The African Democratization Project is at Risk. Can it be saved?

On January 7, 2025, Ghana notched a major milestone on its 33-year democratic journey – nine mostly competitive multi-party elections, four electoral turnovers, and four peaceful power transfers in its 4th Republic. The military ruler of Burkina Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore, who was one of more than 20 sitting and former African heads of state attending the presidential inauguration ceremony at the Black Star Square in Accra, received the loudest applause from the large crowd at this festival of Ghanaian democracy. By all accounts, Captain Traore (like his fellow coup leaders in Mali and Niger), enjoys a hero status on the streets, in the media, and among intellectuals across Africa. What does this rather incongruous development at Ghana's presidential inauguration ceremony suggest about the state of democracy in Ghana and the African continent? How do we reconcile citizens' enthusiastic welcome to coup leaders in the West African Sahel nations with contemporaneous pro-democracy developments in Botswana, Liberia, Mauritius, and Ghana? And broadly speaking: Is the African democratic in that much risk? Can it be saved? And how?

 

 

Prof. E. Gyimah-Boadi is co-founder and current board chair of the Afrobarometer (a pan-African, survey research network serving as the global reference point for high quality data on African democracy, governance, economy) and co-founder and former executive director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development, a leading independent democracy and good governance think tank in Accra, Ghana.

A former professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, he also held faculty positions at universities in the United States, including the American University’s School of International Service and fellowships at Queen Mary University, the Center for Democracy, Rule of Law and Development at Stanford University; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy.

A graduate of the University of California (Davis) and University of Ghana (Legon), Gyimah-Boadi is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) and the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. For his contributions to research and policy advocacy on democracy, accountable governance and human rights, he has won a myriad of awards, including the Distinguished Africanist of the Year of the African Studies Association of US and Canada (2018); the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Peace and Social Justice (2017); and one of the Republic of Ghana’s highest national award, Order of Volta (2008).