Algeria’s powerful army chief General Ahmed Gaid Salah died of a heart attack at age 79 on Monday, threatening to deepen the country’s political crisis at the end of a turbulent year.

Gaid Salah was seen as Algeria’s de facto strongman following the April resignation of longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the face of massive protests against his bid for a fifth term.

“The deputy defence minister and chief of staff of the army died Monday morning of a heart attack,” the presidency said in a statement read out on state news channel Algeria 3.

The general died at home of a heart attack at about 6:00 am (0500 GMT) before his body was transferred to a military hospital, the statement said.

The lifelong military man had made his last public appearance Thursday at the swearing-in of new president Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who was seen as close to Gaid Salah.

Gaid Salah was instrumental in pushing the December 12 vote that elected establishment insider Tebboune — in defiance of a months-long protest movement demanding deep-rooted political reforms before any poll.

– Guardian of system –

At Thursday’s ceremony, Gaid Salah was also awarded the rank of “Sadr” in Algeria’s National Order of Merit, an honour normally reserved for heads of state.

As chief of the military for a record 15 years and a veteran of Algeria’s war for independence from France, the general was seen as the guardian of the military-dominated system that has been in power since.

When Bouteflika appointed him in 2004 to head the armed forces — the backbone of Algeria’s opaque regime — he became one of the North African country’s most powerful men.

He loyally supported Bouteflika for years until the president’s February announcement that he would run for re-election sparked unprecedented protests by the youth-led “Hirak” movement.

In early April, Gaid Salah called on his boss to resign. Bouteflika quit the same day, leaving the armed forces chief effectively in charge of the country.

But the old soldier categorially rejected the Hirak movement’s key demands: deep reforms, the establishment of transitional institutions and the dismantling of the military-dominated regime.

– Hot temper –

Moussaab Hammoudi of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris said weeks before Gaid Salah’s death that he was “not a great strategist”.

“He acts like a brutal soldier,” he said. “For him, Algeria is a huge barracks, and making a concession is a weakness.”

His death comes as huge numbers of Algerians have continued protesting after Tebboune’s appointment as president, rejecting his call to engage in dialogue.

Gaid Salah was born in 1940 in Batna region, some 300 kilometres (190 miles) southwest of Algiers, and spent more than six decades in the armed forces.

At the age of 17, he joined Algeria’s National Liberation Army in its gruelling eight-year war against French colonial forces.

When the country won independence in 1962 after 132 years as a French colony, he joined the army, attended a Soviet military academy and rose through the ranks.

Gaining a reputation for a hot temper, he commanded several regions before becoming chief of Algeria’s land forces at the height of a decade-long civil war pitting the regime against Islamist insurgents.

In 2004, as he hit retirement age, he was picked by Bouteflika to replace overall chief of staff Mohamed Lamari, who had opposed the president’s quest for a second mandate.

Tebboune on Monday appointed land forces commander General Said Chengriha as interim military chief of staff, Algeria 3 reported.

He also declared three days of national mourning.

Source: AFP

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame says it is possible that he will not be a candidate when next citizens go to the polls in 2024.

The 62-year-old was attending a summit in Doha when he was asked about whether he will run for office again, Bloomberg quotes him as saying he personally wanted to give way to others.

“Most likely no. I want to have some breathing space but given how things are and how they have been in the past, I have made up my mind where I am personally concerned, that it is not going to happen next time.”

Kagame has been been president of the tiny East African nation since 2000. He won his current mandate (his third term) in 2017 elections in which he scored 99% of the vote.

A controversial referendum in 2015 allowed the two-term constitutional limit to be lifted allowing him to contest in 2017. When the current seven-year term ends he could seek two more five-year terms according to the constitution.

In an interview with Jeune Afrique news website in 2017, Kagame stressed that Rwanda could thrive even in his absence, in response to whether or not he will contest beyond the 2017 elections.

‘I think so, yes. And it is likely that I will clarify this point soon when I enter the election campaign. There is a sort of contract between me, on the one hand, the RPF party and the Rwandan people, on the other.

“The fear you express would be justified if the Rwandan society was static, frozen. But it’s just the opposite. Like our economy, our institutions and our skills, our society evolves and enters into a virtuous dynamic.

