George Weah has been here before: on the goal line of the Liberian presidency, one run-off vote from victory. Unlike in 2005, however, his support is much wider and many expect him at last to succeed. The 1995 European football player of the year won 39 percent of votes in first round presidential polls last week, with 95 percent of votes counted. The final result is due on Wednesday. That was 10 percentage points more than closest rival Vice President Joseph Boakai, and a better score than he had in earlier contests, but short of the 50 percent needed to win.

A run-off between Weah and Boakai will be held in November. The result shows how support has grown steadily for the former AC Milan striker, who lit up television screens in Liberia in the 1990s with his mazy runs, briefly distracting fans from a 1989-2003 civil war that killed tens of thousands. Now “King George”, as his supporters call him, has to persuade the majority that he can run a country as well as he kicks a ball. His rhetoric has been light on policy so far. In an interview on Oct 8 he spoke vaguely about a need for better roads. “We will seek a government of inclusion where everyone can work together and make our country a better one for all of us,” he told Reuters.

Weah grew up in Clara Town slum in the capital Monrovia, playing football there and in Cameroon, where manager Arsene Wenger spotted him and took him to Monaco. He went on to play for Milan and Paris St Germain, and later in his career for Chelsea, Manchester City and Marseille. He became the first non-European to win the Ballon d’Or in 1995, the same year he picked up the African and world player of the year awards. His rags-to-riches story has inspired supporters from similarly lowly backgrounds. “Weah is grass roots, a son of the soil – he is a star, but he has the country at heart,” said Oliver Myers, an unemployed 39-year-old from the Rehab neighbourhood outside Monrovia.

Others are wary of his lack of political experience and education, and question his ability to govern a country that remains 12th from bottom of the U.N. Human Development Index. “Weah’s populism and inability to articulate a coherent platform … are deeply concerning,” said Liberian political analyst Robtel Neajai Pailey in a recent opinion piece for Liberian website The Bush Chicken. “Success at football does not translate into success in the presidency of a traumatized, poorly managed, post-war nation.”

“THERE FOR US” Doubts over Weah’s experience could still sink his ambitions in next month’s run-off, as in 2005, when he won the first round but lost the second to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who went on to rule for 12 years. Weah refused to take part in televised debates attended by most other major candidates, and his choice of running mate Jewel Howard-Taylor – ex-wife of Charles Taylor, the former president and warlord serving 50 years in Britain for war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone – has raised eyebrows.

Johnson Sirleaf was credited with shoring up peace after the civil war, but criticised for failing to tackle elite graft and doing little to lift most Liberians out of poverty. Development has been hindered by an Ebola outbreak and a drop in the price of iron ore. Poor roads still leave most of rural Liberia stranded during the rainy season, often without electricity. In Monrovia, where derelict buildings line the main highways, most live on pitted dirt streets with little access to clean water. Boakai, 72, Sirleaf’s deputy for 12 years, has struggled to separate himself from her during his campaign, despite promoting his humble beginnings.

As Weah gained popularity, he was elected to the Liberian senate in 2014, defeating the president’s son Robert Sirleaf. He still plays football every Sunday in Monrovia. “While people have reservations about his lack of education, he is seen as the candidate for change,” a diplomat told Reuters on Monday. “It will take a lot for Boakai to turn this one around.” Thomas Kojo, who played with Weah on the Liberia national team, thinks his former teammate’s passion for his country will take him far. “The heart George has for Liberia is unbelievable,” Kojo said in an interview outside Weah’s compound in Rehab on Monday. “He made sure the national team was always trying to bring (home) some pride.”

Weah paid for the national team’s kit when the Football Association couldn’t afford it during the war, and gave players up to $600 spending money and similar bonuses if the team won, Kojo said. He once chartered a flight for the team when they were stranded in Ivory Coast without a flight to a game. “The football team was the only good image to come from Liberia when all people saw was the killing,” Kojo said. “He made sure he was there for us.”

