Will Africa’s Young Voters Continue To Punish Incumbents At The Ballot Box In 2025? We Are About To Find Out

Supporters of the UMkhonto weSizwe party, which helped unseat the long-time African National Congress, attend an election meeting near Durban, South Africa, ahead of the May 2024 general elections. AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti

BY RICHARD AIDOO

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE,

COASTAL CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

Voters in Gabon head to the ballot box on April 12, 2025, in a vote that marks the first election in the Central African nation since a 2023 coup ended the 56-year rule of the Bongo family.

It is also the first presidential vote to take place in Africa in 2025, to be followed by contests later this year in Ivory Coast, Malawi, Guinea, Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Seychelles and Cameroon.

Of particular interest is whether these elections will continue the trend of last year’s votes. As the continent with the youngest population, Africa’s youth was crucial throughout 2024 to a series of seismic political shifts – not least the removal of incumbents and changes in the governing status quo in Ghana, Senegal and South Africa.

Indeed, analysis of the 2024 African Youth Survey – one of the most comprehensive continent-wide polls of people age 18 to 24 – and election results of that year show a clear lack of optimism among the youth.

Unemployment, the rising cost of living and corruption are primary factors driving youth dissatisfaction on the continent. For example, 59% of South African youth considered their country to be heading the wrong direction – and that’s not hard to imagine given that the country’s youth unemployment rate reached 45.5% in 2024. Not surprisingly, unemployment was a key factor in the election results. Meanwhile, widespread protests in Kenya and Uganda in the summer of 2024 were youth-led and sparked, respectively, by concerns over tax increases and corruption.

As a professor of political science and an expert in African politics, I believe that a failure to address such concerns could have potentially serious implications for political leaders in the upcoming elections. It also makes it more difficult for countries to consolidate or protect already-fragile democracies on the continent.

Unemployment fueling instability

While African political campaigns often make note of persistently high rates of youth unemployment, the policy priorities of governments across the continent have seemingly failed to fix this intractable problem.

In a 2023 Afrobarometer survey, unemployment topped the list of policy priorities for African youth between the ages of 18 and 35.

But for a multitude of reasons – including the lack of investment in training youth and other priorities – African governments have been unable or unwilling to tackle youth unemployment.

Many governments, faced with the ongoing economic aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic and supply-chain issues – which exacerbated rising living costs, high inflation and external debt issues – pursued unpopular revenue collection policies

Take Ghana, where in 2022 the government introduced an e-levy – a tax on electronic cash transfers. The move proved deeply unpopular and was dropped by the new government in 2024.

The violent anti-tax protests in Kenya also provide an example of desperate unemployed youth tapping into a sense of deep popular resentment over fiscal policies.

The combination of deep dissatisfaction with government policies and high youth joblessness can be a destabilizing influence. A 2023 United Nations Development Program study focusing on Ghana pointed to a problem that is common elsewhere on the continent. It concluded that in regions with higher-than-average youth unemployment, that factor was the most common cause for violent extremism and radicalization.

The U.N. study underscored the importance of addressing the social and economic challenges that foster marginalization and anger among youth across sub-Saharan Africa.

The issue of youth unemployment in Africa is exacerbated by the cumulative growth in the youth labor force – estimated to grow by 72.6 million between 2023 and 2050, according to a 2024 report by the International Labor Organization.

The role that unemployment played in Africa’s 2024 elections does not bode well for some of those governments heading to the polls this year. In Gabon, youth unemployment has hovered above 35% in recent years.

A corrupting influence

Corruption remains a persistent social and political issue in much of Africa and continues to impede the efforts of youth to seek meaningful opportunities. So it is unsurprising that the issue was front and center during a number of 2024 elections, including in Senegal, South Africa and Ghana.

The concerns in those countries mirror grievances registered around the continent more broadly, with reducing government corruption listed as a top priority by respondents in the African Youth Survey.

Similar to unemployment, high levels of corruption correlated to some of the political shifts of 2024.

An Afrobarometer survey of attitudes in 2024 showed that 74% of Ghanaians believed corruption had increased over the previous year.

In Kenya, 77% of people view their government’s efforts in fighting corruption as ineffectual.

Of particular concern to many African youth is the belief that security forces and government officials are often considered the most corrupt and that incidents of regularized corruption are underreported.

And it is youth that bear the brunt of much of this corruption. According to a 2022 U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime report, people between the ages 18 and 34 are among the most vulnerable to having to pay bribes to public officials in Ghana.

Again, youth attitudes toward corruption don’t bode well for many of the governments in this year’s elections. Gabon, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Guinea-Bissau all score poorly on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.

The fragility of democracy

There is an ongoing debate on the extent of slowdown of democratic progress in Africa, a trend that is underscored by a number of African military coups in recent years, including in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger.

Democracy is at its strongest when it empowers governments to deliver on the needs of their populations, particularly the youth.

But the experience of incumbent governments in 2024 elections suggests that too many may have disregarded young people’s needs, which in turn has led to anger resulting in destabilizing protests and regime change – both through democratic and undemocratic means.

