The result is a paradox. African citizens are not necessarily abandoning elections; in many countries, they are demanding more from them. But the institutional infrastructure required to convert electoral competition into legitimate political change is under increasing strain.
That distinction matters for investors, diplomats, development institutions and businesses. Political risk is no longer adequately captured by asking whether a country is holding elections. The more important questions are whether opposition parties can compete, whether electoral bodies are trusted, whether courts can adjudicate disputes independently, and whether losing candidates and voters accept the result.
Recent developments in Zambia and Tunisia illustrate two different versions of the same problem: elections can retain their formal architecture while the political environment surrounding them becomes increasingly contested. At the same time, Senegal, Botswana and Seychelles demonstrate that institutional resilience remains possible, and that electoral competition can strengthen rather than weaken democratic systems when institutions retain sufficient independence.
Executive Summary
Africa's democratic trajectory is becoming harder to describe through a simple narrative of either democratic progress or democratic decline.
The evidence points instead towards institutional divergence.
Some countries are experiencing genuine electoral competition and peaceful transfers of power. Others are maintaining elections while narrowing the space in which meaningful competition can occur. In still others, military intervention, constitutional manipulation or the erosion of judicial and electoral independence has weakened the democratic system almost entirely.
The underlying pressure is increasingly visible in public opinion.
Afrobarometer's latest survey across 38 African countries found that 74% of respondents still favour regular, open and honest elections as the best way to choose leaders. Yet only 38% say they trust their country's electoral management body, while 77% believe elected officials should follow voters' demands rather than their own preferences.
That gap is strategically important.
Citizens continue to value elections, but confidence in the institutions responsible for delivering them is substantially weaker.
The issue, therefore, is not simply whether Africans still believe in democracy.
It is whether democratic institutions can continue to command enough public confidence to make elections legitimate.
Why This Matters Now
For investors and policymakers, elections have traditionally been treated as discrete political events: campaigns begin, voters cast ballots, results are announced and governments continue.
That framework is increasingly inadequate.
The political risk associated with elections now extends across the entire electoral cycle.
A contested candidate registration decision can affect investor confidence months before polling. Restrictions on media access can alter the competitiveness of a campaign. Disputes over electoral technology can undermine confidence in results. Judicial decisions can determine whether opposition candidates remain on the ballot. Post-election arrests can transform a disputed vote into a broader governance crisis.
This means institutional credibility is becoming an economic variable.
A country with imperfect political competition but credible institutions can remain relatively predictable for investors. A country with apparently competitive elections but weak dispute-resolution mechanisms can become significantly more volatile once results are challenged.
International IDEA similarly identifies declining institutional trust, changing information environments and weaknesses in electoral administration as increasingly important challenges to electoral integrity.
The distinction between electoral competition and electoral legitimacy is therefore becoming critical.
Are African Elections Becoming More Competitive, or Simply More Contentious?
The answer is increasingly both.
There are clear examples of voters using elections to remove established political parties.
In Botswana, voters ended the Botswana Democratic Party's 58-year rule in the 2024 election. President Mokgweetsi Masisi conceded defeat and pledged to facilitate a peaceful handover to opposition leader Duma Boko.
Senegal provided another important test.
After a politically turbulent period in which President Macky Sall's decision to postpone the presidential election triggered a major institutional confrontation, the Constitutional Council intervened and the election eventually proceeded. Opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye won in the first round, while his principal rival and Sall congratulated him before final results were announced.
These cases demonstrate that competitive elections remain capable of producing genuine political change.
But they should not obscure the deterioration occurring elsewhere.
Freedom House's 2026 assessment found that political rights and civil liberties declined in 18 of Africa's 54 countries during 2025, while only 11 improved. It identified non-competitive elections, repression of opposition forces, military coups and manipulation of political competition among the principal drivers of decline.
The result is an increasingly fragmented political landscape.
Some elections are becoming more competitive because citizens are more willing to punish incumbents.
