Benin’s President Patrice Talon was easily re-elected to a second term, provisional results showed Tuesday, after a weekend election critics said was already stacked in his favour following a crackdown on his opponents.

Talon, a cotton tycoon first elected to lead the West African state in 2016, faced two little-known rivals in Sunday’s vote with most of his key opponents in exile or disqualified from running.

Talon won 86.3 percent of the vote, the electoral commission said as it announced preliminary results, while his opponents Alassane Soumanou and Corentin Kohoue got 11.29 and 2.25 percent respectively.

Benin’s constitutional court must verify the final results.

Once praised as a vibrant multi-party democracy, critics say the former French colony has veered onto an authoritarian path under Talon with a steady campaign against his political foes.

Three international observer missions had already noted low turnout in the election, though they said the vote generally went ahead peacefully despite tensions and protests in the lead-up.

With the 62-year-old incumbent almost guaranteed victory, analysts had said voter turnout would be a key measure of his election success.

Turnout was 50.17 percent, the commission said.

Even before the announcement, for some Beninese the election results meant little.

“This election was just folklore,” said restaurant owner George Kpatchavi. “We are not waiting for the results because they were already known in advance. After the elections, everything will return to order.”

An association of civil society groups, which deployed more than 1,400 election observers, said in its preliminary statement Sunday that “attempts to pressurise, intimidate, threaten, corrupt or harass voters were observed across the entire country”.

Protests in north

Protests had blocked some routes in opposition strongholds in the centre and north of the country in the run-up to the election, leading to delays in the dispatch of electoral materials.

Two people were killed last week when troops fired live rounds into the air to break up an opposition protest blockading a major route in the central city of Save.

Benin has seen some economic successes under Talon, who promised a “KO” first-round win in Sunday’s election. Supporters have praised his projects to expand electricity and basic services.

But since Talon first came to power, critics say he has used a special economic crimes and terrorism court and electoral reforms as tools to disqualify the opposition.

Reckya Madougou, one opposition leader who was barred from running, was detained last month on accusations of plotting to disrupt the vote, a charge her lawyer said was politically motivated.

Earlier this month, a judge from the special court that ordered her detention said he had fled the country, denouncing political pressure to make rulings against Talon’s opponents.

Government officials dismissed claims the election was rigged to favour Talon and said exiled opposition leaders were trying to have the vote cancelled with a smear campaign.

Source: AFP

Chad headed into presidential elections Sunday with Idriss Deby Itno, ruler for the last three decades, set to win a sixth term.

A key ally in the West’s anti-jihadist campaign in the Sahel, Deby, 68, is the frontrunner in a six-candidate race without major rivals after a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed.

Queueing to vote in the capital N’Djamena, a 25-year-old saleswoman named Bernadette told AFP she was voting for Deby because “thanks to him I am free to walk wherever I want, day or night, in total security”.

Polling booths and ballot boxes were arriving progressively in the city, with numerous polling stations visited by AFP failing to open on time.

Police and soldiers were out in force across N’Djamena, with elite troops from the Republican Guard deployed to the central polling station where Deby himself was due to vote, an AFP journalist said.

Chad has struggled with poverty and instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

A former rebel and career soldier who seized power in a coup in 1990, Deby has twice, with French help, thwarted attempts to oust him.

Other candidates include Albert Pahimi Padacke, a former prime minister under Deby, and Felix Nialbe Romadoumngar — officially “leader of the opposition” as his URD party has eight seats in the National Assembly.

Lydie Beassemda, a former agriculture minister, is the first woman to run for president in Chad’s history.

She is pitching her campaign on federalism, in a country where ethnic rivalry is common, and on women’s rights, in a culture where patriarchal domination is entrenched.

But seven other candidates were rejected by the Supreme Court and three withdrew, including longtime opposition politician Saleh Kebzabo, who quit in protest over violence by the security forces.

Soldiers killed in Lake Chad ambush

Deby has campaigned on a promise of peace and security in a region that has been rocked by jihadist insurgencies.

