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The opinions expressed herein are strictly personal and do not necessarily reflect the position of ISPI. The ISPI online papers are also published with the support of Cariplo

Analysis No. 192, August 2013

LEADERSHIP TURNOVERS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: FROM VIOLENCE AND COUPS TO PEACEFUL ELECTIONS?

Giovanni Carbone

Many African countries replaced their military or single-party regimes with pluralist politics during

the early 1990s. This led to the introduction and regularisation of multiparty elections for the

selection of a country’s president or prime minister. Of course, in many places, elections were not

enough to start genuine democratization processes, as non-democratic rulers rapidly learned how to

manipulate the vote and survive in the new political environment. Yet empirical evidence from our

new “Leadership change” dataset – covering all 49 sub-Saharan states since 1960 (or subsequent

year of independence) to 2012 – shows that elections did alter quite profoundly the way ordinary

Africans can influence the selection and ousting of their leaders. Coups are now a rarer phenomenon,

leadership turnovers have become more frequent, and peaceful alternation in power through the

ballot box, if still uncommon, is part of a new political landscape.

Giovanni Carbone, Associate Professor of Political Science, Università degli Studi di Milano

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The Arab Spring protests brought to the fore, once again, the issue of how

to oust immovable authoritarian leaders. Tunisia’s Zine El-Abidine Ben

Ali had been in power for 24 years. Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for 30

years. Muhammar Ghaddafi reigned over Libya for 42 years, while

Syrians are still to see the end of the 43-year long rule of the al-Assad

family. As authoritarian repression and widespread corruption coupled

with growing economic hardship, the politics of many Middle East and

North African countries became potentially explosive, and a single spark

triggered a string of popular protests that spread rapidly across national

borders. People insisted that their leaders go. In some countries they

managed to force out incumbent rulers, in some others they did not – or at

least not yet. In the process, Arab protesters and reformers also demanded

guarantees that, in the future, they would be in a better position to

replace their leaders in case they do not perform, they rule too harshly, or

they are simply disliked by the population. This called for the introduction

of truly competitive elections – an unrivalled mechanism for ensuring that

political leaders can be ousted and replaced at regular intervals through

constitutional means.

While pressures for political change were redesigning Mediterranean

Africa, countries on the other side of the Sahara were only marginally

affected by the events of the Arab Spring. This is partly because

sub-Saharan Africans had already been through their own season of

political reforms. Back in the early 1990s, a wave of political openings had

been ignited by the same cocktail of authoritarian rule, predatory

corruption and economic decline that was at work in the Arab world in

2011. In the space of a few years, single-party regimes and military rulers

were replaced by pluralist political systems virtually everywhere in black

Africa. Opposition forces were legalized, multiparty parliaments were

established, independent courts, free media and civic associations were

gradually allowed to emerge. At the heart of it all, elections began to be

contested by competing candidates and political parties.

Needless to say, while pluralist elections became the norm in sub-Saharan

Africa since the 1990s, only a few countries actually satisfied

internationally recognized standards of “democratic” rule. Yet, there is

little question that the average degree of democracy in the region

improved quite dramatically. The last decade of the twentieth century

definitely marked a political watershed and, whatever the shortcomings of

contemporary African regimes, they are generally much more open than

they were 25 years ago. This is evident if we look at Figures 1 and 2, based

on one of the best-known indexes of democracy. Out of scale ranging from -

10 (least democratic) to + 10 (most democratic), sub-Saharan countries

jumped up from a - 5.8 average in 1989 to + 2.5 in 2010 (Figure 1). While

the latter score is still modest in absolute terms, the overall change marks

a very impressive 8-point improvement. The watershed of the early 1990s

While pressures for political change were redesigning Mediterranean Africa, countries on the other side of the Sahara were only marginally affected by the events of the Arab Spring. This is partly because sub-Saharan Africans had already been through their own season of political reforms

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is quite visible from the graph. Similarly, if we single out states that are

deemed democratic (i.e. scoring + 6 or more on the Polity2 scale, see

Figure 2), their number as a share of all countries on the continent

increased quite noticeably from less than 6.5% in 1989 to a peak of 45.8%

in 2007, only slightly receding to 41.7% in 2010. More generally, the

overall share of country-years that African states spent under democratic

rule went up threefold, from 9.8% in the 1960-1989 period to 31.7% in the

1990-2010 period (Table 1).