It also makes it harder to instill democratic sentiment among younger voters.

Over half of Africa’s 18- to 35-year-olds surveyed in the 2023 Afrobarometer agreed that the military can intervene when leaders abuse power – a pertinent caution about their willingness to support political change, even if it interrupts the democratic process.

While a majority of youth in Africa still retain an apparent preference for democracy to other forms of governance, a growing proportion would embrace nondemocratic governance under some circumstances, according to the 2024 African Youth Survey. The top scores in this particular response came from Gabon, Ivory Coast and Tanzania – all of which have upcoming elections in 2025.

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Madagascar’s Top Court Ratifies President’s Reelection In Vote Boycotted By Opposition

FILE - President Andry Rajoelina addresses supporters at an election rally in Antananarivo, Sunday Nov. 12, 2023. Madagascar’s top court has ratified the victory of incumbent President Andry Rajoelina in last month’s election. It gives him a third term as leader following a boycott of the Nov. 16 vote by opposition candidates. (AP Photo/Alexander Joe)

BY SARAH TETAUD

ANTANANARIVO, MADAGASCAR (AP) — Madagascar’s top court on Friday ratified the victory of incumbent President Andry Rajoelina in last month’s election, giving him a third term as leader following a boycott of the vote by opposition candidates.

The High Constitutional Court said Rajoelina received 58.96% of votes in the first round and was reelected without the need for a runoff. The results had already been announced by Madagascar’s electoral commission but the constitution requires they are ratified by the top court.

Rajoelina, 49, first served as president of a provisional government from 2009-2014 following a political crisis and a coup in the Indian Ocean island. He won a vote in 2019.

The Nov. 16 election was marked by trouble. It was delayed for a week because of a series of anti-Rajoelina protests led by the opposition. A curfew was announced on the eve of the election after protesters torched some ballot stations.

A coalition of opposition candidates called for a boycott, although their names still appeared on ballots. Turnout was low, with only 46% of those registered casting a vote.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

Nigerian Court Asked To Stop President-Elect’s Inauguration, Extend Incumbent’s Tenure

BY CHINEDU ASADU

ABUJA, NIGERIA (AP) — A court in Nigeria has been asked to stop the planned inauguration of the country’s next president and to extend the incumbent’s tenure, court documents obtained Friday show.

Five Nigerians made the request to the Federal High Court in Abuja, arguing that President-elect Bola Tinubu was illegally declared the winner of the Feb. 25 presidential election and therefore should not be sworn into office on May 29.

The petition is among several challenges to the ruling party’s victory and raised concerns in the West African nation about a possible constitutional crisis should President Muhammadu Buhari remain in office until the case is decided.

Chuks Nwachuku, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said Tinubu’s being declared president-elect was unconstitutional because he failed to win at least 25% of the votes cast in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city.

To be elected president, the Nigerian Constitution requires a candidate to win both the highest number of votes overall and not less than one-quarter of the votes in each of at least two-thirds of the country’s 36 states and Abuja.


The interpretation of that constitutional provision has remained a subject of debate in Nigeria.

“There can be no swearing in of anyone who has not satisfied the provisions of the constitution. We are asking for a declaration that the president remains in office until the issue of succession is sorted out,” Nwachuku told The Associated Press.

Nigeria’s two main opposition parties previously contested the All Progressives Congress party’s presidential victory, alleging the election results were rigged.

While the opposition’s election challenge was not expected to stop Tinubu’s inauguration, analysts warned that extending Buhari’s tenure could create a crisis for a country with a checkered history of long military rule and electoral violence.

“The petition is a recipe for crisis. All the previous elections were disputed, but at no point in time did anybody push that the constitutional provision of inaugurating the winner should be stopped, so it is very worrying,” Idayat Hassan, who leads the Center for Democracy and Development, a research and advocacy organization based in Abuja.

NIGERIA: AS TRIBUNAL DECIDES ELECTION WINNER

THIS DAY

BY MONDAY PHILIPS EKPE

Precisely 19 days from today, President-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his vice, Senator Kashim Shettima, would be sworn in at Eagle Square Abuja to assume the political headship of Nigeria. But whether they will continue on the job for the next four straight years shall depend on the outcomes of the processes that have just begun at the presidential election petitions tribunal. Surely, having been declared winners by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu and Shettima deserve to cherish the approaching moment. So do their supporters and those who voted for them on February 25 this year. It’s also within the constitutional tasks of the president-in-waiting to get ready to form the government that would take over seamlessly from that of President Muhammadu Buhari. Those most pained by the result of that poll have come to terms with these realities, I hope.

But then, the activities underway at the tribunal present something that’s equally valid and undeniable, and potentially upturning. Wazirin Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) who came second and third respectively in that outing, and three other contenders are praying the five-member body of eminent jurists to reverse the pronouncement of INEC. Abubakar and Obi specifically are laying claims to outright victory. Their lawyers, many of whom are senior advocates, are armed with what they consider to be concrete proofs of their clients’ successes in arguably one of Nigeria’s most keenly contested presidential elections. Persons who are persuading these two men to “sheathe the sword” have probably not critically thought of the implications of the figures announced by the commission at the end of that exercise.

Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled approximately 8.8million votes, Abubakar garnered 6.9million, while Obi received 6.1million. I can’t remember if the country had ever recorded such close numbers from any previous apex election. Truly, there can always be a first time. That truism would have sufficed in dissuading the plaintiffs, but for the shortcomings that are too loud to be ignored. We know that election malpractices of various degrees are not new here. As in the past, the last set of polls witnessed criminalities of different shades. It’d be difficult for any party to claim innocence in this regard. Even though the ruling party which, being in power, is viewed, understandably, as having a lopsided influence on INEC, security agencies, and access to larger war-chests, the opposing sides, not strangers to the game, do commit significant infractions of their own.

The poll in contention, however, paraded some peculiarities. The INEC carried out concerted campaigns just to assure the electorate of its readiness to conduct the nation’s all-time best general election. The kind of expectation that the people had no reasons to place in any government agency in recent times was, therefore, put in the Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led body. Unfortunately, nothing crushed that anticipation more that the failure of the multibillion-naira technology acquired to directly transfer results instantly to the central server from all the polling units scattered across the federation. Mysteriously, the same software didn’t fail to transmit the tallies of the senatorial and House of Representatives votes held simultaneously with the presidential ballot. Most of the election observers simply refused to believe in such coincidences and said so immediately. That some of them, like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have recently tried to rephrase their earlier stand could be a function of necessity or opaque diplomacy.

There are indications that other issues which border on Tinubu’s credibility or eligibility will be cast on the table, in addition to the alleged voting and collation anomalies. That sounds like a buffet of intriguing fireworks ahead. People, especially those on the side of the winner who are irritated by the accusations against him and his electoral fortunes, should, at least, concede that the complainants who have behaved properly so far in leading their own followers on the path of peaceful objections, deserve respect and commendation. February and March are too close for stakeholders at home and outside the country to forget the heightened frustrations and disillusionment that followed INEC’s declaration in parts of the country. Not to mention the clear absence of worthwhile post-election celebrations. Actually, there were enough grounds for the types of carnage caused by the outcomes of the 2011 presidential poll. One could argue that the relative peace is indicative of the positive strides recorded since the current republic commenced in 1999. Though true, it also tells of the level of maturity being displayed by the opposition.

Their appreciable statesmanship has led to this hour when their political fate and indeed a sizable portion of our collective democratic chances are literally in the hands of few persons on the bench. And, thankfully, those individuals aren’t politicians. Since all humans are said to be political beings, the judges saddled with this adjudication can’t be denied the right to hold their own political views or even make personal choices of political office seekers. But as professionals, persons who first obtained the requisite academic qualifications and subsequently climbed through the ranks to get to their present elevated judicial positions, they should realise that the time to rise to be counted among the heroes of the nation’s democracy is now.

This isn’t too much to ask from the elite priests of the famed temple of justice. The assignment before the tribunal exceeds the mere “last hope of the common man” mantra. More importantly, it’s a call to salvage a nation in dire need of socio-political reassurance and rebirth. Only a disinterested, transparent and holistic approach to jurisprudence can achieve that at this critical point. For long, the Nigerian people have been grappling with the mostly political aspects of government. Many members and institutions of federal and state executives have fallen short of acceptable standards. And the legislators have allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by a largely imperial executive branch. Fallouts of these pitiable phenomena include growing trust deficit between government officials and the populace, rapid lowering of the confidence in the system of government, and a foggy expectancy about Nigeria’s future.

Yes, the country’s current political climate is that hazy. Although the judiciary has also experienced some ebbing of its public perception profile down the line, it still stands higher than the other two. Therein lies the rationale for the sort of faith Abubakar, Obi, and the rest disappointed with Yakubu and his crew, have in the five “wise” persons. The overall behaviour of the political class before and during the February and March 2023 elections was, to be mild, not sterling. On a good day, tribunals and courts are not supposed to be at the heart of the determination of winners of balloting. Sadly, we’re here now. This rather queer situation has been enabled, in part, by the hyper-ambition of politicians, the surprising ineptitude of the electoral umpire, and the designated law enforcement agents who sometimes show incompetence and complicity at the points of duty.

The world now stands by to see how Nigerians would find their way out of this recurring quagmire. As things stand, the responsibility of confronting the audaciousness of politicians and the instruments of electoral manipulation is on the laps these judges. It’s both onerous and historic. The citizenry is in no mood to hear about technicalities. Even though they exist and are legitimate tools by which judgments are won and lost, the raw, credible facts of the matter as marshalled by the barristers should form the bases for the resolution of the cases. Anticipated desperately: A period of quick dispensation of justice that can produce the much-desired healing and tranquility, not prolonged litigations full of vacuous legal jargons.

