A new report by Afrobarometer, a pan-African research network, found that support for democracy was waning in Africa, following a spate of coups, particularly in West Africa, and violent protests across the continent.
The flagship report, dubbed African insights 2024: Democracy at risk – the people’s perspective, examined the continent’s citizens’ satisfaction with democracy and revealed divergences between stable and unstable countries.
It showed that support for democracy dropped 7% with two-thirds of Africans still preferring democracy, compared with a decade earlier.
The steepest drop in support for democracy was reported in South Africa, where only 43% of the surveyed population considered that “democracy is preferable to any other kind of government.”
In Mali, a country ruled by men in uniform, 39% of the participants were supportive of a democratic government.
Moroccan, Zimbabweian and Tanzanian citizens were among the six countries in the continent where respondents were satisfied with the way democracy was working.
