Extending term limits, constitutional referendums and elections in francophone Africa

Abstract

All five francophone Africa presidential elections in Guinea, Côte d ’Ivoire, Togo (2020), Chad and Congo-Brazzaville (2021) occurred with incumbents imposing their candidacies beyond presidential term limits which had expired, via controversial constitutional referendums, followed by elections which the incumbents went on to win. This research article discusses how they did it. The paper argues that once incumbents had successfully conducted the constitutional referendums to extend term limits, the election management boards (EMBs) that organized the extension referendums effectively ran the follow-up elections to simply endorse the extension. The successful extension referendums relegated opposition rivals to second rate contestants on the electoral landscape and ensured outright wins for the incumbents in the first round of each election, so as to avoid any second-round risks altogether.