Quote:

The assignment before the tribunal exceeds the mere “last hope of the common man” mantra. More importantly, it’s a call to salvage a nation in dire need of socio-political reassurance and rebirth. Only a disinterested, transparent and holistic approach to jurisprudence can achieve that at this critical point

Nigeria Court Hears Opposition’s Presidential Vote Challenge

Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, center, celebrates with supporters at the party's campaign headquarters after winning the presidential elections in Abuja, Nigeria, Wednesday, March 1, 2023. Election officials declared ruling party candidate Tinubu the winner of Nigeria's presidential election with the two leading opposition candidates already demanding a re-vote in Africa's most populous nation. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

BY CHINEDU ASADU

ABUJA, NIGERIA (AP) — A Nigerian court on Monday began its hearing on separate suits filed by the opposition to challenge the incumbent party’s victory in the country’s presidential election.

The presidential tribunal at the Court of Appeal in the capital, Abuja, heard the opening statements of lawyers representing opposition parties, which are the challenging the outcome of the February vote won by Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

As the court hearing began, armed security personnel blocked major access roads and prevented a handful of journalists and lawyers from entering the facility. Some protesters waved Nigerian flags and displayed placards, alleging that the electoral process was flawed.

“Why I am demonstrating is because of the anger and the pain I have as a Nigerian not allowed to express and enjoy the resources of the land,” said protester James Mike, who accused the Nigerian political class of pilfering the country’s wealth from huge mineral and crude oil resources.


Nigeria’s election commission declared Tinubu the winner of the election in a televised broadcast after he garnered 37% of the votes. But the two main opposition candidates rejected the result, questioning Tinubu’s qualification and alleging that results from the country’s 177,000 polling stations were tampered with.

Analysts and observers said that the voting on Feb. 25 was largely an improvement from Nigeria’s previous elections, but said that delays in uploading results might have given room for the figures to be tampered with.

In separate petitions, both second-place finisher Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and No. 3 finisher Peter Obi of the Labour Party argued that Nigeria’s electoral commission violated the provisions of the law in announcing the results of the election.

Obi has said he has evidence to show he tallied the majority votes in the election while Abubakar has asked the court to disqualify Tinubu, alleging that he has a Guinean passport and therefore wasn’t eligible to enter the presidential contest under the Nigerian Constitution.

“We are telling the court that he (Tinubu) is not qualified and contrary to the law, he did not put (the election commission) on notice that he has citizenship of another country,” said Paul Ibe, a spokesman for Abubakar.

In Nigeria, an election can be invalidated only if it’s proven that the national electoral body largely didn’t follow the law and acted in ways that could have changed the result. None of Nigeria’s presidential election results has ever been overturned by the country’s Supreme Court, though analysts said this year’s vote is peculiar with the heavy deployment of technology in the electoral process.

The main opposition party has said without evidence that the ruling party is plotting to interfere with the court process, adding to tensions as the country awaits the judgment of the court while preparing for the inauguration of Tinubu as president. The court challenge though is usually a lengthy process and is expected to last for months, beyond May 29 when Tinubu is due to take over from incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.

Wole Soyinka Vs Datti Ahmed The Making Of A Fascist Out Of A Democrat

BY REV. FR. JOHN ODEY

On April 3, 2023, the Channels Television aired the interview it had with Dr. Yusuf-Datti Baba Ahmed, the Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party. While the politicians who hold Nigeria in political bondage seek treasonable charges against Peter Obi, the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, in order to cripple his legal tussle to claim his stolen mandate, the Channels Television has been fined the sum of N5 million by the National Broadcasting Commission because during the interview Datti Ahmed said that swearing in Bola Tinubu as the president of Nigeria contrary to the constitution of Nigeria would put an end to Nigeria’s democracy. Mahmood Yakubu told the aggrieved to go to court. The aggrieved have gone to court. But it appears that the aggressor is not finding it easy in the court and so looks for a non-existent crime to act as an escape route. While the political mischief goes on, what has generated anger and bile on the social media is Prof. Wole Soyinka’s description of Datti’s statement as “fascistic language.”

Any Nigerian who claims he believes in Nigeria and loves Nigeria, who thinks he has any contribution to make for peace, unity and progress in Nigeria but decides that it is not yet time to make that contribution is a joker. Nigeria is collapsing and we are seeing it happening. It is collapsing because justice has been dethroned in the land and in its place we have enthroned injustice. It is collapsing because bad politicians have taken cover under the cloak of religion and tribe to divide us so much that even the mightiest of the mighty are beginning to play to their gallery. Nigeria is collapsing because the conscience of many who have what it takes to call stinking politicians to order have been tainted by falsehood and they can no longer face the reality, speak the truth and compel the devil to blush in shame. This is the time that we should do whatever is legitimate and possible to forestall the collapse of Nigeria. All of us have more to gain in a peaceful, united and progressive Nigeria than in a Nigeria that is eventually collapsed into some banana republics. I claim that I believe in Nigeria and love Nigeria.

For this reason I feel it is proper for me to put in writing what I think about the raging issue of fascism as a label on Datti’s statement. To start with, Prof. Wole Soyinka is our pride, the pride of Nigeria and the pride of the entire black race. He is the man whose literary genius won for him and for Nigeria a global acclaim as the first African winner of Nobel Prize for Literature. To the best of my knowledge, his position as the conscience of our nation is not and has never been in doubt until this matter of “fascistic language” popped up. As all of us know, “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny” which is quoted by most of the people who criticize his referring to Datti’s language as being “fascistic” is taken from his book, “The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka.”

