Eleven African countries are set to hold elections in 2026, a lineup that promises a mixed picture of the continent’s democratic health. From Ethiopia, a demographic giant, to the small island nations of Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, these votes will unfold against radically different backdrops, ranging from open conflict to presidents entrenched for decades to a young population growing more impatient with political stagnation.
Ethiopia draws much of the attention on its own. As the continent’s second most populous country, home to over 130 million people, it will hold parliamentary elections on June 1 to renew the lower house. The vote marks the first major electoral moment since the official end of the Tigray war in 2022, a conflict that killed hundreds of thousands. Despite reforms that have opened up political space for the opposition, lingering security challenges and a thin track record of genuinely competitive elections make the exercise a delicate one for outgoing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, in office since 2018.
Alongside Ethiopia in the high-risk category sits Somalia, where a presidential election set for June will take place as the Islamist group Al-Shabaab regains ground and instability keeps disrupting the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, two of the world’s most strategic shipping lanes. The country still holds a notable distinction, though: despite chronic institutional fragility, it has seen relatively regular turnover among its political elite over the past twenty-five years, an exception for a state long labeled failed.
At the other end of the spectrum, two small island states stand out as relative success stories. Cape Verde, regularly ranked the continent’s most democratic country in Freedom House surveys, will hold parliamentary elections followed by a presidential vote in which incumbent José Maria Neves can seek a second term. São Tomé and Príncipe follows a similar timeline, with presidential and parliamentary votes scheduled for July and September respectively, even as the political crisis triggered by President Carlos Vila Nova’s dismissal of Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada continues to fuel tension within the ruling ADI party, now split into rival factions.
The most striking commonality among several of these eleven countries, though, remains the sheer longevity of their leaders. In four of them, Uganda, the Republic of Congo, Djibouti and South Sudan, heads of state have held office for at least fifteen years. In Uganda and the Republic of Congo, the same men have run the country for more than forty years. These extended tenures have almost always been made possible by a gradual erosion of constitutional term limits, a maneuver with well-documented political and economic costs across the continent. Djibouti offers a textbook case: 77-year-old President Ismail Omar Guelleh will seek a sixth term there after a constitutional amendment scrapped the previous age limit, in a political space that leaves the opposition very little room to maneuver.
A comparable pattern is taking shape in the Gambia. Outgoing President Adama Barrow, who came to power in 2017 after ending the Yahya Jammeh era, is also planning to seek a third term in December’s election, a prospect reviving concerns over the strength of power-rotation mechanisms in a country that once embodied hope for democratic renewal in West Africa.
Overall, observers estimate that close to half of these eleven elections could prove genuinely competitive, while the outcomes of the rest already look predictable. That split captures the core question this election year raises: beyond simply holding a vote, what remains largely unresolved across much of the continent is whether institutions can genuinely check and limit executive power.