Can Nigeria, the so-called “giant of Africa”, live up to its claim of being the biggest democracy in the black world? Not if its latest state governorship election is anything to go by, argue some in Africa’s most populous nation.

The re-run of elections for the post of governor in southwest Ekiti state were seen as a test of whether Nigeria’s electoral system has improved since flawed federal and state polls in 2007.

But for the opposition, it turned out to be as much of a charade as all the other re-runs in states where the 2007 results were nullified, all of them won by President Umaru Yar’Adua’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and all mired in controversy.

The official results showed the PDP candidate in Ekiti winning by a narrow 4,000-vote margin. The Action Congress opposition party has vowed to challenge the results in court. The re-run had to be postponed in two of more than 60 wards because of violence as frustrated voters protested against the alleged falsification of results.

The resident electoral commissioner Ayoka Adebayo at one point quit and went into hiding. “(This election) was supposed to be the election that will enhance the image of INEC (election commission), electoral process in our dear country Nigeria and the whole black race,” she wrote in a resignation letter published by Nigerian newspapers.

“Unfortunately, the circumstances changed in the middle of the process; therefore my conscience as a Christian cannot allow me to further participate,” she said, a few days before being persuaded to return to her post.

Residents spoke of voter intimidation, while election monitors and journalists complained they were manhandled by party thugs. Soldiers were deployed to assist 10,000 additional police officers already meant to be ensuring security.

The southwest is Nigeria's most politically volatile region. Electoral violence in the area in the 1960s and in 1983 contributed to the collapse of the first and second republics. Analysts say the Ekiti re-run is a sign of what could happen in 2011 when Nigeria holds its next round of general elections.

Yar'Adua, who came to power two years ago pledging to reform the electoral system, has sent six bills designed to improve the process to the national assembly. But it will take months to pass them into law. Critics say reforms are not enough - attitudinal change is also needed in a system which sees elections as a "do-or-die affair", to quote former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

Time is fast running out if Nigeria is to avoid a repeat of the chaotic experience of two years ago. If South Africa and neighbouring Ghana can successfully hold national polls, why can't Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer and second biggest economy? Or is it, as some local commentators put it, "a giant with clay feet"?

The American husband of Peruvian lawmaker Keiko Fujimori has become a citizen of Peru, an aide to the legislator said on Monday as she plans a run for the presidency in 2011.

Her father, Alberto Fujimori, 70, was sentenced to 25 years in prison this month for human rights abuses, but Keiko is the already leading the race.

That means her U.S.-born husband, Mark Vito, who will retain his American citizenship, could be the first foreign born first gentleman of Peru. Peru’s current and previous first ladies, Pilar Nores and Eliane Karp, were born outside of Peru and became naturalized citizens.

Keiko, 33, who supports free markets, would get 25 percent of the vote if the election were held today, while Lima Mayor Luis Castaneda would get 19 percent, pollster Ipsos Apoyo said on Sunday.

Leftist Ollanta Humala, who spooked financial markets when he nearly won the 2006 election, would nab 17 percent.

Keiko’s father was convicted this month of ordering two massacres while he was president in the 1990s and Peru was battling a leftist insurgency known as the Shining Path.

Despite his conviction, many Peruvians still support him for nearly wiping out the insurgency and ending years of economic chaos.

    There is a growing feeling of “fin de siecle” in Brussels  these days, a sense of degeneration, of euro-depression.
    But people across the European Union do not seem to care.

    The collective EU leadership is widely seen as weak and demoralised and the Czech government has collapsed in the middle of its six-month presidency of the 27-nation bloc, an unprecedented event that is bound to leave much unfinished business before an election to the European Parliament in June.

    Nobody knows what the EU’s institutions are going to look
like in the future, with the Lisbon treaty that is supposed to
reform them in limbo.

    The executive European Commission and the parliament are in
transition, the former avoiding difficult decisions and debates
for fear of harming the treaty’s ratification. As a result, an
important debate on EU budget reforms can’t even get started.

