28 Democratic Succession in Africa: Enhancing Orderly Transition through the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance

Abstract

Several African countries which drifted into autocracy shortly after independence have embarked on democratization process. The African Union has adopted the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, by which the AU committed itself to promote the universal principles of democracy among others. In fact democratization of the continent is one of the major agendas of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development initiated by the African Union. Implicit in democracy is the element of succession because the term of office of the principal members is fixed and a process is put in place to determine the next leaders. Election legitimizes succession. The institutionalisation of succession as shown by the nature of transition indicates whether a system is progressing towards liberalism or a reverse. The experiences of the transitions in Africa constitute a major source of instability and human insecurity on the continent. In Ivory Coast, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Sudan the process of determining the next leader resulted in political upheavals leaving in their wake massive human rights abuses, acrimony, ill-feeling and humanitarian crises. Against this background, the paper examines democratic successions in Africa regarding the nature and sources of challenges and their implications for the future of democracy in Africa. The paper argues that the clumsiness of democratic transitions is due to weak national institutions, the prevailing undemocratic cultures discernable in ideological goals, policies, structures, processes, attitudes, behaviours and practices during transitions, deficit of credible leaders committed to the advancement of democracy and the welfare of citizens. To address these, legal foundations on succession at international and national levels should be enforced. African leaders should respect the requirement imposed on them by law on succession.