Niger’s constitutional court on Sunday confirmed Mohamed Bazoum as the country’s new president with more than 55 percent of the votes cast in last month’s run-off.

Former interior minister Bazoum was the preferred successor and right-hand man of outgoing president Mahamadou Issoufou.

“The court confirms and declares the definitive results of the second round presidential poll of February 2, 2021,” said President of the Court Bouba Mahamane, adding that he had received 55.6 percent of the vote while turnout was 62.9 percent.

The court declared that Bazoum had a mandate for five years from April 2.

The results were contested by the opposition and violence in the capital Niamey claimed two lives.

President Issoufou voluntarily stepped down after two five-year terms, paving the way for the first elected transition since independence from France in 1960.

(AFP)

Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan made history on Friday when she was sworn in as the country’s first female president after the sudden death of John Magufuli from an illness shrouded in mystery.

Hassan, 61, a soft-spoken Muslim woman from the island of Zanzibar and vice president since 2015, will finish Magufuli’s second five-year term, set to run until 2025.

Wearing a bright red headscarf, Hassan was sworn in as the country’s sixth president, at a ceremony in Dar es Salaam, where neither she nor the majority of attendees wore a mask, in the Covid-sceptic nation.

“I, Samia Suluhu Hassan, promise to be honest and obey and protect the constitution of Tanzania,” said the new president, as she took the oath of office before inspecting troops at a military parade and receiving a cannon salute.

She becomes the only other current female head of state in Africa alongside Ethiopia’s President Sahle-Work Zewde, whose role is mainly ceremonial.

Hassan was little known outside Tanzania until she appeared on state television on Wednesday night to announce that Magufuli had died from a heart condition after a mysterious three week absence from public view.

But questions have been raised over the true cause of his death, after multiple rumours that Magufuli – one of the world’s most fervent Covid-sceptic leaders – had caught the virus and had sought treatment abroad.

Tanzania’s main opposition leader Tundu Lissu insisted his sources said Magufuli had Covid-19 and had actually died a week ago.

Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper, which last week reported an “African leader”, in clear reference to Magufuli, was in a Nairobi hospital, on Friday gave more details of his illness. The report also indicated that Magufuli had in fact died last week.

Citing sources, the paper said Magufuli was discharged from Nairobi Hospital on life support after it was determined he could not be resuscitated, and returned to Dar es Salaam where he died last Thursday.

The paper detailed his initial evacuation to Nairobi on March 8 in a medical plane, as he suffered “acute cardiac and respiratory illnesses”.

In her brief and sombre address, Hassan called for unity. “This is a time to bury our differences, and stand united as a country,” she said. “This is not a time for finger pointing, but it’s a time to hold hands and move forward together,” she said, addressing a crowd of current and former officials that included two former presidents and uniformed military officers.

The main question hanging over the new president is whether she will usher in a change in leadership style from her predecessor, a brash populist nicknamed the “Bulldozer” for muscling through policies and who drew criticism for his intolerance of dissent.

‘A new chapter’

Magufuli leaves behind a complex legacy, after a swing to authoritarianism which saw him crack down on the media, activists and free speech, while refusing to take any measures against Covid-19.

He called for prayer instead of face masks, refused to publish case statistics or implement lockdown measures, and championed alternative medicines.

In May last year he revealed a papaya, quail and goat had tested positive for the virus in a secret operation, proving “sabotage” at the national laboratory.

However by February, as cases soared and the vice president of semi-autonomous Zanzibar was revealed to have died from Covid-19, Magufuli conceded the virus was still circulating.

The opposition and rights groups have urged Hassan to change course.

“As we continue mourning, let us use this period to open up a new chapter for rebuilding national unity and respect to freedom, justice, rule of law, democracy and people-centred development,” said Freeman Mbowe, the chairman of opposition group Chadema, in a statement Thursday.

He urged Hassan to “lead the nation towards reconciliation”.

Meanwhile Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the new government “has a chance for a fresh start by ending problematic past practises.”

‘Hold your breath’

However analysts say Hassan will face early pressure from powerful Magufuli allies within the party, who dominate intelligence and other critical aspects of government, and would try and steer her decisions and agenda.