Two Chadian soldiers were killed Thursday in an ambush in the Lake Chad region, where Islamist extremists have been increasingly attacking civilians and security forces, Communications Minister Cherif Mahamat Zene told AFP on Sunday.

Provisional results from the elections are scheduled for April 25, with the final results due on May 15.

With Deby set for victory, the major question mark is over turnout.

Deby urged voters at his final rally on Friday to “turn out massively”, but many residents have voiced disinterest in an election whose outcome already appears certain.

Some 7.3 million people are eligible to vote out of a population of 15 million, but the most critical opposition parties have urged voters to boycott the election.

Weekly protest marches urging a peaceful transfer of power have been banned or forcefully dispersed.

On February 28, police and soldiers carried out a commando-style raid on the home of a prominent would-be candidate, Yaya Dillo Djerou. His mother was among at least three people killed, and he is now on the run.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres are among those who have voiced criticism.

US watching

The United States on Thursday urged Chad’s election supervisors and courts “to ensure these elections are conducted freely, fairly, and transparently”.

“We’ll be watching in the days ahead,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price warned.

Deby has also benefited, as previously, from divisions and weaknesses within opposition ranks.

Francois Djekombe, president of the opposition Sacred Union for the Republic, said efforts to mobilise the public had been weakened by internal squabbles, poor leadership and inadequate communications.

“Let us humbly acknowledge that we have failed,” he said ahead of polling day. “It’s clear that people don’t want the popular revolt that we tried to impose.”

Kelma Manatouma, a Chad expert at the University of Paris-Nanterre, said that “with the considerable means Deby has mobilised, it is certain he will win.”

Chad has been an oil producer since 2003, but it remains deeply poor.

In 2018, 42 percent of the population lived below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. In 2020, Chad ranked 187th out of 189 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index.

(AFP)

The Horn of African country of Djibouti is going to the polls on Friday as President Ismail Omar Guelleh seeks a fifth term in the small but strategically important nation home to military bases for the United States, China and others.

The 73-year-old Guelleh faces just one challenger, the independent candidate Zakaria Ismail Farah, who halted campaigning early while asserting that he could not do so in safety. In protest, he appeared with his mouth taped shut.

Critics call the president a heavy-handed dictator, but others in Djibouti see him as a driving force in the country’s development and relative stability. The country is located on the Red Sea along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Guelleh has been in power since 1999 after the death of his predecessor, Hassan Guled Aptidon, the country’s first president. Djibouti won independence from France in 1977.

Guelleh told reporters days ago that he was no longer interested in power but was merely responding to the will of the people.

“It is my people, the Djiboutians, who asked me to run again and not leave them for the sake of the prosperity of the nation,” he said.

More than 205,000 people are registered to vote in Djibouti, which has a population of over 600,000. The country is a mix of ethnic Somali, Afar and Arab.

(AP)

In a familiar pattern than continues to be repeated, President Idriss Déby looks set to be elected for yet another term in Chad following this Sunday’s presidential elections. In power since 1990, this will be the 68-year-old incumbent’s sixth term.

President Déby’s victory at the ballot box may be all but assured, but that’s not to say he doesn’t face significant opposition. When he was nominated to be the ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement’s flagbearer this February, the announcement sparked widespread demonstrations. In the capital N’Djamena and other major cities, protesters took to the streets chanting “no to a sixth term!” and “Leave, Déby!”.

The government has responded with force. Authorities arrested hundreds of protesters. They charged several with assault and disturbing the public order. In anticipation of more street action, authorities also imposed a blanket ban on protests. Internet restrictions are expected to follow.

This is all characteristic of Déby’s repressive rule and management of the upcoming elections. For years, his government has overseen sustained attacks against human rights defenders, opposition politicians and journalists. One of Chad’s most prominent human rights defender, Baradine Berdeï Targuio, has been detained since January 2020 charged with “subversive activities on social media”. In November 2020, security forces surrounded the premises of several opposition parties and civil society groups, and raided private radio stations including Radio FM Liberté.