“They wanted me, through the constitutional referendum of December 2015, to continue my work, which I accepted. But the time has come to tell them that they must start thinking, beyond my person,” Kagame said in response to stepping down.

But in 2012, Kagame expressly ruled out running for a third term. He told the World Policy Journal he was ready to respect constitutional limits and give way when the time came.

“We have the constitution in place. We have term limits. I’m serving my second and last term. I’m just hoping that another suitable person will come and continue with the work we are doing and not reverse it or break it up.”

Kagame, who won a third term in 2017, has faced mounting criticism for what human rights groups say are widespread abuses, a muzzling of independent media, and suppression of political opposition. He denies wrongdoing. He first came to power in 2000.

Paul Kagame, 62 years
Profession: Soldier
Became President: 2000 – till date
Predecessor: Pasteur Bizimungu
Presidential reign: 19 years

he man Paul Kagame – A brief profile

Paul Kagame was born in October 1957 in Rwanda’s Southern Province. His family fled pre-independence ethnic persecution and violence in 1960, crossing into Uganda where Kagame spent thirty years as a refugee.

Kagame joined current Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his group of guerrilla fighters to launch a war to free Uganda from dictatorship. Under the new government, he served as a senior military officer.

In 1990, he returned to Rwanda to lead the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) four-year struggle to liberate the country from the autocratic and divisive order established since independence.

Led by Kagame, the Rwanda Patriotic Army defeated the government in July 1994 and the RPF subsequently set Rwanda on its current course towards reconciliation, nation building and socio-economic development.

Paul Kagame was appointed Vice-President and Minister for Defense in the Government of National Unity on July 19, 1994, and four years later was elected Chairman of the RPF, a partner in the Government of National Unity.

On 22 April 2000, Paul Kagame took the oath of office as President of the Republic of Rwanda after being elected by the Transitional National Assembly. He won the first ever democratic elections held in Rwanda in August 2003 and was re-elected to a second seven-year mandate in August 2010.

In 2015, two years to this years’ polls which he was not eligible to stand in, he proposed a constitutional referendum which was largely endorsed allowing him to contest in the upcoming elections.

Source: Africa News

Authorities in Gabon this week arrested eight people who are suspected of theft and money-laundering in what is seen as follow-up to Operation Mamba, an anti-corruption campaign launched in 2017 by President Ali Bongo, who has been battling serious illness.

The revived anti-graft drive has seen a string of top-level arrests in the central African country, as accusations that millions of euros have disappeared from state coffers swirl around top officials.

“Eight people have been placed in preventive detention,” Gabon’s prosecutor Andre Patrick Roponat said on Thursday, adding that they were accused of “siphoning off public funds and money-laundering.”

The group appeared before a judge on Wednesday along with eight others who were released on bail, Roponat said.

Pro-government newspaper L’Union reported this week that more than 85 billion CFA francs ($142 million) have “evaporated” over the past two years from the funds of the Gabon Oil Company.

60-year-old Bongo said last month he was “fiercely determined” to push ahead with the campaign against graft.

Political witch-hunt?

One high-profile political figure embroiled in the affair is Brice Laccruche Alihanga, Bongo’s former cabinet director who took the lead and spoke for the president after he suffered a stroke in 2018.

Laccuruche had held his cabinet post for more than two years but was dismissed on November 7, at the start of a wave of arrests.

He has announced on social media that he will undertake a new mission for “the president and for Gabon”.

Earlier this week, lawyers told AFP that presidential spokesman Ike Ngouoni and a dozen others were arrested and questioned over their ties to Alihanga.

The lawyers also insist that “there is a political vendetta” in the current process, a claim the country’s Prime Minister refutes.

During his months-long absence abroad for treatment, speculation over Bongo’s fitness surged and the army quashed a brief attempted coup.

Bongo has ruled Gabon since 2009, following the death of his father Omar Bongo, who was in power from 1967.

AFP

Following a United Nations deadline for Britain to withdraw from th Chagos Islands, the African Union ordered Britain on Friday to end its “continued colonial administration” of the disputed Indian Ocean territory.

The Chagos Islands belong to the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius, according to the advisory opinion the top U.N. court issued in February. The U.N. General Assembly in May voted in favour of Britain returning the islands to Mauritius and set a deadline for Nov. 22.

In a statement the African Union called on Britain to comply with the U.N. resolution.

