Across Africa, contested ballots, violent crackdowns, coups d’état and military transitions morphing into long-term rule combined to make 2025 a year in which, as one analyst tells RFI, “the law of the strongest has become commonplace”.
With no fewer than 10 presidential elections held across the African continent, the political stakes were high in 2025.
In several countries, elections reinforced entrenched leaderships rather than opening the door to political renewal.
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One of the most notable cases was in Cameroon, where veteran president Paul Biya, aged 92, secured an eighth consecutive term. While the outcome was widely expected, it nonetheless triggered major protests and renewed questions about political succession and space for opposition voices.
There was similarly little surprise in Côte d’Ivoire, where 83-year-old Alassane Ouattara won a fourth term. The vote was marked by the absence of his main political rivals, many of whom were barred from running.
The most striking, however, was Tanzania, where President Samia Suluhu Hassan claimed an overwhelming 98 percent of the vote.
The landslide came against a backdrop of unprecedented violence. Opposition figures allege that hundreds or even thousands of people died during election protests, a claim the government disputes.
Tanzania accused of hiding bodies of those killed in post-election protests
Military transition becomes lasting power
Beyond disputed civilian elections, 2025 also saw several military-led transitions harden into long-term rule.
In Guinea, General Mamadi Doumbouya claimed political legitimacy by winning a controversial presidential election, four years after taking power in a coup and promising to hand back over to civilian rule.
A similar pattern played out in Gabon, where General Brice Oligui Nguema – who had earlier overthrown the long-ruling Bongo dynasty – won the presidency with close to 95 percent of the vote.
In Guinea-Bissau, the military intervened directly to halt the electoral process, overthrowing the outgoing president and preventing the publication of results.
An attempted coup was reported in Benin, while in Madagascar a president forced out by street protests was replaced by a military officer.
Taken together, at least eight African countries are now governed by leaders with military backgrounds.
Madagascar’s Gen Z uprising, as told by three young protesters
‘Decline in democracy’
For Gilles Yabi, a researcher and president of West Africa-focused think tank Wathi, the common thread running through Africa’s 2025 elections is a growing normalisation of force.
He told RFI that leaders already firmly in power are using “all possible means” to stay there. These range from outright repression – as seen in Tanzania, where the human toll remains unclear but is believed to be extremely high – to mass arrests in countries such as Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire.
In Côte d’Ivoire, he noted, around a thousand people were detained and key opposition candidates excluded through legal and administrative manoeuvres.
In his view, 2025 illustrates “a real decline in democracy and the rule of law”.
Elections entrench the army
Asked whether some elections were designed primarily to keep the army in power, Yabi points to Gabon as a telling example.
Oligui Nguema, he pointed out, carried out his coup in the middle of an electoral process that was widely seen as lacking credibility and likely to cement the rule of Ali Bongo. Many Gabonese initially welcomed the military takeover, hoping it would finally close the chapter on decades of Bongo family rule.
“In the best-case scenario,” Yabi told RFI, “the person who carried out the coup would not have stood for election.” That, however, did not happen. Nguema ran, won, and is now an elected president. The hope, Yabi added, is that incremental steps over the coming years might still steer Gabon towards genuine democracy and respect for the rule of law.
By contrast, the situation in Guinea-Bissau sends what he described as an “extremely negative signal”.
There, the interruption of a presidential election by a military coup amounts to “a real affront” to voters who had turned out to choose a new president and parliament.
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Guinea-Bissau general sworn in as transitional president following coup
A year of concern
For Yabi, there is little doubt that 2025 should be seen as a troubling year for democracy, in Africa and beyond.
The world’s major powers, he argues, are hardly setting an inspiring example. In the United States, he points to a weakening of institutions under President Donald Trump, while China continues under a one-party system.
This global backdrop, he believes, feeds into a broader contempt for international law that is increasingly visible at the African level.
“In all cases,” Yabi concludes, “we have the law of the strongest – and perhaps also the most cynical – which now seems to prevail almost everywhere.”
This article has been adapted from the original in French by RFI’s Alexandra Brangeon.