Others are becoming more contentious because incumbents are increasingly willing to use state institutions to manage the competition.
That distinction will be central to Africa's political-risk outlook.
Zambia: When a Competitive Election Becomes an Institutional Test
Zambia offers one of the clearest current examples.
The country's 13 August 2026 presidential election produced a decisive numerical victory for incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema, who was declared the winner with roughly 60% of the vote against opposition candidate Brian Mundubile's approximately 38%.
The result itself is not necessarily the central risk.
The institutional aftermath is.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia temporarily suspended vote counting following reports of attacks on polling officials and ballot theft. International observers subsequently identified concerns around transparency, procedural delays, legal uncertainty and unequal campaign conditions.
Mundubile has rejected the result and announced that he intends to challenge it in court.
That places Zambia's judiciary at the centre of the country's democratic stress test.
If the courts provide a credible, transparent and procedurally independent mechanism for resolving the dispute, the institutional system can absorb the political conflict.
If opposition figures face intimidation or legal pressure while attempting to challenge the result, the dispute risks moving beyond an electoral disagreement into a broader legitimacy crisis.
That risk has already intensified following the detention of 11 people associated with the opposition after a police raid involving gunfire. The United Nations human rights chief has expressed concern over the arrests and called for due process. Mundubile has subsequently gone into hiding, citing security concerns.
For Zambia, the crucial question is therefore no longer simply who won the election.
It is whether the country's institutions can demonstrate that political competition remains safe and meaningful after the ballots have been counted.
Tunisia: When the Institutions Themselves Become the Contest
Tunisia represents a more advanced stage of institutional deterioration.
The country's 2024 presidential election formally offered voters a choice, but the political environment surrounding the contest was severely constrained.
President Kais Saied won roughly 90% of the vote, but turnout was only about 28%. One of his two principal challengers, Ayachi Zammel, was imprisoned during the campaign, while several other opposition figures were already imprisoned or excluded from the ballot.
The significance extends beyond the election result.
Since Saied's concentration of power in 2021, the judiciary, parliament and other institutional checks have been substantially weakened. In 2025, Tunisian courts imposed lengthy prison sentences on opposition politicians, lawyers and businesspeople in cases that opponents described as politically motivated. In February 2026, an appeals court upheld or increased several of those sentences.
By August 2026, protests had again expanded in Tunis, with demonstrators demanding the restoration of democratic institutions and the release of political prisoners. The protests also increasingly reflected economic grievances, including shortages and deteriorating public services.
Tunisia illustrates a particularly important intelligence lesson:
An election can remain legally organised while becoming politically incapable of delivering genuine alternation of power.
The formal presence of candidates, polling stations and ballots does not by itself establish democratic competitiveness.
The more important question is whether potential challengers possess a realistic opportunity to organise, campaign, communicate with voters and contest the result.
Which Institutions Are Losing Public Credibility?
The evidence points to several institutions coming under particular pressure.
Electoral Commissions
Electoral management bodies occupy an unusually exposed position.
They are expected to be independent enough to command trust from competing political parties while operating within legal frameworks established by political institutions.
When an electoral commission makes a controversial decision, the problem is therefore rarely confined to that decision.
It can become a referendum on the institution itself.
Afrobarometer's finding that only 38% of surveyed Africans trust their electoral management bodies should therefore be treated as an important political-risk indicator.
The problem is compounded by the growing technological complexity of elections.
Electronic transmission, biometric identification, digital voter registers and social-media campaigning can improve election administration, but they also create new opportunities for misinformation and disputes over transparency.
International IDEA has identified the information environment, misinformation and disinformation as increasingly important threats to electoral integrity.
Courts
Judiciaries are becoming increasingly important to electoral politics.
That is not necessarily a sign of institutional failure.
In a healthy democracy, courts can provide the mechanism through which electoral disputes are resolved without political violence.
The problem emerges when courts themselves lose credibility.