    The global economic crisis is forcing governments to take
extraordinary measures that do not always coincide with EU rules
but the Commission seems to turn a blind eye in some cases. But
then, the EU has always been good at fudging.

    There are also plenty of signs of EU enlargement fatigue.

    But do people care? Judging by a poll this week, the answer
is no.

    The Eurobarometer poll showed turnout in the election
could be the lowest ever. Only 34 percent of EU adults are
certain they will vote, a sign of no-confidence in the EU 
institutions.

 A “fin de siecle” should offer hope of rebirth, a new
beginning. It’s hard to feel any at the moment. The EU’s
bureaucratic machine will lumber along until better times come.
But how much does anyone care?

Argentina’s economy is slowing dramatically after seven booming years, but people here still haven’t felt much pain. The government has announced stimulus measures to buffer against the global crisis, fudged some economic statistics and persuaded carmakers and steelmakers to hold on to employees part time rather than lay them off. The effect of the crisis here has been so delayed that it was becoming easy to believe Argentine might be immune.

But Argentine President Cristina Fernandez made it startingly clear on Friday that the impact is coming and it’s going to hurt. In a surprise announcement she said she was seeking to get election rules changed so mid-term elections — to renew half of the lower house and a third of the Senate — can be held in June instead of October.  She said this was so politicians can quickly wrap up campaigns and all get together to concentrate on healing the economy.

Opposition leaders said she was desperate and scared her allies in Congress will lose if they face election in October, when the country is in the grip of economic trouble.

Her language in an announcement speech was stark. She said it would be almost suicidal for politicians to campaign while the world falls apart. “We can’t be in a marathon of elections from now to October during this world disaster.” she said. 

She also said that things going on in the world, people losing houses and jobs and banks collapsing, are much worse than what people have seen in the media, a surprising comment from a leader who often chides local media for their negativity.

Shock announcements are a specialty of Fernandez and her husband and predecessor ex-President Nestor Kirchner. But they have had mixed results. She had to back down last year on her surprise move to hike export taxes on the country’s top crop, soy, after farmers protested long and loud. But her shock nationalization of the private pension fund system breezed through Congress in November.

PHOTO CREDIT: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez in a file photo from January 2009 REUTERS/Enrique Marcarian

If anyone in Africa was worried that the global financial crisis might dim China’s interest in the continent, President Hu Jintao will be visiting this week to give some reassurances - as well as possibly to temper any unrealistic hopes for the amount of assistance to be expected.

As Chris Buckley reported from Beijing, this visit is also about China showing the wider world that it is a responsible power.

The fact that none of the countries Hu will visit is among Africa’s economic or resource heavyweights - Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius - is seen as a sign that China wants to send a message that its engagement with Africa is about much more than resources.

Trade between China and Africa rose to $107 billion last year and more deals are expected on this visit. Nearly all of Africa's exports to China still come from a handful of countries rich in oil or minerals, though, and now the global downturn has put those in more doubt.

China’s involvement in Africa is a subject we looked at recently. Alistair Thomson in Dakar found that even if some Chinese investments in Africa were losing their lustre, many Chinese firms were taking a longer-term view to pursue strategic expansion - and some were hunting for bargains. For China, Africa also offers an important destination for exports, as any visit to even the most remote African marketplace will quickly show.

Growing trade relations with China were one of the things seen by Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo in a previous blog post as a way for Africa to emerge better off from the financial crisis and less dependent on Western aid.

But China’s involvement in Africa has brought concern from some in the West - quite apart from those who may stand to lose out on the business front - with some critics saying Beijing’s interest is too focused on the drive to secure resources and pays little heed to the kind of thing that Western donors say they want to promote, such as elections, human rights and the fight against corruption.

Will Africa be able to depend on China in the long term? How healthy is that going to be? What do you think?