Amid this increasingly unequal playing filed, Chad’s main opposition leader, Saleh Kebzabo, quit the presidential race in early-March. His decision came shortly after two people were killed as security forces tried to arrest his fellow opposition leader Yaya Dillo.

A regional problem

Since he came to power via a coup in 1990, President Déby has won every election and amended the constitution twice to facilitate his stay in power. His 2005 constitutional revision removed the two-term limit. The 2018 amendments re-imposed it, but ensured it would not apply retroactively while also extending presidential mandates from five years to six. This means Déby could now stay in power until 2033.

This determination to cling onto power, along with the brutal treatment of opponents, is consistent with the broader picture in Central Africa. Throughout this region, politics has been militarised and electoral periods are characterised by violence and instability. Authorities target anyone who speaks out – from human rights organisations and the political opposition to trade unions – and presidents maintain a tight grip on power.

Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang and Cameroon’s Paul Biya are two of the world’s longest serving presidents, having been in office for 42 and 39 years respectively. The Republic of Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo is referred to by some as an “Emperor”, having ruled for 36 years over two periods. Gabon’s Ali Bongo has been president for a comparatively brief 12 years but was preceded by his father who ruled for the 42 years before that.

Along with undemocratic and repressive domestic policies, several Central African leaders’ stays in power have been made possible by international complicity. Chad is a strategic US ally in the campaign against Islamist insurgencies in the Chad Basin. Cameroon, Congo and Gabon are among the last bastions of French influence in Francophone Africa. The Central African Republic has presented a useful opportunity for Russia to expand its international standing.

These alliances of convenience have often provided authoritarian governments with crucial support and funding – some of which has financed security forces that then commit the same kinds of abuses as the groups they are meant to be targeting – while also shielding undemocratic leaders from international censure.

Pushing back

As seen in Chad, people across Central Africa are not staying silent. Civil society groups in the Congo and Cameroon, for example, are increasingly speaking out against state excesses and calling for political reforms, starting with free and fair elections and adherence to term limits. Despite the risks, protests against rising costs of living, increasing inequality and the monopolisation of power by ruling elites are growing. Repeats of Sudan’s 2019 uprising, which ended Omar al-Bashir’s three-decade reign, cannot be ruled out.

To support these movements and help reverse Central Africa’s authoritarian trend, regional and international civil society organisations should start building networks across the region. They should bolster groups that work on the ground to encourage people and governments to move towards democracy. At the same time, they should demand that foreign governments look beyond their own narrow strategic interests and recognise the impact of the militarisation of politics and the use of violence against civil society, the media and opposition.

Without this support, local civil society will struggle to push back against authoritarian leaders. They need broader support as they attempt to prevent leaders like President Déby extending his undemocratic rule and, in the longer-term, resist the plans of ageing presidents to follow in Gabon’s footsteps by converting their individual reign into dynastic rule, further extending the cycle of human rights violations and repression.

Culled from African Arguments

The most powerful of the Central African Republic’s armed groups said in a statement Monday it will quit a rebel coalition aiming to unseat President Faustin Archange Touadera.

The Unity for Peace in Central Africa (UPC), mainly active in the country’s east, “commits to withdraw from the Coalition of Patriots for Change” (CPC), the group’s head Ali Darassa wrote.

The coalition is an alliance of some of the war-torn country’s most powerful armed groups, who joined together on December 19 accusing Touadera, the frontrunner in the December 27 elections, of trying to fix the vote.

Its components were drawn from militia groups that, together, controlled two-thirds of the impoverished country.

Touadera was reelected with barely one in three voters able to cast their ballot because rebel groups control most of the country.

Darassa said Monday that since the “electoral crisis, the population has suffered terribly from insecurity, the health situation, famine and the lack of humanitarian assistance.”

The UPC, the statement continued, “reiterates its commitment to the Khartoum Accord process,” a peace agreement signed in February 2019 between the government and 14 armed groups.