The book was written while he was in the prison during the Nigerian civil war because he spoke against the genocide that was being carried out against the Igbo. As a man who believes in truth and justice, a man who has always called a spade a spade and has suffered much for that, in the days of Sani Abacha, the only way he could save his life because he opposed Abacha’s dictatorship was by fleeing into exile. He did. While on exile a charge of treason punishable by death was put on him in absentia. As a young man he defended democracy to the point of bumping into the radio house and pointing a gun at the head a radio announcer to stop him from declaring a winner when an election process was still under heavy dispute. He is 88 years old today. No matter how much he has erred in this particular case, we must take his age and all that he has been doing for a better Nigeria into consideration. It is not an overstatement to say that Prof. Wole Soyinka has paid his dues as far as the struggle for a better Nigeria is concerned

As far as standing for truth and justice in Nigeria is concerned Soyinka is an oracle. Because of this, while everybody is entitled to his or her opinion, I beg to disagree with people who seem to be too hard on him over his use of the phrase “fascistic language.” This does not mean that I am comfortable with his application of that offending phrase, knowing the cause of Datti’s outburst as every honest Nigerian who saw what happened during the so-called 2023 elections will accept he knows. My opinion is that of all the criticisms of him I read on the social media, the one that I like most was written by Chief Malcolm Emokiniovo Omirhobo. For me Chief Malcolm gave a summary of the reasons a good number of Nigerians are not comfortable with tag of fascism. And he did that in a very cultured manner. Among other things Chief Malcolm said:

“I have painstakingly listened to Prof. Wole Soiyinka’s interviews on the Nigerian 2023 elections and I make bold to say that ‘The man dies in him who keeps silent when it matters most.’ I dare say that it is unfair and unholy of Prof. Wole Sonyinka to come out of the blue to apportion blames. Prof. kept silent when INEC deliberately refused to upload the presidential election results electronically. He kept silent when INEC breached the electoral Act and its own rules and regulations in the conduct of elections. He kept silent when Igbos and those suspected to be Igbos were being threatened by their Yoruba host. He was silent when the Oro rite was performed during elections throughout Lagos State to disenfranchise non natives and women. He was silent when Igbos and their look-alikes were being attacked by some Yorubas on election day. He kept silent when xenophobic and inflammatory statements were made on Igbos by Bayo Onanuga, Festus Keyamo, Femi Fani-Kayode and many others. He kept silent when APC was using the Nigerian police and other state operators to suppress Nigerians during elections. He kept silent when elections were massively rigged and democracy made a mess of. In all these if Prof had spoken a word or two it would have made a world of difference because his voice mattered then not his silence.”

I love the way Chief Malcolm has calmly expressed his own anger. I nurture the feeling that if Prof Soyinka reads this in his very quiet moment he will understand that something went wrong somewhere and then become sober. All these questions were asked based on who he is and what he is known for, a man who does not look the other way each time truth and justice are under attack; a man who has always raised his voice against the shenanigans of Nigeria’s political power-drunks; a man who is so principled in his approach to worrisome national issues that his voice is like a law; a man who is the nemesis of Nigeria’s election riggers and bad leaders.

More questions like the above can be raised without repeating what has been asked. Terrible things happened in Nigeria in the name of 2023 political elections. One thing I know for sure is that if the Oro rite which was performed publicly during the elections in Lagos State to disenfranchise non natives and women had taken place in a particular section of this country the Federal Government would have sent hundreds of military pythons to go and dance there and leave the place in carnage and desolation at the end of the dancing spree. Whether President Buhari, Mahmood Yakubu, APC and INEC accept it or not, the 2023 elections will go down in history as a show of shame and a catalogue of national disaster. The elections were bad in the extreme. The men who spearheaded that disaster must have forgotten that they were dealing with human beings.

Prof. Wole Soyinka’s voice would have doused the fire when it was raging because he is one of the outstanding Nigerians we hail as the conscience of the nation. Nigerians admire him with passion. They want to hear his voice each time Nigeria is at the periphery of the defining moment because he is one of the relatively few great men in Nigeria whose voices cannot be ignored. To substantiate this claim, I wish to make a brief review of the inestimable role he has been playing to save us from the political buccaneers who think that Nigeria is their personal property and so have reduced the rest of us to pawns in their political game of chess. Much of what I present in this review is the recollection of his very words. By the end of such a review it is hoped that we shall be in a better position to assess whether his description of Datti Ahmed’s statement as being fascistic is right or that it missed the mark.

To start with, as tyrannical as General Sani Abacha was as Nigeria’s military head of state, Prof. Wole Soyinka did not shy away from telling him some bitter truths. As stated earlier, he was compelled to go on exile in order to live to tell the story of Abacha’s lust for power, greed and ruthlessness. When Abacha died, June 8, 1998, he returned home. In his article, “A Year of Rapid Reverses”, the Nobel Laureate, revisited what we can call “The Last Days of Sani Abacha.”