“For those who were kind of expecting a breakaway from the Magufuli way of things I would say hold your breath at the moment,” said Thabit Jacob, a researcher at the Roskilde University in Denmark and expert on Tanzania.

Hailing from Zanzibar, the semi-autonomous island in the Indian Ocean, Hassan rose through the ranks over a 20-year political career from local government to the national assembly.

A ruling party stalwart, she was named Magufuli’s running mate in the 2015 presidential campaign. The pair were re-elected in October last year in a disputed poll marred by allegations of irregularities.

Hassan must consult the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) about appointing a new vice president. The party is set to hold a special meeting of its central committee on Saturday.

Tanzania is observing a 14-day mourning period and details on Magufuli’s funeral have yet to be announced.

Magufuli is the second East African leader to die under mysterious circumstances.

Burundi’s equally Covid-sceptic leader, Pierre Nkurunziza, died from “heart failure” last June after his wife was flown to Nairobi to be treated for coronavirus.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)

Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko continues to go head to head with the authorities. On Tuesday Sonko once again put pressure on Senegal’s president Macky Sall.

During a press conference in Dakar, the leader of the PASTEF opposition party announced his intention to bring the West African country’s religious figures in the debate.

“We asked the religious authorities to help – because nothing can come out of a dialogue held only between political actors – and to be guarantors of what should be done, especially on the question of the third mandate. We don’t want to hear about it anymore.”

“It is no longer acceptable for anyone in Senegal to stand before the people, and think, for a fraction of a second, that they will be allowed to serve a third term. It is out of the question, and the day someone wants to do so, we will remove him from the presidential palace” Ousmane Sonko said.

Since his arrest in last February, Ousmane Sonko has risen to become the main opponent to President Macky Sall.

“My dear compatriots, at the beginning of my speech, I would like to remind you that for the past few days, we have not slept, we are immersed in our thoughts and in sadness because of the young people who fell under the bullets these days.”

Many Senegalese took to the street, as they saw in the opposition member of parliament a solution to many of their problems, such as poverty and unemployment.

“The whole political class, the civil society, citizens stood together to say that enough is enough. But we must understand that this movement is not only linked to the Ousmane Sonko case. It is the accumulation of a set of frustrations, refusal and rejection of Macky Sall’s methods.”

“My dear compatriots, we must remain peacefully mobilised and use our inalienable right to demonstrate”, Sonko said.

Ousmane Sonko has received the support of several opposition leaders, such as former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall, a long-standing opponant of President Macky Sall, who claims Senegal is at a turning point.

“What we are experiencing today is the start of a new beginning in the construction of this country” Khalifa Sall claims.

“A new beginning, so that democracy can continue to improve and be put in application in the best conditions for all and by all.”

Even though Saturday’s protest was called off, supporters of Ousmane Sonko have said they might take again to the streets, should their demands be ignored by the Senegalese authorities.

Source: Africa News

Amadou Gon Coulibaly who was Ivory Coast’s prime minister and the governing party’s candidate for the October 2020 presidential election, died just days after returning from a two-month medical treatment in France.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the 61-year-old, who had heart surgery in 2012, became unwell during a weekly cabinet meeting and was taken to a hospital where he passed away.

Coulibaly’s death created a huge uncertainty over the election in Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa grower. Ouattara had designated Coulibaly as the RHDP candidate in March after announcing that he himself would not seek a third term.

Hamed Bakayoko, a close ally of Ouattara, was appointed as prime minister in July 2020 following the sudden death of his predecessor Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who had been handpicked by Ouattara to succeed him. He also held the defence ministry portfolio.

Prime Minister Bakayoko was flown to France on Feb. 18 for medical checks. The government said in a statement on Friday that Ouattara had met Bakayoko during a visit in France recently, and given the state of the prime minister’s health, it was recommended that he should stay longer in hospital.

Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara on Monday named his chief of staff Patrick Achi as interim prime minister in place of Hamed Bakayoko, who was absent due to health reasons.

Bakayoko died from covid at a hospital in Germany on Wednesday. The 56-year-old had seen his health deteriorate sharply in recent days.

