Don’t Mess With The Military and 4 other lessons from Africa in 2017
The last 12 months have been a confusing time for African democracy. We have seen coups that didn’t look like coups and elections that didn’t look like elections. In this sense, it was a year of illusions.
As in 2016, the broad trend is clear: with a number of notable exceptions, the gains made in the early 1990s are under threat from governments with little commitment to plural politics. It’s true that 2017 provided further evidence of the danger of democratic backsliding. But it also saw powerful presidents suffer embarrassing setbacks in a number of countries.
So what lessons does 2017 have to teach us, and what is going to grab the headlines next year?
By Nic Cheeseman