Conventional wisdom conceives of COVID-19 narrowly as a global health crisis requiring a medical response with a view to ensure health security. A holistic approach characterises COVID-19 as a major crisis that require a response that safeguards democracy. With the onset of COVID-19, African countries have either proceeded with elections or postponed them. Each option has come with challenges for democratisation, peace and stability. Furthermore, African countries find themselves at the horns of dilemma between promoting the right to vote (democracy) on one hand and safeguarding the right to health for citizens (human security) on the other. The stark reality is that African states have to advance both democracy and human security in tandem. Depending on contexts, failure to maintain the democracy-human security balance may bolster autocratisation in Africa.

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The recent and increasingly prevalent phenomenon of power-sharing in Africa raises questions about its value for state legitimacy, especially as far as elections are concerned. While there are various circumstances that may give rise to power-sharing, comparative insights from the case studies in this article highlight two trends: first, power-sharing following protracted violent conflicts that have been resolved through negotiated settlement; and second, power-sharing following electoral contests that went awry. In both cases, power-sharing has been employed as an instrument for conflict management. The article explores power-sharing experiments in both scenarios, investigating its utility as an instrument of democratisation. However, the results of power-sharing experiments are not uniform: the record is a mixed bag. Also, the context of, and peculiar circumstances in, each country have determined power-sharing outcomes. In post-war situations such as in Burundi and South Africa, power-sharing experiments have bolstered prospects for consociational democracy, institutionalised politics, and nation-building. Conversely, in post-election crisis experiments such as in Kenya and Zimbabwe, power-sharing arrangements have not really served the ideal of consociational democracy but, rather, the interests of political elites, especially their appetite for state power.

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