Chad’s president, Idriss Déby announced on Friday that legislative elections, initially scheduled for 2015, will take place in November 2018.

The development was reported by state radio as one of the resolutions that came out of a meeting the president had with members of the opposition.

The Chadian head of state announced on 31 December that parliamentary elections would be held “in 2018”, without specifying the month.

This election has been postponed several times. The third legislature in the Assembly was due to end on 21 June 2015, but a constitutional law had extended it.

In February 2017, the elections had been postponed, with President Déby citing logistical constraints. He said at the time that they would not take place until 2019, angering the opposition.

Idriss Déby met representatives of various opposition parties on Friday, including the Front de l’opposition nouvelle pour l’alternance et le changement (Fonac), which rejected the conclusions of a recent forum on institutional reforms boycotted by the entire opposition.

During his meeting with opponents, Idriss Déby also mentioned a possible reform of the National Framework for Political Dialogue (CNDP), a structure responsible for preparing the elections and bringing together members of the ruling party, the opposition and civil society.

AFP

Sierra Leone’s election commission declared main opposition candidate Julius Maada Bio as the West African nation’s new president Wednesday, giving the opposition party its first presidency in 10 years.

Bio won Saturday’s runoff vote with 51.81 percent of valid votes cast, the National Electoral Commission said. The former military leader running for the Sierra Leone Peoples Party beat ruling party candidate Samura Kamara, who received 48.19 percent of the votes.

More than 2.5 million people, or 81 percent of eligible registered voters, cast ballots in the runoff, said election commission’s chairman, Mohamed N’Fah Alie Conteh.

Tensions rose in the West African nation of 7 million people after neither the ruling All Peoples Congress party candidate nor Bio won the March 7 first round election outright. The Sierra Leone Peoples Party has not held the presidency since 2007.

The runoff vote had been set for March 27 but was delayed after a ruling party member filed a court challenge alleging irregularities in the first round and a temporary injunction was issued, stalling preparations. The high court lifted the injunction last week, allowing the second round to take place Saturday.

The winner will now lead efforts to continue rebuilding the country after the devastating 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic as well as a deadly mudslide in August that killed some 1,000 people in the capital, Freetown.

The election is the fourth since Sierra Leone’s brutal civil war ended in 2002, and the previous vote in 2012 was largely peaceful.

Outgoing President Ernest Bai Koroma has served two terms and was barred by the constitution from running again.

(AP)

Kenya’s opposition leader has said the attack on the judiciary by the interior cabinet secretary, Fred Matiang’i goes against the spirit of the deal he made with president Uhuru Kenyatta.

Matiang’i on Tuesday, while appearing before the Parliamentary Committee on Administration and National Security, said some judges, activist lawyers and civil societies are working to embarrass and intimidate the government. He had been summoned by parliament to explain the detention and deportation of vocal opposition lawyer, Miguna Miguna.

In our statement to the nation, President Kenyatta and I urged every leader and every Kenyan to embrace the responsibilities they know to be theirs and help the nation reconcile and make progress.

In a statement, Odinga said Matiang’i’s rant against the judiciary was wrong, arguing that he should have instead appealed decisions he was not happy with.

“As a cabinet secretary of this republic, this outburst by Dr. Matiang’i was highly irresponsible and reckless. In our statement to the nation, President Kenyatta and I urged every leader and every Kenyan to embrace the responsibilities they know to be theirs and help the nation reconcile and make progress,” said Odinga.

After the March 9 deal sealed with a handshake on the steps of Harambee House, Odinga says he and President Kenyatta had agreed to respect the rule of law and champion reconciliation across the country.

“We have just come from the longest, most dramatic political period in Kenya’s history. Every leader should know that and should behave and talk in ways that will help Kenyans re-focus on the problems we have in a sober and rational manner rather than worsen them. The politics and leadership of chest-thumping, fear mongering, hate and division must end in Kenya,” he said.

Source: Africa News

Southern Cameroons media guru, Chris Anu who also moonlights as the Communication Secretary for the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has finally made his position clear on the leadership situation deep within the Anglophone struggle, saying the clamour by Southern Cameroonians in both the Northern and Southern zones is “Not to kill its victims, but to go after those who have made us victims.”

Chris Anu implicitly denounced the so-called leader of an obscure organization known as the Ambazonia Defense Force, a militant group led by Cho Ayaba, which has been playing drums of killings and kidnappings and creating sectional unrest among Ambazonians. “Yes this is a revolution, but a revolution doesn’t go after its own especially those considered powerless’, Chris Anu wondered aloud in a posting on his face book page.

