When the third wave of democracy finally hit Africa in the early 1990s, a large number of African countries made the transition to formal democracy by implementing multiparty elections. Although opening up a new window for political competition, elections were, however, often marred with irregularities and designed to create a systematic advantage for the incumbent government. By manipulating the rules of the game, the preferences of the voters and the actual election results, incumbent governments were often able to keep the electoral arena under control and prevent regime transition.
Several studies have researched the determinants of cross-national variation in electoral manipulation. Our knowledge is, however, much more limited when it comes to explaining where, why and how elections are manipulated in competitive authoritarian regimes. This study adds to this understanding by researching sub-national variation in electoral manipulation in three East African countries, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. Using new data on constituency level election results and reported incidents of electoral manipulation, the study argues that electoral fraud takes on different forms in urban and rural localities. Whereas rural voters are more easily monitored, urban constituencies are harder to control. As a result, candidates and parties, more often reside to vote-buying and voter intimidation in rural areas, whereas actual tabulation fraud is more common in urban localities. Moreover, the study shows that competitive constituencies are not more exposed to electoral fraud than non-competitive constituencies. Elections are not simply used to manufacture a minimal victory, but also to discourage future opposition and maintain local hegemonies.
