October 30, 2025 • 14 mins
Election wins for incumbents in Cameroon and Ivory Coast, where key opposition figures were banned from standing, have raised warnings over the state of democracy in a number of African nations. One academic has warned of the rise of ‘democratic dictators’ which could create fertile ground for coups.
On this week’s episode, senior reporter Yinka Ibukun joins Jennifer Zabasajja to talk through the latest round of elections across Africa, and how gen z voters frustrated with their lack of choices may respond.
For more stories from the region, you can subscribe to the Next Africa newsletter here
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Elections in Cameroon and Ivory Coasts saw victories for their
long serving leaders.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Mister Alison Watara has been provisionally declared elected in the
first round with eighty nine point seven seven percent of
the votes cast.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
But with opposition candidates barred from running. There's a warning
about the rise of democratic dictators. The population knows very
well that the Constitutional Council and the Electoral Commission are
just an extension of the regime. On today's podcast, we're
discussing the wave of no contest elections across Africa, why
(00:49):
political analysts are concerned, and which countries are bucking the trend.
I'm Jennifer Zaba Saja and this is the Next to
Africa podcast, bringing you one story each week from the
continent driving the future of global growth with the context
only Bloomberg can provide. Joining me this week is Bloomberg
(01:12):
Senior reporter Yinka Ibukun, who's written one of this week's
Next Africa newsletters on this very subject.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yinka, thanks so much for being with us this week.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Thanks for having me ched.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, it's it's always great to speak with you and
catch up with you, there's been quite an activity, at
least on the electoral front across the continent, and we're
going to try to unpack it in the next few minutes.
But maybe we'd just start with Cameroon because many people
are looking at the age of Paulbia, ninety two years old.
(01:44):
He won an eighth term and he's the world's oldest president.
I mean, break this down for us. What would you
say is the significance of this election?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, well, I mean this election has put cameboon at
Adges Crossroad. I would say that the attentions kicked off
when the main opposition leader was barred from running back
in July, and that basically meant that the president would
be facing a weekend opposition. But it was the candidacy
(02:15):
of Ista Chiroma Bakari, who's a man who served in
the Bia administration for about two decades, that ended up
being the real game changer in this election because young
people have been hungry for change in Cameroon. They've never
known any leader other than Bia, and so they rallied
(02:37):
around Chiroma and came out and masked to vote for him,
to the point where Chiroma actually declared himself winner of
the vote by his own party tally FO. Days later,
the official results said that it was President Bia and
not Chiroma, who won the election with four percent of
the vote, and so that decisive win has fit claims
(03:01):
that there was rigging, especially because the are barely even
campaign and as you said, he's ninety two years old,
the oldest president in the world. He's been in power
in Cameroon for more than forty years, and so.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Here you are, he hardly.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Shows up at the campaign and still walks away with
a comfortable win in a country that's basically facing a
successionist war, where his administration has chased lots of corruption scandals,
and also where there's really high youth unemployment. And so
as we speak, there's actually sporadic protests erupting across Cameroon
(03:41):
to challenge the outcome of the vote.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Wow, and a country with the median age of eighteen
years old, right having, as you mentioned, probably haven't known
any other leader, most of them, Yinka. Let's also move
on to the Ivory Coast. In an earlier podcast, we
talked about some of the challenges that the country was
facing leading up to October's vote. Now Watara has been
(04:06):
re elected. What do you make of the response, and
especially from the international community because he is well known
and to a certain extent well regarded internationally.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So Ivory Coasts also just concluded its vote and Wataha
won with ninety percent of the vote after key challenges
were excluded. So with that result, you know, there's also
eyebrows being raised. It was hardly an open vote, I
think that's fair to say, but the international community has
(04:37):
largely looked away, and there's probably two reasons why that is. First,
Wataha has delivered strong economic growth for Courdivois, which is
Africa's biggest coco producer, and he's created an investor friendly
environment there. But perhaps more importantly, he's seen as a reliable,
(04:59):
secure ally in a region that's been threatened by jihadists.
