Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Is Joyce Banda the answer to Malawi ’s problems?
By Isaac Esipisu
The continents’ newest and second Africa’s female president took over the reins of power in Malawi to offer a new and more responsive style of leadership that is expected to spur economic recovery of one of Africa’s poorest nation. Joyce Banda was sworn in as president two days after President Bingu wa Mutharika died of heart attack at 78.
The new president, Joyce Banda started her presidency in an enthusiastic and robust way; mending ties with foreign donors that could see Malawi pull out of an economic crisis. The new president of Zambia , Michael Sata, is making the transition easier, contributing 5 million litres of petrol that should help the economy. Banda, a 61-year-old policeman’s daughter who won recognition for championing the education of underprivileged girls, now enjoys widespread support among a population whose lives grew increasingly difficult under Mutharika
Mutharika, a former World Bank economist, also got off to a good start in 2004. Malawi was at the time the darling of international donors. Programmes to subsidize fertilizer and provide seeds to farmers created an economic revival that made it one of the world’s fastest growing economies. But his fortunes turned dramatically and upon his death many Malawians were openly celebrating his passing.
In 2005 the country declared a national disaster as more than five million people were in need of food aid because of widespread shortages due to bad harvests. However, three years later the country produced a bumper harvest, turning it into the breadbasket of the region, mainly because of the success of Mutharika’s fertiliser and seed subsidy programme.
But under his leadership Malawi was at odds with its traditionally largest donor, Britain , following a decision by the government about a year ago to expel the British High Commissioner after he accused Mutharika for “increasingly becoming dictatorial” in a leaked diplomatic telegram. There were nationwide protests against Mutharika’s rule in July 2011 as Malawians personally blamed him for the country’s economic woes and the persistent fuel and foreign exchange shortages. Mutharika was criticized for calling in the police to quell the protests, which resulted in 20 deaths, as he vowed to crush the rebellion against him.
100 years and going strong; But has the ANC-led government done enough for its people?
By Isaac Esipisu
Although the role of political parties in Africa has changed dramatically since the sweeping reintroduction of multi-party politics in the early 1990s, Africa’s political parties remain deficient in many ways, particularly their organizational capacity, programmatic profiles and inner-party democracy.
The third wave of democratization that hit the shores of Africa 20 years ago has undoubtedly produced mixed results as regards to the democratic quality of the over 48 countries south of the Sahara. However, one finding can hardly be denied: the role of political parties has evidently changed dramatically.
Notwithstanding few exceptions such as Eritrea , Swaziland and Somalia , in almost all sub-Saharan countries, governments legally allow multi-party politics. This is in stark contrast to the single-party regimes and military oligarchies that prevailed before 1990.
After years of marginalization during autocratic rule, many African political parties have regained their key role in democratic politics by mediating between politics and society. Multi-partyism paved the way for genuine parliamentary opposition and the strengthening of parliaments in decision-making. However, several shortcomings still remain: many African political parties suffer from low organizational capacity and a lack of internal democracy.
Dominated by individual leaders, often times lifelong chairpersons and “Big Men”, youth and women remain marginalized within party structures.
Well, I must admit that although the ANC has not done what most ruling parties in africa do when they assume power. However I feel that if a country is ruled by the same political party for over a decade, especially such a “young” country in the republic of south africa. The leaders will grow complacent and corruption will fester, allowing the inevitable change of ruling party that will ensue to be greeted with upheaval and the weakening of the nation of south africa.. take the British style of politics, and how they deal with runners up to elections for example, the country has survived for so long in the sense that once the ruling party wins the non winning parties don’t throw their toys out of the cot. They united together with the ruling party for the greater good of country. think about it..power is not absolute and when the oppression of power sharing in the political sense its evident, a country will never reach its full potential.
When competition is diminished, rest on ones laurels.
You need an opposition that wins and a country needs the breathe of fresh air that a stable competitive multi party system that can prove that its belongs in the Developed world. The only way of proving this is by having The ANC, DA, COPE and IFP bring about a change that will challenge dominance and once this is achieved have the foresight to not undermine the previous ruling parties policies, just for the sake that they won. However build on the principles that the previous party succeeded and tweak the parts that weren’t as successful, injecting new blood and ideas into the political landscape!
just saying..
Will 2012 see more strong men of Africa leave office?
