The complicit silence or inaction of the AU at preliminary stages like these must be acknowledged and condemned for its direct contribution to the propagation of failed leadership in Africa and the perpetual suppression of its own citizens.
Recent elections in Cameroon and Tanzania have demonstrated further that even at the risk of entrenching undemocratic processes, the African Union (AU) prefers softer approaches towards the realisation of its principles of peace, security and good governance.
These approaches contrast with the AU ‘transformative’ normative standards. Its primary objective is to promote democracy, human rights and good governance, the failure of which often directly and indirectly results in conflict and political instability within nations. The institution has therefore adopted a massive framework of tools for long and short-term monitoring and standard setting, to which of primary relevance to elections and conflict in Africa is the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG); and other tools which allow for a more proactive approach to preventing and managing electoral conflicts such as the Panel of the Wise (POW) under the Peace and Security Council (PSC), the Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) and Election Observation Missions (EOMs).
Alas, bad governance remains an old song in Africa. At least five African nations today fall under the description of dictatorships – countries with authoritarian systems and/or leaders clinging to power for decades. These include Equatorial Guinea with Theodore Obiang Nguema since 1979, Cameroon with Paul Biya on seat since 1982, the Republic of Congo with Denis Sassou Nguesso as president since 1997, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda since 1986 and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki who came to power since the country’s independence in 1993.
These countries continue to struggle with the plight of long-serving leaders, treacherously amending constitutional term limits, manipulating electoral processes to forestall viable opponents, while their citizens cry foul each time elections are conducted. Unfortunately, for every of such election, the AU has either through silence or express declaration endorsed the flawed results emerging from these countries. This year 2025, standing high on the radar is Equatorial Guinea whose presidential elections are thirstily anticipated this December, Cameroon whose citizens voted on 12 October, and Tanzania which has interestingly surfaced in the corridors of strong criticisms following highly controversial elections on 29 October.
In Cameroon, the Constitutional Council (CC) declared the 92-year-old Biya winner with 53.66%, to rule for an eighth term under a seven-year mandate, by the end of which he is expected to be about 100 years old. Biya’s win has remained highly contested, and the country has been plunged into increasing sprouts of protest and violence since after the elections. The Constitutional Council, which by law deals with presidential election petitions within a period of only 72 hours after the close of the polls, dismissed all 11 petitions of electoral fraud on grounds of either insufficient evidence or lack of jurisdiction (as has been the case through previous presidential elections). Cameroon’s CC also took 15days (a constitutional prescription which has been largely criticised for its unreasonable length) to declare the results, within which time the leading opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary (who was declared runner-up with 35.19% of the votes) was already being co-opted for the position of Prime Minister by Biya’s entourage if he would cede his victory. High ministerial positions were similarly being proffered to close members of Tchiroma’s team.
Equally significant is the fact that prior to the proclamation of results by the CC, Tchiroma had already himself published results from several polling stations which revealed that he was leading at the polls, while the Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji publicly condemned all such declarations as tantamount to ‘High Treason’ (a finding which is prescribed nowhere in Cameroon’s criminal laws).
In Tanzania the incumbent Samia Suluhu Hassan was declared winner with over 97% of the votes, in a controversial election where the two viable opposition candidates had been barred from contending, one of whom had been jailed under a charge of treason for calling on electoral reforms prior to elections. The election climate was marred by heavy protest and violence, and human rights groups had already long decried the pattern of abductions, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings way ahead of elections. By Article 41(7) of Tanzania’s Constitution, these results once proclaimed by the Electoral Commission, cannot be challenged before any court – a provision which the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2020 found was inconsistent with citizens’ right to access to justice under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
While for both countries, criticisms from opposition parties, domestic and international media houses and human rights organisations streamed in, the African Union Commission (AUC) issued separate congratulatory messages to both presidents on their re-election, and on the other hand noted the post-election civil unrest and human rights abuse orchestrated by government authorities and called for domestic action towards socio-political stability.
