Resurgent Backsliding and Democracy in Africa

Abstract

Democracy is on trial in Africa. Despite the gains experienced in the early 1990s when Africa experienced a beehive of democratic activities occasioned by both internal and external pressures, resulting in former dictators becoming born again democrats, the continent seems to be going through a new wave of democratic backsliding. Even though military coups have subsided (not completely eliminated), the bane of democratic governance in Africa is the menace of elected rulers undermining their own constitutions to prolong their stay in power. In Nigeria, Niger, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Burundi and a host of other African countries, elected leaders have attempted to reverse democratic gains by manipulating their constitutions to stay longer in power. This paper focuses on the fast prevailing attempts by African leaders, most of whom are previous military dictators and guerrilla fighters to extend their stay in power by abrogating the term limit in the constitutions of their country. They achieve this through the twin instruments of cooptation and intimidation. This development has created new anxieties about the survival of democracy in Africa. ‘Third termism’, sit tight syndrome and ‘democratic authoritarianism’ have (re) surfaced in the political lexicon of Africa. The paper relies on extant literatures, newspapers and online news sources for this research.

Keywords: Democracy, Democratisation, ‘Coup from within’, African Union (AU), Term limit.