His perception of the event of June 8, 1998 as he clearly stated in that article was that it was the culmination of a progression in death of the tyrant which started as far back as June 1993, when he ordered his troops to shoot to death hundreds of innocent Nigerians who protested against the criminal annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. From that day on, he said, Sani Abacha lived in the shadow of the infamous script written by dictators all over the world – that the only way to survive is to kill instead of being killed. In this way, every Nigerian who expressed any disagreement with his evil ways was given the bad name of security risk and was made to pay dearly for being branded so. This gave him the opportunity to kill as many people as he liked. But the more he killed was the more he was tormented by the ghost of those he killed so that at a stage he could hardly step out of the Aso Rock Villa which he had turned into a glorified prison yard. In the end, Abacha became a living example of the Shakespearean coward who dies many times before his death.

Prof. Soyinka continued, Abacha signed his own death warrant the day he signed the orders to hang Ken Saro Wiwa and his eight Ogoni compatriots in defiance of the conscience of the world. He died each time he could not get out of his Aso Rock glorified prison to attend public functions for fear that his life might be snuffed out of him. He died each time the fear for his life led him to fabricate one coup or the other against himself with the view of getting rid of his real and imagined enemies. He died each time he consulted his numerous marabouts in the hope of finding ways and means of perpetuating his life and dictatorship. Abacha’s death was not a sudden event that just came like a flash of light on June 8, 1998. His end was a gradual process which began from the moment when Nigerians finally came to a realization, not only that his morbid ambition to perpetuate himself as the country’s head of state could be stopped, but that he must be stopped. For fear that our children and the future generation might begin to think that the tyrant was able to fool every Nigerian and that he always had his way, Soyinka said:

“We must not teach them to believe that, once upon a time there lived a tyrant who cheated, robbed, tortured and killed his people, but finally, thanks to divine intervention, was whisked away to meet his Maker. No, the true story is that once, there was a tyrant who successfully fooled some of the people some of the time, but never succeeded in fooling all of the people all the time. Yet, even those whom he fooled eventually found out his true nature, and joined others in their revolt against his tyranny. This process of revolt was never smooth, it recorded success, losses, it underwent periods of despondency, even mood of surrender. Some profited by doing his bidding and singing his praises but others, consistently, despite enormous suffering and sacrifices, resisted his power, until finally, bit by bit, they wore him down, and sent him to meet his Maker. That is the historic truth. If there was any divine intervention in this history that is only as it should be, since the wisdom that has been imparted to us from childhood is: Heaven helps only those who help themselves.”

In the first part of my other write-up, “Where Do We Go From Here?” I said that the foundation of what has escalated to a full-fledged war in the name of political elections in the recent times was laid by the 2003 elections. The reader will recall that the terrible things that happened then gave rise to my book “This Madness Called Election 2003.” As at that time, the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, also said that the so-called 2003 election was the worst in the history of Nigeria. In his very words, the 2003 elections “left the opposition reeling and international observers in awe at the sheer effrontery of it all. In terms of violence, it takes its place among the most bloody since independence. The scale and manner of ballot robbery, as revealed day after day, reveals a tightly centralized operation, not a sporadic series of electoral violations.” He continued: “When the arrogance of power, even where hidden, becomes institutionalized in politics to an extent that it glorifies, or even merely appears to glorify criminality, we recognize immediately the preliminary steps towards the enthronement of fascism.”

A Preamble: After the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had failed to register his party, the National Conscience Party (NCP), for the 2003 elections, the indefatigable Chief Gani Fawehinmi declared that Abel Guobadia who was then the Chairman of INEC, had broken the spinal cord of democracy in Nigeria. He was so shattered that according to Adegbenro Adebanjo and Dayo Aiyetan, the team of Tell magazine journalists that interviewed him, “At a point in the course of the interview, Gani broke down weeping and sobbing uncontrollably, to the embarrassment of the two Tell reporters conducting the interview. As he sobbed, slapping his head in lamentation, tears streamed down his face onto his cute blue shirt. It was for the reporters a unique moment, evoking empathy and confusion.”

The lamentation of the legal colossus and the voice of the voiceless called Gani Fawehinmi had nothing to do with himself as a person. Rather, it had everything to do with the people which the party he wanted the INEC to register represented. He sobbed, wept, lamented and then let tears flow freely from his eyes not because he was a poor man. He was not poor under any description. He had everything he needed to live a comfortable life. Yet, he was worried because people who consistently abused and subverted the constitution of the land in collaboration with their likes had their parties registered by the INEC while he was not allowed to register his own party. Gani cried because there is an unwritten law in Nigeria that is more powerful and more binding than the written law, which says that anybody who is good, who cares for good governance and has what it takes to restore the glory of Nigeria must not be given the chance to rule.

