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

European Union observers in Kenya have called on the election commission to publish all remaining forms showing vote tallies on its website to ensure the transparency and accuracy of the process.

“The timing of such information being made public is critical given that petitions relating to the presidential race must be filed within seven days of the results announcement,” the mission said in a statement on Wednesday.

Andrew Limo, an election commission spokesman, said about 2,900 of the 41,000 forms showing results at individual polling stations were not yet online.

President Uhuru Kenyatta was re-elected in the Aug. 8 vote but opposition leader Raila Odinga has rejected results, saying they were rigged.

(Source: Reuters)

Kenya’s election commission has declared incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta as the winner of the country’s disputed presidential election. “Having fulfilled the requirement by law… I therefore wish to declare Uhuru Kenyatta… as president-elect,” said polls commission chairman Wafula Chebukati on Friday.

Kenyatta won the Tuesday polls with 54.27 percent of votes, beating his rival Raila Odinga, who scored 44.74 percent, the commission said. Following the announcement, angry protests erupted in Odinga’s strongholds. Reports say businesses are being looted and set on fire in the slum of Kibera in the capital city of Nairobi, while gunshots are heard in the port city of Kisumu.

In comments directed to opposition leader Odinga, Kenyatta called for national unity and peace. “I reach out to you, I reach out to all your supporters. To our brothers, our worthy competitors, we are not enemies, we are all citizens of the same republic,” Kenyatta said.

Kenyatta, 55, the son of Kenya’s first president after independence from British colonial rule, campaigned on a record of key infrastructure projects – many backed by China – while claiming strong economic growth. Odinga, 72, who is also the son of a leader of the independence struggle, presented himself as a champion of the poor and a fierce critic of corruption in the country.

Supporters of Kenya’s incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta celebrate after he was announced winner of the presidential election in the capital city of Nairobi on August 11, 2017. A day after the vote, Odinga rejected the preliminary results which put Kenyatta in the lead, claiming that the election commission’s voting systems had come under cyberattack, leading to “massive and extensive” vote fraud.

“You can only cheat the people for so long,” the opposition leader said. “The 2017 general election was a fraud.” The hacking claims prompted Kenya’s electoral commission to react and counter the allegations, assuring Kenyans that “all is well.” Tensions have been high since late last month, when Chris Msando, a key administrator of the biometric voting system, was murdered.

Despite Odinga’s call for calm, a group of his supporters took to the streets to rally against the preliminary results. The protests, however, turned violent after police forces intervened and fired tear gas at the crowd.

Two protesters were killed in Nairobi as riot police opened fire during the clashes on Wednesday. Kenyatta is broadly regarded as a representative of the nation’s largest ethnic group of Kikuyu, while Odinga is affiliated with the Luo voting bloc, which has never won a presidential race.

The top opposition candidate, who made his fourth presidential run, has further accused his rival of stealing victory from him through vote rigging both in the 2007 and 2013 polls. In 2007, the disputed election led to two months of ethnically-driven political violence that killed nearly 1,100 people and displaced 600,000 others.

Source: Presstv

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has claimed “massive fraud” in the general elections, rejecting the preliminary results, which have put his longtime rival, incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, in the lead.

According to the official website of Kenya’s election commission (IEBC), Kenyatta was holding on to a commanding lead with 54.8 percent, while Odinga has only secured 44.4 percent after nearly 13 million ballots were counted from more than 35,000 of the 40,833 polling stations.

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Odinga claimed that the results of Tuesday’s general elections are not reliable as the election commission’s voting systems had come under cyberattack, leading to “massive and extensive” vote fraud.

“Hackers gained entry into our election database” and “created errors,” Odinga said. “You can only cheat the people for so long,” the opposition leader said. “The 2017 general election was a fraud.”

He called on his supporters to maintain calm, but said “I don’t control the people.” Odinga’s deputy, Kalonzo Muyoka, also made a similar call, adding, however, that the opposition might urge “action” at a later date, without elaborating.

The opposition figure had earlier in the day decried the tallying process as a “sham.” Odinga alleged that the IEBC had not provided documents showing how the tallies were obtained, saying “it is the machine that has voted. These results are wrong.”

The hacking claims prompted Kenya’s election commission to react and counter the allegations, assuring Kenyans that “all is well.” Despite Odinga’s call for calm, a group of his supporters took to the streets to protest the results, chanting “No Raila, no peace.”

The protest, however, turned violent after police forces intervened and fired tear gas at the crowd. At least one protester was killed as riot police opened fire during the clashes in Kisii County, said Leonard Katana, a regional police commander.