If opposition parties believe courts are independent, they have an incentive to challenge disputed results through legal channels.
If they believe courts are politically controlled, the incentive changes.
Disputes may instead move onto the streets, into parliament or towards international institutions.
Zambia is now approaching precisely this institutional test.
Tunisia demonstrates the opposite scenario, where concerns over judicial independence have become part of the political conflict itself.
What Happens When Electoral Commissions Become Political Battlegrounds?
The consequences can be broader than an election.
A loss of confidence in an electoral commission can produce three stages of institutional deterioration.
First: Disputed Administration
Political parties begin challenging voter registration, candidate eligibility, ballot design, technology or vote counting.
Second: Disputed Results
Opposition parties reject preliminary or final results, often before judicial mechanisms have completed their work.
Third: Disputed Legitimacy
The electorate begins to question not merely the result but the legitimacy of the government itself.
This third stage creates the greatest economic risk.
Businesses can operate under political disagreement.
They struggle to operate under sustained uncertainty about who has legitimate authority to make and enforce policy.
For investors, this can affect:
capital expenditure decisions;
sovereign borrowing costs;
foreign-exchange expectations;
infrastructure projects;
public-private partnerships;
regulatory approvals;
mining and energy concessions;
cross-border trade;
development-finance programmes.
Electoral integrity is therefore not simply a governance issue.
It is part of the broader investment environment.
Are Courts Becoming More Important?
Yes, but in two very different ways.
In resilient democracies, courts increasingly function as shock absorbers.
Senegal's 2024 political crisis demonstrated the importance of judicial intervention. When President Sall's election postponement threatened to create a prolonged constitutional crisis, the Constitutional Council rejected the revised timetable, helping return the electoral process to its constitutional framework.
In weaker systems, courts can instead become political instruments.
Tunisia demonstrates the danger. The judiciary has become central to the prosecution and imprisonment of opposition figures, while critics argue that judicial independence has been significantly weakened since Saied's 2021 consolidation of power.
The strategic lesson is therefore straightforward:
A powerful judiciary does not necessarily indicate a strong democracy. What matters is whether judicial power is exercised independently and predictably.
For investors, that distinction is particularly important because political risk is closely connected to confidence in contracts, property rights and regulatory enforcement.
Where Democratic Institutions Are Proving Resilient
The continental picture is not uniformly negative.
Several countries demonstrate that institutional resilience remains possible.
Senegal
The 2024 presidential election demonstrated that constitutional institutions can constrain executive power even during severe political tension.
The election ultimately produced a peaceful transfer of power to an opposition candidate.
Botswana
The 2024 election showed that long-term incumbency does not necessarily become permanent political dominance.
After 58 years in power, the ruling party lost, and the incumbent president conceded.
Seychelles
The country's democratic trajectory is particularly notable.
V-Dem identifies Seychelles as a major example of democratic improvement over the past 25 years. The country transitioned from electoral autocracy towards liberal democracy, experienced a peaceful transfer of power in 2020 and then another peaceful transfer following the 2025 election.
These cases matter because they demonstrate that democratic decline is not inevitable.
Institutional quality can improve.
Political competition can become normalised.
Incumbents can lose elections.
And losing power does not necessarily have to become an existential threat to political elites.
The Emerging Democratic Fault Line
The most important divide may no longer be simply between democracies and autocracies.
A more useful distinction is emerging between:
competitive systems with resilient institutions
and
competitive-looking systems with fragile institutions.
The first category can tolerate political shocks.
The second becomes unstable when political competition intensifies.
This helps explain why some African elections produce peaceful changes in government while others trigger prolonged disputes, repression or military intervention.
The decisive variable is not necessarily the margin of victory.
It is the credibility of the institutions surrounding the vote.
What This Means for Investors
Investors should increasingly treat institutional quality as a measurable component of country risk.
Election calendars alone are insufficient.
