Elections & governance
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2012-01-31, Issue 568
Angola's ruling MPLA party has defended the re-appointment of the electoral commission chief and said opposition criticism was aimed at causing instability before an election this year. UNITA lawmakers and those of three smaller opposition parties wa...
Egypt: FJP dominating parliament sub-committees
2012-02-01, Issue 568
Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls a near majority of seats in the Egyptian Parliament, won more than half of the committees of the Lower House on 31 January. The Speaker of the Parli...
Ethiopia: Ethiopia and the APRM: a path to nowhere?
2012-02-01, Issue 568
Ethiopia joined the APRM in 2003. However, in this AfriMAP publication authors Tigist Fisseha and Medhane Tadesse, whilst acknowledging the government of Ethiopia’s leadership within the APRM at continental level, argue that the mere fact that the AP...
Senegal: Police fire tear gas to break up anti-Wade rally
2012-02-01, Issue 568
Senegalese riot police fired tear gas to break up a tense, thousands-strong rally 31 January in Dakar demanding that President Abdoulaye Wade drop plans to seek a third term in office. Opposition groups united under the June 23 Movement (M23), had ca...
Mauritania: Call for an end to military rule
2012-02-02, Issue 568
The incumbent chairman of the opposition umbrella in Mauritania, Mamadou Alassane Ba, has called for an end to military rule in the country. Ba, who leads the Mauritanian Coordination of Democratic Opposition (COD), an umbrella of 12 political partie...
DRC: Opposition makes election gains
2012-02-02, Issue 568
The Democratic Republic of Congo's ruling party and its allies won a reduced parliamentary majority in November elections, according to results released two months after the disputed polls. The electoral commission announced the figures saying Presid...
Kenya: Court gags debate on Uhuru, Ruto bid for top seat
2012-02-02, Issue 568
The Constitutional Court has issued an order barring public discussion on the candidature of Deputy Prime Minister and William Ruto in the next presidential elections until a case before it is heard and determined. Justice Isaac Lenaola issued the or...
South Africa: ANC denies Malema appeal
2012-02-06, Issue 568
South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has upheld the membership suspension of one of its prominent youth leaders convicted of causing rifts within the bloc. A panel rejected an appeal on Saturday by Julius Malema, who was ...
South Africa: Limpopo debacle hots up
2012-01-24, Issue 567
Allegations of sabotage, mounting debt and widespread financial mismanagement….The debacle in Limpopo has spewed out a dangerous brew of bad money and political in-fighting, writes Kim Cloete in Business Day. The financial mismanagement may have been...
Zambia: Sata condemns assassination rumour
2012-01-24, Issue 567
Michael Sata, the Zambian president, has been 'assassinated' according to a mischievous alteration to his profile on Wikipedia. Reports about Mr Sata's death are not new – there were several in the run-up to the election – but generally they emanate ...
Uganda: Police fire tear gas at protesters
2012-01-25, Issue 567
Ugandan police clashed with opposition supporters in Kampala Tuesday 24 January after security forces tried to detain opposition leader Kizza Besigye following a protest rally over rising living costs. Police fired tear gas at protesters after they s...
Burundi: Tanzania frees Burundi opposition leader
2012-01-25, Issue 567
Tanzanian police have freed a Burundian opposition leader, Alexis Sinduhije, who was arrested two weeks ago in Dar es Salaam at Burundi’s request, a senior Burundian security official said. 'We have just learned that Tanzanian authorities did not wan...
Madagascar: Leaders head to Pretoria for crisis talks
2012-01-25, Issue 567
South African President Jacob Zuma has summoned Madagascar interim authorities for an urgent meeting in Pretoria in a fresh attempt to resolve the political deadlock in the island nation. This after a plane carrying the exiled leader Marc Ravalomanan...
Ghana: Mills does a cabinet reshuffle
2012-01-26, Issue 567
Ghana’s President John Atta Mills on 25 January announced a cabinet reshuffle that saw two ministers - Health minister Joseph Yieleh Chireh and Information minister John Tia – lose their jobs. The reshuffle had been speculated about over the past sev...
Kenya: How Uhuru bankrolled violence - ICC judges
2012-01-26, Issue 567
Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta distributed close to Sh50 million to mobilise and arm attackers during the post-election violence, according to the ruling of ICC judges. The money was released in instalments through three former MPs from Kiambu ...
