Democracy or Afrocracy? What young Africans actually want from democracy

For decades, scholars and political leaders have debated whether democracy is suitable for Africa. The argument, at its core, is that democracy as practiced in Western countries is a foreign imposition that does not reflect the cultural realities, governance traditions, and lived experiences of African societies. Claude Ake, one of the most influential voices in this debate, argued that the communal nature of African societies sits uneasily with the individualism of Western liberal democracy, even as he insisted that Africans aspired to a deeper and more participatory democratic order. George Ayittey extended this argument in a different direction, contending that majority voting is a Western practice at odds with the African tradition of selecting leaders through consensus. Some African leaders have also echoed these sentiments in practice. Julius Nyerere of Tanzania justified single-party rule on the grounds that multiparty competition was inconsistent with African decision-making traditions. Similarly, leaders like Yoweri Museveni have deployed similar arguments to resist multi-party democratic liberalisation. 

These critiques have now evolved into calls for an entirely different system. Some commentators have proposed what they call 'Afrocracy', a governance model supposedly rooted in African values and traditions that would replace or fundamentally restructure the democratic frameworks currently operating across the continent. While the proposal is seductive in its appeal to sovereignty and cultural authenticity, it is unclear how that could work in practice, as the idea of Afrocracy presents Africa as a monolithic culture entity. 

In this blog, I revisit this debate with new evidence. Drawing on Afrobarometer survey data and on newly released findings from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s 2026 NGN Democracy Survey of young African leaders. While young Africans want democracy to reflect local context of African countries, many are more interested in what delivers. 

What Africans actually think about democracy 

The claim that democracy is fundamentally unsuited to African societies rests on an assumption that is rarely tested: that Africans themselves reject democratic governance. The evidence tells a different story. 

Afrobarometer, the continent’s most comprehensive public opinion survey network, has tracked African attitudes toward democracy across multiple rounds of data collection spanning more than two decades. According to the 2024 flagship report covering 39 countries, two-thirds of Africans (66%) say they prefer democracy to any other system of government. Even larger majorities reject the authoritarian alternatives: 80% reject one-man rule, 78% reject one-party rule, and 66% oppose military government. Support for core democratic institutions, including multiparty competition, parliamentary oversight of the executive, and presidential term limits, remains strong across the continent. These are not the attitudes of a population that finds democracy culturally alien. 

There is, however, an important nuance. While Africans consistently support democracy in principle, satisfaction with how democracy works in practice has been declining. Only 37% of Africans say they are satisfied with the way democracy functions in their countries, a drop of 11 percentage points over the past decade. Support for democracy itself has slipped by 7 percentage points across the 30 countries tracked consistently since 2011, with particularly sharp declines in South Africa (29 points) and Mali (23 points). Opposition to military rule has weakened by 11 points, and more than half of Africans (53%) now say they will accept a military takeover if elected leaders abuse power for their own ends. 

None of this suggests that democracy sits uneasily with African values. What the numbers capture is disappointment with governments that have failed to deliver on the promise of democratic rule. Citizens expect accountability, economic opportunity, functioning services, and some protection from the corruption that drains public resources, and too many elected governments have offered none of these. The frustration is aimed at leaders who claim democratic legitimacy while evading democratic responsibility. 

What the next generation is telling us 

The democracy debate in Africa has long been conducted over the heads of those who will inherit its consequences. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s 2026 NGN Democracy Survey corrects this by asking young African leaders directly what democracy means to them and where it falls short. 

At first glance, the headline finding vindicates the Afrocracy argument: 70% of respondents believe democracy should be defined or practised differently in Africa. When respondents were asked which approach they favoured, 36.5% wanted the existing model expanded to include outcomes and participation, and 15.9% simply wanted better enforcement of the current framework. Even the 44.4% who call for significant rethinking go on to demand what looks remarkably like democratic deepening. Their priorities for what democracy should protect are rule of law and human rights (54.0% each), free and fair elections (50.8%), and accountability and checks on power (47.6%). Peaceful transfer of power, which has long been treated by foreign actors as Africa’s democratic gold standard, ranked last at 11.1%. Practically, for this generation, democracy is not an event but a condition, the daily presence of justice and accountability in ordinary lives. 

When asked which African values matter most for governance, 81.0% chose community and social solidarity, followed by justice and fairness (65.1%), human dignity (63.5), local ownership and sovereignty (57.1%), and stability and peace (52.4%). These are values that Ake, Ayittey, and the Afrocracy proponents have argued sit in tension with democratic governance. Yet the respondents who hold these values most dear are the same ones demanding rule of law, accountability, and institutional reform. 

The frustration of this generation with democracy is experiential rather than philosophical. Three quarters report having often witnessed undemocratic practices, led by corruption and state capture (79.4%), and only 15.9% describe their countries as mostly democratic over the past two decades. It is evident from that young Africans do not reject democracy because of their values. 

What 'Africanising' democracy should actually mean 

The hunger for a differently practised democracy deserves to be taken seriously. Respondents locate the current model's failures with precision. Nearly 61.9% say it is too focussed on elections rather than outcomes, 52.4% cite weak accountability between elections, 50.8% argue that economic inequality undermines political equality, and 47.6% say the model does not reflect local governance traditions. These are demands for democratic depth. Africanising democracy should therefore mean decentralising power to communities, building accountability that operates between elections, and pairing political freedom with economic justice. 

Moving the debate forward 

The argument that democracy is incompatible with African values has persisted for over three decades. It has been advanced by scholars seeking to understand Africa’s governance challenges, by leaders seeking to justify their grip on power, and more recently by commentators proposing alternatives like Afrocracy. Yet, for so long the concept remained an aspiration wrapped in ambiguity. 

The evidence presented in this piece suggests it is time to move past this debate. The Afrobarometer data, drawn from hundreds of thousands of respondents across the continent over more than two decades, consistently shows that Africans support democratic governance and reject authoritarian alternatives. The NGN Democracy Survey adds a generational dimension to this picture: young African leaders are not calling for democracy to be replaced. Instead, they want their priorities, from anti-corruption enforcement and independent courts to civic education and economic opportunity to serve as the blueprint for democratic deepening. 

The 69.8% of NGN respondents who say democracy should be practised differently in Africa are not wrong. Democracy needs to be practised differently because too many African governments have reduced it to a ritual of elections without accountability, of constitutions without enforcement, of institutions without independence. 

The next generation of young Africans want governance that reflects their values of community, justice, dignity, and fairness. They want institutions that work. They want leaders who can be held accountable not just on election day but every day in between. They want economic opportunity that makes political freedom meaningful. All of this is achievable within a democratic framework. The question therefore is no longer whether democracy suits Africa, it is whether Africa's leaders are willing to build the democracy that Africans are asking for.