And so for Western government it's likely a situation where
they're balancing their priorities and choosing probably stability of more
democratic concerns. Though it's interesting to note that it's actually
not been like the regular congratulatory messages, so they've not
(05:23):
criticized the vote, but they's not congratulated Wataha either.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And let's go from the West to the east. Yinka.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Because Tanzania just went to the polls on Wednesday where
another opposition figure was barred from running.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
What's the state of play there.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Unfortunately, it's more of the same Jenet bite. It's becoming
a pattern. This a situation where the opposition is barred
and then a clear path is created for the incumbent
to stay in power. And so what you saw in
Cameroon in Ivory coast's basically also happening in different ways
(06:02):
to a different degree, but it's happening all the same
in Tanzania. And so in the case of President Samya
Suluhu Hassan, it's two main key opponents that were barred
from running, including one that's facing trees and charges. And
so yes, even though the vote has happened, there was
(06:22):
an election, balance boxes were put out. The outcome is
pretty predictable there also.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And there's quite a crackdown on what's happening on the ground.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
There's a security forces cracked out, but also interestingly there's
been a crackdown on the internet. And I think that
what you see cutting across Tanzania, Ivory Coast and Cameroon
and really across Africa is that you have a really
young population, and they're challenging the status quo in ways
(06:53):
that you know, these traditional systems aren't used to. There's
no central leader. They are able to mobilize each other
through social media, and that's making governments wary and so basically,
in the case of Tanzania, they literally shut off the Internet.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Wow, which, as we've seen, it's a powerful tool for
a number of organizers INCA. For this piece, I understand
you spoke to a political scientist who gave you his
own concerns about these no contest elections.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
What did he say to you?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, So I did this piece with my colleague at
Cordonto who went to the University of Ghana and spoke
to a lecturer there, Kwame asa Asante, and so he
told him that, you know, this trend of blocking the
opposition to allow the comments to stain power is given
rise to democratic dictators where you kind of keep the
(07:48):
appearance of the democracy. You have the ballot boxes, you
have the constitutional courts, all the stuff that a democracy
should have, but actually there's no real choice. Citizens don't
get to pick who's going to rule over them, and
so that authoritarian drift is actually prompting military take overies
(08:11):
in many places, it's tempting the military to basically jump
in and say, hey, we're here and we can restore order.
The democracy's flawed, this corruption, and we can do better
than this so called democratic leaders. And so we've seen
that play out in the Sahel, especially where we'll actually
jumulated in the streets when soldiers took over. And so
(08:36):
that's what he's concerned about, that we're creating the conditions
for military takeovers to happen more broadly.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And we also saw that from Madagascar just a few
days ago.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Binka hold that thought.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
When we come back from the break, well, look at
where in Africa is going against this trend and potentially
what we might be able to learn from some of those.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
We'll be right back. Welcome back. Today.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
We're looking at the recent run of so called no
contest elections in Africa and what they say about the
state of democracy on the continent. Senior reporter Yinka Ibukun
is still with me. Yinka, you use the example of
Senegal in your piece. For those who may not remember
last year, how did that unfold?
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So? I mean Senego had its election last year and
Senegal is basically a bright light of hope in the
context that we find ourselves in today. Because in Senegal,
what happened was that President Makishal at the time was
basically looking like he was going to go for a
(09:51):
third term, which would have been at least by the text,
un constitutional, and so there were huge protests that broke
out across Senecal to prevent him from doing so, and
he eventually announced that he had no intention of running
at that term, and so it was really the people
who forced a president to basically honor the constitution there.