Gani cried because when most privileged Nigerians basked in their ability to use their position to make others suffer without a just cause, he chose to mourn for the misruled Nigerians, for our collective guilt, particularly that of our leaders and for the fate of the country which has been heedlessly heading for a fatal crash. He cried because INEC registered those who had perfected their plans to rig elections and remain in power to control our oil-money as they wish while he thought of the common man’s shattered hopes and dashed expectations. He thought of the unprecedented spate of insecurity of lives and property pervading the land. He thought of the ruthless religious bigotry, insensitive bloodletting, incessant assassinations, kidnappings and robberies that have combined to make life a monotony of misery for millions of Nigerians.

to be continued....

Rule Of Law Before Democracy

BY SAM AMADI

With the conclusion of the 2023 general election, it is time to review what has happened to our democracy. Since 2015 we seem to be on a climb towards consolidating democracy. This sentiment is supported by the fact that we have completed for the first time a ‘democratic’ transition from one party to another. In Africa, democracy’s major challenge is for incumbents to be defeated and they go home peacefully. Nigeria achieved that in 2015. This achievement is not a trifle. Joseph Schumpeter considers it the essence of democracy. In his view, democracy is the reality that incumbents can be defeated, and they willingly go home. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, the reality is that attempts to defeat incumbents in elections have easily led to civil conflicts and the loss of democracy itself.

But this singular achievement, significant as it is, does not mask the fundamental flaws of Nigerian democracy. The practice of democracy in Nigeria leads objective assessors to the conclusion that Nigeria is not yet a democracy. If democracy is measured by free and fair elections that are grounded in protection for fundamental human rights and impartial working of state institutions, then Nigeria is not yet a democracy, in spite of the fact of party-to-party transition. Nigerian elections always fall far short of democratic quotients. Robert Dahl lists six conditions of democracy: effective participation, equality in voting, gaining enlightened understanding of public issues, exercising final control over the agenda and inclusion of adults. For there to be equality of votes, you must guarantee to citizens opportunities to freely form opinions, freely express those opinions and organize themselves publicly in defense of such opinions. Where there are legal or illegal prohibitions of the right to organize or where state authorities repress opponents of incumbents and confer advantages to incumbents, there is no free and fair election and no equality of voting.

Dahl admits that there is no ideal democracy where there is complete political equality yet argues that there must be sufficient institutionalization of these features in a polity to qualify as a democracy. To be a democracy it is not enough to have laws that promise citizens fundamental rights, or laws that declare equal citizenship. Those laws must be faithfully implemented. The reality of these rights and not their mere articulation in sacred texts and constitutional documents is the measure of democracy in a society.

This brings democracy closer to the rule of law. It is not a happenstance that there has been no truly democratic society that is not a rule of law society. Of course, we will continue to argue about the reality of the enjoyment of these rights as many members of the society are excluded, whether women and children, as in Athens, or women children and blacks in Antebellum United States. But until there is significant rule of law, democracy can never take shape. The struggles of many post-colonial African countries with democracy may be explained by their weakness institutionalising the rule of law. Although these countries, like Nigeria, may have incorporated bill of rights in their constitutions, their politics lacks the effective checks and balances that undergird and define democracy. Democracy would be thoroughly lacking in a society where there is no separation between public and private spheres, where state institutions are normatively oriented to serve the political interests of the ruling elites and where the coercive force of the society is neither professionally managed nor diffused.

Democratic elections require that there is competition and contestation. Where there is monopoly of power or total control of state institutions, especially those that punish or reward, then there can be no competitive election in the real sense. If incumbents are not constrained by either administrative rules or by balance of force, it means that there would be no real competition and contestation. Therefore, there will be little prospect for effective participation and equal voting. This is the case with the 2023 general elections.

In the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly Elections, the election management body helped to rig the election for the incumbent political party by mysteriously shutting down the technological safeguard of transparent and credible election- the electronic transmission of result in real time. This undermined the integrity of the election results. Why would a commission that issued a regulation on electronic transmission of results and officially communicated to Nigerians and diplomatic community its commitment to follow through on the regulation now refused to activate that guarantee of transparency and credibility of results? In March 18 Governorship and House of Assembly Election, voters of Igbo ethnic descent were forcefully prevented from voting because the presidential candidate, the incumbent Governor of Lagos and his political surrogates accused Igbos of interfering in Lagos politics and mobilized the people to resist that. The Police did not intervene to protect the citizenship rights of Igbos.

The story above illustrates the truth of the insights from Robert Dahl who argued in his book, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, that democracy (polyarchy) is only possible where there is real contestation for power. There will be no contestation unless the institutions of coercion have internalized the norms of neutrality and professionalism or there is a diffusion of power such that no single person or group has overwhelming control of the economic or coercive power of the state. In the 2023 elections, we learnt a hard way that unless we can guarantee the professionalism of the security agencies and the election management body, that is ensure that they are operationally neutral of political and economic interests in the society, we cannot have any realistic prospect of having democratic election.

The rule of law approach to state building provides better perspectives to understand the failures we have suffered as a nation. Since the end of colonialism there has been a strong advocacy for democracy. The democratization movement has been largely a failure in some of the transitional and so-called emerging democracy. The problem is that democracy proponents have lost of the history democracy. Democracy is a struggle for equality. This struggle is practical but results in basic changes in law. The underlining institutions of democracy, the reason democracy works, are defined by transformations in law. Without the Magna Carta, with the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution and without the laws that expand the franchise to excluded persons, there would have been no democracy in the western democracy.