Source: Euronews

Football icon, George Weah has emerged as the newly elected president of Liberia to succeed Elen Johnson Sirleaf.

Weah defeated his closest rival, Joseph Boakai who is also the incumbent Vice President.

Others include longtime opposition figure Charles Brumskine and former Coca-Cola executive Alexander Cummings.

This item is still developing

The Kenyan parliament has passed an amendment to the country’s electoral laws under which a presidential candidate would automatically win a re-run vote if the other one drops out of the race.

The amendment, which had been proposed by the ruling party, was passed on Wednesday, a day after the country’s opposition leader said he was withdrawing from the “unfair” race.

Once incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta signs the law, it will take immediate effect, according to parliamentary spokesman Martin Mutua.

The controversial law was harshly criticized by opposition lawmakers, who had boycotted the vote on Wednesday.

Last month, Kenya’s Supreme Court ordered a repeat presidential race to be held on October 26 between Odinga and Kenyatta. It annulled the result of an earlier poll, on August 8, after finding “irregularities.” Kenyatta had been declared the winner of that election.

Odinga, however, announced his withdrawal from the new election on Tuesday, saying the electoral commission must be changed. He claimed that the contest could not be free and fair.

He also added that there were indications that the upcoming repeat election would be worse than the previous one.

Odinga’s coalition party called for the new election to be cancelled as a result of his withdrawal. But Kenyatta said that they have “no problem going back to election. We are sure we will get more votes than the last time.”

“We are also telling him it is the people’s right to choose their leader. It is their sovereign right to choose their leader of choice,” said the incumbent president.

Meanwhile, thousands of people rallied through the capital, Nairobi, calling for changes at the electoral board. Kenyan police fired teargas to disperse the demonstrators.

Police also used tear gas against opposition supporters, who had gathered in Kisumu, an Odinga stronghold in the country’s west, on Wednesday.

Witnesses said the crowd had refused to disperse after being addressed by the county governor, Reuters reported.

In another development on Wednesday, Kenya’s High Court ruled that a minor opposition candidate, Ekuru Aukot — who had also ran in the August presidential election — could take part in this month’s re-run vote.

Justice John Mativo said he did not see any reason for Aukot to be barred from participating in the repeat election.

Auko, however, said that he had doubts about standing. He won about 27,000 votes of the more than 15 million cast in the August vote.

Source: Presstv

Barrister Akere Muna has made public his intention to contest the 2018 presidential elections in La Republique du Cameroun. In an exclusive interview granted to Jeune Afrique, the son of the late S. T. Muna an emblematic figure of the reunification of French and British Cameroons reportedly observed that “Yes, I am a candidate, because the state of my country makes me want to be part of the solution.”

The renowned lawyer also believes that the departure of the current President of the Republic who has already spent 35 years in power remains one of the important ways out of the Southern Cameroons crisis. Akere pointed out that at this troubled moment in the history of the two Cameroons, it is important for President Biya to hand over the baton of command.

Akere Muna in the Jeune Afrique interview also spoke of the structure the new Cameroon under him shall be constituted. Muna said he is for a return to Federalism. “There is no better solution than federalism” adding that if he were elected, “I would choose the form of the State that respects our different cultures. I would bring power closer to the citizens, which corresponds to federalism ”

By Chi Prudence Asong will files from CIN

An agitation for independence has been unfolding in  Cameroon since November 2016. The people of North West and South West regions under the umbrella of the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF) finally decided to affirm the independence of the English-speaking sections of Cameroon from the Republic. The Ambazonians as they have called themselves since 1984, are protesting against their alleged marginalization by the dominant Francophone Cameroon and the Paul Biya government in Yaounde. They insist that whereas oil is found in Southern Cameroons, the Biya Francophone has practically neglected the region, and the people have been turned into “slaves” on their own soil.  They have their own flag (white and blue) and a national anthem. The Cameroonian Anglophones claim that their struggle is non-violent and peaceful but they will insist on their independence, and the declaration of their own Republic. They further argue that whereas French and English are the official languages of Cameroon, the Francophone government has imposed French as the language to be spoken in Anglophone Cameroon. They insist on their right to speak English.

