By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
An unlikely coincidence of ballots in a forty-five day period from the middle of September to the end of October 2025 has cast a new light on the state of democratic governance in Africa and now threatens to unscramble the ritual hollowness that has become the fate of elections on the continent under the indifferent watch of the African Union and other regional institutions in Africa. How the continent’s leaders and institutions handle the aftermath could have serious implications for the stability of the continent.
On 16 September, Malawi wnt to the polls to elect their president. The last time the country did that in 2019, it produced results that were so transparently rigged that five judges of the Constitutional Court of Malawi wearing bullet-proof vests were needed to set aside the result declared by the electoral commission. That was only the second time in Africa’s history that a court would nullify the declared outcome in a presidential election.
