From military coups to elections: where is African democracy heading?

Democracy is universal – and African: this is the premise of Senegalese journalist Ousmane Ndiaye’s guide “Africa towards democracy: myths, denial, risks”.

The text, released in French on 10 July, retraces the most up-to-date crisis of democracy in a enormous resolution of African worldwide locations, where, according to the journalist and mature editor-in-chief of French TV channel TV5 Monde’s Africa desk, leaders are embracing a rhetoric that openly and formally “rejects democracy”.

No longer most efficient military regimes

One side of the issue is what Ndiaye calls the “khaki danger”, the a enormous resolution of military regimes which contain reach to energy or ensured they live in energy in most up-to-date years.

Since 2020, nine military coups were a hit, with most taking dwelling in West Africa and in particular the “Sahelian coup belt”, as some analysts term it.

Assimi Goita, initally transitional chief of Mali, earlier this month signed into legislation a metamorphosis to the presidential term that will enable him to live in energy without a need been elected till no longer lower than 2030 – and sure beyond.

His counterparts in neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso are also mature coup leaders clad in uniform – and on their ability to cement their grip on energy.

Nonetheless Ndiaye warns: it is no longer most efficient generals and colonels who reject democracy, citing as an illustration the dubious argument of counter-terrorism or an unstable security design back.

“Take someone like Kaïs Saïd in Tunisia. He was democratically elected and nevertheless, his rhetoric casts doubts over democracy in the name of being against the system,” says Ndiaye.

Democracy as a colonial product

Democracy is a Western opinion: this is the thought that needs to be rejected straight, says the creator.

“In many places in Africa, there were forms of democracy that preceded the colonial era”, he says.

The brutality of the colonial systems in many ways destroyed these egalitarian kinds of governance and societal organisation, and led to an imposition of a Western and manmade ability of democratising worldwide locations within the post-colonial interval.

“Until now, what did we get in Africa? Democratisation processes coming from above or from outside. This is what I call a process of democratic evangelisation, which doesn’t work,” Ndiaye substances out.

With his guide, Ndiaye seeks to “re-universalise” democracy and shows that, though the ability forward is lined with risks – propaganda, repression of stylish affirm, an obsession with the West that is counterproductive to advancing the wrestle for democracy – there is hope: the joint drive of citizens in search of freedom and equality.