Rwanda’s Paul Kagame won a landslide victory in the presidential election held on 15 July. His Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) party also won the legislative vote and maintained its parliamentary majority. With more than 99 percent of the vote in Kagame’s favour, this presidential election appears to repeat the previous three, in which the incumbent won as expected.
Kagame’s re-election takes place against many other significant electoral races across Africa this year. Presidential elections have already been held in the Comoros, Senegal, Chad, and Mauritania. South Africa held parliamentary elections in May.
Elections are currently scheduled for Algeria (September), Mozambique, Tunisia, and Botswana (October), Somaliland, Mauritius, and Namibia (November), and Ghana, South Sudan, Guinea Bissau, and Guinea (December).
Senegal and South Africa have had two of the most stunning election results this year. In March, Senegalese voters chose 44-year-old Bassirou Diomaye Faye as the country’s youngest president. Just ten days ago, he was a political prisoner, and Senegal’s democracy appeared to be on the verge of collapse. In May, South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since apartheid ended and free elections began in 1994. This required the party to form its first government in coalition with its ideological rival, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which finished second in the polls. This is uncharted territory for the country’s political system and democracy.
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