African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

Header Banner

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
BeninGuineaPoliticsSenegalTop story

Benin’s unrest reflects a broader worrying trend in West Africa

By Isabel Linzer
May 8, 2019
3637
0
Share:
The presidents of Benin, Senegal and Guinea in West Africa are all tightening their grip on power in questionable ways. Credit: Presidence Benin/GPE-Heather Shuker/DoC.

Across West Africa, several countries’ democratic reputations are under threat.

The presidents of Benin, Senegal and Guinea in West Africa are all tightening their grip on power in questionable ways. Credit: Presidence Benin/GPE-Heather Shuker/DoC.

The presidents of Benin, Senegal and Guinea are all tightening their grip on power in questionable ways. Credit: Presidence Benin/GPE-Heather Shuker/DoC.

Last week, Benin was propelled into the international spotlight as security forces fired on demonstrators protesting against the country’s deeply flawed legislative elections. Observers expressed their concern at the worrying scenes from the small West African country often commended for its democratic transitions and stability. But Benin is just the latest country in the region to experience political troubles.

West Africa has typically been seen as one of most free and stable parts of the continent. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous democracy, while Ghana, Senegal and Benin have been fairly reliable electoral democracies for years. Moreover, elections in 2017 ushered in a new president in the Gambia, ending decades of repression. And in 2018, Liberia experienced its first peaceful transfer of power from one elected leader to another since 1944.

However, recent events in Benin and elsewhere, such as Senegal and Guinea, raise the question of whether the tide is turning in West Africa.

Benin: A slow slide accelerates

Benin’s fall from grace seems sudden. In the last ten days, the country held elections in which no opposition candidates were allowed to compete; a boycott yielded record low voter turnout; the government shut down the internet and blocked social media; and security forces violently confronted protesters.

Before these events, Benin was generally considered one of the most steady democracies in Africa. It received a score of 79 out of 100 in the 2019 Freedom in the World report, placing it firmly in the “Free” category and among the highest-scoring countries on the continent. Since transitioning to democracy in 1991, it has undergone multiple free and fair elections and peaceful transfers of power.

However, in truth, the warning signs have been apparent since 2018. At the start of that year, President Patrice Talon appointed his personal lawyer as the head of the Constitutional Court. The rule of law was further undermined when the government moved to investigate and prosecute political opponents, limiting their ability to organise for elections.

Then, in September, updates to the electoral code effectively barred opposition parties from competing in the 28 April 2019 vote: The fee for presidential candidates increased by 1,500% from $27,000 to $445,000, and the fees for parliamentary candidates rose to similarly absurd levels. Given this context, both the eruption of protests and the government’s undemocratic response appear far less surprising.

Senegal: Closing space in a democratic stronghold

Senegal’s reputation for democratic stability has also come under threat in the last year. This was particularly the case as the country prepared for its February 2019 presidential election, which incumbent Macky Sall ultimately won in the first round. Some of the changes in Senegal mirrored those in Benin, such as the opening of criminal proceedings against opposition politicians and the implementation of increasingly onerous registration requirements for election candidates. And, as with Benin, Senegal’s Freedom in the World score also declined in the year leading up to the election.

In 2018, the Senegalese government implemented a sponsorship law that placed new signature-gathering requirements on would-be candidates. In a more heavy-handed move, Khalifa Sall, the most competitive opposition presidential hopeful, was barred from running due to a corruption prosecution. This wasn’t the first legal proceeding against him, and an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) tribunal ruled that various aspects of his treatment by the justice system constituted arbitrary detention and due process violations.

Beyond targeting the opposition, the Senegalese government limited political expression by the public. The authorities banned protests at sensitive moments, including around the adoption of the restrictive electoral reforms. Security forces used tear gas and excessive force against protesters on multiple occasions.

In case President Sall’s budding anti-democratic tendencies were not clear enough already, the National Assembly, where his party holds a majority, voted to scrap the post of prime minister this weekend. This constitutional change was one of Sall’s first initiatives in his new term and leaves the president as the sole executive power in government.