Kenyatta, 55-year-old son of Kenya’s first president after independence from British colonial rule, campaigned on a record of key infrastructure projects — many backed by China – while claiming strong economic growth. Odinga, who is also the 72-year-old son of a leader of the independence struggle, presented himself as a champion of the poor as well as a fierce critic of corruption in the country.

Many voters, however, were expected to vote along ethnic lines. Kenyatta is broadly regarded as the candidate of the nation’s largest ethnic group of Kikuyu, while Odinga is affiliated with the Luo voting bloc, which has never won a presidential race.

The top opposition candidate, who is making his fourth presidential run, has further accused his rival of stealing victory from him through rigging both in 2007 and 2013 polls. In 2007, the disputed election led to two months of ethnically-driven political violence that killed nearly 1,100 people and displaced 600,000 others.

The challenged poll in 2013 was referred to the courts, and ended largely peacefully even though Odinga emerged defeated. Tensions have been high leading up to this year’s election since late last month, when Chris Msando, a key administrator of the biometric voting system, was murdered.

“We fear that this is the precise reason why Mr. Chris Msando was assassinated,” Odinga emphasized, pointing to his allegation of fraud. However, IEBC appeared undeterred by Odinga’s statements.

Commissioner Roslyn Akombe said despite a request by an unnamed political party to halt releasing preliminary results the body has decided to “continue to display the results.”

Source: Presstv

The ruling coalition of Senegal’s President Macky Sall has won a widely expected landslide in a legislative election, his prime minister says, bolstering Sall’s prospects for re-election in 2019.

The Benno Bokk Yakaar (BBY) coalition swept all except three of the country’s 45 electoral departments, said Prime Minister Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne, speaking to the public Senegalese press agency APS ahead of the official release of results.

The ruling coalition “emerged victorious” following the vote on Sunday, Dionne said, while the turnout was 54 percent among Senegal’s 6.2 million registered voters, an increase on voting in 2012.

Dionne said opposition coalition lists were likely to be ahead in the departments of Kedougou, Saraya and possibly Mbacke, but otherwise the BBY list of candidates “had been voted in by the Senegalese people.”

The official results are expected later this week. Some complained of being left off the electoral rolls on Sunday, and there were delays to voting in several places, partly due to bad weather.

Sall’s main threat to increase his power in parliament was posed by ex-leader Abdoulaye Wade, 91, who was aiming to drum up support for his own list of candidates and his son, Karim, who is not on the ballot but has ambitions for the presidency.

His other serious opponent, Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall (no relation), is in jail awaiting trial for what supporters say are politically-motivated embezzlement charges, and headed a list while campaigning from his jail cell.

The mayor had been seen as a key contender for 2019 and a potential threat to the president in parliament until he was charged in March with allegedly misappropriating 1.83 billion CFA francs ($2.85 million, 2.7 million euros) in city funds.

There were a record 47 lists of candidates contesting the election, with 165 lawmakers due to take seats in parliament. Police fired tear gas and arrested dozens during at times violent campaigning that left several injured in a country normally known for its peaceful democratic traditions.

Controversy also erupted over the failure to deliver enough new biometric ID cards needed to vote, which hundreds of thousands of Senegalese did not receive in time.

(Source: AFP)

Two people have been killed in an attack on Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto’s residence, police say, days before the African country’s next presidential election on August 8.

A gunman and a police officer were killed on Saturday night after police engaged in a shootout with the attacker outside Ruto’s house in the western town of Eldoret, a senior administrator said Sunday. The attack left another guard injured.

Police said Ruto, who is the running mate of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the upcoming vote, and his family were not home during the gunfire.

“From the exchange of fire we thought it was more than one attacker, because he used different firearms, but after we subdued him, we found only one man dead, plus our officer who he had killed,” Rift Valley regional coordinator Wanyama Musiambo, told reporters.

Further investigation showed that the attacker was unarmed first but was able to use a range of weapons by breaking into the police armory after making his way into the compound.

“After the operation we discovered that it was one gunman, but because he was inside there, he could change position and firearms because he had access to the guns. And the guns he was using were ours,” Musiambo said.

Police were still looking for more clues to see whether the attacker was alone or had help, the official noted. Ruto addressed the attack in a tweet, offering condolences to the family of the fallen guard. Police had initially said that the attacker was wielding a machete and holed himself up in an outbuilding after injuring one police officer. Kenyatta’s office said in a statement that Ruto had spent the day campaigning with the president.

