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Five incumbent presidents who conceded defeat in Africa
In African politics, it’s hard for incumbents to lose an election given all the state resources at their disposal, but as Emmanuel Tornyi finds, there are at least five who lost their power in recent history.
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Ghanaians cast their votes last Wednesday and the winner was revealed on Friday evening. NPP's Nana Addo defeated NDC's Mahama, with 53.85% of votes cast, verse 44.40%. But, it seemed like a large number of Ghanaians made their choice based who was the best of the worst on election day.
It leads the question, what is the chance of reelection if they face someone less disliked than their current opponent or themselves?
Below is a list of the presidents who failed to win a second term and the reasons why they came up short.
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1. John Mahama: The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential Candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, is the next president of the Republic of Ghana. The Electoral Commission (EC) Chairperson, Charlotte Osei, declared Nana Akufo-Add0 President-elect on Friday evening making him the fifth president of Ghana’s fourth republic.
Nana Addo, aged 72, secured the Presidency at the third time of asking beating the incumbent, President John Mahama. President Mahama becomes the first incumbent to lose a presidential election since Ghana returned to multi-party democracy in 1992. Nana Akufo-Addo secured 53.8 percent votes beating incumbent president, John Mahama to win the presidency.
2. Goodluck Jonathan: Nigerians are so used to the idea that an incumbent should win presidential elections that President Goodluck Jonathan's failure to beat General Muhammadu Buhari needs some explaining.
Past elections have been marred by serious irregularities and suspicions of rigging. In 2007 observers said the presidential poll was not "credible". In 2011 the vote was considered to be better run but observers said that rigging and fraud still took place.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer and its largest economy, but many fail to feel the benefits with nearly half the population living below the poverty line. Continued corruption is seen as partly being to blame.
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National income is due to grow by more than 5% this year and next year. APC supporters chanted "change" wherever they went and it seems to have caught the mood. The PDP has been in power since the end of military rule in 1999, and 2015 is the year that Nigerians decided that someone else should have a go at sorting things out.
3. Laurent Gbagbo: Born in 1945, Laurent Gbagbo is a classically educated academic now widely regarded as a leader who was willing to destroy his country, Côte d'Ivoire, by refusing to accept defeat at the ballot box.
After 20 years in opposition, he came to power in 2000 when military leader Robert Guei's attempts to rig elections were defeated by street protests in the main city, Abidjan.
In April 2011, Mr Gbagbo was himself forced from office - captured in a bunker at the presidential palace by UN and French-backed forces supporting his rival Alassane Ouattara, internationally regarded as the winner of elections five month earlier. The conflict killed some 3,000 people. Mr Gbagbo faces four charges of crimes against humanity - murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution and "other inhuman acts". He denies the charges, saying he is the victim of a French plot.
Mr Gbagbo has suffered from post-traumatic stress in prison, but judges in 2015 rejected his request to be temporarily released on health grounds.
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4. Abdoulaye Wade: He was born in Kébémer, Senegal; officially, he was born in 1926, although some claim he was born several years earlier, and the record-keeping of the time is not considered particularly reliable.
He was President of Senegal from 2000 to 2012. He is also the Secretary-General of the Senegalse Democratic Party (PDS) (PDS) and has led the party since it was founded in 1974. A long-time opposition leader, he ran for President four times, beginning in 1978, before he was elected in 2000. He won re-election in 2007 with a majority in the first round, but in 2012, Abdoulaye Wade conceded defeat to challenger Mack Sall as initial results in the presidential run-off election showed the opposition candidate.
5. Joyce Banda: In African politics, it’s hard for incumbents to lose an election given all the state resources at their disposal. While bookmakers believed the eleven-horse race would give Banda hot competition very few expected her to lose after just over two years in power. She was expected to stay around a bit longer as the second woman to become president of an African country after Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Previously touted as transparent, Malawi's election proved chaotic amid polling day havoc and vote counting anomalies. Incumbent Joyce Banda cried foul over preliminary results, but an electoral commission recount upheld opposition leader Peter Mutharika's win. Malawi's leaders, the AU and SADC must continue to promote stability to protect democracy and the will of the Malawian people.
There is also Yahya Jammeh, longtime ruler of The Gambia, has lost the presidential election to the opposition leader, according to the electoral commission. Adama Barrow's victory in the West African country may bring to an end Jammeh's 22-year rule.
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Jammeh, who came to power in 1994 as a 29-year-old army officer following a military coup, had won four previous polls. Barrow received 263,515 votes while Jammeh won 212,099, Alieu Momarr Njai, the electoral commission head, said in the capital Banjul.
Eight opposition parties united behind Barrow and the election campaign period featured large opposition rallies and unprecedented expressions of frustration with Jammeh's rule.
The UN Security Council demanded that Gambia's leader Yahya Jammeh hand over power.
Still, Jammeh had projected confidence, saying his victory was all but assured by God and predicting "the biggest landslide in the history of the country." Yahya Jammeh announced a legal challenge to an election in which he had already conceded defeat, in a weekend of dramatic twists that sparked international furore and fear of a crackdown. We await to see the outcome.
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