Guinea: Clinging to power

In neighbouring Guinea, the fast-approaching 2020 presidential election is also causing concern. President Alpha Condé is considering a bid for a third term in office, which would require a referendum to remove the constitution’s existing two-term limit. There are serious doubts as to whether such a vote would be a true reflection of the people’s will or simply a rubber stamp for Condé’s power grab. Such concerns have a historical basis: Guinea returned to civilian rule less than a decade ago and has a history of flawed and sometimes violent elections.

Guinea is hardly the first African country to grapple with a president who seeks to overstay his welcome. However, West Africa has so far been a leader in establishing and adhering to term limits. There are just two countries in the region that lack such limits. One is the Gambia, where new president Adama Barrow has said he supports including a two-term cap in the new constitution. The other is Togo, where the same family has ruled since 1967 and resisted any term limits despite periodic bouts of civil unrest over the matter.

Recent developments suggest that it might be the Gambia that ends up falling out of step with its neighbours, however, as other West African leaders consider turning their backs on term limits. In addition to Guinea, for example, President Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire has not yet ruled out running for a third term, citing an interpretation of the constitution that many see as a distortion of the document’s intent.

Has the tide turned?

Whether it involves side-lining the opposition – as in Benin or Senegal – or disregarding the norm of term limits – as in Guinea and possibly Côte d’Ivoire – a pattern of diminishing respect for democratic principles is emerging in West Africa. ECOWAS, typically a strong voice in support of democracy, has been relatively quiet of late.

The current negative trend isn’t irreversible, but if it continues, the region’s reputation for stable democracy could be at risk. Countries currently making progress, like the Gambia, might falter and those plagued by insecurity, such as Burkina Faso and Nigeria, would face little peer pressure if they turned to more authoritarian tactics in their own efforts to regain control.

Previous Article

Nu tou Creole: Are we Mauritians really ...

Next Article

How Amharic unites – and divides – ...

Isabel Linzer

Isabel Linzer is a Research Associate at Freedom House. Follow her on twitter at @isabelalinzer.

Leave a reply Cancel reply

  • Covid-19COVID-19Debating IdeasDecolonisationEconomies and SocietiesPublic Health

    Africa Day 2020 Marks 100 Days Since the Covid-19 Outbreak: A Celebration of a Continent Not Backing Down

  • Politics

    Grading the Prosecutor–And the Bench

  • Politics

    Zimbabwe Harare International Festival of the Arts – Aaron Kohn finds a surprisingly resilient arts scene

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81664
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Popular articles

  • Dr Kanda at the Lwano mobile screening camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Credit: Xavier Vahed-DNDi.

    Africa-led progress on neglected tropical diseases needs boost in Kigali

  • Evangelista Kanohili sits outside her home in Sheema, Uganda, March 15, 2022. Kanohili has been experiencing on-and-off infestations of jiggers, a small parasitic flea that burrows into the skin and can make it too painful to take care of daily tasks. Credit: Apophia Agiresaasi/Global Press Journal.

    Uganda: The tiny flea making it painful for people to walk and work

  • Typical coping strategies such as a nomadic lifestyle are inadequate to handle what is potentially the worst food crisis in Somalia's recent past. Credit: UNDP Somalia.

    Somalia faces worst humanitarian crisis in recent history

  • #StopEACOP TotalEnergies Uganda Tanzania

    The bold campaign to defund the East African Crude Oil Pipeline

  • Tunisia's President Kais Saied meeting with then US Defense Secretary Mark Esper at Carthage Palace, Tunisia, in September 2020. Credit: DoD/Lisa Ferdinando.

    Is Tunisia’s democracy slipping away?

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
Cleantalk Pixel
By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
African Arguments wants to hear from you!

Take 5 minutes to fill in this short reader survey and you could win three African Arguments books of your choice…as well as our eternal gratitude.