By Isaac Esipisu
There are many reasons for being angry with Africa ’s strong men, whose autocratic ways have thrust some African countries back into the eye of the storm and threatened to undo the democratic gains in other parts of the continent of the past decades.
For those who made ultimate political capital from opposing strongman rule in their respective countries, it is a chilling commentary of African politics that several leaders now seek to cement their places and refusing to retire and watch the upcoming elections from the sidelines, or refusing to hand over power after losing presidential elections.
In 2012 one of the longest strong men of Africa, President Abdoulaye Wade’s country Senegal is holding its presidential elections together with other countries like Sierra Leon, Mali, Mauritania, Malagasy, and will be shortly followed by Zimbabwe and Kenya.
Yoweri Museveni and Paul Biya of Cameroon , who are among the longest-ruling leaders of the Africa , won their respective presidential elections and continue to have a stronghold on their respective countries, albeit with charges raised of serious election malpractice. Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Republic and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe will in one or two years face the electorate in an effort to further cement their authoritarian leadership.
What happened in the second half of 2011 in North Africa and more specifically in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya does not seem to have had any kind of effect on other Sub-Saharan African Leaders. In fact, they have strengthened their stronghold on power and in some countries even harassed and jailed opposition leaders.
Two gone already Mali and Senegal, Zimbabwe, Equitorial Guiene, Uganda and Angola still to change leadership. I predict the change will follow this sequence
Who among the seven longest serving African leaders will be deposed next?
By Isaac Esipisu
Several African leaders watching news of the death of Africa ’s longest serving leader are wondering who among them is next and how they will leave office.
Three of the ten longest serving leaders have fallen this year – Ben Ali of Tunisia ruled for 23 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt ruled for 30 years and the longest, the Brother Leader of Libya ruled for 42 years – all gone in the last six months.
Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea (32), Jose Santos of Angola (32), Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (31), Paul Biya of Cameroon (29) and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (25), King Mswati III of Swaziland (24), Blaise Campore of Burkina Fasso (24) and still going strong, and must be wondering whose turn is next.
Teodoro and Jose Santos take the number one spot as the longest serving Presidents with 32 years of ruling Equatorial Guinea and Angola respectively and from what has happened in Africa this year and to Gaddafi this week, it is a post neither of them would be proud off right now.
Although the revolts have so far been limited to North Africa, increasingly there are protests against regimes in other African countries. Whether triggered by economic conditions—food and fuel prices, poor job opportunities or service delivery failures, the mass protests are becoming important and have forced policy changes. Slowly but surely, these revolutions are heading south and, unless Africa ’s long-serving leaders pave the way for inclusive governance and relinquish their power, they are increasingly likely to face the same fate as the North African ones.
Dear Isaac Esipisu and all,
Thanks for your comments, thoughts and views. But in my point of view the fall of northern Saharan countries’ leaders shall rather serve as lesson to the others. I would NOT predict who goes next or otherwise, but if the remaining GREAT and everlasting leaders as they call themselves watched all those events in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Yemen and now Syria then I will rather ADVISE them to change their internal policy.
Because as matter of reality if a leader understand his people by providing them with minimum of needs, jobs, security, good infrastructures and care I can assure them that nothing would happen even if they would like to remain in power for life alike predicted others are now gone…may their souls remain in peace. Unfortunately our African leaders are more likely interested in their power securing rather than the welfare of their populations. Therefore as long Africans eyes are now widely opened by other countries’ developments and grows if they do not act now, then they shall pay the price of their…
Were NATO strikes on Gaddafi’s home town justified?
Britain’s defence secretary, Liam Fox, sounded a little scripted in Misrata at the weekend when I asked him whether NATO’s airstrikes in Muammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte were staying within its remit to protect civilians in Libya.
“NATO has been extraordinarily careful in target selection.”
“NATO has been very careful to minimize civilian casualties.”
“NATO has stayed within its mandate throughout.”
It’s a mantra that NATO, and the countries that have contributed to its Libyan adventure, have had to learn well. They’ve been accused of stretching the legality of the mission “to protect civilians by all necessary measures” before.
But the problem with sticking to a script, is that the Libyan conflict hasn’t really progressed with any sort of predictable narrative since the fall of Tripoli on the night of August 23rd.
If the then rebels of the now ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) expected that internal insurrections would help them and they’d race into Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte and the other remaining holdout, Bani Walid, to a hero’s welcome, they were mistaken.