Pictures: Money changer Kwami Longange poses for a portrait on a streetcorner in Goma in eastern Congo, February 9, 2009. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

China's President Hu Jintao delivers a speech in Beijing December 31, 2008. REUTERS/Jason Lee

“Sub-Saharan Africa: Year of Regression”. That was the heading used by U.S.-based rights group Freedom House in its survey of political freedom in the world published this week.

Of course the Freedom House survey pointed to the coups in Guinea and Mauritania as well as the situation in Zimbabwe, whose elections were condemned by many countries and where the crisis shows no sign of lessening, but there were plenty of other names on the list too:

Senegal - long held up as an example of democracy in Africa - dropped from "free to partly free" because of “a growing authoritarian trend”.

Nigeria suffered a drop “because of the ruling party’s increasing consolidation of power and marginalization of the opposition”.

Measuring freedom might sound like an abstract concept, but investors have cited improvements in governance and democracy, among other reasons, for increased interest in Africa as a whole in recent years. Countries that do better on those scores may find it helps to increase prosperity too.

Twelve of the 48 countries in the survey fell according to the group’s indicators. On the other hand, the report pointed to what it saw as positive developments in Angola, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Comoros.

"Sub-Saharan Africa has seen notable increases in freedom over the past generation, making these recent setbacks all the more disheartening," said Arch Puddington, Freedom House director of research.

Is it fair to say freedom is on the decline in Africa? Ghana’s election seemed to get 2009 off to a better start that some of last year’s elections on the continent. Is there reason to think that this year may be better overall?

A court ruling that effectively reinstates corruption charges against African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma could hardly have come at a worse moment for him and the party that has dominated South Africa since the end of apartheid.

There appears little doubt that Zuma will be the party's presidential candidate ahead of elections expected around April, but the ANC now faces its toughest electoral test yet with hefty graft charges hanging over its man.

Prosecutors say the ruling means Zuma remains charged with corruption, fraud and money laundering. This might severely hurt his image, internationally and at home, during a battle to fend off a challenge from the new party of ANC dissidents called COPE. The ANC is still expected to win, but maybe without such a sweeping parliamentary majority to be able to shape laws as it wishes.

The news brought renewed concerns of political instability and the rand fell to a one-month low.

Zuma's lawyers may appeal to the Constitutional Court, the highest in the country, which will drag out the case further. Zuma has said before he will only step down as president if found guilty of the corruption and fraud charges.

Prosecutors and Zuma may try to secure a deal that will end the long-running saga over charges that Zuma’s supporters see as politically motivated.

A settlement may suit Zuma if it looks as though he will face new charges and a trial that will either coincide with the election, or punctuate the first years of his presidency.

The appeals court ruling is good news for former President Thabo Mbeki, helping to repair his image after being ousted by the ANC in September, following the high court judgement that suggested he interfered to secure charges against Zuma. He cannot be expected to return to government, however.

What should Zuma and the ANC do next? Even if no charges are brought by then, would the case be likely to have an impact on the elections? Would COPE stand to benefit?

Shortly after the Mumbai attacks, I asked whether India faced a trial of patience in persuading Pakistan -- with help from the United States -- to take action against the Islamist militants it blamed for the assault on its financial capital. India's approach of relying on American diplomacy rather than launching military action led to some  soul-searching among Indian analysts when it failed to deliver immediate results.  But is it finally beginning to bear fruit?

Former Indian diplomat M K Bhadrakumar writes in the Asia Times that diplomatic efforts over the Mumbai attacks are entering a crucial phase. "After having secured New Delhi's assurance that India will not resort to a military strike against Pakistan, Washington is perceptibly stepping up pressure on Islamabad to act on the available evidence regarding the Mumbai attacks."

Earlier this week, Pakistan admitted that the lone surviving Mumbai gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, was a Pakistani. The head of Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services intelligence or ISI, also gave a conciliatory interview to German magazine Der Spiegel.  Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha ruled out the possibility of war with India. “We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds. We know full well that terror is our enemy, not India,” Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.