Note-worthy is the fact that prior to elections, the AU Electoral Observation Mission (AUEOM) was deployed to both Cameroon (7-16 October) and Tanzania (29 October – 5 November) following invitations from both countries. But unlike Cameroon, Tanzania had received a Pre-Election Assessment Mission in June to determine the country’s level of electoral preparedness, to which the AU continued to monitor developments within the country. The preliminary findings of the AUEOMs have so far made no declaration to the effect that any of these elections were undemocratic.
Although EOMs can only report on what is observed and therefore cannot make conclusions on any back-door rigging done prior or post the polls, this only emphasizes a flawed process of elections monitoring, which overlooks pre and post elections manipulation and its potential implications on democratic processes. The AUEOM could learn from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) EOM whose preliminary statement has clearly stated that Tanzania’s 2025 elections “fell short of the requirements of the SADC” principles on democratic elections.
The political climate in both Cameroon and Tanzania had long revealed a compromised electoral process, which could have been effectively monitored by the AU and preventive steps taken to support the process of electoral legitimacy. Unfortunately, Cameroon with a long tense electoral climate, received no pre-elections monitoring, even though required by Article 12 of the ACDEG to which Cameroon is a party. On the other hand, although Tanzania did receive one, this made less of a difference.
The AU’s soft approach in the present situations can be likened to that of Kenya in 2007, and Zimbabwe in 2008 where the fervent desire to cling to power plunged both countries into violence, and the AU’s late intervention only proffered an option of power-sharing, while the continental body also hesitated to call out Mwai Kibaki and Robert Mugabe respectively, for their contributions in the human rights abuses orchestrated through the period of elections.
In the case of Cameroon, a few pertinent issues are evidently raised: that the victory of a 92year old for an eighth mandate of seven years is practically illogical and impossible, either by the mere fact of an obvious natural incapacity at the age of 92 which is sufficient to question the credibility of his leadership, but even more legitimately by a doubtful electoral process which has in fact been evidenced by the electoral climate in the country. Although it is not in the AU’s position to contest election results in member states, if AUEOMs effectively execute their task as they should, then why should the AU settle for a non-interference approach despite robust normative standards which empower it not to be a passive observer of electoral malpractice? The impossibility for citizens to themselves conveniently contest dubious results through legitimate domestic processes also only means that these results will remain unchanged, sanctioned by the AU’s blind endorsement. Sadly, such lazy reactions and congratulatory statements by the AU only pass a message of complicity in the same problems that it claims to eradicate. It in effect demonstrates a mockery and pretentious disregard for the African people, whose development and liberation from bad leaders cannot be successfully or expeditiously achieved without support from the top.
Certainly, change must be orchestrated from the grassroots by the citizens themselves. But although it may be argued that the AUC is only mandated to act ‘as delegated by the Assembly and Executive Council’, it is also empowered to be the ‘custodian of the Constitutive Act, its protocols, the treaties, legal instruments and decisions’. Therefore, the interpretation of its powers cannot exonerate it from its culpability in failing to be sufficiently proactive in alleviating the plight of the African peoples, if all it does is rubber-stamp the interests and decisions of African leaders, regardless of whether it amounts to reinforcing the position of a dictatorship. This only strengthens public criticism that the AU fundamentally serves little purpose for the ordinary African.
It is protracted democratic failures like this which eventually push citizens into violence and sometimes coups as has been observed in many African countries recently. The complicit silence or inaction of the AU at preliminary stages like these must be acknowledged and condemned for its direct contribution to the propagation of failed leadership in Africa and the perpetual suppression of its own citizens. The AU must act creatively and proactively, in order that Africa does not continue to suffer under the bane of leaders who refuse to call each other out in the selfish interest of reciprocity, while the rest of the continent is plunged into chaos which they themselves are pretending to solve.
About the Author:
Ruddy Fualefeh Morfaw is an LLD candidate and Publications Coordinator at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
