Africa has a crowded electoral calendar this year, with citizens in more than ten countries poised to cast their ballots. Elections have already taken place in Benin and Uganda, with the rest of the year bringing contests for the Presidency and/or Parliamentary seats in countries including Cameroon, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Morocco, São Tomé and Principe, South Sudan, The Gambia, and Zambia.

As Africa watchers have come to realise, not all elections on the continent are equal – some are genuine contests capable of shaping national trajectories, while others are exercises in political choreography, designed to renew incumbency.

The year opened with elections that, while geographically distant, tell us a lot about Africa’s democratic stress points. In Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, who has been head of State since 1986 and, at 81, is no longer a spring chicken, secured about 72% of valid ballots to extend his rule by another five years.

As I remarked a fortnight ago, that result was unsurprising; the process was not. In the run-up to election day, opposition mobilisation was severely restricted. What’s more, public access to the Internet was blocked for days until after voting – a move critics charge was designed to control information flow and suppress scrutiny during voting and result reporting.

Meanwhile, Benin, once celebrated as a democratic bellwether in Francophone West Africa, offered a different, but equally instructive, story. The country’s Parliamentary election, which came barely a month after a December 7, 2025, coup attempt thwarted with the help of Nigeria and other regional partners, saw parties aligned with President Patrice Talon win all 109 seats in the National Assembly.

This clean sweep by the President’s coalition signals a significant problem – not of popularity, but of competitiveness. Following electoral law reforms that weakened opposition parties, Benin’s January 11 election, for MPs, raised questions about democratic regression cloaked in procedural legality. For instance, while the main opposition won around 16% of the vote, it failed to meet the newly raised 20% threshold required in each district for representation.

The Beninese will return to the polls to elect a new President – or extend the incumbent’s tenure – in April. Concerns have already been raised, with observers pointing to the electoral code adopted in March 2024, which requires Presidential aspirants to secure the signatures of 28 sponsors – Parliamentarians and/or mayors – from at least 15 electoral constituencies.

Looking ahead, several elections stand out as particularly consequential for Africa. Zambia’s is pivotal. Since the 2021 victory by Hakainde Hichilema, an opposition candidate, the country has been watched as a test case for democratic recovery in Southern Africa. The credibility of the August poll will either consolidate Zambia’s reputation as a reformer or confirm fears that the alternation of power between political parties does not automatically entrench democratic norms.

In Cameroon, where President Paul Biya has been in power since 1982 and was re-elected in October for an eighth, seven-year term, voters return to the polls in May to elect new Parliamentarians. Years of electoral manipulation and the dominance of the ruling CPDM party have left little room for genuine competition. Observers will be watching whether the State can manage these elections credibly amid lingering Anglophone region unrest and widespread public distrust.

South Sudan represents a different category altogether. Any election held in the world’s youngest nation – which came into being in 2011 – will be symbolically significant, but the credibility of the country’s general elections scheduled for December remains deeply uncertain. As observers point out, the National Elections Commission remains underfunded and fragile, while the State machinery itself is overstretched after years of conflict that have hollowed out public institutions, leaving them dependent on decrees rather than functioning legal systems. Moreover, economic pressures that have been worsened by external factors – such as disruptions to oil export infrastructure by the conflict in neighbouring Sudan – have undermined the State’s ability to fund credible elections.

In The Gambia, elections, to be held in December, remain genuinely competitive, following the 2017 defeat of dictator Yahya Jammeh and his subsequent exile.

Morocco and Cape Verde occupy more stable ends of the spectrum. Morocco’s elections, in September, matter regionally because of their implications for governance reform in North Africa, even if real power is still limited. Cape Verde, meanwhile, continues to demonstrate that small African States can sustain stable democratic institutions – quietly and without drama.