By the end of 2025, 42 African countries will have held national elections in the previous 24 months. But do these elections produce parliaments that accurately reflect the societies they serve? Aside from studies of women in Africa’s legislatures, there is surprisingly little information about this important issue.
Elected parliaments are the essence of representative democracy. Law makers are more likely to know what voters need and want if they are alike in age, gender, language, education or occupation.
As scholars of African politics, we wanted to find out if African legislators actually represented their voters. We compared the results of two separate surveys conducted between 2009 and 2012 across the same 17 African countries.
The first comes from the African Legislatures Project. This interviewed 823 elected representatives (MPs). The second was produced by Afrobarometer, a pan-African research network.
Our study found wide gaps between citizens and their representatives in some respects, but a high degree of similarity in others.
Compared to ordinary African citizens, African legislators possess much higher levels of education. They are also far more likely to be older, male and to come from professional or business backgrounds. Yet the overall profile of legislators closely matches that of the voters in terms of ethnicity and religion.
Religion and ethnicity
One of the most striking findings is the match between the religious, language and ethnic make-up of African legislatures and voters.
Across all 17 countries, the proportion of law makers who are either Muslim or Christian closely resembles their electorates. They are also similar at the level of religious denomination (for example Catholic, Methodist or Pentecostal).
Legislatures closely mirror the languages spoken by citizens in their countries. In some countries the overlap is very high. In Lesotho, for example, almost all MPs and citizens speak the same language (Sesotho). In Zimbabwe, the distribution of Shona and Ndebele speaking MPs is much the same as it is for the public.
There’s less overlap in Tanzania (where many more parliamentarians point to Swahili as their home language than Kisukuma, which most citizens speak). And in Namibia and South Africa, most MPs claim English as their home language rather than the otherwise dominant Oshiwambo or Zulu, respectively.
Many scholars argue that proportional representation voting systems (where people vote for party lists, rather than candidates) are necessary to reflect ethnic diversity. Our findings demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case. We found high levels of correspondence in diverse societies that elect members from “first past the post” single member districts, such as Zimbabwe, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda. This is because political parties will strategically select candidates who reflect the religious and ethnic identities of specific constituencies so that candidates are seen as “one of us”.
Where presented with a choice between candidates of differing religious or ethnic backgrounds, voters will tend to prefer the one similar to them. They feel that candidates who come from their area, or speak their language, are more likely to understand their needs and preferences.
Education and occupation
Our study also established that African elections produce legislatures that are older, more male, far more educated and wealthier than their voters.
While only 9% of citizens possessed a university degree across these 17 countries in the years under review, 58% of MPs had one. In Uganda, this figure climbed to 90%: a substantial educational disparity.
Occupational backgrounds also reveal a pronounced skew. A large proportion of parliamentarians come from business (24%) or professional (27%) sectors. Average citizens are likely to be blue collar or agricultural workers.
Gender and age
Despite making up roughly 50% of African societies, just 18% of the parliamentarians we interviewed were women.
Proportional representation voting systems do increase gender balance. This shows in Mozambique (40% of parliamentarians are female), Namibia (35%) and South Africa (28%). But other mechanisms such as gender quotas in the governing party nomination process (Tanzania, 32%), or reserved seats (Uganda, 27%), also increase women’s representation.
Finally, elected legislatures are almost always older than their electorate. But African legislators appear to be especially venerable. While the median age of the over-18 citizen population across these 17 societies is 33, the median age of our sample of MPs was 53. This raises questions about the ability of older legislators to fully understand and address the concerns of younger generations.
Are parliamentarians an unaccountable ‘power elite’?
We also wondered whether the social and economic advantages provided by higher education and experience in business and the professions might keep MPs in power, and out of touch with the needs of citizens.
Two factors appear to work against this outcome.
First, we examined potential markers of status and influence: university education; high-status occupational background; and previously held positions in party leadership, national government, or local government. It turns out that the average MP had only accumulated two of these things.
Second, consistent with other studies of African legislatures that find surprising levels of turnover of individual parliamentarians, the typical law maker in our surveys had been in office for just five years. Whatever status or privilege they carry with them into the legislative chamber does not guarantee a long stay.
What can we learn from this?
These results provide some insights for the continent’s next election season.
Most ruling parties were humbled at the polls in 2024, and several lost their majority in parliament (Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius, Senegal and South Africa). The trend of high legislator turnover seems likely to continue.
Thus, newly elected parliamentarians are unlikely to form a coherent “power elite”. The real challenge seems to be to harness the impressive skills African MPs bring to their jobs to enable them to play a more meaningful role in writing laws and holding their executives to account.
