Model of democracy disheartened leader in Africa (7)
I believe the answer is:
replica
'model' is the definition.
(a model is a replica of something else)
'democracy disheartened leader in africa' is the wordplay.
'democracy' becomes 'republic' (synonyms).
'disheartened' means to remove the middle letters (the middle or heart is removed).
'leader in' says to take the initial letters.
'republic' with its centre removed is 'replic'.
The initial letter of 'africa' is 'a'.
'replic'+'a'='REPLICA'
'of' is the link.
(Other definitions for replica that I've seen before include "Exact copy as of sport trophy" , "Caliper (anag)" , "Duplicate" , "Copy original" , "Perfect copy" .)