The past few months have seen three elections across Africa, in Tanzania, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire. Each exposed a deepening democratic crisis on the continent. While the ballot boxes were filled and the slogans of “stability” and “unity” were loudly proclaimed, the underlying reality was very different; repression, exclusion, and a profound disconnect between the political class and the masses, especially youth.

In all three cases, aging leaders clung to power through electoral processes that were anything but democratic. The continuity of these regimes is part of Africa’s enduring entrapment within neoliberal and neo-colonial frameworks, where the ritual of elections serves to legitimize old orders and satisfy liberal democracy’s important symbolic tenet of holding elections without any fundamental change.

Tanzania: a crisis of legitimacy

The October 29, 2025 elections in Tanzania marked a turning point toward deeper authoritarianism. President Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared the winner with 97.66% of the vote, a margin that raised more questions than celebrations. The opposition, led by CHADEMA party figures such as Tundu Lissu and Amani Golugwa, faced relentless harassment long before polling day. Opposition rallies were dispersed, candidates were barred, and dozens of party members were arrested.

Following the announcement of results, Tanzanians poured into the streets of Dar es Salaam, Arusha, and Mwanza, only to meet state brutality. A total internet shutdown, curfews, and reports of mass killings and disappearances turned the election aftermath into one of the darkest chapters in Tanzania’s political history. Human rights groups have since alleged grave violations, though independent verification remains difficult under government censorship.

Read More: Post-election repression in Tanzania as President Suluhu “wins” with 97.66%

Regional responses were telling. The African Union (AU), initially quick to congratulate President Suluhu, later walked back its stance under public pressure, admitting the elections had “failed to meet democratic standards”. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) reported that even its own observers were harassed and detained by Tanzanian security forces. But, beyond rhetorical concern, no meaningful interventions followed.

Cameroon: the century of Paul Biya

Meanwhile, in Cameroon, Paul Biya, now 92 years old and in power since 1982, extended his rule for another seven-year term. The October 12, 2025 election, where Biya supposedly won 53.66% of the vote, came after mass disqualifications of opposition candidates 70 out of 83 applications were rejected by the Electoral Commission (ELECAM). Among those barred was Maurice Kamto, the major opposition figure who had previously challenged Biya in 2018.

With viable opposition effectively neutralized, Issa Tchiroma Bakary became the nominal challenger. His supporters protested even before the official results, alleging manipulation and fraud. Protests in Douala, Garoua, and Maroua were met with live ammunition and mass arrests. The images of unarmed protesters being shot at while demanding transparent elections have further tarnished Cameroon’s already fragile legitimacy.

Read More: Protests erupt in Cameroon as the 92-year-old president gets another seven-year term

Cameroon’s youth, facing unemployment rates above 30%, have become increasingly alienated from a political system that offers neither opportunity nor representation.

Côte d’Ivoire: the illusion of reform

In Côte d’Ivoire, President Alassane Ouattara, 83, secured a fourth term, continuing a pattern of constitutional manipulation that has defined Ivorian politics since independence. Having argued that the 2016 constitutional reform “reset” term limits, Ouattara sidelined his main rivals, Laurent Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro, both of whom were barred from contesting.

The election had no real competition and a state apparatus designed to reproduce the status quo. Opposition groups organized protests, only to face mass arrests and bans on demonstrations. The government’s heavy-handed tactics show what is becoming a broader regional trend, electoral processes are increasingly hollowed out, while Western donors and Bretton Woods institutions continue to embrace “stability” over justice.

Ouattara’s rule represents a particularly insidious strain of technocratic neoliberalism governance through economic orthodoxy rather than political legitimacy. Once hailed by the IMF and World Bank as a model reformer, Ouattara has overseen rising inequality, rural poverty, and youth unemployment, even as Côte d’Ivoire posts impressive GDP figures. As Jonis Ghedi Alasow of Pan African Today noted, “the reported approval ratings of over 90% in some of the elections (Tanzania and the Ivory Coast) stand in stark contrast to the palpable discontent in these societies. This discontent is not only evident in opposition politics during electoral cycles but also in the daily challenges and frustrations that citizens voice, extending far beyond electoral processes. These are not elections — they are coronations. Ouattara’s popularity in Western capitals stems from his willingness to implement austerity and privatization, not from the consent of his people.”

Read More: Tens of thousands protest in Ivory Coast against the slide into dictatorship

Beyond the ballot: what to make of Africa’s electoral crisis

The Accra Collective of the Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) released a statement calling out the wave of electoral fraud, constitutional manipulation, and state repression sweeping the continent. Declaring that “ruling elites have turned elections into tools for preserving power rather than instruments for expressing the popular will.”

Their critique points to a larger truth: Africa’s democratic crisis is not just political, it is structural. Elections are embedded within a neo-colonial framework, where sovereignty is constrained by debt, trade dependency, and elite alliances with global capital. Leaders like Biya, Ouattara, and Suluhu remain in power precisely because they are reliable custodians of imperial interests, managing resource extraction and neoliberal reforms under the guise of “stability”.

As Ghedi Alasow adds, “It is important to remember that elections have never been a panacea for the fundamental problems facing our people. Africa’s history is a testament to the fact that meaningful change emerges not from ballot boxes but from organized struggle.”

But, at the same time, popular anger is growing on the continent, the youth of Africa are beginning to question not just fraudulent elections, but the very legitimacy of the systems that sustain them. Movements inspired by Pan-Africanism, socialism, and grassroots organizing are re-emerging and organizing, calling for a politics that serves the people rather than capital.

Ghedi Alasow remarked, “The popularity of leaders like Traoré underscores what people truly seek: patriots who are willing to defend their interests. People are less concerned about the means through which leaders come to power, but more about whose interests those leaders champion once in office. The neocolonial order is in crisis. It can no longer credibly claim legitimacy or democratic character.”

Who makes the future

The crises in Tanzania, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire are symptoms of a larger continental malaise; the collapse of bourgeois democracy under the weight of inequality, corruption, and neocolonial dependency. Electoral rituals continue, but their content has been emptied. Without popular participation, economic sovereignty, and mass organization, elections will remain instruments of domination, not change in any foreseeable future.

True democracy, as the Socialist Movement of Ghana reminds us, “must rest on popular sovereignty where power flows from the organized masses, not from the boardrooms of multinational corporations or the dictates of imperial powers.”

Africa’s future, then, will not be decided by the aging autocrats who cling to office, nor by the technocrats who serve imperial finance. It will be forged by a generation that refuses to be silenced, a generation determined to reclaim democracy from the shadows of neocolonialism and to rebuild it in the light of people’s power.

The post Africa’s recent elections: crisis and a continent’s youth in revolt appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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