Surge in violence

Tensions have been high in the Central African Republic since the December election, although the surge in violence in recent months is just the latest flare-up in a civil war that has lasted eight years since the ouster of president Francois Bozize.

More than 30,000 people have fled the country due to the violence surrounding the elections, the UN says, while tens of thousands more have been internally displaced.

On January 13, rebels launched twin attacks on the outskirts of the capital — the first time they had struck so close to the city since the start of their offensive.

But their offensive foundered faced with government forces backed by 12,000 UN peacekeepers force, Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan troops.

Since January, the government and its allies have recaptured towns once held by fighters from the alliance of militias.

Bangui has accused Bozize, now the head of the CPC, of attempting a coup.

The UPC announcement came just days after another powerful group in the CPC announced that its chief had died from wounds suffered during an attack, in another blow to the rebel alliance.

Sidiki Abass, head of Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation (3R), died on March 25, the rebel group announced Friday.

Abass, whose real name was Bi Sidi Souleymane, died in hospital in the country’s north, 3R said in a statement, adding he had been “seriously wounded” during attacks in the town of Bossembele on November 16.

The 3R group is made up largely of the Fulani ethnic group, whose members are traditionally nomadic herders.

Abass’s group has in the past been accused of war crimes, and judicial sources said he had been the target of an investigation by the country’s Special Criminal Court, set up to probe serious human rights violations committed since 2003.

Mineral-rich but rated the world’s second-poorest country on the Human Development Index, the CAR has been chronically unstable since independence 60 years ago.

Source: AFP

Soldiers were arrested in Niger after an “attempted coup” early Wednesday, a security source said after gunfire broke out in the capital Niamey, adding “the situation is under control”.

Residents reported hearing overnight bursts of gunfire near the presidency, just two days before Mohamed Bazoum is due to take the helm of the coup-prone country.

“There were some arrests among a few members of the army who are behind this attempted coup,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The Presidential Guard retaliated, preventing this group of soldiers from approaching the presidential palace,” said the source.

A resident of Niamey’s Plateau district, which includes the president’s official residence and offices, told AFP: “It was around 3.00 am, we heard shots from heavy and light weapons and it lasted 15 minutes before stopping, followed by shots from light weapons.”

“The gunfire lasted about 20 minutes,” another resident said.

A third resident spoke of “intense shooting, with heavy and light weapons”.

Online newspaper actuniger.com reported that calm had returned by around 4.00 am.

In short video clips posted on social networks, only several seconds in length, sporadic bursts of gunfire could be heard in the pitch dark.

It was not yet possible to independently verify the location and timing of the videos.

The alleged coup comes ahead of Bazoum’s scheduled inauguration on Friday — the first elected transition in Niger’s history since independence from France in 1960.

Bazoum is a former interior minister and right-hand man of outgoing president Mahamadou Issoufou, who is voluntarily stepping down after two five-year terms.

His victory in the second round of the election on February 2 was confirmed by the constitutional court this month.

The results were contested by Bazoum’s rival, former president Mahamane Ousmane, who claimed he was the real winner.

Ousmane had called for “peaceful marches” across the country, but a planned opposition protest Wednesday in Niamey was banned a day earlier by authorities.

Niger is the poorest country in the world, according to the benchmark of the UN’s 189-nation Human Development Index.

It has suffered four coups in its history, most recently a February 2010 putsch which toppled then president Mamadou Tandja.

The Sahel country has also recently been struck by repeated jihadist attacks as Islamist movements have spilled over from neighbouring Mali and Nigeria.

Source: AFP

The Republic of Congo votes in presidential elections on Sunday with incumbent Denis Sassou Nguesso aiming to extend his decades-long hold on power in the Central African state.

Sassou Nguesso has accumulated 36 years in office — he was most recently re-elected in 2016, after which the opposition was effectively sidelined and his two main rivals sentenced to 20 years’ forced labour.

The 77-year-old retired paratrooper appears favoured to win a fourth term in Sunday’s ballot. The largest opposition group, the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy, is boycotting the vote.

