Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Elections year in Africa

The year did not start well for Africa - at least among democratic aspects. While the whole world looked to Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara in Ivory Coast continue to struggle for power. Also in the Central African Republic, there was trouble. The Election Commission appointed the incumbent Francois Bozize of 66 percent of the vote on the election winner, the challenger called the vote a "national shame" felt betrayed, and announced the passage of the Constitutional Court.


And finally chose the African Union (AU), the President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, took out a despot who enslaves the 31 years since his people, as its new chairman. He said in his inauguration speech values such as human rights and democracy, which will now be "adapted to the African culture" would have.

It will be a turbulent year, not only for the Arab region. Also south of the Sahara look over a series of more or less democratically elected rulers with some worry in the future. Alone 18 presidential election provides the calendar for 2011. Sure, there are as President Pedro Pires of Cape Verde, which assigns voluntarily after two terms, or general Salou Djibo in Niger, who actually cried after the coup last year, within twelve months now, and where elections on 12 March, a runoff between the long-time opposition politician and former prime minister Mahamadou Issoufou Seyni Oumarou will take a decision.

But a good number of rulers, practiced in suppressing the opposition and the falsification of elections, will try to stay in power. By all means. In this case, interest is focused initially on countries like Nigeria and Uganda, Zimbabwe or the Congo. Because they are economically strong and could destabilize an entire region, but also because, as in Harare and Kampala, decades of despotism are on trial.

The fact that the despots such as had to rely on the mostly self-employed heads of election commissions, to the military that they can easily bribe MPs seem not as reliable as it once was. The turmoil in the Maghreb "could be the end of authoritarian regimes in Africa," exulted last week, the Kenyan social scientist Maurice Amutabi.

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