He had terminal cancer and had been hospitalised at the American Hospital in Paris since the beginning of March and was transferred to a hospital in Freiburg, Germany on Saturday, to undergo an experimental treatment.

By some strange happenstance, interim Prime Minister Patrick Achi is also presently dying in a hospital in Abidjan. The close confidant of President Ouattara has not even received his first salary as Prime Minister.

CIR is keeping a watchful eye on the situation in the Ivory Coast and we will keep our readers posted as we get it!

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

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

Mohamed Bazoum, a candidate for the presidential election in Niger has won the presidential run-off elections, according to provisional results by the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI).

He polled 55.75% of the votes against the opposition candidate Mahamane Ousmane who had 44.25%, the commission announced.

These “results are provisional and must be submitted to the analysis of the Constitutional Court,” Issaka Souna, President of CENI said before diplomatic corps and Nigerien authorities gathered at the Palais des Congrès in the capital, Niamey.

Voter turnout was pegged at 62.91%, according to the commission. It said that Bazoum received 2,501,459 votes against 1,985,736 for Ousmane out of a total of 7.4 million voters.

In the first round of polls, Bazoum received 39.3% of votes, while Ousmane managed almost 17%.

Earlier, the opposition denounced an electoral “hold-up”, demanding “the immediate suspension of the publication of results”.

“I ask all Nigeriens to mobilize as one to defeat this electoral hold-up,” Falké Bacharou, Campaign manager for Mahamane Ousmane said.

Opposition supporters took to the streets in Niamey to protest near the headquarters of the ruling party where Mohamed Bazoum is due to speak. The demonstrators gathered and were chased by police officers and fired tear gas at them.

Source: Africa News

Niger votes on Sunday in the second round of a presidential election that is expected to usher in the first democratic transition of power since the West African nation gained independence from France in 1960.

Ruling party candidate Mohamed Bazoum is seen by many as the favourite after leading in the first round on Dec. 27 with 39.3% of the vote. He is up against former president Mahamane Ousmane, who scored 17%.

Bazoum, a 61-year-old politician who had held several top positions in outgoing President Mahamadou Issoufou’s governments including the foreign and interior ministries, is backed by the candidates who came third and fourth in the first round.

Bazoum has vowed to continue Issoufou’s policies, making security a focal point as the country battles insurgencies, while introducing policies to revamp the economy.

Ousmane, 71, was Niger’s first democratically elected president and was ousted in a 1996 military coup. He has been endorsed by around a dozen smaller parties and candidates of the first round. He has promised to bring change and tackle corruption.

The Sahel nation of around 24 million is one of the poorest in the world and struggles with recurring drought and destructive floods. The coronavirus pandemic has weighed on its economy, while weak prices for its main export, uranium, have hit revenues.

The International Monetary Fund expects Niger’s economy to rebound to pre-pandemic levels, with growth of over 6% this year after dipping by 1.2% in 2020.

“Continuity is better,” said Boukari Hassane, a 42 year-old civil servant who added that he would like Bazoum to complete development programmes started under Issoufou.

Niamey-based political analyst Elhadj Idi Abou said that the outcome of the vote was not decided and turnout was expected to be high given the nearly 70% turnout in the first round.

The choice was between continuity with Bazoum, or change with Ousmane, he added.

“For me there is no favourite because this ballot is the most open and the outcome does not depend on alliances but on the citizens. Both candidates have the same chances,” Abou said.

Niger is facing two of Africa’s deadliest insurgencies – one near its western border with Mali and Burkina Faso, where militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State have carried out a series of attacks. An attack on two villages in early January near the border with Mali killed 100.

Along its southeastern border with Nigeria attacks by Boko Haram have killed hundreds and displaced thousands.

Source: REUTERS

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has dissolved the lower house of parliament and called for snap legislative elections as activists have launched a campaign to mobilize the street again against authorities.

“I decided to dissolve the assembly and call elections to build a new institution,” Tebboune said in a televised address to the nation, without giving a date for the vote.

The five-year lower house of parliament was formed after the May 2017 election which saw allies of deposed President Abdelaziz Bouteflika winning a clear majority.