(10:18):
It's a really young country. We've said this for all
the countries we've mentioned so far, And what happened after
that was that it was really a generational shift. The
president that they ended up electing was forty four years
old at the time, the youngest president I think in
Africa elected, and so it was a generational shift that
(10:40):
happened there and a response to young people's demands.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Are we seeing similar instances of success elsewhere?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I mean, what we're seeing is youth pushed back. People
are organizing through social medias and other means, and their
demand better and in some cases it's toupled governments in Nepal,
in Bangladesh. In other cases, it's just made sure that
people's voices have been heard in Kenya, in Mozambique, in Morocco,
(11:15):
and so you're seeing young people more willing to mobilize
these countries and majority young people, and they are increasingly
have little to lose because often the growth that you're
seeing in these countries is not inclusive. It's not creating
enough jobs for them. And in the case of Madagascar,
for instance, they were asking for really basic things like
(11:38):
it started off with them just asking for water and electricity,
you know, and it ended up toppling a government and
bringing in a military leadership. So it's really about young
people mobilizing getting better at it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, and it goes to show really what you know,
that these leaders can't ignore this. You know, you mentioned
Kenya and we saw changes after a lot of those
protests that unfortunately were deadly, but you know, the president
actually had to take notice of some of the changes
that they were calling for, which I think was really
(12:12):
notable to mention.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yinka before we let you go.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
It's also worth mentioning because you point out in your
piece it's not all necessarily doom and gloom when it
comes to transitions of power. There was Ghana, Malawi and
the Seychelles this year. What are you paying attention to
just to get a sense of maybe where things are
headed next.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I mean, you mentioned deadly protests and that's really sad
where people have to lose their lives to make a point,
you know, to have their voices heard. And so I'm
actually looking at these gen z movements of young people mobilizing,
but more so beyond that mobilization, like if it's able
to bring about real change. And I don't know how
(12:57):
much change it can actually bring when you still have constitutions,
when the courts uh compromised or the electrical commissions aren't
truly independent. You don't want to just have people put
their bodies on the line but then have your real change.
So I'm looking for real change and what that would
look like coast dis genity movement in each of these
(13:19):
countries and beyond.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yinka, thank you so much for joining us as always
and for all of your reporting, and you can read
Yinka's reporting on Bloomberg platforms now, including our Next Africa newsletter.
Here's some of the other stories from the region we've
been following this week. South African President Zero Ramopouza said
(13:43):
negotiations for a trade deal with the US were ongoing
and voiced optimism for an agreement. Ramaposa stated that negotiations
with the US were now quote based on text, which
he characterized as progress towards getting an agreement nailed down.
And Namibia repaid it's seven hundred and fifty million dollar eurobond,
(14:07):
the largest single day debt maturity in the Southwest African
nation's history. According to the Finance minister, the redemption seeks
to enhance the country's credit worthiness and positions it favorably
for potential future engagements in the global capital markets if
circumstances warrant, and you can find these stories on Bloomberg platforms,
(14:31):
including the Next Africa Newsletter. Will put a link to
that in the show notes. This program was produced by
Adrian Bradley and tiwa Adebayo. Don't forget to follow and
review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts, But
for now, I'm Jennifer Zabasadra.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Thanks as always for listening.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Elections in Cameroon and Ivory Coasts saw victories for their
long serving leaders.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Mister Alison Watara has been provisionally declared elected in the
first round with eighty nine point seven seven percent of
the votes cast.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
But with opposition candidates barred from running. There's a warning
about the rise of democratic dictators. The population knows very
well that the Constitutional Council and the Electoral Commission are
just an extension of the regime. On today's podcast, we're
discussing the wave of no contest elections across Africa, why
(00:49):
political analysts are concerned, and which countries are bucking the trend.
I'm Jennifer Zaba Saja and this is the Next to
Africa podcast, bringing you one story each week from the
continent driving the future of global growth with the context
only Bloomberg can provide. Joining me this week is Bloomberg
(01:12):
Senior reporter Yinka Ibukun, who's written one of this week's
Next Africa newsletters on this very subject.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yinka, thanks so much for being with us this week.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Thanks for having me ched.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, it's it's always great to speak with you and
catch up with you, there's been quite an activity, at
least on the electoral front across the continent, and we're
going to try to unpack it in the next few minutes.
But maybe we'd just start with Cameroon because many people
are looking at the age of Paulbia, ninety two years old.
(01:44):
He won an eighth term and he's the world's oldest president.
I mean, break this down for us. What would you
say is the significance of this election?
