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2026's ballot year is a referendum on how leaders leave

Ballot year 2026 Continental
Voters queue to cast their ballots at Pantami, Gombe, during Nigeria's 2023 presidential election
Iyusuf615 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

2026's ballot year is a referendum on how leaders leave

The news

From Museveni's seventh term — won in January with 72% after term and age limits were removed — to December's legislative vote in Cameroon, this year's crowded election calendar is testing the continent's longest-serving incumbencies, several with no succession in sight.

The KemetLeads take

Our Scorecard's fifth criterion — constitutional conduct and exit — is the story of this election year. History's verdict is written less by how leaders govern than by how they go. Mandela set the standard in a single term; leaders deep into their fourth decade are writing a different chapter. Watch the successions nobody is planning.

What to watch

Cameroon's 20 December legislative vote, and any succession signal from Kampala, Yaoundé or Brazzaville.

SourcesAfrica Center, 2026 elections · allAfrica, Museveni declared · Anadolu factbox

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