Tebboune described the dissolution of the parliament as part of reforms after voters approved amendments to the constitution aimed at giving parliament more powers in November last year.

He also announced that a government reshuffle would take place “within 48 hours at most”, and ordered the release of about 60 detainees of the “Hirak” protest movement that ousted his predecessor, Bouteflika, in 2019.

The release of protesters, who have been in detention since the protests broke out on February 22, has been one of the major demands of the Hirak.

“We have vowed to meet all demands raised by the Hirak,” Tebboune said in the speech.

His speech comes amid calls on social media to stage street marches to mark the second anniversary of the demonstrations.

The Arab Weekly reported that opposition activists launched a large campaign on social media to turn the movement’s second anniversary into a launchpad for a new wave of anti-regime protests.

The new announcements are seen as an attempt to appease protesters.

Thousands of people staged a protest in the town of Kherrata, the cradle of the Hirak, on Tuesday to mark the second anniversary of the movement, defying coronavirus restrictions.

They chanted “President Tebboune is a forger brought in by the army” and “the generals in the trash.”

The protesters called for “a civilian, not military state,” “the release of detainees” and “the exit of the authorities and the generals,” bringing back memories of the political protests that swept Algeria between 2019 and 2020 before the government banned marches in March last year as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Tebboune, once a prime minister under Bouteflika, was elected in December 2019 amid protests demanding the removal of the whole ruling elite, with many people boycotting the vote as they saw it as unfair and not transparent.

Source: Presstv

Benin President Patrice Talon and only two other candidates will run in the country’s presidential election in April, electoral authorities said Friday.

A total of 20 would-be candidates officially handed in their documents to run for the presidency, but the electoral commission said only the three chosen had met the necessary requirements.

Many opposition figures are already in exile or barred from office in Benin, a West African state which critics say has veered into authoritarianism under Talon.

Talon, a cotton magnate in power since 2016, will face former minister Alassane Soumano for the opposition FCBE party and Corentin Kohoue, a dissident opposition figure.

The opposition says the ballot is already fixed in favour of Talon, especially because of an electoral law reform requiring each candidate to be formally sponsored by 16 mayors or members of parliament.

“He chose to select his opponents from among his allies and refused to compete with candidates capable of beating him at the ballot box,” said Joel Aivo the candidate for part of the divided opposition who was one of those whose candidacy was rejected.

Talon supporters say the conditions are in place for a fair election.

On Tuesday, several opposition figures warned a visiting United Nations envoy that the conditions imposed by Talon’s government could undermine the credibility of the election.

During parliamentary elections in 2019, no opposition parties were allowed to present lists of candidates for the vote.

Part of the divided opposition has founded a coalition, the Front for the Restoration of Democracy, to join forces behind Aivo against Talon.

Source: AFP

Chad’s Moussa Faki Mahamat was re-elected the chairperson of the African Union Commission on Saturday during the two-day summit.

With no one else in the running, it comes as no surprise.

Faki got 51 votes out of 55 with three abstentions and one other member being ineligible to vote. His victory is the highest in the AU’s history.

He will be deputised by Rwandan banker, Dr Monique Nsanzabagwana

Under new rules, a chairperson and deputy cannot be of the same gender.

But the duo will face a tough test as Africa battles the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than three million people.

The continent was not as badly hit compared to the United State and Europe during the outbreak in March, but many African countries are now battling damaging second waves and are under pressure to procure sufficient vaccine doses.

While vaccination programmes have begun in some countries on the continent, it has been much slower than in wealthier nations, and health experts and political leaders have warned that “vaccine hoarding” by wealthy nations is putting lives at risk in African countries.

Ahead of the AU’s summit Faki said:“There is a vaccine nationalism on the rise, with other rich countries jumping the queue, some even pre-ordering more than they require.”

Meanwil, South African president Cyril Ramphosa told the bloc’s summit that more needs to be done especially access to loans on favourable terms despite resources from the IMF and World Bank.

Another priority for the AU will be managing conflicts in the Sahel, Ethiopia’s Tigray and Mozambique.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has also taken over the helm from South Africa to serve as a one-year chairmanship of the union.

Source: Africa News