Kenya: Uhuru, Muthaura bow to pressure, step aside
2012-01-26, Issue 567
Kenya's Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet Francis Muthaura step aside from office after ICC pre-trial Judges confirmed charges levelled against them. Mr Kenyatta will however retain his post as De...
Kenya: Impunity and elections
2012-01-29, Issue 567
A recent edition of the AfricaFocus Bulletin contain the December speech by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, and the executive summary and key recommendations on US policy from a policy brief from the Friends Committee on National Legislation on the cont...
Nigeria: #OccupyNigeria shows the movement's global face
2012-01-29, Issue 567
Even as the Occupy movement recedes in size, if not in activism, in the global North, it has, to its own surprise, opened up a new front in Africa's most populous country, Nigeria - where tens of thousands have occupied and paralysed the economy in a...
Senegal: Opposition vows to resist Wade bid
2012-01-30, Issue 567
Senegal's opposition has called for more resistance to the court approval of President Abdoulaye Wade's bid to seek a highly disputed third term, after a night of riots in the capital, Dakar. Opposition leaders vowed on Saturday to force the presiden...
Senegal: Activists rounded up over Wade term protests
2012-01-30, Issue 567
Senegalese police have arrested close to a dozen opposition protestors including an outspoken civil society leader as they struggled to get a grip on street protests that have rocked the country following a controversial court ruling. Mr Alioune Tine...
Angola: Dos Santos keeps succession open
2012-01-17, Issue 566
Long-serving Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is keeping his country and the world guessing about whether he will bid for re-election in 2012 in Africa's No. 2 oil producer. Speculation over Dos Santos' intentions - under the country's new 2...
Kenya: Kenya on alert ahead of ICC verdict on poll violence
2012-01-18, Issue 566
Security forces in Kenya are on high alert ahead of a decision by the International Criminal Court on whether to try senior government officials for masterminding violence in 2007-8 which killed 1,200 people, the Daily Nation reports. The ICC’s verdi...
Egypt: First post-Mubarak People's Assembly convenes
2012-01-23, Issue 566
This page has live updates of the political posturings and the response of the street, as protesters organise marches to voice their demands to MPs, as Egypt's newly elected People's Assembly opens for the first time since Hosni Mubarak was toppled....
Madagascar: Ravalomanana party suspends role in govt
2012-01-23, Issue 566
The party of Marc Ravalomanana has decided to suspend its role in Madagascar's unity government, after a plane carrying the exiled leader home was turned away, a top official said. The main parties on the Indian Ocean island formed a power-sharing go...
Gambia: Jammeh sworn in, threatens major crackdown
2012-01-23, Issue 566
Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has been sworn in for a fourth term and says he will crack the whip on laziness and corruption as he bids to turn Africa's smallest mainland country into an economic powerhouse. Jammeh, who came to power in a coup in 19...
Egypt: Brotherhood wins parliamentary polls
2012-01-23, Issue 566
The Muslim Brotherhood's party has won 47.18 per cent of seats in the Egyptian parliament, the electoral commission announced on Saturday as it gave the final results from marathon polls. The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) won 235 seats in the new P...
Swaziland: King continues ban on opposition parties
2012-01-23, Issue 566
King Mswati III of Swaziland is to fly in the face of international opposition and continue his ban on political parties at the national elections next year (2013). Political parties have been banned since 1973 when Mswati’s father, King Sobhuza II, ...
Southern Africa: Parties, politics and potential collapse
2012-01-10, Issue 565
This article from The Economist looks at potential political developments during 2012 in the countries of South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Angola, Zambia, Malawi and Swaziland. While some countries are expected to hold steady, others are...
Nigeria: Oil disaster met by silence
2012-01-10, Issue 565
Last month, on the other side of the Atlantic, the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell's operation caused from 1m to 2m gallons of oil to spill into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria, also as the result of an industrial accident. 'You may wonder where the o...
Ethiopia: Politicians on trial for terrorism
2012-01-10, Issue 565
Two politicians who had been rising stars in Ethiopia's ethnic Oromo opposition movement have pleaded 'not guilty' to terrorism charges in Addis Ababa. Bekele Gerba and Olbana Lelisa appeared in federal court to hear charges accusing them of conspiri...
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