They have held multiparty free and open elections from independance until 1994 (Jammeh's coup). This a continent where most countries had experienced Coups, Single-Party rule or both by 1970.
(The only country with continuous multiparty democracy is Botswana)
Jammeh himself quickly felt the need to organise elections to legitimize his rule. Sure there was intimidation and other manoeuvers but oddly he almost always won with results in the high 50's. Those are crazy tight results by African standards (even in democracies incumbents rarely go lower than 60).
Quite often the IMF is an easy scapegoat.
You'd be surprised by how often the IMF advice is ignored or by how sound it can be at times.
For instance, in Ukraine a few years ago, the IMF's advice was to cut down on some structural expenses (gas subsidies mostly) and not to touch investment expenses as doing that would trigger a recession.
What it usually is is political cover for local elites to betray their populations; remove barriers to capital flow and trade, gut environmental and labor protections.
Costa Rica may be the exception that proves the rule, or at least is notable for what it didn't do -- it didn't let itself become a colony/client state/banana republic, there was a state-led internal industrialization effort integrated with measured open-ness for international trade/investment, it didn't keep a standing military after its revolution.
And Cuba likely still would have done better without the US embargo.
The countless dictatorships, puppet governments, and US/European interventions didn't start when Castro and Che came down out of the mountains in 1956.
They have held multiparty free and open elections from independance until 1994 (Jammeh's coup). This a continent where most countries had experienced Coups, Single-Party rule or both by 1970. (The only country with continuous multiparty democracy is Botswana)
Jammeh himself quickly felt the need to organise elections to legitimize his rule. Sure there was intimidation and other manoeuvers but oddly he almost always won with results in the high 50's. Those are crazy tight results by African standards (even in democracies incumbents rarely go lower than 60).