Support for democracy in Africa falls amid military coups and corruption

Support for democracy is falling in Africa amid a string of military coups and dissatisfaction with corruption and mismanagement, according to a report by Afrobarometer. However, Africans still have a stronger preference for democratic governance than many parts of the world.

Two-thirds of people in 30 African countries prefer democracy, surveys conducted in 2021 or 2023 found, down seven percentage points from a decade earlier.

There have been eight successful military takeovers in Africa since 2020, mostly in west Africa in what has become known as the “coup belt” . The last few years have also seen an increase in protests against tax rises and subsidy cuts by the continent’s increasingly youthful population, often in countries where leaders are also seen as corrupt.

South Africa saw the steepest drop in support for democracy, with those agreeing that “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government” falling 29 percentage points to 43%, amid chronically high unemployment , failing public services and graft scandals.

In Mali, which is ruled by a military junta after coups in 2020 and 2021 , only 39% of respondents rated democracy above other forms of government, down 23 percentage points from 10 years ago. Meanwhile, disapproval of military rule plunged from 70% to just 18%.

The report by Afrobarometer, a pan-African survey organisation, said: “Africans’ preference for democracy remains resilient to deterioration on many indicators of socioeconomic performance. Instead, shifts in popular support over the past decade are related to changes in political conditions such as declining election quality, increasing levels of corruption and failure to promote the rule of law.”

The surveys found Africans have also become less satisfied with the way democracy works in their countries over the last decade, with the growing discontent linked to perceptions that economic conditions have worsened and that corruption and impunity have increased.

The biggest falls in satisfaction were in some of the continent’s most stable democracies – South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius. Meanwhile, more citizens said they were happy with the way democracy was working in six countries, including Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Morocco.

Young people on the continent are more likely to support military rule. “A combination of trust in the military, frustration with poor governance, and waning (or lacking) memories of the harsh realities experienced during a previous era of military governments may be chipping away at resistance to this particular form of authoritarian rule,” the report said.

Despite the poor performance of many elected governments, Africans still prefer democracy to a greater extent than people in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, it said.

Zambia, where voters booted out Edgar Lungu in 2021 after the country defaulted on its debts and inflation soared, topped the table in its preference for democracy. Ethiopia, which experienced a devastating civil war from 2020 to 2022, was in second place, followed by Senegal, which elected an anti-establishment president , Bassirou Diomaye Faye, in March after his predecessor, Macky Sall, tried to delay the vote to the end of the year.