who has

attempted to unite the various smaller opposition parties into a coalition against the ANC known

as the Multiparty Charter (MPC). The third largest party in parliament, the Economic Freedom

Fighters (EFF) is led by radical firebrand Julius Malema, a former ANC youth leader who

advocates for radical policy including the expropriation of white-owned land and the

nationalization of industry. There is also the ANC breakaway party led by former President Jacob

Zuma known as uMkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) that polls suggest will siphon

considerable support from Ramaphosa and his majority. Polls suggest that the ANC will receive

its smallest share of the vote since the election of Mandela with between 40 and 45%. Polls

show the MPC will receive between 30% and 40% of the vote, the EFF will receive somewhere

between 10% and 20%, and Zuma’s MK Party will receive approximately 15% of the vote.

Additionally, polling trends clearly indicate that the ANC is rapidly losing support, with their

polling percentage decreasing by 5 points between November 2022 and February 2024 (from

44% to 39% of the vote). While the final results of the election are unclear, the ANC is almost

surely heading towards minority status for the first time since South Africa abolished apartheid,

providing an opportunity for a new perspective in leadership for the first time in thirty years.

Ghana,Senegal, and South Africa are prominent examples of successful and democratic African

states with (mostly) freely contested and fair elections. Ghana has a choice between two widely-

known and respected politicians, Mahamadu Bawumia and John Mahama, to serve as their next

President and tackle the economic and political crises facing the nation. Despite concerns

surrounding President Macky Sall's actions in Senegal, including the postponement of elections

and the exclusion of certain opposition figures like Ousmane Sonko, the upcoming election in

March is poised to bring about a new generation of leadership with the ability to reshape the

country’s political landscape. South Africa is headed towards one of the most important elections

since the fall of apartheid, with the long-ruling ANC headed towards minority status and the

Presidency up for grabs between leaders of the smaller parties through coalition building. These

election results will represent the wills of the Ghanaian, Senegalese, and South African people,

who will make their voices heard and set a positive example of democracy for the continent as a

whole.

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