Mayoral Elections and Partisan Dynamics in Africa’s Local Governments

• In Event: Local Elections, Institutions, and Bureaucracies in the Global South and North

Abstract

Enforcing party loyalty is particularly difficult in settings where parties are not strongly
differentiated by policy or ideological platforms, as is the case in many African countries.
Instead, the system of party nominations serves an important role in maintaining loyalty and
discipline. Yet, direct mayoral elections at the subnational level affect these dynamics by either
expanding the range of executive positions that politicians can occupy—thereby creating
opportunities for them to forge greater visibility within their party—or enabling them to defect
and create an independent political identity. Drawing on the case of Zambia, which shifted in
2016 from indirect to direct mayoral elections for its district councils, this paper discusses how
the change in electoral rules contributed to more independent mayoral candidates and growing
intra-party frictions, especially among mayors governing large urban areas. Additional case
studies from Senegal, which shifted to direct elections in 2022, and Mozambique, which reverted to indirect elections in 2018, further underscore the external validity of the analysis while refining its scope conditions. The paper emphasizes that while political decentralization is often viewed as a mechanism for enhancing downwards accountability to citizens, it can also exert considerable impacts on party loyalty.

Author

• Danielle Elise Resnick, International Food Policy Research Institute