“Were NATO strikes on Gaddafi’s home town justified?”
Of course. Unless Sirte was prepared to be starved into submission to protect Gadaffi’s miserable skin, and the moralisers willing to watch.
The revolutionary forces pleaded on behalf of the residents of Sirte with Gadaffi’s frontmen for months, but they made almost no concessions to the general welfare. Gadaffi’s neck was more valuable. After that, the sooner it ended the more lives were saved.
As for the bombing itself, the details are far from clear. Much o9f the so-called ‘residential’ areas struck were in fact either evacuated or not even finished. And the attack on Sima hospital is a legal minefield for Gadaffi aplogists, since his forces were installed within, making it a military target.
from Global News Journal:
UN tells Mbeki he got it wrong on Ivory Coast
This week U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, defended the United Nations' record on Ivory Coast. In a highly unusual public rebuttal, Nambiar told former South African President and African Union mediator for the Ivory Coast conflict, Thabo Mbeki, that it was he -- not the international community -- who got it wrong in the world's top cocoa producer.
In April, Ivory Coast's long-time President Laurent Gbagbo was ousted from power by forces loyal to his rival Alassane Ouattara, who won the second round of a U.N.-certified election in November 2010, with the aid of French and U.N. troops. According to Mbeki -- who has also attempted to mediate in conflicts in Sudan and Zimbabwe -- there never should have been an election last fall in the country that was once the economic powerhouse of West Africa.
Mbeki wrote in an article published by Foreign Policy magazine at the end of April: "The objective reality is that the Ivorian presidential elections should not have been held when they were held. It was perfectly foreseeable that they would further entrench the very conflict it was suggested they would end."
Ivory Coast was split in two by the 2002-3 civil war and the failure to disarm the northern rebels meant the country held an election last year with two rival armies in place, leading to a new outbreak of hostilities when Gbagbo rejected the internationally-accepted election results.
The solution to the conflict, Mbeki wrote, was not to insist that Ouattara take office as president, as the United Nations, France and others did at the time, but a political solution that would have satisfied everybody in the francophone nation. "The African Union understood that a lasting solution of the Ivorian crisis necessitated a negotiated agreement between the two belligerent Ivorian factions, focused on the interdependent issues of democracy, peace, national reconciliation and unity."
The United Nations took nearly four months to come up with a public response to Mbeki. It finally appeared this week in an article in Foreign Policy by Nambiar entitled "Dear President Mbeki: The United Nations Helped Save the Ivory Coast." In his rebuttal, Nambiar vehemently rejects the idea that that the world should have pushed Ouattara to negotiate a power-sharing deal with election-loser Gbagbo.
I doubt that election was kosher. It would be interesting to find out if the complaints against the UN election observers were credible… but I guess we’ll never know given what’s transpired.
The chocolate money must be considerable.
from Photographers Blog:
Me and the man with the iPad
By Barry Malone
I never know how to behave when I go to write about hungry people.
I usually bring just a notebook and a pen because it seems somehow more subtle than a recorder. I drain bottled water or hide it before I get out of the car or the plane. In Ethiopia a few years ago I was telling a funny story to some other journalists as our car pulled up near a church where we had been told people were arriving looking for food.
We got out and began walking towards the place, me still telling the tale, shouting my mouth off, struggling to get to the punch line through my laughter and everybody else’s.
Then there was this sound, a low rumbling thing that came to meet us.
I could feel it roll across the ground and up through my boots. I stopped talking, my laughter died, I grabbed the arm of the person beside me: “What is that?” And I realized. It was the sound of children crying. There were enough children crying that -- I’ll say it again -- I could feel it in my boots. I was shamed by my laughter.
Hi blairhickman,
Thank you for your feedback. Barry’s name is visible on the right-hand side of the blog post under Author profile, along with a biography and a portrait.
Cheers,
Corinne
Online Visual Editor
from Photographers Blog:
AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Two Decades, One Somalia
In the 20 years since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled, Somalia has faced hunger, flooding, fighting, suicide attacks, piracy and insurgency.
Prevailing violent conflict inside Somalia makes it difficult if not impossible for aid agencies to reach people.
AlertNet brings you special coverage of the country which has struggled without a strong central government ever since.
Here is a selection of Reuters pictures from 1993 to 2011 on this war-torn country and failed state.