Investment teams should monitor:
Electoral commission credibility — appointments, funding, transparency and track record.
Judicial independence — particularly the handling of electoral and commercial disputes.
Opposition access — candidate registration, media access and freedom of assembly.
Political finance — campaign funding, patronage and state-resource use.
Post-election behaviour — acceptance of results, protests, arrests and legal challenges.
Information integrity — misinformation, internet restrictions and media independence.
Security-sector behaviour — especially military or police involvement in political disputes.
These indicators can provide earlier warning than headline political-risk ratings.
What This Means for Businesses
Companies operating in politically competitive markets should not wait for election day to assess political risk.
Boards should scenario-plan for three outcomes:
A credible result:
The government gains legitimacy and policy continuity improves.
A contested result resolved institutionally:
Markets may experience short-term volatility, but credible courts and electoral institutions contain the dispute.
A contested result that becomes an institutional crisis:
Protests, arrests, capital-market volatility, regulatory uncertainty and disruption to government decision-making become more likely.
Businesses with significant exposure to infrastructure, mining, energy, telecommunications and public procurement should pay particular attention because these sectors are often directly affected by changes in government policy.
What Development Institutions and Diplomats Should Watch
International partners increasingly face a difficult balancing act.
Supporting electoral integrity requires engagement with governments, electoral commissions, courts and civil society without appearing to dictate political outcomes.
The most effective strategy is therefore likely to focus on institutional capacity rather than individual political actors.
Priority areas include:
electoral commission independence;
transparent electoral technology;
judicial capacity;
political-party financing;
media freedom;
election dispute resolution;
civil-society monitoring;
peaceful transfer-of-power mechanisms.
International IDEA's work with African Union and regional electoral institutions reflects this broader emphasis on strengthening electoral management and institutional capacity ahead of elections.
Executive Outlook
Africa's democratic challenge is becoming less about whether elections exist and more about whether elections still perform their democratic function.
The evidence suggests that citizens remain strongly attached to electoral choice. Afrobarometer's latest data show that nearly three-quarters of respondents still prefer elections as the method for selecting leaders. Yet confidence in electoral institutions is considerably weaker.
That gap creates the continent's central democratic stress test.
If citizens believe elections can remove governments, punish poor performance and produce legitimate political change, electoral democracy can retain its resilience even during periods of economic hardship and political polarisation.
If citizens conclude that electoral institutions are merely formal mechanisms protecting entrenched political power, dissatisfaction can move outside the electoral system.
The distinction is already visible across Africa.
Senegal and Botswana show that incumbents can lose and institutions can absorb political change. Seychelles demonstrates that democratic institutions can strengthen over time. Zambia is now testing whether an increasingly competitive political environment can coexist with credible electoral administration and post-election legal processes. Tunisia represents the more severe scenario in which formal elections remain but the institutional space for meaningful competition has narrowed considerably.
For decision-makers, the implication is clear.
Do not assess African political risk by asking only whether an election is competitive. Assess whether the institutions that govern competition are independent enough to survive a contested result.
That is increasingly where the continent's democratic trajectory will be decided.
Sources
International IDEA — Review of the 2024 Super-Cycle Year of Elections
International IDEA — AU-RECs Reflection and Coordination Meeting on Electoral Processes in Africa
Freedom House — Freedom in the World 2026: Regional Trends, Africa
Reuters — Zambian opposition leader to try to overturn election result in court
Reuters — Zambian police summon opposition leader following disputed election
AP — Zambia President Hakainde Hichilema is declared the winner of a troubled election
Reuters — Tunisia votes for president with Saied's main opponents in jail
Reuters — Tunisia upholds and increases jail terms for opponents and security officials
Reuters — Tunisia opposition protests against President Saied amid economic discontent
Reuters — Senegal election a welcome boost for coup-prone West Africa
Reuters — Botswana votes out ruling party after 58 years in power
Republished from the existing Aldrenor collection. Aldrenor editorial archive.