The widespread introduction and the centrality of multiparty elections in

Africa’s reformed regimes supposedly altered the way politics is played out

south of the Sahara. Competitive elections, in particular, are primarily a

tool for the selection of a country’s political leadership. Accordingly, it is

reasonable to assume that the way in which political leaders are selected

and ousted in Africa was significantly adjusted after 1990. In a region

better known for military coups, violent conflicts and irresponsible rulers,

regular pluralist elections should have shaken up things. But do these

assumptions and expectations correspond to political reality? How was the

selection of leaders, their duration in power and the way they are replaced

affected by the new electoral environment? Building on over two decades

of evidence, we were able to construct a comprehensive “Leadership

Change” (LC) dataset – covering all 49 sub-Saharan states since 1960 (or

subsequent year of independence) to 2012 – to provide

empirically-informed answers to this kind of questions1.

Figure 1 - Annual average degree of democracy (Polity2

score) for the region, 1960-2010

Source: author’s elaboration of data from Polity IV Project, www.systemicpeace.org

1 I am grateful to Anita Bianchi for assistance in data gathering and analysis and to Filippo

Gregorini for data analysis.

-10-9-8-7

-6-5-4-3-2-1

012345

6789

10

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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Figure 2 - Share of democracies (i.e. Polity2 ≥ 6) among

sub-Saharan political regimes, 1960-2010

Source: Polity IV Project, www.systemicpeace.org

1960-1989 1990-2010 1960-2010

Democracy 9.8 % (115) 31.7 % (335) 19.9 % (454)

Authoritarian rule 90.2 % (1063) 68.3 % (721) 80.1 % (1827)

Total 100.0 % (1178) 100.0 % (1056) 100.0 % (2281)

Table 1 - Percentage of country-years under democracy or autocracy

(absolute values in brackets), 1960-2010

Notes: A country is deemed “democratic” when Polity2 is ≥ 6.

Source: Polity IV Project, www.systemicpeace.org

Political leaders in post-independence Africa

Independent Africa has a record of long overstaying rulers. Omar Bongo,

who led Gabon for 42 years up until his death in 2009, tops this special

league. He is followed by Gnassingbé Eyadéma of Togo, who also died in

office in 2005 after 38 years in power. In both cases, rule was so

personalised that, after they died in office, the two presidents were

quickly replaced by their sons Ali Bongo Ondimba and Faure Gnassingbé.

As many as 34 African leaders ruled their countries for 20 years or more

(Table 2 and Figure 3). Eleven of them remained in power for 30 years or

more. Their rule stretched across profoundly different political eras.

Mobutu Sese Seko, for example, took power in the Congo when Lyndon

Johnson was in the White House, and he was only ousted at the time of

Boris Yeltsin’s second term in post-Soviet Russia. José Eduardo dos

Santos still rules Angola despite being inaugurated when Leonid

Brezhnev was in the Kremlin. It may thus not come as a surprise that a

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

0%

100%

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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few post-independence African rulers – including Hastings Banda of

Malawi and Francisco Macías Nguema of Equatorial Guinea – declared

themselves “presidents for life”.

Long stays in office also implied that the citizens of a few countries have hardly

ever seen a leadership handover. This only occurred once, for example, in the

entire independent history of Angola (1979), Cameroon (1982), Swaziland

(1983), Gambia (1994) and Djibouti (1999). Zimbabwe, on the other hand, has

been ruled by Robert Mugabe uninterruptedly since independence in 1980.

The same goes for Africa’s most recently-born states, namely Eritrea (under

Isaias Afewerki since 1993) and South Sudan (governed by Salva Kiir

Mayardit since its founding in 2011). As of 2013, Africa still counted 10 heads

of state who had been in office for at least two decades.

