Three elections, three alternations

In 2024, Senegal, Botswana and Ghana each held elections that resulted in a transfer of power to the opposition. In all three cases, the Afrobarometer had already signalled, in its prior rounds, a majority in favour of party alternation. The data was not wrong.

Mozambique, by contrast, was a warning: when the electoral process lacks credibility, the result is not alternation — it is crisis. The post-electoral violence of late 2024 left more than 300 dead and an institutional legitimacy deficit that will take years to repair.

What Angola can learn

Angola goes to the polls in 2027. Afrobarometer Round 10 shows that 43.1% of Angolans support party alternation — a figure that, broken down by age group, reaches 48.2% among those between 18 and 35. The political generation that will vote for the first time or for the second time in 2027 is, by a clear majority, in favour of change.

The lesson from 2024 in West and Southern Africa is not that alternation is inevitable. It is that the quality of the electoral process determines whether political discontent translates into democratic transition or into instability. Angola still has time to choose which path to follow.