After World War 1, the League of Nations shared the geographical territory known as Cameroon between the French and the British. The latter administered its own share from Nigeria. On October 1, 1960, Nigeria gained independence from Britain. British Southern Cameroons had a choice between joining Nigeria or Cameroon. In a referendum conducted in 1961, the people of British Southern Cameroons chose to join French Cameroun to form a Federation. But the French backed Ahidjo regime shattered the  planned federal system when oil was discovered in Cape Limbo.  In 1972, the French Cameroun political elites changed the name to the United Republic of Cameroon. In 1984, the word “United” was removed from the country’s name by the Paul Biya administration, thus adopting the pre-unification name of French Cameroon and effectively raising fears of alienation among English-speaking Cameroonians.

Colonialism and its legacy may have been the foundation of many of the crises in post-colonial African states, but poor governance, ethnicity, competition over power and national resources, religion and sheer leadership incompetence have done worse damage. Post-colonial African leaders have failed to act as statesmen but as new colonialists adopting in West Africa, the twin colonial policies of divide and rule and assimilation. Cameroon has been a long-suffering country, first under former President Ahmadou Ahidjo and especially under 84-year old Paul Biya, who has been President for 35 years. It is ironic that 56 years after the country became a Republic, English-speaking Cameroonians are fighting against the seeming attempt by their French-speaking compatriots to “assimilate” and “marginalize” them.

The two Cameroons are fighting over the language of the colonialists, national resources, and power-relations. On Sunday, October 1, 2017, Sesekou Ayuk Tabe, Chairman of the Southern Cameroons Governing Council, formally declared the independence of Southern Cameroons or the Federal Republic of Ambazonia: “We, the people of Southern Cameroons are slaves to no one”, he said, “Not now, not ever again! Today we reaffirm autonomy over our heritage and over our territory…It is time to tell Yaoundé that enough is enough!” The response from Yaoundé has been characteristic. Weeks before the protests and the declaration of independence in Southern Cameroons, soldiers were sent to the region to shoot in the air, prevent rallies, and intimidate the people. Scores of people have so far been killed. “This division will never happen”, says Cameroon’s Communications minister, Issa Tchiooma Bakary, speaking for the Francophone dominated government.  Since the end of the Cold War, there has been a wave of nationalist agitations across the world resulting in self-determination, secession and partitions, and the emergence of new countries. But self-determination or secession is not an automatic process, and it is not in every instance that the protests result in the Nirvana that the separatists seek. In Cameroon, the Biya administration must get off its high horse and engage the leaders of the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Governing Council in dialogue. The international community must prevail on him to put an end to the abuse of human rights and the killings in Southern Cameroons. It is the refusal of the Francophone dominated government to address the grievances of the people of Southern Cameroons that has brought Cameroon to this moment.

To quote Sesekou  AyukTabe, again: “The union was always intended to be a union of two equals. Unfortunately what our peace-loving people have experienced ever since is oppression, subterfuge, discrimination, violence, intimidation, imprisonment, forced occupation, cultural genocide, and misappropriation of our natural resources by the leaders of the Republic of Cameroun.” It is instructive to note the similarity between the expressed concerns of the Ambazonian movement and similar movements in recent times in other parts of the world, and the attitude of the governments in power. In Spain (the Catalan secessionist move), Nigeria (the Biafra movement) and Iraq (the Iraqi Kurdistan) – the Catalans have held a referendum to leave Spain, but the Spanish government says this is “unconstitutional.” Biafrans want a referendum in Nigeria – the government says this is unconstitutional because Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable. The Kurds also want out of Iraq, but the central government is opposed to it on the grounds that the September 25 referendum is unilateral and unconstitutional! It is not just rhetoric that is involved, the military is deployed, violence is unleashed on separatists or critics of the extant union and the government.