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, well, I mean this election has put cameboon at
Adges Crossroad. I would say that the attentions kicked off
when the main opposition leader was barred from running back
in July, and that basically meant that the president would
be facing a weekend opposition. But it was the candidacy
(02:15):
of Ista Chiroma Bakari, who's a man who served in
the Bia administration for about two decades, that ended up
being the real game changer in this election because young
people have been hungry for change in Cameroon. They've never
known any leader other than Bia, and so they rallied
(02:37):
around Chiroma and came out and masked to vote for him,
to the point where Chiroma actually declared himself winner of
the vote by his own party tally FO. Days later,
the official results said that it was President Bia and
not Chiroma, who won the election with four percent of
the vote, and so that decisive win has fit claims
(03:01):
that there was rigging, especially because the are barely even
campaign and as you said, he's ninety two years old,
the oldest president in the world. He's been in power
in Cameroon for more than forty years, and so.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Here you are, he hardly.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Shows up at the campaign and still walks away with
a comfortable win in a country that's basically facing a
successionist war, where his administration has chased lots of corruption scandals,
and also where there's really high youth unemployment. And so
as we speak, there's actually sporadic protests erupting across Cameroon
(03:41):
to challenge the outcome of the vote.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Wow, and a country with the median age of eighteen
years old, right having, as you mentioned, probably haven't known
any other leader, most of them, Yinka. Let's also move
on to the Ivory Coast. In an earlier podcast, we
talked about some of the challenges that the country was
facing leading up to October's vote. Now Watara has been
(04:06):
re elected. What do you make of the response, and
especially from the international community because he is well known
and to a certain extent well regarded internationally.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So Ivory Coasts also just concluded its vote and Wataha
won with ninety percent of the vote after key challenges
were excluded. So with that result, you know, there's also
eyebrows being raised. It was hardly an open vote, I
think that's fair to say, but the international community has
(04:37):
largely looked away, and there's probably two reasons why that is. First,
Wataha has delivered strong economic growth for Courdivois, which is
Africa's biggest coco producer, and he's created an investor friendly
environment there. But perhaps more importantly, he's seen as a reliable,
(04:59):
secure ally in a region that's been threatened by jihadists.
And so for Western government it's likely a situation where
they're balancing their priorities and choosing probably stability of more
democratic concerns. Though it's interesting to note that it's actually
not been like the regular congratulatory messages, so they've not
(05:23):
criticized the vote, but they's not congratulated Wataha either.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
And let's go from the West to the east. Yinka.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Because Tanzania just went to the polls on Wednesday where
another opposition figure was barred from running.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
What's the state of play there.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Unfortunately, it's more of the same Jenet bite. It's becoming
a pattern. This a situation where the opposition is barred
and then a clear path is created for the incumbent
to stay in power. And so what you saw in
Cameroon in Ivory coast's basically also happening in different ways
(06:02):
to a different degree, but it's happening all the same
in Tanzania. And so in the case of President Samya
Suluhu Hassan, it's two main key opponents that were barred
from running, including one that's facing trees and charges. And
so yes, even though the vote has happened, there was
(06:22):
an election, balance boxes were put out. The outcome is
pretty predictable there also.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
And there's quite a crackdown on what's happening on the ground.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
There's a security forces cracked out, but also interestingly there's
been a crackdown on the internet. And I think that
what you see cutting across Tanzania, Ivory Coast and Cameroon
and really across Africa is that you have a really
young population, and they're challenging the status quo in ways
(06:53):
that you know, these traditional systems aren't used to. There's
no central leader. They are able to mobilize each other
through social media, and that's making governments wary and so basically,
in the case of Tanzania, they literally shut off the Internet.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Wow, which, as we've seen, it's a powerful tool for
a number of organizers INCA. For this piece, I understand
you spoke to a political scientist who gave you his
own concerns about these no contest elections.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
What did he say to you?
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, So I did this piece with my colleague at
Cordonto who went to the University of Ghana and spoke
to a lecturer there, Kwame asa Asante, and so he
told him that, you know, this trend of blocking the
opposition to allow the comments to stain power is given
rise to democratic dictators where you kind of keep the
(07:48):
appearance of the democracy. You have the ballot boxes, you
have the constitutional courts, all the stuff that a democracy
should have, but actually there's no real choice. Citizens don't
get to pick who's going to rule over them, and
so that authoritarian drift is actually prompting military take overies
(08:11):
in many places, it's tempting the military to basically jump
in and say, hey, we're here and we can restore order.