Britain does not recognise Mauritius’ sovereignty claim.

“The UK has no doubt as to our sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which has been under continuous British sovereignty since 1814,” the Foreign Office said in a statement on Nov. 5.

Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth called Britain’s refusal to give up control of the islands a violation of international law.

“The United Kingdom cannot profess to be a champion of the rule of law and human rights whilst maintaining an illegal colonial administration,” he told parliament on Thursday.

The only inhabited island of the Indian Ocean archipelago is home to the Diego Garcia U.S. military base, rented out by Britain and a bomber base for the Air Force.

REUTERS

Alamine Ousmane Mey, Cameroon’s Minister of Economy, was received on 1 November 2019, in Libreville by Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon.

According to the Gabonese Presidency, the member of the Cameroonian government was a special envoy and carried a written message from President Paul Biya to the Gabonese Head of State. “The Cameroonian emissary’s presence on Gabonese soil is part of the regular consultations held by the Heads of State of the sub-region on current issues,” the source reports.

The Gabonese source added that economic, security and other issues of common interest were also on the agenda of the meeting. At the end of the hearing, Alamine Ousmane Mey indicated he was honoured and privileged to have been received by President Ali Bongo Ondimba and welcomed the excellent bilateral relations between the two countries.

A few days earlier, Paul Biya sent his Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, to Equatorial Guinea’s president Téodoro Obiang Nguema and Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso. Little information filtered out about these meetings but sources suggest that these Cameroonian emissaries were carrying an invitation to a summit of CEMAC heads of state, convened by Paul Biya in Yaoundé, Cameroon, for December 2019.

Source: Business in Cameroun

Five candidates will run in Algeria’s presidential election next month, including two former prime ministers, the head of the election authority said on Saturday, amid mass protests rejecting the vote.

The authorities have repeatedly said the Dec. 12 vote would be the only way to get out of a crisis Algeria been facing since the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April under pressure from protesters.

Candidates for the Dec. 12 election include former prime ministers Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Ali Benflis, former culture minister Azzedddine Mihoubi, former tourism minister Abdelkader Bengrine, and Abdelaziz Belaid, head of the El Mostakbal Movement party.

They were announced by Mohamed Chorfi, head of the election authority.

Twenty-three candidates had applied to the election authority, but most failed to meet requirements which include collecting signatures from 25 of the country’s 48 provinces. Those who were rejected will be allowed to file appeals.

Tens of thousands of protesters have been staging weekly demonstrations to reject the election, saying it will not be fair as some of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s allies are still in power.

Bouteflika ended his 20-year-rule in April after mass protests broke out on Feb. 22 demanding the removal of the ruling elite and the prosecution of people involved in corruption.

The army is now the main player in Algeria’s politics, and its chief of staff Lieutenant General Ahmed Gaed Salah has vowed transparency and fairness for the Dec. 12 vote.

The authorities also met some protesters’ demands by detaining several former officials including two ex-prime ministers and several prominent businessmen over corruption charges.

Protesters now also demand the departure of the remaining symbols of the old guard including interim president Abdelkader Bensalah and Prime Minister Noureddine Bedoui.

Algeria had canceled a presidential vote previously planned for July 4, citing a lack of candidates.

“There will be full transparency in the handling of the presidential election,” Chorfi said.

(REUTERS)

South Sudan’s former vice president and rebel leader Riek Machar has called for a six-month delay in the formation of a transitional unity government after he accused the administration of President Salva Kiir of failing to implement a peace agreement aimed at ending a bloody conflict.

Last month, the opposing parties agreed to establish a transitional government by November 12 following months of talks and broken ceasefire deals.

But Machar’s spokesman Puok Both Buluang said he did not believe the former rebel leader would be able to join a unity government before the deadline.

“It’s not rocket science that the government in Juba lacks political will to implement the peace deal,” the spokesman added.

He also urged the government to release funds it had agreed to spend on implementing the agreement, adding that the additional six months would “give room” for resolving issues.

At a public event, President Kiir did not directly comment on the remarks, but said all sides to the pact had committed to forming the unity government on November 12.

“I want to welcome (the opposition) and forget all the bitterness,” he said.

South Sudan, the youngest country in Africa, has been gripped by a bloody civil war since December 2013, when Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup. The two sides were then involved in a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the impoverished country along the ethnic lines. Tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced thus far.