While these may seem to be traditional responses, the assault on the human rights of protesters now includes an increasingly important territory: the internet. The internet is perhaps the most striking phenomenon of the century, in the manner in which it has extended the frontiers of human freedom and expression. It is the most modernist icon of globalization and the borderlessness of space and time. The internet does not know fear. It is an irreverent tool of political mobilization, commerce and social networking. It is the public mind in motion, and the anonymity that it offers in certain forms makes it a strong instrument of revolt. Elections can be won or lost, governments can be pulled down or popularized, through the mind of the internet. Given its power, reach, and impact, dictators are uncomfortable with the democracy of the internet which has proven to be much stronger than dictatorships, tyrants and intolerant governments. The relationship between the internet and authority has therefore been one of unease and distrust.

The result has been the attempt by intolerant governments and political figures to control the internet, shut it down or violate the rights of its users. China has an internet police that filters internet traffic. In 2011, Egypt tried to stop the people’s revolution by shutting down the internet. Tunisia, Italy, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Libya, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Maldives, Iraq are other countries where the internet has been censored in one form or the other or completely shut down. The degree of civil society repression varies from one country to the other, but the excuse for abridging internet democracy could be as ridiculous as saying that the internet had to be shut down in order to prevent cheating in students’ examinations as has been the case in Iraq and Ethiopia.

Generally, shutting down the internet has become the new mode of repression and a standard response to dissent. African states and governments have joined the trend. In the last year alone, 11 African governments have shut down the internet in one form or the other. These include the Democratic Republic of Congo (ostensibly to reduce the capacity to transmit “abusive messages,” but actually to stop the people from opposing President Joseph Kabila’s attempt to prolong his tenure); Gambia (a few days to the 2016 elections), Togo (to check protests against President Faure Gnassingbe, and the people’s request for multi-party elections and Presidential term-limits), Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Egypt, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Morocco. In Nigeria, there has also been so much official discomfort with what is termed “hate speech” on social media platforms particularly whatsapp, instagram, blogs, and twitter.

One lawmaker even proposed a Social Media Bill which criminalises internet democracy. The worst anti-internet culprit so far in Africa would be in my view, not Egypt (where the revolution succeeded in spite of the repression) but Paul Biya’s Cameroon where intolerance and unpleasantness have been elevated to the level of state policy. In January, the government of Cameroon shut down the internet in English-speaking parts of the country. This lasted for more than three months. This has again been repeated. It is unacceptable. The cost of internet shutdowns is enormous and disruptive, and the gain for governments is so small. The free flow of information is breached, the targeting of specific regions as in Cameroon is discriminatory; the right to free speech is violated, along with other rights: association, choice, and freedom of thought.

The UN Human Rights Council in 2012, 2014 and again in July 2016, resolved that “the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online”, and all states must refrain from taking such measures that can violate internet freedom. The African Union Declaration on Internet Governance (Algiers, February 13, 2017) is on all fours with this UN Resolution. The UN should go further and impose sanctions on countries that violate internet freedom. Worse, businesses suffer in the event of an internet shutdown. Internet services are accessed through broadbands provided by mobile telecom companies. When such companies are asked to shut down their services, they easily comply out of fear of being blackmailed by the government. They can be accused of supporting terrorism for example! By co-operating, they incur losses, part of which they may eventually pass to their subscribers. Similarly, with growing internet penetration in Africa, so many other businesses are dependent on the internet. Indeed, the internet is increasingly a shopping mall – for bloggers, advertisers, consultants and the average consumer of services, an internet shutdown in the light of this, undermines economic growth and development. Human dignity and relationships are also affected. The internet is a networking tool, so much so that many families depend on it for contact and interaction, and many individuals on it for survival. Shutting down the internet rolls back the gains of the democratization process in Africa.

