Part of the book series:Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations ((PPCE,volume 31))
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Abstract
This chapter examines the trajectory of presidential monarchism as a common phenomenon in postcolonial Africa. Africa is home to many of the world’s longest-ruling heads of state posing as presidents. Presidential monarchism conveys the notion of ‘life presidents,’ who are indeed ‘disguised monarchs’ without limited tenures of office. This phenomenon developed in postcolonial Africa under distinct historical phases, which have not been clearly discerned, and historicised in extant scholarship. This chapter sets out to address this largely understudied sphere in the scholarship of Africa’s constitutional history. The methodology deployed is essentially qualitative, and the author exploited extant documentary sources, including online newspapers. This study revealed that the first 3 decades after African independence witnessed the development of presidential monarchism, with over 25 African presidents reigning for 20 years and above with all powers concentrated in their hands. In 1990, presidential monarchism was seriously shaken to its foundations by the global third democratic wave that blew over Africa and the introduction of constitutional term limits that restricted the ability of African leaders to stay in office beyond two terms. Nonetheless, presidential monarchism persisted in the post-1990 period after the scrapping or circumvention of the term-limit clauses. It metamorphosed into ultra-presidential monarchism in the shape of presidential dynasties, as a disturbing retrogressive development. However, an overall decline in presidential monarchism occurred as most African states adopted presidential fixed term limits, which was a positive sign.
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Notes
- 1.
Paul Biya was born on13 February 1933.
- 2.
Bokassa was overthrown in 1979.
- 3.
Computed from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. List of state leaders in the twentieth century (1951–2000).https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_leaders_in_the_20th_century (accessed on 28/03/2023).
- 4.
France’s influence is waning as a wave of coups d’etat in recent times in Mali (2020), Burkina Faso (2020), and Niger (2023) has seen the expulsion of France from these Francophone countries and their replacement with Wagner mercenary groups with Russian backing (Olech2024).
- 5.
The term limits contained in Namibia’s 1990 constitution were changed in 1999 to allow then-president Nujoma, in power since 1990, to run for a third term. Importantly, the two-term limit was not scrapped but rather amended for Nujoma only (see Tull & Simons,2017: 88).
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Department of History, College of Humanities, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
Nicodemus Fru Awasom
Research Associate, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
Nicodemus Fru Awasom
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Department of History, College of Humanities, University of Ghana, Legon-Accra, Ghana
Nicodemus Fru Awasom
University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni, Eswatini, Research Associate, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
Hlengiwe Portia Dlamini
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Awasom, N.F. (2024). Trends Towards Presidential Monarchism in Postindependence Africa. In: Awasom, N.F., Dlamini, H.P. (eds) The Making, Unmaking and Remaking of Africa’s Independence and Post-Independence Constitutions. Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations, vol 31. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-66808-1_2
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