The pan-African magazine of choice since 2009
The African National Congress’s share of the votes has steadily declined over South Africa’s last four general elections. Does this mean it will lose its majority in the 2024 election and have to form a coalition government, as the number of young voters demanding that the ANC deliver services and reduce corruption and unemployment grows to exceed …
New Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who took office after the death of John Pombe Magufuli in March, is the East African nation’s sixth president since it became independent in 1962, and currently the only woman running a country in Africa. Affectionately called Mama Samia, she may bring a calmer style to the office – …
South Sudan had high hopes when it became independent 10 years ago, after a long rebellion against the Sudanese government in Khartoum. But within two years, the leadership rivalries and ethnic cleavages that had divided the rebellion blew up into a bloody civil war that displaced one-third of the country’s 12 million people. Longtime foes …
Nigeria, already engaged in conflict with the Boko Haram jihadists in the northeast, is now facing widespread violence on several other fronts, from clashes between pastoralists and farmers that have displaced thousands of people to secessionist guerrillas in the Igbo-speaking southeast, who on April 5 attacked a police headquarters and a prison and freed 1,800 …
Ghana’s December 2020 general election was a big shambles. There was unprecedented political violence, as seven people were killed during the election and its aftermath. The Electoral Commission announced the result of the presidential election with several mathematical and computational errors, and changed the figures several times. The National Democratic Congress party and its candidate, …
A very colorful character, former Ghanaian president, Jerry John Rawlings, was given a four-day national funeral at the end of January 2021. In death as in life, controversy followed him: One of his close friends revealed in an emotional tribute at the funeral that Rawlings had told him only weeks before, after his mother’s death, …
The use of Internet-based “cryptocurrencies” such as bitcoin, which in the West are considered too risky for general use, is growing in African countries such as Nigeria, as people find them a convenient way to transfer money across borders. Alexis Akwagyiram and Tom Wilson report. A few months ago, Abolaji Odunjo made a fundamental change …
There’s something seemingly novel about a song from South Africa going viral to the extent that the 2019 house-music song “Jerusalema” has done in 2020. The song is performed by musician and producer Master KG and vocalist Nomcebo Zikode. Apart from the song’s omnipresence on the sound systems of neighborhoods all across South Africa, it …
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s political slogan is “medemer” – or “coming together”. But some analysts say reforms meant to unify Ethiopia have inflamed simmering ethnic and political divisions and risk unravelling Africa’s second most populous nation. Katharine Houreld and Maggie Fick report. Now Ethiopian unity faces its severest test yet: since Nov. 4, the …
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta doesn’t appear to have a clear chosen successor, and the unsolved killing of an election official shows that the country could be caught in another cycle of violence as Election 2022 jitters set in. Carey Baraka reports. Days before Kenya’s general elections in July 2017, the bodies of Chris Msando, the …