Leader In power from/to Consecutive

years in office

Omar Bongo (Gabon) 1967-2009 42

Gnassingbé Eyadéma (Togo) 1967-2005 38

Josè Eduardo dos Santos (Angola) 1979-2013 (in office) 34

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (Equatorial Guinea) 1979-2013 (in office) 34

Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Cote d'Ivoire) 1960-1993 33

Haile Selassie I (Ethiopia) 1941-1974 33

Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) 1980-2013 (in office) 33

Joseph-Désiré Mobutu (Congo, Dem. Rep.) 1965-1997 32

Paul Bija (Cameroon) 1982-2013 (in office) 31

Hastings Banda (Malawi) 1964-1994 30

Mswati III (Swaziland) 1983*-2013 (in office) 30

Dawda Jawara (Gambia) 1965-1994 29

William Tubman (Liberia) 1944-1971 27

France-Albert René (Seychelles) 1977-2004 27

Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia) 1964-1991 27

Yoweri Museveni (Uganda) 1986-2013 (in office) 27

Ahmed Sékou Touré (Guinea) 1958-1984 26

Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso) 1987-2013 (in office) 26

Lansana Conté (Guinea) 1984-2008 24

Daniel arap Moi (Kenya) 1978-2002 24

Julius Nyerere (Tanzania) 1961-1985 24

Omar Al-Bashir (Sudan) 1989-2013 (in office) 24

Moussa Traoré (Mali) 1968-1991 23

Idriss Déby (Chad) 1990-2013 (in office) 23

Ahmadou Ahidjo (Cameroon) 1960-1982 22

Hassan Gouled Aptidon (Djibouti) 1977-1999 22

Mohamed Siad Barre (Somalia) 1969-1991 22

Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia) 1991-2012 21

Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya (Mauritania) 1984-2005 21

Juvénal Habyarimana (Rwanda) 1973-1994 21

Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal) 1960-1981 21

Isaias Afewerki (Eritrea) 1993-2013 (in office) 20

Jerry Rawlings (Ghana) 1981-2001 20

Leabua Jonathan (Lesotho) 1966-1986 20

Table 2: African leaders in power for 20 years or more

Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

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Figure 3: Number of African leaders in power for 10 years

or more

Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

Besides the overstay tendency of many African rulers, however, a number

of countries in the region were notoriously affected by the opposite

syndrome, namely the instability of leadership produced by frequent

military coup d’état. The region’s long string of military takeovers was

inaugurated as far back as 1963, when soldiers ousted and murdered

Togo’s first president Sylvanus Olympio. The states that would be most

affected by this phenomenon include Nigeria, Mauritania and the

Comoros islands, which had six coups each. Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana

and Sierra Leone had five. Burundi, Niger and Guinea-Bissau had four,

while the Central African Republic, Lesotho, Mali, Sudan and Uganda

had three. In countries such as Equatorial Guinea, the Gambia or Chad,

direct military interventions seemed to be virtually the only way power

could be passed on from one leader to another.

Military coups were not only more frequent in certain individual countries,

but affected the north and western parts of Africa in particular. If one

draws a line across the continent, from Nairobi in Kenya to Luanda in

Angola, 26 of the 32 states (i.e. 81.2%) that lie north of it suffered at least

one military takeover (with the notable exceptions of Cameroon, Senegal

and Cape Verde in West Africa, Eritrea, Djibouti and South Sudan in the

Horn), whereas only 4 of 16 countries (i.e. 25.0%) south of this imaginary

line did (these are the enclave state of Lesotho and the island states of

Madagascar, Seychelles and Comoros).

It was during the 1960s and 1970s that coups became an especially

common way of ousting leaders (see Figure 4), as they often enjoyed a

Serie1; 10-19; 56

Serie1; 20-29; 24

Serie1; 30-39; 10

Serie1; 40 or more; 1

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degree of popular and at times even external support. International

legitimacy for military takeovers, however, gradually waned, contributing

to their declining incidence in Africa. Yet coups were still relatively

frequent during the 1980s and the politically fluid 1990s. In absolute as

well as in relative terms (i.e. the ratio of coups over the overall number of

country-years in a given decade; the latter increases gradually as former

colonies achieve independence or new countries are created), the largest

fall took place in the first decade of the new millennium, as electoral

procedures appeared to take root more fully on the continent.

Figure 4 - Coups d’état by decade, 1961-2010

Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

Multiparty elections and the regularization of leadership changes?

