In fact, electoral violence is on the rise in Africa, despite more than 20 years of adopting democratic governance, democratic indicators are relatively unchanged over the course of 20 years; and electoral violence has a detrimental effect on citizens’ view of democracy. Elections across Sub-Saharan Africa are frequently accompanied by fears of electoral violence and shrill calls for peace from civil society, journalists, governments, and international actors. These climates of fear and uncertainty are not only prevalent in countries that have long histories of contentious elections and political violence, but are increasingly being seen in places without such clear precedents. For example, recent elections in the diverse contexts of Malawi, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Kenya have all raised concerns that the polls risked a descent into insecurity, violence, and chaos. There seems to be an increasingly pervasive narrative that any election in Africa can degenerate into violence. One might be tempted to pose some questions such as where are these narratives coming from? Who sustains them? How are they being used? And with what implications for democracy?
As an attempt to explore these questions it is imperative to use some insightful analysis from various scholars notably, Sarah Jenkins, who is a political scientist based at the University of Anglia in the United States of America. In her analysis of 2015 elections in Kenya, recent polls in Zimbabwe and Uganda, she points out that despite their very different political histories and electoral experiences, in all three contexts, incumbent regimes deliberately constructed, fostered, fuelled, and exacerbated the sense of threat in order to legitimise tactics that skewed the electoral playing field. In this case, the language of security and the politics of fear become important tools in the menu of electoral manipulation. She reasons that the language of security can be extremely powerful and that proponents of securitisation theory have argued that the very act of labeling something as a ‘security problem’ can make it one; and by successfully convincing others that there is a significant threat, political elites are able to justify the use of extraordinary measures to counter that threat. She rightly posits that incumbent regimes are drawing upon these security logics in order to gain advantage in the polls.
