Djibouti and Benin held presidential elections over the weekend, joining the roughly 18 African nations going to the polls in 2026. These two French-speaking countries share one striking feature: high nomination fees that have attracted widespread protest. Djibouti's fee was set at about the equivalent of £20,000, while Benin has pegged it at around £328,000.
A former adviser to Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh, Alexis Mohamed, resigned last September citing democratic regression in the country. He describes participation in the election as a waste of time and money. Mohamed states, “On paper, this may appear to be a simple legal requirement. In reality, it is an additional mechanism of selection and exclusion.” In Djibouti, the nomination fee is refundable only to candidates who obtain at least 10% of votes cast.
Guelleh, 78, has ruled since 1999 and has pushed through constitutional changes widely seen as tailored to his advantage, first enabling open tenure and later removing the presidential age limit, previously capped at 75. Mohamed adds, “In a country where the incumbent president is presented, election after election, as winning with figures close to 97%, the real meaning of such a provision is not merely to regulate competition but to lock it down.”
This pattern is increasingly visible across Africa, where nomination fees and the wider costs of campaigning are rising fast, reshaping who can run and what democracy looks like. In Zimbabwe, the outcry over increased nomination fees is growing louder, with the fee in the last elections rising to £15,000, a 1,900% increase. Zimbabwe's opposition leader Linda Tsungirirai Masarira, president of Labour Economists and Afrikan Democrats, says she could not participate in the 2023 polls due to “exorbitant fees.”
Masarira says, “The notion that high nomination fees produce serious leadership is fundamentally flawed. Financial capacity is not a measure of political competence, integrity, public support or visionary leadership.” She does not entirely dismiss the need for fees, but says they must be reasonable, and warns that the current amount narrows the political field, making it harder for women and young people to participate, discourages independent and smaller party candidates, and consolidates power among already resourced political actors.
The executive director of the Botswana-based Centre for Democracy and Electoral Awareness, Motlapele Raleru, says rising fees do “more harm than good.” She notes they may reduce the number of candidates, but it does not improve the quality of choices left behind. Worse, it “reduces [candidacy] to a commercial transaction, not a civic right.” In practice, Raleru argues, high fees become a “systematic wealth test” that privileges affluent political actors, shrinks voter choice and “puts democracy at stake,” effectively “on sale to the highest bidder.”
Source: www.theguardian.com