Chris Anu observed that “Why should all these politicians and the Atanga Njis of Cameroun walk free and the Ayabas go after powerless people? Chris stressed that his recent take on Ayaba Cho has nothing to do with the Interim Government but further pointed out that “If good people in this revolution do not stand up to Ayaba who is bent on sacrificing this struggle at the altar of power and fame, then Count Me Out”.

Mindful of the fact that the people of Southern Cameroons are ever ready to partner with the powerful Anglophone Diaspora groups in order to ensure the restoration of the state of Southern Cameroons, Chris Anu submitted that “We must collectively show Ayaba the door out of any form of leadership in this struggle.”

The Ambazonian Communication Secretary was reacting to news that Animbom Aaron Akiabom, the Social Welfare Delegate in Bamenda had been killed by a criminal gang led by Cho Ayaba. To be sure, Animbom Aaron Akiabom, the Social Welfare Delegate in Bamenda, a longtime Pastor and Deacon in the Baptist Church was abducted in Batibo early in March while returning from a funeral.

Cho Ayaba claimed the credit and paraded him in a social media video on March 10 as prove that his group actually had him in custody. Chris Anu has now revealed that he was since killed.

Our chief political editor, Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai had previously sounded a note of caution to Ambazonians to move away from the Cho Ayaba gang. Said Agbaw-Ebai ,“With the dust now settled, Southern Cameroonians can see clearly that there is no difference between Ayaba and La Republique forces. If the Lebialem Dragons had killed Prof Leke Tambo, that would have been the end of the revolution in Bangwa land.”

Soter Agbaw-Ebai noted that Southern Cameroons defense groups should and must respect the laws of war.

By Chi Prudence Asong in London

Leading Senegalese politician Khalifa Sall was handed a five-year jail term for fraud on Friday, a sentence that will rule him out of presidential elections due next February.

Sall, 62, who is mayor of Dakar, had denied the charges against him as politically motivated.

He had been accused of fraudulent use of public funds, for which he was also fined five million CFA francs (7,625 euros).

He was found not guilty on charges of criminal conspiracy, money laundering and misappropriating public funds.

The trial has been closely followed in Senegal, given Sall’s high popularity and the repercussions in next year’s presidential elections.

Sall represents a growing challenge to incumbent President Macky Sall, who shares the same name but is not a relation.

Supporters of the mayor protested loudly in the packed courtroom when the verdict was announced on Friday.

A dissident member of the Socialist Party, Khalifa Sall began his political activism at the age of 11.

After holding various ministerial portfolios under then Socialist president Abdou Diouf, he was elected mayor of the capital in 2009.

The court heard allegations of a system of fake receipts for rice and millet, the money from which Sall was accused of using for “political purposes”.

Sall said the trial was fuelled by his refusal to cut deals with the government and that the money was used for spending on sensitive issues such as security.

(AFP)

Botswana’s president Ian Khama has officially stepped down. The retired army general exited on Saturday handing the diamond-rich country to vice-president, Mokgweetsi Masisi.

Khama, a 65-year old bachelor, is known as a straight talker having publicly criticised leaders including US President Donald Trump for an alleged slur against African countries and former Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe as well DRC’s Joseph Kabila for overstaying their welcome.

55 year-old Masisi inherits a country that has for decades been heralded as a beacon of African democracy and sound economic management but faces a huge task of reducing the country’s dependence on diamonds.

Masisi, a trained teacher who has also worked for the United Nations Children’s Fund as an education project officer for eight years until 2003, was elected lawmaker in 2009.

He served in the president’s office as a minister of public affairs from 2011 until 2014 when Khama named him minister of education, a post he held until appointed Vice President last year.

He becomes only the third leader to take charge of the southern African nation outside the Khama political dynasty. The dynasty dominated national politics since independence from Britain in 1966.

Botswana law restricts the president to serving two five-year terms, and provides for the vice president to automatically fill the post should it become vacant.

The National Assembly will elect a new president after elections scheduled for October 2019.

Source: Presstv

Eight in ten Congolese have an unfavourable opinion of President Joseph Kabila – but nearly seven in ten don’t think the December vote to replace him will be fair, according to a national poll published on Friday.

The survey, conducted last month by the Congo Research Group at New York University and Congolese polling firm BERCI, gives a rare glimpse into the national mood as Congolese wait to see if Kabila finally steps down after 17 years in power.

Elections in Democratic Republic of Congo are scheduled for Dec. 23, two years after Kabila’s mandate officially expired. But Kabila, who succeeded his assassinated father in 2001, has refused to publicly commit to stepping down.