African countries seeking growth and investment in the telecommunication sector, and within the economy generally shoot themselves in the foot when they seek to destroy such a significant tool. Internet registries worldwide should sanction errant governments which deny their citizens access to the internet. Men of conscience and thought leaders should speak out against the growing trend of internet shutdown or violation by African governments. In Nigeria, we must continue to discourage the government from ever contemplating any such misadventure. I am not in any way recommending, by this article a “sovereignty of the internet” in the sense in which John Perry Barlow, an internet activist spoke, when he issued “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” (1996), rather I urge the protection of the democracy of the internet and this democracy is about rights, obligations and the rule of law. To return to the politics of imperialism and dissidence in Cameroon, Nigeria (for strategic reasons – the proposed Ambazonia being a buffer zone between Nigeria and Cameroon), ECOWAS and the African Union should intervene early to prevent an outbreak of social and humanitarian crisis, if not chaos in North West and South West Cameroon. The feuding parties should be encouraged to go to the negotiating table. What is going on in that country is as much a Cameroonian problem as it is a Nigerian problem.

Culled from Vanguard

The former Minister of Defense, José Lourenço officially took the reins of Angola on Tuesday, succeeding President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for 38 years. João Lourenço was inaugurated as the new president of Angola, after the victory of the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the parliamentary elections.

“By assuming the post of President of the Republic, I, Joao Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, swears on my honor to devote myself fully to the functions that now fall to me,” said the new President, by swearing an oath on the Constitution in Luanda.

The ceremony took place in Luanda in the presence of José Eduardo dos Santos and several African heads of state, including Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, Rwandan Paul Kagame and Equator-Guinean Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
After ten years of oil boom, Angola has undergone a serious crisis for three years due to the fall in the price of black gold, its main source of revenue.

By Chi Prudence Asong, CCN

Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga Sunday said the coalition he leads will hold nationwide campaigns to urge reforms of the electoral commission before the fresh presidential elections next month.

Odinga has maintained that the electoral commission must be reformed or he will not participate in the new election ordered by the Supreme Court when it nullified President Uhuru Kenyatta’s re-election in August. One of the reforms he wants is the removal of a dozen top officials he accuses of electoral fraud. The electoral commission has set Oct 17 for the repeat election.

Those who perpetrated illegalities and irregularities in the nullified election remain in place, “claiming readiness to conduct another election,” Odinga told thousands of supporters at a rally.

“We are ready to go for elections, even tomorrow, but we will not go to elections with a compromised electoral commission,” Odinga said. Odinga accused the electoral commission of working with Kenyatta’s Jubilee party to rig the elections.

“IEBC (the electoral commission) and Jubilee are partners in crime,” said Odinga. “The two need each other. If Jubilee is in power, it will protect the co-conspirators and fraudsters in IEBC. Those IEBC officials have every reason to protect Jubilee as their only source of protection.”

Kenyatta has said the electoral commission should not be changed and he even warned the judiciary from interfering.

Other changes that Odinga wants include disqualifying a French firm, OT-Morpho, from supplying equipment to transmit results, claiming that only two of more than 40,000 kits were used to transmit the nullified election results and that staff from the company may be complicit in electoral fraud. Odinga also said the Al Ghurair printing firm should be blacklisted from supplying ballot papers because the Supreme Court found that some of the forms it printed that were used to transmit presidential results lacked security features such as serial numbers and water marks which were meant to prevent rigging.

Odinga has complained about the electoral commission for some time. In May 2016 he led protests calling for the removal of top officials of the electoral commission who oversaw the 2013 elections, which Odinga lost to Kenyatta and the Supreme Court upheld the results. At least five people were killed in those protests after police responded with live ammunition. Those electoral commissioners were eventually removed by parliament and replaced with the current officials.

(Source: AP)

Kenya’s incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta has called for judicial reforms in the country after the Supreme Court annulled his victory in the August election.

