Reconstituting South Africa

The Gambia provides a lesson in how authoritarians can hold votes yet rob their people of the power that the ballot box is supposed to give them.

Three decades after sub-Saharan Africa joined the “third wave,” democracy’s ability to endure has been established in many countries, but its quality remains a grave concern.

After four years of sharing power with the opposition, Zimbabwe’s longtime president Robert Mugabe and his party claimed a huge victory in the 2013 elections. What accounts for the opposition’s…