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Home , Ahmadou Ahidjo, Meles Zenawi, Omar Bongo, Yoweri Museveni

©ISPI2013 TheISPI Theopinions expressedherein are strictlypersonal anddo not necessarily reflect theposition ofISPI.

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PEACEFUL : FROM VIOLENC LEADERSHIP TURNOVERS Analysis Giovanni Carbone Giovanni Carbone the through pol new a of is part uncommon, box,ballot if still power in alternation peaceful and frequent, more become have turnovers leadership rarer nowa arephenomenon, Coups leaders. their of ousting and selection the influence can Africans 2012 to independence) of year new and vote the manipulate non as processes, genuine start to enough regularisation country and a of introduction selection the to led This 1990s. early the single or military their replaced countries African Many online “ edrhp change Leadership paper

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, Associate Professor PoliticalAssociate of Science,

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ELECTIONS ug ’ s president or prime minister. Of course, in many places, elections were not not were elections places, many in course, Of minister. prime or president s ” ust survive in the new political environment. Yet empirical evidence from our our from evidence empirical Yetenvironment. political new the in survive dataset dataset

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shows that elections did alter quite profoundly the way the profoundly quite alter did elections that shows –

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AND COUPS TO INSUB - - party regimes with pluralist politics during during politics pluralist with regimes party Saharan states since 1960 (or subsequent subsequent (or 1960 since states Saharan Università degli Studi di Università Milano degli - democratic rulers rapidly learned how to how learned rapidly rulers democratic

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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. ruled Egypt for 30 years. Muhammar Ghaddafi reigned over 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 While pressures for borders. People insisted that their leaders go. In some countries they political change were managed to force out incumbent rulers, in some others they did not – or at redesigning least not yet. In the process, Arab protesters and reformers also demanded Mediterranean Africa, guarantees that, in the future, they would be in a better position to countries on the other side replace their leaders in case they do not perform, they rule too harshly, or of the Sahara were only they are simply disliked by the population. This called for the introduction marginally affected by the of truly competitive elections – an unrivalled mechanism for ensuring that events of the Arab Spring. political leaders can be ousted and replaced at regular intervals through This is partly because constitutional means. sub-Saharan Africans had While pressures for political change were redesigning Mediterranean already been through their Africa, countries on the other side of the Sahara were only marginally own season of political affected by the events of the Arab Spring. This is partly because reforms 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

3 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

©ISPI201 a very impressive 8-point improvement. The watershed of the early 1990s

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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.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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

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

©ISPI201 Gregorini for data analysis.

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100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0% 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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. , who led 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 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. , for example, took power in the Congo when Lyndon

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

3 ’s second term in post-Soviet Russia. José Eduardo dos Santos still rules despite being inaugurated when Leonid

©ISPI201 Brezhnev was in the Kremlin. It may thus not come as a surprise that a

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few post-independence African rulers – including Hastings Banda of Malawi and Francisco Macías Nguema of – 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), (1982), Swaziland (1983), Gambia (1994) and Djibouti (1999). , on the other hand, has been ruled by uninterruptedly since independence in 1980. The same goes for Africa’s most recently-born states, namely (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 I () 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 -Albert René (Seychelles) 1977-2004 27 (Zambia) 1964-1991 27 () 1986-2013 (in office) 27 Ahmed Sékou Touré (Guinea) 1958-1984 26 Blaise Compaoré () 1987-2013 (in office) 26 Lansana Conté (Guinea) 1984-2008 24 (Kenya) 1978-2002 24 () 1961-1985 24 Omar Al-Bashir (Sudan) 1989-2013 (in office) 24 Moussa Traoré (Mali) 1968-1991 23 Idriss Déby () 1990-2013 (in office) 23 (Cameroon) 1960-1982 22 Hassan Gouled Aptidon (Djibouti) 1977-1999 22 Mohamed () 1969-1991 22 (Ethiopia) 1991-2012 21 Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya (Mauritania) 1984-2005 21 Juvénal Habyarimana () 1973-1994 21 Léopold Sédar Senghor () 1960-1981 21 Isaias Afewerki (Eritrea) 1993-2013 (in office) 20 Jerry Rawlings (Ghana) 1981-2001 20

3 Leabua Jonathan (Lesotho) 1966-1986 20 Table 2: African leaders in power for 20 years or more

©ISPI201 Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

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Serie1; 10-19; 56

Serie1; 20-29; 24

Serie1; 30-39; 10 Serie1; 40 or more; 1

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 , Mauritania and the Comoros islands, which had six coups each. Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Sierra Leone had five. , Niger and Guinea-Bissau had four, while the , 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

3 Madagascar, Seychelles and Comoros). It was during the 1960s and 1970s that coups became an especially

©ISPI201 common way of ousting leaders (see Figure 4), as they often enjoyed a

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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.