Sassou Nguesso hopes for a first-round victory over six challengers, including former minister Guy-Brice Parfait Kolelas, who was runner-up in 2016, and former finance minister Mathias Dzon.

“One shot, KO,” proclaimed his campaign posters forecasting a win for the candidate.

Sassou Nguesso has placed youth and the development of agriculture at the heart of his campaign, pointing out that the country imports most of what it consumes despite its farming resources.

Several thousand supporters, some waving banners with his initials “DSN”, rallied for his last campaign stop in Brazzaville on Friday, where he promised more programmes for the country’s youth.

“Our policies in favour of young people will continue with force and vigour during the next mandate,” he told his supporters.

But his pitch to the young seems to have met a mixed response in a country where most of the population of five million are people aged under 25 who have never known another president.

“Even if there is some hassle here, there’s no war like in other countries. Better to stay with Sassou who brings us peace, at least that is good,” said Mariela, a 19-year-old high-school student in the coastal city of Pointe-Noire.

“There’s no point voting,” said Francesc, a 25-year-old law student in the capital Brazzaville. “The dice are loaded in advance.”

Congo’s Catholic Church episcopal conference has already expressed “serious reservations” about the transparency of the ballot and fears a possible internet shutdown on Sunday, as in the 2016 election.

Oil-dependent

Sitting between Gabon and its giant neighbour the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo has significant oil reserves and 80 percent of its budget comes from petroleum.

But the former French colony, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, has been hit hard by cycles of falling world crude prices and is also hobbled by debt, corruption and poor infrastructure.

Per-capita GDP in 2012, at the height of an oil boom, peaked at $3,922, but tumbled to $2,279 in 2019, according to World Bank figures.

Last year, the economy contracted by 6.8 percent, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB). In the 2020 UN Human Development Index, a benchmark of poverty, the country ranked 175 out of 189 countries.

Transparency International classed Congo 165th out of 179 countries in its 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Members of the Sassou Nguesso family were placed under investigation in Paris in 2017 in a case involving alleged “ill-gotten gains”.

Last July, the NGO Global Witness said US federal prosecutors were probing his son, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, over alleged embezzlement of several million dollars from the publicly-owned National Society of Petroleum of Congo (SNPC).

Thirty-six years in power

A former elite paratrooper, Sassou Nguesso first ruled from 1979 under a one-party system, stepping down in 1992 when he placed third in multi-party elections.

He then returned to power in 1997 at the end of one of Congo’s civil wars. He won votes in 2002 and 2009, although both victories were contested by the opposition.

A controversial 2015 referendum removed a 70-year age limit and a ban on presidents serving more than two terms, allowing Sassou Nguesso to run again the following year.

That election sparked protests in Brazzaville and an armed conflict by anti-government rebels in the southern Pool region.

Two Sassou Nguesso rivals, former army general Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and ex-minister Andre Okombi Salissa, who contested the results, were later jailed for breaching state security and illegal detention of weapons.

France, the country’s biggest supporter, has been urged to push hard for fair elections and condemn rights abuse.

A group of French and Congolese activists, in a commentary published by Le Monde in Paris, said “the Republic of Congo, like French diplomacy, should return to democracy.”

(AFP)

Samia Suluhu Hassan is a soft-spoken, Muslim woman thrust from the obscure role of vice president to become Tanzania’s first female leader after John Magufuli’s sudden death.

Under the constitution Hassan, the country’s 61-year-old vice president, will serve the remainder of Magufuli’s second five-year term, which does not expire until 2025.

She will also become the first female President in East Africa.

After consulting with her Chama Cha Mapinduzi ruling political party, Suluhu will propose her possible successor as Vice-President – with the official appointment being confirmed by the National Assembly via votes of no less than 50% of all the Members of Parliament.

What do we know about Suluhu?

Suluhu was born in 1960 in Zanzibar, a former slaving hub and trading outpost in the Indian Ocean.

Then still a Muslim sultanate, Zanzibar did not merge formally with mainland Tanzania for another four years.