The September 2018 deal was hammered out under pressure from international and regional powers.

The peace deal called for a unity government, but it has been delayed as the government says it cannot afford the disarmament and the assimilation of former rebels in the army, which is a key provision of the accord.

An international body monitoring the ceasefire said the government has so far allocated $10 million of the pledged $100 million.

Under the pact, the two sides have agreed to hold elections after a three-year transition period.

They do not see eye-to-eye on some details of the deal. The number of states South Sudan should have is among the outstanding issues.

A UN Security Council delegation arrived in Juba earlier this month to try to convince the two sides to resolve their differences over the accord.

A similar peace agreement, which returned Machar to vice presidency, was reached in 2015 but fell apart a year later in a deadly clash that forced Machar into exile.

Source: Presstv

Botswana votes on Wednesday in the most closely fought general election in the history of the southern African country, long known as one of the continent’s most stable democracies.

Former president Ian Khama has shaken up the country’s traditionally calm politics by dramatically renouncing his hand-picked successor Mokgweetsi Masisi.

Khama left the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in May, accusing President Masisi — who had been his deputy until last year — of autocracy.

The bitter feud has threatened to fracture the BDP, which has governed the diamond-rich country since it gained independence from Britain in 1966.

The split came after the ruling party saw its share of the vote fall below 50 percent for the first time in the last elections in 2014.

It has faced an increasing challenge from a coalition of opposition parties, the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), which has added another group to its ranks since the last election.

“It’s the most contested election we have seen, and genuinely the outcome is in doubt to some extent,” said Botswana economic analyst Keith Jefferies.

“It’s possible that the BDP could be unseated.”

The UDC has received a boost from an unlikely source: Khama.

The opposition group was his fiercest critic when he was president, but Khama has urged voters in many regions to cast their ballots for the UDC in a bid to oust Masisi and the BDP.

Khama’s father co-founded the BDP and served as the country’s first president. He retains plenty of influence, particularly in the central region — a BDP stronghold — where he is a traditional chief.

– Khama ‘the wild card’ –

The rift between the president and his predecessor started last year, when Khama resigned near the end of his constitutional limit of two five-year terms.

Khama handed the reins to Masisi in April 2018, 18 months ahead of the next election, as part of the BDP’s carefully crafted process for transferring power.

But Masisi quickly started reversing several of Khama’s key policies, including lifting his ban on elephant trophy hunting, infuriating his predecessor.

Peter Fabricius, an analyst at the Pretoria-based think tank Institute of Security Studies, said “Khama is the wild card”.

“This is quite a close election and it could go either way,” he added.

Masisi told AFP that Khama’s policies had hurt the ruling party.

The BDP is “definitely going to perform far better” without Khama, Masisi said, predicting an “overwhelming victory, landslide”.

UDC leader Duma Boko was also confident, telling AFP: “I think we will win this election and we should”.

Voter Alice said: “It’s time for a new government, enough of the BDP”.

“Things are not right in our government… the corruption is just too much,” she told AFP, asking to be identified only by her first name to protect her job.

– ‘We are never going to fight’ –

The unprecedented political drama has raised fears that Khama’s defection could unsettle Botswana after more than five decades of peace and stability.

But Masisi ruled out any such scenario, urging everyone to “accept the results” of the vote.

“I have already accepted the results whatever might come,” he told AFP.

“Botswana is never going to be in crisis if one person wins or the other doesn’t win, there will be another opportunity.”

“We are never going to fight,” Masisi said, adding that stability is in the DNA of Botswana’s people.

But past elections have never been this close. If the opposition wins, the country’s democratic credentials and reputation for good governance will face a new test — a peaceful transfer of power.

Analysts said a BDP loss would be unlikely to send people into the streets. However, they did warn that an unexpected landslide for the ruling party could spark opposition protests claiming the election was rigged.

Duma said at the weekend that the vote would not be free and fair because of unbalanced media coverage by the public broadcaster.

Nearly half of Botswana’s 2.2 million people are expected to cast their ballots in the parliamentary and local elections.

The BDP, UDC and two smaller parties will vie for 57 parliamentary seats. The party with the most seats chooses the president.

Thanks to Botswana’s diamond-spurred wealth it is ranked as an upper-middle-income country, but it has one of the world’s highest rates of income inequality.