Post-independence sub-Saharan Africa, as pointed out, suffered from two

opposite syndromes. On the one hand, the excessively long stay in power

of a number of rulers. On the other hand, the instability of leaders all too

frequently ousted by soldiers through “irregular” means. Leadership

changes, in other words, hardly ever occurred through proper, predictable

and regular procedures. How was this scenario altered by the multiparty

reforms of the 1990s? Did the introduction of elections affect the way

African leaders succeed to each other? Three main patterns emerge from

the data.

First, leadership changes have become significantly more frequent over

the past two decades. A clear break is apparent in Figure 5. While Africa

Post-independence sub-Saharan Africa, as pointed out, suffered from two opposite syndromes. On the one hand, the excessively long stay in power of a number of rulers. On the other hand, the instability of leaders all too frequently ousted by soldiers through “irregular” means

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featured an average 3.3 leadership changes every year over the thirty

years following independence, this number rose considerably to 5.2 in the

1991-2010 period. This is in line with the expectation that constitutional

systems based on pluralist elections and, often, term limits, in spite of a

deplorable tendency to interfere with both on the part of many rulers, help

Africans ensure a more regular turnover in power.

Second, a striking new pattern also emerges when we turn to the diverse

modes of leadership change (Figure 6). The latter are here categorized into

“peaceful non-electoral transitions” (when, for example, Senegal’s Léopold

Senghor, Cameroon’s Ahmadou Ahidjo or Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere

resigned in the early and mid-1980s, power was peacefully handed over to

their successors); “multiparty elections for the executive” (as was the case

when Daniel Arap Moi stepped down in Kenya or when Nicéphore Soglo

was defeated in Benin); “military coups” (like the ones that brought to

power Siad Barre in Somalia in 1969 or Juvénal Habyarimana in Rwanda

in 1973); and, finally, “guerrilla takeovers” (such as the one that brought

Yoweri Museveni to power in Uganda, in 1986, or Meles Zenawi in

Ethiopia, in 1991).

Unsurprisingly, coups were the most common way of replacing leaders in

Africa over the 1960-1989 period, accounting for about 41% of all

handovers. But they only represented 11% of leadership changes during

the subsequent 1990-2012 years. The same goes for peaceful non-electoral

transitions, which contracted from a pretty large 35% to a much smaller

15% share over the same two periods. By contrast, the increased use of

multiparty elections became apparent after 1990, when popular votes

replaced coups to became by far the most widespread mechanism for

political handovers (72%, up from 23%). Benin best embodies this

continental shift. In the past, the country had been both one of the most

unstable on the continent (some 15 heads of state rotated in office between

1960 and 1971, with an extremely low 0.8 years average duration), as well

as experiencing the long authoritarian rule of Major Mathieu Kérékou,

who was in power for 19 years between 1972 and 1991. After the country’s

first multiparty election in 1991, however, Beninese leaders’ duration in

power stabilized at a reasonable 7.0 years average for the 1991-2012

period.

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Figure 5 - Leadership changes, 1961-2010

Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

Figure 6 - Modes of leadership change, 1960-1989 and 1990-2012

Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

Serie1;

1961-70; 32

Serie1;

1971-80; 38

Serie1;

1981-90; 29

Serie1;

1991-2000;

54Serie1;

2000-10; 50

1961/1989;

Peaceful non

electoral

transition; 50;

35%

1961/1989;

Multiparty

election for the

executive;

32; 23%

1961/1989;

Coup; 58; 41%

1961/1989;

Guerrilla

takeover; 1; 1%

1960-1989

Peaceful non electoral

transition

Multiparty election for the

executive

Coup

Guerrilla takeover

1990/2012;

Peaceful non

electoral

transition;

38; 15%

1990/2012;

Multiparty

election for the

executive;

179; 72%

1990/2012;

Coup; 27; 11%

1990/2012;

Guerrilla

takeover; 5; 2%

1990-2012

Peaceful non electoral

transition

Multiparty election for the

executive

Coup

Guerrilla takeover

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Third, elections were not a way of merely legitimizing incumbents, but

increasingly turned into an opportunity for actual alternation in power

between opposite political forces.