Indian newspapers have seen Pakistan's acceptance of Kasab's nationality as a step in the right direction, while recognising that further progress will be slow. "The admission by Pakistan is also an indicator for the establishment that the diplomatic pressure is finally getting some results,"  the Economic Times said. "But New Delhi is also aware that it will take a lot of time and effort to push Pakistan to take even small steps."

So how is that going to play out in the context of a new administration taking over in Washington, a government in Delhi coming to the end of its term and facing elections due by May, and a civilian government in Pakistan still trying to find its feet after years of military rule?.

Bhadrakumar says that "the United States could be on the threshold of a big breakthrough in the geopolitics of the South Asian region" if it succeeds in convincing Pakistan to crack down on Islamist militants while also nudging India and Pakistan to work together to put their relationship on a sounder footing.

But that will require quick work by the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama, which according to the New York Times is likely to include the appointment of Richard Holbrooke as a special envoy for India and Pakistan, and a further trial of patience for the outgoing Congress-led government in Delhi.

After India last held state elections in Jammu and Kashmir in 2002, the Kashmir Valley witnessed a period of relative peace only to see it shattered when plans to give land to Hindu pilgrims triggered the biggest protests since the Kashmir separatist revolt erupted in 1989.

The latest elections - which produced a turnout of more than 60 percent despite a boycott call by separatists and ushered in a new state government led by Omar Abdullah - have provided a second chance to change the mood in the volatile Kashmir Valley. But do India and Pakistan, and the Kashmiris themselves, have the ability to turn this second chance into a real opportunity for peace?

Despite the outrage over the Mumbai attacks, blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants, there are some promising signs. The elections were remarkable for the fact that armed separatists based in Pakistani-held Kashmir made no attempt to disrupt the campaign, as they did during the previous polls in 2002. If Indian assertions are correct that the Pakistani security establishment controls the level of armed separatist activity in Kashmir, then the absence of violence would not have been possible without the active cooperation of Pakistan - a factor acknowledged by The Hindu in an editorial. 

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has spoken repeatedly of the need to make peace with India, including over Kashmir (as discussed here, here, here and here) and despite widespread scepticism in India that his views are shared by the powerful Pakistan Army, Pakistan does seem to have delivered in keeping the militants at bay during the elections.

Meanwhile trade between the Indian and Pakistan-held parts of the divided former kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir has continued even through the heights of the post-Mumbai tensions. 

And perhaps one of the more promising signs is that Indian newspaper columnists have been careful on the whole to avoid any hint of triumphalism in proclaiming the high turnout an endorsement of Indian rule, suggesting that New Delhi may have learned the lessons of last year's land protests - that peace in Kashmir cannot be taken for granted.

Instead columnists stress the long road ahead in bringing any kind of normality to the state.  (The political parties which fought in the elections made a point of trying to delink Kashmir's status from the polls, running their campaigns instead on issues of governance.)

In the Hindustan Times, columnist Prem Shankar Jha analyses the voting patterns across the state and concludes that behind the overall high turnout there were still strong pockets of resistance, particularly in the Kashmiri capital Srinagar. "The voting pattern shows that ‘separatism’ has not died, but become more localised," he writes. "While the government has been congratulating itself in the jump in the turnout in Srinagar from barely 5 per cent in 2002 to 20 per cent this year, it has  chosen to forget that in a truly free and contested election, such as that of 1983, the turnout in the city was over 80 per cent," he adds. "The abstention is significant because except in China nearly every successful rebellion has begun in the cities and has been led by precisely the kind of people who remain alienated today."

Writing in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar says the elections offer a new opportunity to hammer out a solution in Kashmir which is acceptable to India, Pakistan and Kashmir.  However, he adds that "New Delhi would be deluding itself if it believes in the aftermath of the elections that it can arrive at a settlement without the separatists," and urges both India and Pakistan to provide greater autonomy to the parts of the former kingdom under their control. "Without doubt, the Kashmiris want to have an identity of their own," he says.

