A closer look at Africa’s elected governments suggests that they are not different from autocratic regimes 
July 23.– The elected ruling elites in Africa rely on an intricate web of personal, family, clientelism and ethnic ties, and on the military and intelligence services to control state resources and oppress society. What is also emerging in Africa’s democracies is the incapacity of citizens to organise and to hold leaders to account, even when they violate the constitution, take actions that undermine stability and human rights, and are involved in corruption.
Africa is suffering from multiple interlinked governance challenges. These challenges arise from the failure of electoral democracy to translate into real democracy. It is now evident that elections in Africa do not necessarily change the way power and privileges are organised in society. In most African countries, elections are a solution to the problem of political legitimacy, but they do not provide answers to problems of state malfunction. The mere establishment of electoral democratic process has not been sufficient to ensure that an elected government is democratic or will remain democratic over time.
Increasingly, those who win political power tend to monopolise it to serve their own narrow interests. The monopolisation of power passes through the privatization of the electoral processes by capturing institutions that organise elections. Electoral democracy tends to lose steam with time. The quality of elections decreases instead of increasing.
Electoral democracies are not accompanied by economic and social benefits to citizens, or what is called substantive democracy. It is clear there will not be political stability in Africa if the current dominant political system does not respond to socio-economic challenges of poverty and unemployment ...
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