The democracy's flawed, this corruption, and we can do better
than this so called democratic leaders. And so we've seen
that play out in the Sahel, especially where we'll actually
jumulated in the streets when soldiers took over. And so
(08:36):
that's what he's concerned about, that we're creating the conditions
for military takeovers to happen more broadly.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And we also saw that from Madagascar just a few
days ago.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Binka hold that thought.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
When we come back from the break, well, look at
where in Africa is going against this trend and potentially
what we might be able to learn from some of those.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
We'll be right back. Welcome back. Today.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
We're looking at the recent run of so called no
contest elections in Africa and what they say about the
state of democracy on the continent. Senior reporter Yinka Ibukun
is still with me. Yinka, you use the example of
Senegal in your piece. For those who may not remember
last year, how did that unfold?
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So? I mean Senego had its election last year and
Senegal is basically a bright light of hope in the
context that we find ourselves in today. Because in Senegal,
what happened was that President Makishal at the time was
basically looking like he was going to go for a
(09:51):
third term, which would have been at least by the text,
un constitutional, and so there were huge protests that broke
out across Senecal to prevent him from doing so, and
he eventually announced that he had no intention of running
at that term, and so it was really the people
who forced a president to basically honor the constitution there.
(10:18):
It's a really young country. We've said this for all
the countries we've mentioned so far, And what happened after
that was that it was really a generational shift. The
president that they ended up electing was forty four years
old at the time, the youngest president I think in
Africa elected, and so it was a generational shift that
(10:40):
happened there and a response to young people's demands.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Are we seeing similar instances of success elsewhere?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I mean, what we're seeing is youth pushed back. People
are organizing through social medias and other means, and their
demand better and in some cases it's toupled governments in Nepal,
in Bangladesh. In other cases, it's just made sure that
people's voices have been heard in Kenya, in Mozambique, in Morocco,
(11:15):
and so you're seeing young people more willing to mobilize
these countries and majority young people, and they are increasingly
have little to lose because often the growth that you're
seeing in these countries is not inclusive. It's not creating
enough jobs for them. And in the case of Madagascar,
for instance, they were asking for really basic things like
(11:38):
it started off with them just asking for water and electricity,
you know, and it ended up toppling a government and
bringing in a military leadership. So it's really about young
people mobilizing getting better at it.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, and it goes to show really what you know,
that these leaders can't ignore this. You know, you mentioned
Kenya and we saw changes after a lot of those
protests that unfortunately were deadly, but you know, the president
actually had to take notice of some of the changes
that they were calling for, which I think was really
(12:12):
notable to mention.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yinka before we let you go.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
It's also worth mentioning because you point out in your
piece it's not all necessarily doom and gloom when it
comes to transitions of power. There was Ghana, Malawi and
the Seychelles this year. What are you paying attention to
just to get a sense of maybe where things are
headed next.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I mean, you mentioned deadly protests and that's really sad
where people have to lose their lives to make a point,
you know, to have their voices heard. And so I'm
actually looking at these gen z movements of young people mobilizing,
but more so beyond that mobilization, like if it's able
to bring about real change. And I don't know how
(12:57):
much change it can actually bring when you still have constitutions,
when the courts uh compromised or the electrical commissions aren't
truly independent. You don't want to just have people put
their bodies on the line but then have your real change.
So I'm looking for real change and what that would
look like coast dis genity movement in each of these
(13:19):
countries and beyond.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yinka, thank you so much for joining us as always
and for all of your reporting, and you can read
Yinka's reporting on Bloomberg platforms now, including our Next Africa newsletter.
Here's some of the other stories from the region we've
been following this week. South African President Zero Ramopouza said
(13:43):
negotiations for a trade deal with the US were ongoing
and voiced optimism for an agreement. Ramaposa stated that negotiations
with the US were now quote based on text, which
he characterized as progress towards getting an agreement nailed down.
And Namibia repaid it's seven hundred and fifty million dollar eurobond,
(14:07):
the largest single day debt maturity in the Southwest African
nation's history. According to the Finance minister, the redemption seeks
to enhance the country's credit worthiness and positions it favorably
for potential future engagements in the global capital markets if
circumstances warrant, and you can find these stories on Bloomberg platforms,
(14:31):
including the Next Africa Newsletter. Will put a link to
that in the show notes. This program was produced by
Adrian Bradley and tiwa Adebayo. Don't forget to follow and
review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts, But
for now, I'm Jennifer Zabasadra.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Thanks as always for listening.
Host
Jennifer Zabasajja
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.