As Table 3 shows, in a majority of cases pluralist elections in Africa did not

produce a leadership change. Prior to 1990, in particular, incumbents won

the vast majority of multiparty elections. Indeed, it was virtually

impossible for a sitting president or prime minister to suffer an electoral

defeat and leave office, either because they would simply not organize an

election open to alternative candidates – pluralist elections at this time

were a rarity – or, when they did, because they would not allow any such

candidate to get more votes than themselves. There were only sporadic

exceptions, such as in parliamentary Mauritius, where power changed

hands peacefully following the results of the 1982 election.

After 1990, as already mentioned, multiparty elections became the new

standard. Many African rulers were quick to adapt to this a new

multiparty context and survive in office. Yet in almost a quarter of all

cases opposition candidates were now able to defeat ruling groups at the

ballot box and snatch the country’s leadership from the incumbent or his

party. Moreover, this does not include all those cases in which the so-called

“first” or “founding” elections of the 1990s led to the removal of a

non-elected leader (i.e. a leader who had not come to power through

multiparty elections based on universal suffrage), such as in Benin and

Zambia (1991), in Congo-Brazzaville (1992), in Burundi, Madagascar and

the Central African Republic (1993), as well as in South Africa and

Malawi (1994). When these cases are included, some 17 sub-Saharan

countries, or 34.7% of all cases, saw power changing hands peacefully at

least once following the electoral defeat of an incumbent leader. In places

such as Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, São Tomé e

Príncipe, Senegal and Zambia, this happened twice or more. Mauritius

reached a record four times.

Short of full electoral alternation, elections still helped promoting

leadership turnovers by marking the end of a president’s stint, with many

new African constitutions limiting office to two consecutive terms. Thus,

as many as 19 incumbent presidents stepped down between 1990-2012

due to term limits, something that had simply never happened before. In

many cases, the successor came from the outgoing president’s own party,

his takeover sanctioned by an election victory (“electoral succession with

no alternation” in the Table and Figure).

in a majority of cases pluralist elections in Africa did not produce a leadership change. Prior to 1990, in particular, incumbents won the vast majority of multiparty elections

After 1990, as already mentioned, multiparty elections became the new standard. Many African rulers were quick to adapt to this a new multiparty context and survive in office. Yet in almost a quarter of all cases opposition candidates were now able to defeat ruling groups at the ballot box and snatch the country’s leadership from the incumbent or his party

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Table 3 - Multiparty elections for the executive, 1960-1989 and 1990-2012

Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

Note: when an incumbent and/or his party (who had not come to power through multiparty

elections) were replaced through so-called “founding elections”, this is not counted as “alternation”.

Figure 7 - Elections and alternation in power, 1960-1989 and 1990-2012

Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

Conclusions

Many African countries replaced their military or single-party regimes

with pluralist politics during the early 1990s. This led to the introduction

and regularisation of multiparty elections for the selection of a country’s

president or prime minister. Of course, in many places, elections were not

enough to start genuine democratization processes, as non-democratic

rulers rapidly learned how to manipulate the vote and survive in the new

political environment. Yet empirical evidence from our new “Leadership

1961/1989;

Incumbent

wins; 22; 85%

1961/1989;

Electoral

succession

(no alternation);

1; 4%

1961/1989;

Electoral

alternation;

3; 11%

1960-1989

Incumbent wins

Electoral succession (no

alternation)

Electoral alternation

1960-1989 1990-2012 Total

Incumbent wins 22 113 135

Electoral succession (no alternation) 1 16 17

Opposition wins (alternation) 3 39 42

Total 26 168 194

1990/2012;

Incumbent

wins; 113; 67%

1990/2012;

Electoral

succession

(no alternation);

16; 10%

1990/2012;

Electoral

alternation;

39; 23%

1990-2012

Incumbent wins

Electoral succession (no

alternation)

Electoral alternation

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change” dataset – covering all 49 sub-Saharan states since 1960 (or

subsequent year of independence) to 2012 – shows that elections did alter

quite profoundly the way ordinary Africans can influence the selection

and ousting of their leaders. Coups are now a rarer phenomenon,

leadership turnovers have become more frequent, and peaceful

alternation in power through the ballot box, if still uncommon, is part of a

new political landscape.