Post-independence Figure 4 - Coups d’état by decade, 1961-2010 sub-Saharan Africa, as Source: “Leadership Change” dataset. pointed out, suffered from two opposite syndromes. On the one hand, the Multiparty elections and the regularization of leadership changes? excessively long stay in Post-independence sub-Saharan Africa, as pointed out, suffered from two power of a number of opposite syndromes. On the one hand, the excessively long stay in power rulers. On the other hand, of a number of rulers. On the other hand, the instability of leaders all too the instability of leaders frequently ousted by soldiers through “irregular” means. Leadership all too frequently ousted changes, in other words, hardly ever occurred through proper, predictable by soldiers through and regular procedures. How was this scenario altered by the multiparty “irregular” means reforms of the 1990s? Did the introduction of elections affect the way African leaders succeed to each other? Three main patterns emerge from

3 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

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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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Serie1; 1991-2000; Serie1; 54 2000-10; 50

Serie1; 1971-80; 38 Serie1; 1961-70; 32 Serie1; 1981-90; 29

Figure 5 - Leadership changes, 1961-2010 Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

1961/1989; 1960-1989 Peaceful non electoral transition; 50; 35% 1961/1989; Guerrilla Peaceful non electoral takeover; 1; 1% transition 1961/1989; Multiparty election for the Coup; 58; 41% executive 1961/1989; Coup Multiparty election for the executive; Guerrilla takeover 32; 23%

1990/2012; 1990-2012 Peaceful non electoral transition; 38; 15% 1990/2012; Guerrilla takeover; 5; 2% Peaceful non electoral 1990/2012; transition Coup; 27; 11% Multiparty election for the 1990/2012; executive Multiparty Coup election for the executive; Guerrilla takeover 179; 72%

3 Figure 6 - Modes of leadership change, 1960-1989 and 1990-2012 Source: “Leadership Change” dataset.

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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 in a majority of cases between opposite political forces. pluralist elections in Africa As Table 3 shows, in a majority of cases pluralist elections in Africa did not did not produce a produce a leadership change. Prior to 1990, in particular, incumbents won leadership change. Prior to the vast majority of multiparty elections. Indeed, it was virtually 1990, in particular, impossible for a sitting president or prime minister to suffer an electoral incumbents won the vast defeat and leave office, either because they would simply not organize an majority of multiparty election open to alternative candidates – pluralist elections at this time elections 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 After 1990, as already Zambia (1991), in Congo- (1992), in Burundi, Madagascar and mentioned, multiparty the Central African Republic (1993), as well as in and elections became the new standard. Many African Malawi (1994). When these cases are included, some 17 sub-Saharan rulers were quick to adapt countries, or 34.7% of all cases, saw power changing hands peacefully at to this a new multiparty least once following the electoral defeat of an incumbent leader. In places context and survive in such as Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, São Tomé e office. Yet in almost a Príncipe, Senegal and Zambia, this happened twice or more. Mauritius quarter of all cases reached a record four times. opposition candidates Short of full electoral alternation, elections still helped promoting were now able to defeat leadership turnovers by marking the end of a president’s stint, with many ruling groups at the ballot new African constitutions limiting office to two consecutive terms. Thus, box and snatch the country’s leadership from as many as 19 incumbent presidents stepped down between 1990-2012 the incumbent or his party due to term limits, something that had simply never happened before. In many cases, the successor came from the outgoing president’s own party,

3 his takeover sanctioned by an election victory (“electoral succession with no alternation” in the Table and Figure).

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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

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”.

1961/1989; 1960-1989 Incumbent wins; 22; 85%

1961/1989; Electoral alternation; Incumbent wins 3; 11%

1961/1989; Electoral succession (no Electoral alternation) succession (no alternation); Electoral alternation 1; 4%

1990/2012; 1990-2012 Incumbent wins; 113; 67% 1990/2012; Electoral alternation; Incumbent wins 39; 23% 1990/2012; Electoral Electoral succession (no succession alternation) (no alternation); Electoral alternation 16; 10%

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

3 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

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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.

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