So what are the pitfalls ahead?

The Arab News highlights the risk of communal discord following a strong showing in the elections by the hardline Bharatiya janata Party (BJP) in Jammu, the Hindu-dominated part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.  Any increase in Hindu-Muslim tensions would provide fresh fuel to the militants, just as support for the armed separatist movement appeared to be waning, it said. "The lesson for India — and Pakistan — surely has to be that Kashmir is put into cold storage as an issue on which they are prepared to fight a war. The minute they commit themselves to that, the militants have lost their greatest weapon. "

The Economist calls the elections "a good vote in the angry valley"  but warns that India should not be lulled into thinking that Kashmiris had been won over to Indian rule. "Many Kashmiris, as the recent protests served to re-emphasise, are deeply unhappy to be in India," it said.

That view is echoed by the BBC's Andrew Whitehead, who also writes that the new government ushered in by the elections will find it hard to convince Kashmiris that their grievances can be addressed through local politics until relations between India and Pakistan are repaired following the Mumbai attacks. 

Kashmir has always been unpredictable, and remains a tinderbox vulnerable to any sparks coming from inside or outside the Valley. The Indian government's long-awaited decision on whether to carry out the death sentence of Mohammad Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri convicted of involvement in an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001, could be one of those sparks.  Many Kashmiris believe he was wrongly convicted.

And if anyone needs a reminder of the anger bubbling below the surface in India's only Muslim-majority state, they need look no further than Friday's protests against Israeli strikes on Gaza. At least 50 people were injured when police in Srinagar fired teargas to disperse protesters.

(Photos: National Conference leader Omar Abdullah waves to supporters/Fayaz Kabli

Kashmiris protest in Srinagar against Israeli strikes on Gaza/Fayaz Kabli)

Suddenly, the outlook has darkened for Chancellor Angela Merkel, thanks to Bavaria’s conservatives who suffered their worst result in half a century in a state vote on Sunday.

Merkel is used to riding high in polls and had looked to be cruising to re-election in a year’s time.

But the disaster in Bavaria, plus a clouded economic outlook due to financial crisis around the globe leave Merkel looking vulnerable and open to attack from within her conservative camp.

The prospect of a reinvigorated Social Democrat (SPD) party, with whom she shares power in a loveless coalition, under its new leadership is yet another headache.

Merkel’s enviable status as Germany’s most popular post-war chancellor isn’t helping her party which is languishing at around 37 percent in polls while the SPD, although weaker, is starting to make gains.

And the 17 percent slump in support for Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU),  is part of a trend.

This year, conservatives have endured heavy losses in all four states that have held elections and lost their absolute majority in Hamburg as well as Bavaria. Within weeks, the CDU could also lose power in Hesse where the SPD is expected to clinch a deal to oust CDU state premier Roland Koch after a knife-edge result in a Janaury vote.

Another left-right “grand coalition” looks more likely than ever as Merkel relies on the CSU – which accounts for more than 20 percent of the conservative bloc in parliament — for power.

If, as usual, the CSU performs worse in federal elections than in the state vote, Merkel could face a struggle to form the coalition she wants — with the liberal Free Democrats.

Merkel, who as the female,  Protestant leader of a predominantly male, Catholic party, has always struggled to fit in, may face still more unrest within the conservative camp.

Already Christian Wulff, a top CDU figure and head of Lower Saxony, has laid the blame for Bavaria on Merkel, saying the losses were partly due to compromises struck by her coalition.

The chancellor may also have made a mistake in slapping down CSU demands for tax cuts as now she will face a more cantankerous CSU which is likely to push harder for those tax cuts and could block other reforms.

Bavarian conservatives probably have the worst behind them but Merkel may have the worst still to come.