Do African MPs reflect the people who vote for them?

BY THE end of 2025, 42 African countries will have held national elections in the previous 24 months. But do these elected produce parliaments that faithfully serve the societies they serve? Aside from studies of women in Africa's legislatures, there is surprisingly little information about this important issue.

- ROBERT MATTES and MATTHIAS KRONKE

Elected parliaments are the essence of representative democracy. Lawmakers are meant to know the 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 truly represent their voters. We compared the results of representative surveys conducted between 2009 and 2012 across the same 17 African countries.

The first comes from the African Legislatures Project. This interviewed 843 elected representatives (MPs). The second was produced by Afrobarometer, a pan-African research network. The 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 far more likely to be older, male and to come from professional or business backgrounds. Yet the overall profile of legislators better matches that of the voters in terms of ethnicity and religion.

One of the most striking findings is the match between the religious, language and ethnic make-up of African legislators and voters.

Across the pro-portion of lawmakers who are either Muslim or Christian closely resembles their electorates. There are also similar at the level of religious denomination (for example, Catholic, Methodist or Pentecostal).