Decades-long power struggle

The August 8 election will see Kenyatta and the ruling Jubilee Party defend their throne against Raila Odinga, who was Prime Minister of Kenya from 2008 to 2013. Odinga has been endorsed by the National Super Alliance (NASA), a group of five opposition parties.

The Odinga and Kenyatta families have been involved in a power struggle since 1966, three years after the country’s independence from the UK.

Source: Presstv

Senegalese voters cast ballots Sunday to elect a new parliament, a test run for President Macky Sall ahead of a 2019 presidential election and after a campaign marred by violence and tensions. Most of the 14,000 polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0800 GMT) but there were delays in several places after some sites were hit by a violent overnight storm, local media reported.

Polling ends at 6:00 pm and the first results are expected early Monday. More than 6.2 million people in the west African nation are registered to vote. Sall is seeking to bolster his parliamentary majority as he eyes a second term, while his predecessor Abdoulaye Wade, 91, attempts to drum up support for his own list of candidates and for his son, Karim, who is waiting in the wings with eyes on the top job.

“We aren’t talking any longer about July 30, but of 2019,” Prime Minister Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne, who is running for a seat with Sall’s coalition, declared at a rally.

In a sign of growing tensions, Interior Minister Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo banned inter-regional travel on Sunday until midnight. Sall’s other main opponent, Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall (no relation), is in jail awaiting trial for what supporters say are politically motivated embezzlement charges.

The mayor had been seen as a key contender for 2019 and a potential threat to the president in parliament until he was charged in March with allegedly misappropriating 1.83 billion CFA francs ($2.85 million, 2.7 million euros) in city funds.

There are a record 47 lists of candidates contesting the election, with 165 lawmakers due to take seats in parliament. Fifteen seats are being set aside for Senegalese expatriates – the first time that the country’s diaspora, estimated at half a million, will have direct representation.

‘Violent clashes’

Police have fired tear gas and arrested dozens during at times violent campaigning that left several injured in a country normally known for its peaceful democratic traditions.

Wade attempted to campaign in a downtown square he had decreed a restricted zone while still president in 2011, an area just meters from the presidential palace. He was pushed back by security forces, leading to several arrests.

Campaigning was marred by tragedy on July 15 when eight people were killed as rival supporters clashed during Senegal’s League Cup final, and a stampede caused a wall to fall on escaping fans.

Controversy also erupted over the failure to deliver enough new biometric ID cards needed to vote, which hundreds of thousands of Senegalese have not received in time. The president asked Senegal’s constitutional council to relax the voting rules so people without the cards could use passports or other forms of identification to cast their ballots, along with proof they had applied for the IDs.

Several political parties and opposition coalitions angrily denounced the last-minute move, saying it increased the possibility of fraud. Tit-for-tat arguments between President Sall and former president Wade’s camps have also erupted over the length of motorways and number of bridges built under their respective tenures.

Wade has accused Sall of “destroying” Senegal, while the president’s side say Wade did not do enough to develop the nation while in power, boasting of their achievements in building a new airport and other infrastructure projects.

(Source: AFP)

President Biya has failed again to represent Cameroon at the 29th African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The 84 year old dictator decided to send as his personal representative, Philemon Yang, the so-called Prime Minister and Head of the Cameroonian government.

The AU summit that started since on Tuesday, the 27th of June, 2017 will come to a close on the 4th of July. Heads of state and government are expected to arrive tomorrow Monday the 3rd of July 2017 at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa for the conclusive phase of the 29th AU summit.

The draft resolutions taken during the committee’s work since last Tuesday, June 27, will be subject to appreciation and adoption by the Heads of State and Government during the Conference and as usual, President Biya will not be attending.

The search for ways and means to combat the economic and security crisis that is going through some member countries and the reform of the AU are the main subjects on the agenda of the Conference of Heads of State and Government. It is also the first outing of the Chadian, Moussa Faki Mahamat, elected six months ago as head of the AU Commission to replace the South African Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

By Rita Akana
Cameroon Intelligence Report

The Cameroonian dictator, Paul BIYA has held talks with a special envoy of President Roch Marc Christian KABORE. Biya met with Cameroonian-born Thierry Hot, Special Adviser to the Burkinabe President on Thursday 29 June 2017 at the Unity Palace.

Thierry Hot was bearer of a fraternal message linked to ongoing measures to bolster bilateral ties between Yaounde and Ouagadougou.

President Paul BIYA and his Burkinabe counterpart initially met on Friday 23 September 2016. The meeting was on the side-lines of the 71st United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Thus, Thierry Hot’s stay at the Unity Palace is a continuation of consultations based on the engagements taken by both leaders to enhance cooperation.

Source: PRC