Ghana to Botswana: Why African voters are throwing out ruling parties

Jubilant victory songs filled the air in Ghana’s capital, Accra, on Monday as supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party filled the streets to celebrate their candidate, former President John Dramani Mahama’s win in an election that will once again make him head of state of the West African nation.

Decked in the party’s colours of red, white and black, supporters, young and old, blew on flutes, whistled and drummed thunderously on plastic buckets, as they hugged and danced in front of the NDC headquarters in Accra’s Adabraka neighbourhood.

Their joy was hardly surprising. Mahama’s defeat of Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, the candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), was astonishingly complete. Experts predicted a very close vote, and maybe even a run-off, but Mahama wiped the floor with the NPP and won by an unprecedented landslide. For the first time in the country, a clear winner emerged within hours of polls closing on Sunday. By nightfall, Bawumia, who was behind by an unheard of 1.6 million votes, conceded defeat.

“We’ve not seen such a massive gap before in any elections since 1992 because Ghana elections are usually closely fought,” researcher Emmanuel Yeboah of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) told Al Jazeera.

The scenes in Accra marked the culmination of a surprising election year across the African continent, during which opposition movements made big waves, either totally ejecting incumbent parties from power or significantly loosening their grip.

From some 12 general elections, four countries (Ghana, Botswana, Mauritius and Senegal) alongside the breakaway, self-governed region of Somaliland, recorded total transfers of power. Two others (South Africa and Namibia) saw significant opposition gains.

Out with the old, in with the new

While it is impossible to box all African countries and their electorates together, voters largely assessed some of the same key issues in deciding who to vote for, experts say.

“There’s a sense that voters want to punish parties for failure to boost economies, create jobs and fight corruption,” Graham Hopwood, executive director of the Namibia-based Institute for Public Policy Research, told Al Jazeera. In some cases, opposition groups played on these failures in their campaigns, and bonded to get stronger, he said.

Soaring inflation in Ghana – the kind not felt in a decade – corruption, and severe environmental degradation from illegal mining or “galamsey” proved the final death knell for the ruling NPP government led by President Nana Akufo-Addo.

The NDC campaigned on the government’s failures, but it was ultimately the low turnout of the NPP’s own support base that hurt the party, aptly reflecting how much it had let Ghanaians down. Voter turnout on Sunday was only 60 percent because many NPP supporters, frustrated with the government and lacking faith in the opposition, did not vote, Yeboah of the CDD said.

“NPP thought they would get more votes because of their free senior high school policy but ultimately, they were punished,” he said, referring to the landmark 2017 policy of the Akufo-Addo government that made senior secondary education free for all.

Some of the more seismic shifts occurred in the Southern African region where liberation parties, once loved for ending colonialism or apartheid, are increasingly unpopular, particularly among young voters. That’s because young people did not live that history, Hopwood said, and thus, lack the sense of nostalgia that held these parties in place.

South Africa led with the first shocker in early June when the African National Congress (ANC) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in 30 years.

The party, once seen as a beacon of hope for ushering in democracy after apartheid, faces criticism for South Africa’s severe economic downturn that has reduced the continental giant to a country racked by poverty, unemployment and embarrassing power cuts.

Internal battles between President Cyril Ramaphosa and his predecessor, former President Jacob Zuma, further divided its traditional support base. ANC votes, which had steadily declined in recent elections, slipped further to 40 percent this time, less than the number required to form a government, forcing the crippled party into a historic “unity government” with the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party and six others.

It was a more complete loss for Botswana’s dominant Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in November, which had ruled the country since independence in 1966. Opposition movements, banded under the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) and led by lawyer Duma Boko, denied President Mokgweetsi Masisi a second term and ended the BDP’s 58-year dominance by a landslide. The party — faulted by voters for a declining diamond economy — won only four seats, down from its previous 38 seats in the 69-seat strong parliament.

Youth fury and lingering COVID-19 anger

Elsewhere on the continent, young people’s fury over corruption proved pivotal, in addition to anger over jobs and the economy. In Senegal’s March polls, former President Macky Sall’s attempts to run for an unconstitutional third term led to violent protests, and led to the ushering in of President Bassirou Faye’s PASTEF party.

Then, anger had been boiling since the COVID-19 pandemic when many countries recorded embezzlement scandals.

In Mauritius’s November polls, government heavy-handedness and perceptions of increasing corruption levels proved the end for former leader Pravind Kumar Jugnauth. In 2022, a transformation index report by the research organisation Bertelsmann Foundation found that rising corruption in the country, once seen as transparent, worsened during the pandemic, as officials exploited loopholes in the emergency procurement of medical supplies. Distrust of the government worsened this year after explosive allegations of wiretapping operations by government operatives emerged.

“It’s not just in Africa,” Yeboah of CDD said. “If you look at most of the governments that went through the pandemic, most of them did not survive re-elections, including in the US.”

Some countries witnessed smaller, but no less important shifts. Namibia’s opposition was less well-organised but managed to dent the hold of the ruling SWAPO party (South West Africa People’s Organisation) in disputed November elections.

Like South Africa’s ANC, the party has been in power since independence in 1990. Although Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah won in the November polls, SWAPO lost 12 seats in parliament and now only just holds a majority with 51 of 96 seats.

Meanwhile, in Mozambique, the ruling Frelimo party, which came to power in 1975 after fighting a successful war of independence against Portugal, is under fire. Young supporters of independent opposition candidate Venancio Mondlane have taken to the streets since October’s hotly disputed elections that saw Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo win. Scores of protesters have been shot by police.

Lessons learned?

The historic opposition wins on the continent signify that democratic institutions in many African countries are becoming increasingly robust and that the people’s will is being respected, experts say.

“Citizens are getting more enlightened by the day and are voting regardless of ethnic or religious affiliations, unlike before,” Yeboah of the Ghana CDD said.

That’s a significant improvement on a continent where countries were, until the 1960s, under colonial rule, and had to build democratic institutions from scratch. Several countries, till now, hold elections not classified as free or fair, and a wave of coups in West and Central Africa saw military governments forcefully seize power between 2022 and 2023.

President Idriss Deby held onto power in Chad after he won more than 60 percent of the vote this May, extending his family’s 30-year rule. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda also cruised to an easy victory with an incredulous 99 percent of the vote in July.

Back in Ghana where opposition NDC supporters are still basking in their newfound glow, thanks to a peaceful poll count and Bawumia’s swiftness to concede and avert violence, Yeboah says the country’s elections, alongside the opposition wave recorded across the continent, are likely pointers to more unexpected shifts next year. Ivory Coast and Malawi are some of the countries expected to hold elections in 2025.

“This is a lesson for African governments,” Yeboah said of the NPP’s resounding defeat.

“Our governments need to learn that you can’t just come up with one policy and think it will appeal to all voters. Citizens are now too savvy – they know that any government that misbehaves has to be punished.”

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