She graduated from high school but has said publicly that her finishing results were poor, and she took a clerkship in a government office at 17.

By 1988, after undertaking further study, she rose the ranks to become a development officer in the Zanzibari government.

She was employed as a project manager for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and later in the 1990s was made executive director of an umbrella body governing non-governmental organisations in Zanzibar.

She was a parliament member for the Makunduchi constituency from 2010 to 15 and has been Minister of State in the Vice-President’s Office for Union Affairs since 2010.

In 2014, she served as the vice-chairperson for the Constitutional Assembly which was tasked with drafting Tanzania’s new constitution.

Suluhu is married to Hafidh Ameir, a retired agriculture officer, and together they have three sons and a daughter.

Their daughter Mwanu Hafidh Ameir is a member of the Zanzibar House of Representatives.

Suluhu is among a very small circle of women to lead East African nations. Burundi briefly had an acting female president in 1993, while both Mauritius and Ethiopia have had women appointed to the ceremonial role of president.

Source: Africa News

Ivory Coast’s ruling party and the main opposition both claimed victory Sunday in the West African nation’s legislative elections, with the official results still to be announced.

Saturday’s polls come as a key test of stability following violence before and after October’s presidential vote, which claimed 87 lives in the former French colony.

Adama Bictogo, number two in the ruling RHDP party, said early trends from local election commissions “clearly show that our party will emerge victorious with a comfortable majority”.

“We have achieved our goal of securing around 60 percent of the seats,” he declared.

But the centre-right Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI) opposition party has also claimed to have won the vote, alleging that the preliminary results were riddled with irregularities.

Top opposition party official Niamkey Koffi told a news conference in the economic capital Abidjan that the PDCI believed it had won “around 128 seats with our allies” in the 255-seat National Assembly.

“Our concern is that the results may be manipulated,” said Koffi, warning the government against “any attempt to falsify” them.

The conflicting victory claims came after the independent electoral commission announced early provisional results, which Koffi said were “strewn with fraud, tampering and manipulation”.

Koffi alleged attempts to reverse results in several large cities including the political capital Yamassoukrou, the coastal resort of Grand-Bassam, and key districts of Abidjan.

Turnout had been a mere 20 percent, he added, citing “fear of violence”.

Bictogo, for his part, denied the opposition’s allegations of fraud.

“This is the reasoning of losers,” he said.

Shifting alliances

The PDCI, in an unprecedented move, had forged an election alliance with the centre-left coalition Together for Democracy and Solidarity (EDS), whose driving force is the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) of former president Laurent Gbagbo.

Their declared aim is to prevent President Alassane Ouattara and his RHDP party from “consolidating absolute power” in the world’s top cocoa grower, formerly a haven of peace and prosperity in troubled West Africa.

Ouattara, 79, won a controversial third term with more than 94 percent of the vote in the presidential polls, which were boycotted by the opposition.

In the last legislative vote in December 2016, the RHDP and PDCI were allied, winning an absolute majority with 167 seats on turnout of 34 percent.

Last year’s election crisis shattered that deal.

The FPI, for its part, lifted a decade-old boycott of electoral politics in order to take part in Saturday’s vote, in which more than 1,500 candidates were vying for the votes of roughly seven million people.

Abidjan Mayor Sylvestre Emmou, an opposition candidate, said that three people had been stabbed and injured in the city on an otherwise calm day of voting. Election observers reported no other major incidents.

Ouattara forced Gbagbo out of office in 2011 after a post-election civil war that claimed some 3,000 lives and left the country deeply split.

After his ouster, Gbagbo, now 75, was flown to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to face war crimes charges arising from that conflict.

He was acquitted in January 2019 and is now living in Brussels pending the outcome of an appeal.

More recently, Ouattara has reached out to his old foe, and in a bid for “national reconciliation”, issued Gbagbo with two passports, one of them a diplomatic pass.

Gbagbo’s supporters are impatient for his return, which the ex-president recently said would be “soon”.

Source: AFP