Hail Botswana, Sierra Leone

Three presidents assumed office on the African continent this week in peaceful, and in a large measure, democratic processes.
Mr Julius Maada Bio, Sierra Leone’s opposition candidate, was sworn in as president after winning a run-off election while in Botswana there was a change of guard in the country’s leadership following the retirement of two-term president Ian Khama.

His successor, Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi, will serve as interim president until the next election in 2019.

Mr Abiy Ahmed Ali, 41, assumed office as the 12th prime minister of Ethiopia, becoming the first ethnic Oromo to lead the badly divided nation.

Egypt was the bad apple in the week’s equation. In what has since been dubbed a one-man show, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi won presidential elections with 97 per cent of the votes.

The Egyptian election, sadly, did not have a credible opposition with at least six candidates were forced to pull out, prosecuted, or jailed.

Irrespective of what happened in Egypt, the African continent, where incumbents rarely leave power peacefully and ruling parties never lose elections, has cause for celebration.

Countries such as Ghana are already leading the way whether it is through peaceful conduct of elections, prompt concession by an incumbent when they lose and democratic transfer from a governing party to an opposition one.

Recent experiences from Kenya, Cameroon, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Togo, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and many others illustrate the daunting task of consolidating democracy on the continent.

These countries have either had military coups, elections that didn’t look like elections and crackdown on dissent and mass uprisings.

We hope the new leadership in Sierra Leone can pick lessons from Ghana, Botswana and other such countries on the continent in entrenching a democracy that serves its citizens.

We also hope that Cameroon, Mali, South Sudan and Zimbabwe that have elections scheduled in the coming months can look up to Ghana and Botswana and organise credible elections.

There are very many examples of what is going wrong in Africa in as far as democracy is concerned, but the few good examples portend a better future. Africa is hungry for a democratic revolution.