About
Project description
The KAS Guide to African Cabinets & Elections wants to offer a comprehensive, continuously updated overview of the governments and election results of the 55 member states of the African Union (AU). Its goal is to give experts and the broader public alike a first orientation in the political landscape of Africa, create interest, and contribute to the discipline of political science focusing on Africa.
Methodology
The KAS Guide to African Cabinets & Elections is an open-data research project. The currently available data was aggregated from public sources. The data on African Cabinets comprise the current members of governments. The data on elections comprise the results of data on Presidential and National Assembly Elections of all 55 AU member states since 1989/90. This was the time when the majority of AU member states decided to (re-)establish multipartite democracy after years of one-party rule or instability (in total, 46 countries did so).
Thereby, the guide hopes to display the developments and maturation of Africa’s political systems over the last 30 years. Among the most important sources for the compilation of election results was the irreplaceable work by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). Smaller projects, not always known, have also provided major contributions to the research area of elections and also were of great importance to this project. Among them are the African Elections Database with its data until 2012, the ElectionGuide by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), Adam Carr’s Election Archive Psephos, the work by the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA), and the Data Handbook by Nohlen, Krennerich, and Thibaut (1999). Of general importance was the CIA World Factbook. Important for the compilation of the current government cabinets were the official websites of African governments, local and international news media, and the country websites of the French Foreign Service.
All information published on this website is also downloadable in separate Excel sheets which reference the sources. All information was double-checked. Where it was not possible to find two separate sources, the information was marked in “red”. The referenced sources also give further information on elections and cabinets. This project was done with the support of the Ethiopian-based consultancy firm EAGate (EAG) which double-checked and updated the first data sets compiled by the KAS Office Ethiopia/African Union.
Participate
To keep the data on 55 AU member states updated, the project wants to invite all stakeholders to contribute. You can send us your updates on government cabinets and election results via e-mail. Except for the official information that comes directly from by governments, all data contributions need to be based on at least two independent sources. Areas of future interest are: the percentage of Members of Parliament below 35 years of age. This is in view of Africa’s young generation (in most countries, more than 60 % of the populations is younger than 25 years old); and data on the history, size, and structures of political parties in Africa and their coalition building.
Legend
| NA | National Assembly |
| PE | Presidential Elections |
| GE | General Elections; here defined as NA Elections and Presidential Elections taking place at the same time |
| MP | Member of Parliament |
| Indp | Independent |
| NA Elections held | Number of NA elections held since 1989/90 |
| PE held | Number of PE elections held since 1989/90 |
| GE held | Number of GE elections held since 1989/90 |
| Contesting Parties | Polltical parties which ran for seats in NA elections |
| Parties in NA | Number of parties represented in NA |
| Times elected to NA | Number of times a party was elected to the NA since 1989/90 |
| Times won NA Elections | Number of times a party won the majority at NA elections since 1989/90 |
| Times won PE | Number of times a party won the presidential elections since 1989/90 |
| Cabinet | All cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister; if there is no Prime Minister and the President is the Head of Government, the President is counted as a cabinet member; in some countries, Vice-Presidents and Secretary Generals are part of the cabinet. |
Cabinets Overview
The data provide an overview of the AU member states‘ Heads of State and Government and the size of the cabinets. The data is structured by region. You can download the data also in the form of an Excel sheet.
Elections Overview
The data provide an overview of the results of the last National Assembly elections in the AU member states. The data is structured by region. You can download the data also in the form of an Excel sheet.
Elections Calendar
The data provide an overview of the upcoming Presidential and National Assembly Elections in the AU member states. The data is structured by region. You can download the data also in the form of an Excel sheet.