Speaking during a live televised speech at a meeting of his Jubilee party on Saturday, Kenyatta pointed to the country’s judiciary system, saying, “We shall revisit this thing. We clearly have a problem … We have a problem and we must fix it.”

On Friday, Kenya’s Supreme Court declared Kenyatta’s election victory as “invalid, null and void” due to irregularities committed by the election board and ordered a new poll within 60 days. The Supreme Court ruling on the Kenya poll cancellation was the first of its kind in Africa.

Kenyatta criticized the court for ignoring the will of the people and called the chief justice’s colleagues “crooks.”

He had said earlier that the judges had “decided to go against the will of the people” but noted that he would respect the court ruling.

Following the court ruling, Kenyatta will have to compete with veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga in a new round of election.

Odinga has contested the last three presidential polls and lost all of them. After each election, he has claimed the votes were rigged.

In 2007, Kenya witnessed weeks of ethnic bloodshed that claimed the lives of 1,200 people, after Odinga challenged the vote results. In 2013 elections, the Supreme Court dismissed his petition.

Source: Presstv

The ruling party in Angola has claimed a widely expected election victory, setting the stage for a change of leadership after decades of authoritarian rule by the cold war veteran José Eduardo dos Santos. Though final results from Wednesday’s voting were still being counted, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) said it was on track to win a two-thirds parliamentary majority, based on its calculations.

In Angola, political parties are allowed to observe the elections by posting party members at every polling station and by assimilating results, the parties attempt to predict the election outcome. Though the MPLA has yet to lose an electoral contest since a return to multiparty democracy 25 years ago, the real significance of the poll was that 74-year-old Dos Santos, who has ruled Angola for 38 years, did not stand as a presidential candidate.

His successor as president – should the MPLA projections be confirmed – will be João Lourenço, the 63-year-old defence minister and party veteran. “We can affirm that the future president will be comrade João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço,” João Martins, MPLA secretary for political and electoral affairs, said.

The main opposition, National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita), disputed the MPLA’s projected result. “Looking at the trend, the MPLA won’t have a majority at all,” Unita’s parliamentary head Adalberto Costa Júnior told Reuters news agency.

Culled from the Guardian

Angolans have headed to the polls in a historic election marking the end of the 38-year rule of ailing President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, with his MPLA party expected to retain power but with a reduced majority.

Polling stations opened on Wednesday across the country – a former Portuguese colony – amid reports of a slow start in the nation’s capital of Luanda, where Dos Santos and his hand-picked successor and front-runner, Defense Minister Joao Lourenco, are due to cast their ballots later in the day.

Dos Santos’ retirement, which was reportedly prompted by ill health, has triggered the biggest political transition in decades for Angola, a leading oil exporter in Africa. He will, however, keep his position as the MPLA head. Nearly 9.3 million Angolans are registered to cast their ballots to decide the fate of the country’s 220-member National Assembly. The winning party will then appoint the president.

The main opposition challenger in the election is the UNITA party, a former rebel group that battled the MPLA in Angola’s civil war. The party has ruled the nation since its 1975 independence from Portugal. The MPLA, which stands for People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, won the 2012 polls with 72 percent of the votes amid widespread allegations of voting irregularities.

Meanwhile, at a weekend rally in front of thousands of MPLA party supporters, Dos Santos, a frail-looking 74-year-old, made a brief appearance to endorse the likely new president. “We have no doubt about the victory of the MPLA, and our candidate will be the future president, which is why I ask you: August 23, vote MPLA … and Joao Lourenco,” he said in a weak voice.

Dos Santos has been dogged by reports of illness, and his regular visits to Spain for “private” reasons fuelled criticism that his health status was being hidden from ordinary Angolans. Despite its oil wealth, however, Angola is plagued by poverty, corruption and human rights issues, though some observers argue that the new leadership may open the way to more accountability.

Source: Presstv