This year is likely to be another difficult one for democracy in Africa. In the Sahel, at least three elections have been postponed. Elsewhere, there is a risk that they will not be fair or that they could spark violence, while a growing number of rulers are changing the rules to stay in power indefinitely.
In North Africa, Egypt is due to hold parliamentary elections at the end of 2025. Pundits expect a landslide victory for the Nation’s Future Party and its allies supporting President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who secured a third term in December 2023 with 89.6 per cent of the vote. Indeed, the opposition stands no chance in a country with more than 60,000 political prisoners and where the regime bans critical newspapers and websites. But the coming years will be challenging, with chronic power cuts, an astronomical foreign debt, a slowdown in tourism and a drop in Suez Canal revenues due to the war in Gaza.
In Western Africa, presidential elections and parliamentary elections were scheduled in 2025 in Burkina Faso and Niger. But the military juntas of both countries have followed the example of Mali where participants in the national dialogue recommended last May extending the military-led transition to democracy by three years, allowing also junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita to run in the eventual election. The Burkinabé military government also announced in May that it would extend the junta rule led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré for another five years.
In Niger, General Abdourahamane Tiani’s junta had initially decided after the coup which overthrew President Mohamed Bazoum in July 2023 to impose three years of transition before returning power to civilians.
In Côte d’Ivoire, citizens are expecting a repeat of the 2010 battle between Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo in the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for October 2025. Eighty-year-old former president Gbagbo is running again as the candidate of the African People’s Party – Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI), which he founded. President Alassane Ouattara, 82, has not yet said whether he will run for a fourth term. However, his party, the Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), expressed its support for such a plan on 1 October 2024, making it likely that the incumbent will run again.
In Togo, the incumbent president, Faure Gnassingbé, has found another way to stay in office indefinitely. In May 2024, the parliament overwhelmingly approved a new constitution that suppresses the presidential election by popular vote that should have taken place in February 2025. Deputies and senators will now elect the president for a single six-year term, and his powers will be reduced. Gnassingbe, who has been in office for almost 20 years, is expected to remain president until 2031.
The examples of Togo and Côte d’Ivoire are inspiring other leaders on the continent, such as Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, who announced on 23 October the creation of a special commission to draft a new constitution. According to Tshisekedi, the current constitution of the Democratic Republic of Congo, approved by referendum in 2006, is no longer “adapted to the realities of the country”. It is an open secret that Tshisekedi wants to abolish it because it imposes a two-term limit. In this context, the controversy between Tshisekedi and the opposition, which points out that Article 220 of the current constitution prohibits changing the maximum term of the presidential mandate, could intensify next year.
Cameroon is due to hold presidential elections in October 2025. Everyone is wondering whether President Paul Biya, 91, Africa’s oldest leader, will run again. Demonstrations by supporters urging him to run again suggest that the old president will do so, extending his more than four-decade rule by another seven years. Other elections, including those for the National Assembly, originally scheduled for 2025, have been postponed until March 2026, sparking criticism from a fragmented opposition that may find it difficult to beat Biya or another candidate from his Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement.
In the Central African Republic, a new constitution approved by referendum in August 2023 allows President Faustin Archange Touadera to run for a third term in 2025. The new constitution also extends the presidential term from five to seven years. The new constitution bans candidates with dual nationality, thus preventing rivals such as Anicet Georges Dologuele and Crépin Mboli-Goumba, who are also French and American, respectively, from standing. Former president François Bozizé and two other exiled politicians are also barred from the race, having been convicted in absentia for alleged rebellion.
Unlike his Sahelian counterparts, General Brice Oligui Nguema, the author of the coup that overthrew Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba at the end of August 2023, seems determined to end military rule and resume relations with the EU, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. According to insiders, the general is keen to organise elections before the junta’s original deadline of August 2025, perhaps as early as April next year, and to stand himself. His likely rivals include the last prime minister of the Ali Bongo era, Alain Claude Bilie Bi Nzé, a former student union leader.
Another potential candidate is the winner of the 2023 election, which the military says was rigged in Ali’s favour: economist Albert Ondo Ossa. But he lacks the backing of a political party. A third potential rival is Gabon’s former vice-president, Pierre Claver Maganga Moussavou.
In Southern Africa, incumbent Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera (69) will seek a second term in September 2025 after being nominated by the ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP). He is expected to face stiff competition from former presidents Arthur Peter Mutharika (84) of the opposition Democratic People’s Party and Joyce Banda (74) of the People’s Party.
The political climate in East Africa’s Tanzania is becoming increasingly tense ahead of the presidential and national assembly elections in October 2025. On 21 October 2024, the leader of the opposition CHADEMA party, Aisah Machano, was abducted and beaten by motorcyclists who identified themselves as police. Two months earlier, CHADEMA’s secretary, Ali Kibao, was kidnapped by armed men and found dead after being doused in acid.
Other opponents were arrested in a crackdown organised by President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who took over the presidency in 2021 after the death of John Magufuli. She has disappointed those hoping for a new era of democratic reform after lifting bans on political rallies and the media. But she now faces the challenge of growing divisions within the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party, as evidenced by the expulsion of foreign minister January Makamba.
Two rounds of legislative elections are due to take place in the Comoros on 12 January and 16 February, but there is a risk that they will not be inclusive. The JUWA and Orange opposition parties have announced that they will not participate in the legislative elections after rejecting the results of the presidential elections in January 2024, alleging ballot-stuffing. President Azali Assoumani, who was re-elected for another five-year term, re-appointed the current head of the electoral body, Idrissa Said, who is accused by the opposition of favouring the ruling Convention for the Renewal of the Comoros.
In contrast, Seychelles is expected to offer open competition in the presidential and national assembly elections scheduled for 27 September 2025. So far, seven parties are competing: the ruling Seychellois Democratic Union of President Wavel Ramkalawan, the Mouvman Lavwa Seselwa (MLS), United Seychelles (US), One Seychelles, Seychelles United Movement (SUM), the Seychelles National Alliance Party (SNAP) and the La Liberté party. Ramkalawan’s main challenger is the leader of United Seychelles, Patrick Herminie.
Finally, the election of the members of the African Union Commission will take place in February. According to the new rules on the rotation of the chairmanship, the chair will come from East Africa. Four candidates are standing: Djibouti’s Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Boussou, Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Mauritius’ former Foreign Minister Anil Kumansingh Gayan and Madagascar’s former Foreign Minister Richard James Randriamandrato. (Photo: Pixabay ) – (François Misser)
