Europe colonized Africa. They sent up puppet "democracies" after colonization was no longer acceptable. The puppet president's are only in power as long as they got along with the european governments in stealing resources and keeping the citizens impoverished. I have two coworkers from Togo and Benin. Both were former French colonies and both are still manipulated by the French. The people get to vote, but the same people are always elected to the Presidency. I don't even know if they really bother counting the votes.