Source: AFP

Guinea erupted in protest this week over proposals to draft a new constitution that could allow President Alpha Conde to extend his legal mandate and run for a third term in 2020.

If Conde tries to stay, he would be copying from an established playbook in Africa, where incumbent presidents have sought, often successfully, to remain in power by massaging, bending or outright breaking laws often meant to ensure democratic handovers of power.

Below are details on how some of Africa’s longest-serving leaders have managed to stay in power, or are trying to do so, denting hopes of a dawn of democracy across the region.

* BURUNDI – President Pierre Nkurunziza

Nkurunziza, in power since 2005, announced in 2015 he would run for a third term in what his opponents saw as a breach of the constitution which only allowed leaders to rule for two terms. Since his re-election, hundreds of Burundians have been killed in clashes with security forces and half a million have fled abroad.

A referendum in May 2018 overwhelmingly approved changes that extended the length of presidential terms to seven years. Under the new constitution, Nkurunziza is now able serve a further two terms, potentially extending his rule until 2034. The opposition rejected the results and the United States said the process had been marred by voter intimidation.

* CAMEROON – President Paul Biya

Biya, 86 and sub-Saharan Africa’s oldest leader, took over the presidency in 1982. The national assembly adopted a constitutional bill in April 2008, removing a two-term presidential limit to allow him to extend his rule past 2011. He has won two elections since then that opposition candidates have said were fraudulent.

* CHAD – President Idriss Deby

Deby has ruled Chad since coming to power after a 1990 coup. A 2005 referendum removed a two-term limit from the constitution. Parliament approved a new constitution in 2018 reimposing the two-term limit, but it will not be applied retroactively, meaning Deby could serve two terms after the next election in 2021, potentially ruling until 2033.

* COMOROS – President Azali Assoumani

The president, a former military officer who first seized power in a coup in 1999, won a referendum in 2018 to extend term limits and end a system of rotating power among the archipelago’s three main islands off Africa’s east coast. The vote allowed him to run for two more five year-terms. The opposition dismissed the referendum as illegal.

* CONGO REPUBLIC – Denis Sassou Nguesso

The constitution in Congo Republic was changed by referendum in 2015, lifting term and age limits that would have excluded Nguesso from running again. He won a new five-year term in a 2016 election, although the opposition rejected the outcome, alleging fraud. He has ruled for all but five years since 1979.

* DJIBOUTI – President Ismail Omar Guelleh

Lawmakers in Djibouti approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 that paved the way for Guelleh, in power since 1999, to run for a third term. He has won two subsequent elections.

* GUINEA – President Alpha Conde

Conde’s second and final five-year term expires in 2020, but the 81-year-old leader has refused to rule out running again. In September, he asked his government to look into drafting a new constitution, raising concerns he might use it as a reset button on his presidency and run again. Conde was first elected in 2010.

* IVORY COAST – President Alassane Ouattara

Ouattara, in power since 2010, has claimed the adoption of a new constitution in 2016 would allow him to run for a third term in the 2020 presidential race because a new constitution would mean the first two terms did not count. He has not yet said if he will stand for re-election.

* RWANDA – President Paul Kagame

In 2015, Rwandans voted to extend the constitution’s two-term limit. Under the changes, Kagame could seek another seven-year term and two five-year terms after that, potentially remaining in power until 2034.

Kagame, who won a third term in 2017, has faced mounting criticism for what human rights groups say are widespread abuses, a muzzling of independent media, and suppression of political opposition. He denies wrongdoing. He first came to power in 2000.

* TOGO – President Faure Gnassingbe

Togo changed its constitution in 2019 to cap the presidential mandate at two five-year terms ostensibly in response to opposition calls for an end to a political dynasty that started when Gnassingbe’s father seized power in a 1967 coup.

However it does not take into account the three terms Gnassingbe has already served since coming to power in 2005, the latest of which ends in 2020. Gnassingbe could therefore remain in power until 2030.

* UGANDA – President Yoweri Museveni

Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986. A term-limiting clause that would have prevented him from seeking re-election was deleted from the constitution in 2005.

In 2017, lawmakers voted to remove a constitutional limit on the age of presidential candidates, paving the way for 75-year-old Museveni to stand again in the 2021 election.

Source: Reuters