Is Africa drought a chance to enact new UK policy?
New ways of managing aid are being debated in Britain as global concerns mount over a hunger crisis devastating the drought-affected Horn of Africa.
Randolph Kent, director of the Humanitarian Futures Programme at King’s College in London, says the crisis provides a perfect opportunity for the British government to test its recent promise to reform how it responds to humanitarian emergencies.
The severe drought, caused by the driest weather since 1995 in East Africa, has affected an estimated 10 million people and is expected to continue to worsen into early 2012, according to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
While Kent acknowledges the importance of a $145 million (90.2 million pound) injection of humanitarian aid from the British government, he says the money will not help prevent the next Horn of Africa drought and that the government needs to become more “anticipatory”.
“This disaster has to teach us that the ways we’ve approached such crises in the past is not good enough,” Kent said in a statement. “If we don’t want to be consistently on a back foot when disasters happen, then we need evidence of strategic planning taking place at an international and regional level now.”
The British government’s Humanitarian Emergency Response Review (HERR), released in June, recognises that as a result of the increase in the intensity and frequency of disasters – a trend expected to grow with climate change and population growth – preparedness must be a key goal.
There’s no secret about why these people are condemned to suffer as it’s a man made tragedy.
Bad agricultural practices, overpopulation and incompetent government, aggravated by growing climate instability, are its causes.
Migration and relocation can mitigate it. The question is will it be orderly or disorderly, particularly when it crosses Africa’s permeable borders.
Sad to say, on past experience it will be the latter as there is no longer any effective regional governance.
A ‘day of rage’ in Ethiopia?
Ethiopia’s handful of TV channels are not carrying much news lately. Instead, broadcasters are spending most of their time covering every phase of the construction of a new mega dam along the country’s Nile waters.
From mawkish ballads to patriotic poems and documentaries, programmes are waxing eloquently about how far the impoverished African nation has come since the dreaded Communist junta was toppled two decades ago, by defying Egyptian pressure and embarking on a massive project from its own coffers.
The long-standing rivalry with Cairo, fuelled by Ethiopian accusations it was meddling to stop any project along the river, has mustered up nationalistic fervour in the country. Most Ethiopians now say they are fully behind the project and some are even buying government bonds to help fund its construction.
A job well done then, Ethiopia? Not so say the government’s detractors. They say the public mobilisation is just a diversionary tactic, a ploy to distract citizens from the country’s ills.
They’ve even set up an online campaign calling for an Arab-style “day of rage” on May 28, the day Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s rebels captured the capital in 1991.
“There is no reason why we cannot have the Arab uprising in Ethiopia,” says their proclamation, headlined “Beka!” – meaning “enough” in the Amharic language.
“We have resolved to bring the torch to Ethiopia, and liberate the country from the minority dictatorship that has been in power for more than 20 years,” says a post on their Facebook page, which has some 3,000 “confirmed” attendants.
‘Day of rage’ and the future of Ethiopia –
Ethiopia may need a new leadership, but not in a revolutionary fashion. Ethiopians of the young generation are the solution for the chronic poverty. The young generation will contribute in changing the image of Ethiopia that has been severing as a poster child for poverty for the last 30 years.
So Reuters, while thanking your reportage, but we say no thanks for covering only negative news that comes out from the Ethiopia and the African Continent in general. There are more positive and inspirational news making stories each day in Ethiopia – we, your esteemed readers, would appreciate if you sometimes share those positive stories.
Sincerely,
Addistalks
Joyce Banda is probably “the best bet” at the moment, after years of controversial rule by the late President Bingu wa Mutharika. As Vice-president and fallen angel in the past few years, she has had plenty of experience on “what not to do” and has already started doing the right thing by reshuffling government for example. She has also made the right move with donors and the local currency (40% devaluation). Aid, although it is definitely not the solution to Malawi’s long-term problems, will flow again, enabling the country to have enough breathing space and reflect on its development plans, diversify from tobacco, tackle the AIDS issue, and simply have the government run. Banda, a woman of the people, in touch with the grassroots, has earned it, rising from the bottom, a nice change from the professorial and arrogant tone under Mutharika. Finally, in addition to about 20 members of DOO, she is also enjoying support from the army, which is key in Africa. StrategiCo., http://www.strategico.fr, specialises in risk analysis in Africa.