Uncertainty about his intentions and the prospect of the vote being delayed again have bred mistrust among Congo’s 80 million people. Security forces have killed dozens of people during street protests against the president’s extended rule.

The political crisis has also contributed to rising militia violence in eastern Congo’s borderlands with Rwanda and Uganda, where millions died from hunger, disease and conflict in wars around the turn of the century.

The Congo Research Group is directed by Jason Stearns, a former U.N. investigator in the country. Over 1,000 Congolese citizens in all 26 provinces were questioned.

When asked if they had a “good opinion, bad opinion or no opinion at all” of their president, 80 percent said they had a bad opinion and 20 percent said they had a good opinion. In an indication of Kabila’s polarising effect, zero percent had no opinion.

Congolese are eager for change, according to the poll. Ninety-five percent of those surveyed said they planned to vote in December and 64 percent said they were optimistic about the country’s future in the next five years.

Exiled opposition leader Moise Katumbi would lead the presidential vote with 24 percent, trailed by another opposition leader, Felix Tshisekedi, with 13 percent.

Katumbi’s support has fallen from 38 percent in a previous poll by CRG and BERCI a year ago. The pollsters said that could be due to his two-year absence from the country after being accused of hiring foreign mercenaries.

Still, most in the vast nation that spans much of Central Africa are sceptical about the electoral process. Sixty-nine percent said they do not trust the electoral commission to conduct “free, fair and transparent elections”, up from 54 percent last year.

The commission plans to use 100,000 electronic voting machines in December, a move that opposition leaders and international donors said could increase the risk of fraud.

REUTERS

Chad’s president would be allowed to stay on until 2033 and be granted greater powers under constitutional changes recommended by a national conference that the opposition said aimed to create a “monarchy”.

The two-week forum of about 800 politicians, business leaders and traditional chiefs, boycotted by the opposition, issued its report late on Tuesday, recommending eliminating the post of prime minister and creating a fully presidential system.

It proposed re-instating presidential term limits that were scrapped by a 2005 referendum, but the reforms would still let President Idris Deby, who came to power in a rebellion in 1990, stay on well into old age.

It recommended six-year rather than five-year presidential terms, limited to a maximum of two terms, effective from the next presidential election in 2021. That would mean Deby could stay in power until 2033, when he will be 81.

Deby pledged before the 2016 election to reinstate term limits, bucking a regional trend that has seen the presidents of Rwanda and Congo Republic remove term limits to stay in office.

The conference’s proposals are expected to be taken up by parliament this year.

Chad, an ally of Western nations in the fight against Islamist militants in West and Central Africa, has faced strikes and protests in recent months over economic woes caused by low prices for its chief export, oil.

REUTERS

The government of Cameroon will accept dialogue as part of measures to end the Anglophone crisis, Interior Minister Paul Atanga Nji is reported to have said.

He however stresses that the sole condition to the dialogue being that it will be held with persons who are advancing the unity of Cameroon as a nation.

His view effectively means that the Central African country is not going to engage armed separatists whose activities continue to threaten members of the security forces and disrupt life in the Northwest and Southwest of the country – the Anglophone regions.

“We can still solve the problem without burning, looting, raping, destroying. The government is ready to dialogue with those who seek the oneness of Cameroon,” the Minister said in a visit to Buea, capital of the Southwest region on Tuesday.

Atanga is one of two Anglophones who were handed positions in the government following a cabinet reshuffle carried out by long-serving leader, Paul Biya.

What has become known as the Anglophone crisis, has riled the country’s two English-speaking regions. A previous cry against discrimination and marginalization from French-majority Cameroon has now taken a violent turn.

Secessionists under the so-called Ambazonia Republic continue to push for a breakaway from Cameroon – a move the government has flatly rejected. After a crackdown on protests in October last year during a planned symbolic independence declaration, the secessionists turned to arms.

They have since attacked and killed over twenty members of government forces – police, soldiers and gendarmes. They have also kidnapped two government officials. A soldier after burning his vehicle and a government official who appeared in a video begging to be rescued.

The call for dialogue has continually been made by several countries and groups but has yet to be seriously pursued. A number of the separatists leaders have been arrested and deported from Nigeria since January but they have yet to appear in court.

The humanitarian crisis arising from the situation has also led to Cameroonians fleeing the Anglophone regions in their thousands. The United Nations refugee agency has openly tasked parties to use dialogue to avoid further escalation of the crisis.

Source: Africa News