Quality of elections, satisfaction with democracy and political trust in Africa

The quality of elections is an important indicator of democratic consolidation. This paper finds a significant relationship between citizens’ evaluation of the quality of elections and their satisfaction with democracy as well as trust in political institutions in Africa. The findings are based on the analysis of data from surveys conducted in 18 African countries in 2005.

Two main findings of the study are:

• citizens who evaluate their national elections as free and fair not only think that their country is democratic but also exhibit higher optimism about the sustainability of democracy. In contrast, those who consider elections to be grossly deficient in integrity are also less optimistic about the sustainability of democratic governance
• citizens who adjudged elections in their countries as honest exhibited more trust in the president, parliament and the national electoral agency

The main implication of these findings is that citizens’ evaluation of their national elections has significant consequences for democratic consolidation in transitional societies.

However, the study also reveals that only in about a third of the countries surveyed the majority respondents think that elections enable citizens to remove from office leaders who do not do what the people want. The author says that this seems to confirm the fear that elections in the continent are subject to manipulation by rulers and that multi-party elections reflect competitive authoritarianism than democratic elections.