Namibia's governing party, Swapo, has retained its hold on power after more than 30 years, however its grip has been loosened - the latest African country where incumbents have had a difficult time this year.
According to official results, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the Swapo candidate, won the presidential election with 57% of the vote, becoming the country’s first female leader.
Opposition parties have refused to accept the outcome after the polls were marred by logistical problems and irregularities.
Other important questions that have yet to be answered include how it was possible that Swapo increased its share of the presidential vote when in the parliamentary election it recorded its worst-ever performance, losing 12 of its 63 seats and only just holding on to its parliamentary majority.
Swapo is not alone in suffering a major electoral setback.
This year has been an "annus horribilis" for those governments in sub-Saharan Africa that have had to face voters at the ballot box.
In almost every election held in the region this year under reasonably democratic conditions, the governing party either lost a significant number of seats or lost power completely.
This trend has been driven by a combination of factors:
- the economic downturn
- growing public intolerance of corruption
- and the emergence of increasingly assertive and well-coordinated opposition parties.
The trend is likely to continue into 2025.
One of the most striking aspect of the elections that have taken place in 2024 is that many have resulted in landslide defeats for governments that have previously appeared to have a strong grip on power - including in countries that have never before experienced a change at the top.
The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) that had ruled the country since independence in 1966 was crushed in October’s general elections.
As well as losing power, the BDP went from holding 38 seats in the 69-strong parliament to almost being wiped out.
After winning only four seats, the BDP is now one of the smallest parties in parliament, and faces an uphill battle to remain politically relevant.
There was also a landslide defeat for the governing party in Mauritius in November, where the Alliance Lepep coalition, headed by Pravind Jagnauth of the Militant Socialist Movement, won only 27% of the vote and was reduced to just two seats in parliament.
With the opposition Alliance du Changement sweeping 60 of the 66 seats available, Mauritius has experienced one of the most complete political transformations imaginable.
Senegal and the self-declared republic of Somaliland also saw opposition victories.
In the case of Senegal, the political turnaround was just as striking as in Botswana, albeit in a different way.
Just weeks ahead of the election, the main opposition leaders Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko were languishing in jail as the government of President Macky Sall abused its power in a desperate bid to avert defeat.
After growing domestic and international pressure led to Faye and Sonko being released, Faye went on to win the presidency in the first round of voting, with the government’s candidate winning only 36% of the vote.
Like Swapo, South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) retained power but only after a bruising campaign that saw it fall below 50% of the vote in a national election for the first time since the end of white-minority rule in 1994.
As a result, a region that is known more for governments that manage to hold on to power for decades has seen 12 months of vibrant, intensely contested, multiparty politics.
Three trends have combined to make it a particularly difficult year to be in power.
Opposition leaders were then able to play on popular anger at nepotism, economic mismanagement and the failure of leaders to uphold the rule of law to expand their support base.
The perception that governments were mishandling the economy was particularly important because many people experienced a tough year financially.
In addition to underpinning some of the government defeats this year, economic anger was the main driving force that triggered the youth-led protests in Kenya that rocked President William Ruto’s government in July and August.
This is not an African phenomenon, of course, but a global one.
What was perhaps more distinctive about the transfers of power in Africa this year was the way that opposition parties learned from the past.
In others, it meant forging new coalitions to present the electorate with a united front.
A similar set of trends could make life difficult for Ghana's New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Saturday's election, and will also cause the Malawian government of President Lazarus Chakwera major problems when general elections come around in 2025.
That so many governments are being given an electoral bloody nose against a backdrop of global democratic decline that has seen a rise in authoritarianism in some regions is particularly striking.
Civil society groups, opposition parties and citizens themselves have mobilised in large numbers to demand accountability, and punish governments that have failed both economically and democratically.
Nic Cheeseman is the Director of the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation at the University of Birmingham in the UK.