The law reform project failed in Nigeria and the rest of Africa as highlighted by Mamdani Mahmood and other African scholars. This failure, as Robert and Ann Seidman wisely noted, is the failure to use law to redefine the institutions of coercion and production and distribution in the post-colonial African states. Free and fair election requires that the security agencies are created and defined in a particular manner that guarantees that they are professional and neutral. Now professionalism and neutrality may sound like technical concepts. But they are first and foremost a matter of legal institutionalization. The manner the police, the election management body and other institutions that intervene in election matters deliver their mandates is the real determinant of free and fair election. The construction of these institutions in a manner that promote political equality is the essence of the rule of law.

After the shambolic 2007 presidential election, President Yar’Adua instituted a comprehensive review of the electoral system. This resulted in the radical propositions in the Justice Uwais report. The report was largely unimplemented. The proposals by Justice Uwais committee if fully and wisely implemented would have transformed the legal institution of elections in Nigeria. Those reforms that changed the legal relations in society are the heart of rule of law reform. As Professor Douglas North makes clear, institutions include all rules, procedures and humanly designed constraints and enablers of action. When we speak of the critical institutions of democracy, we mean those legal relationships in the society that prevent certain actions and mandate others. If such legal relations are wise, effective and make political equality a reality, then we are getting closers to democracy. If state governments can easily mobilize state institutions to work for them, then there is no rule of law. If rules and norms constrain them from so utilizing these institutions to terrorize their opponents, then that is a rule of law state that promotes electoral democracy. Rule of law has the dimension of substantial justice because it aims at the promoting civil and political as well as social economic rights of the people. If our laws do not actually protect these rights, then we cannot get to electoral democracy.

This invariably means that being truly a rule of law state precedes being a democratic state. If we don’t first ensure that our institutions work according to the principles of the rule of law, we cannot transition to democracy.

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Protests against Nigeria’s election results intensify

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and second place candidate, greets his supporters during a protest against the recent presidential election results, in Abuja , Nigeria, Monday, March 6, 2023. Thousands of opposition supporters staged a protest Monday against the country’s presidential election results, as calls for a revote intensified. (AP Photo/Gbemiga Olamikan)

BY CHINEDU ASADU

ABUJA, NIGERIA (AP) — Thousands of Nigerian opposition supporters protested Monday against the country’s presidential election results, as calls for a revote intensified.

Dressed in black and holding signs, the protesters led by second-place candidate, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, marched to the headquarters of Nigeria’s electoral body in the capital, Abuja, and blocked the entrance as they demanded that authorities hold a new election under better conditions that would bring accurate results.

“The provisions of the current electoral law have been completely contravened,” said Abubakar. “This protest is going to continue for a very long time, either every day or every other day.”

At least five political parties are challenging last month’s vote, alleging that delays in uploading results from the country’s 177,000 polling stations to the electoral body’s portal could have allowed vote tampering. They also allege there was voter intimidation and cases where people were barred from voting at all.


Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress won the election with 37% of the votes becoming Nigeria’s first presidential candidate to win with less than half of the total votes.

In Nigeria, an election can be invalidated only if it’s proven that the national electoral body largely didn’t follow the law and acted in ways that could have changed the result. None of Nigeria’s presidential election results has ever been overturned by the country’s Supreme Court.

Some observers have also criticized the conduct of the presidential election. The U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, said the election process failed to meet Nigerians’ expectations after years of improvement in the quality of the elections.

“We thus reiterate our call on (the electoral commission) to address promptly the challenges that can be resolved ahead of the March 11 gubernatorial elections,” she said in a statement Sunday.

A local court on Friday granted both Atiku and third-place finisher Peter Obi permission to inspect the election materials used in the vote as part of their court challenge.

The two opposition parties will in the coming weeks gather evidence to build their cases in separate applications disputing the election results, a process that took nearly seven months in 2019 when the courts rejected a similar challenge to the results.

Protesters Disrupt Councilwoman Traci Park's Swearing In Ceremony

CITY NEWS SERVICE

Traci Park photo via City watch

LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A handful of protesters, who tried to disrupt the swearing in ceremony of newly elected Councilwoman Traci Park at Loyola Marymount University, were removed by police, but no arrests or altercations occurred.

Video of the Saturday ceremony, posted on Twitter by freelance journalist Jon Peltz, showed intermittent interruptions as protesters stood and spoke, some holding up their phones while apparently filming the proceedings.

In turn, each protester was escorted out by Los Angeles police officers and other staffers while Park paused momentarily. It was unclear what the demonstrators were saying because each was drowned out by supporters chanting Park's name. Park defeated fellow attorney Erin Darling 52.02% to 47.98% in the Nov. 8 race for the Los Angeles City Council's 11th District seat, replacing longtime councilman Mike Bonin who did not seek re-election.

She centered her campaign around Westside residents growing concerns about homelessness and vowed to ``insist'' on day one that the city's controversial anti camping ordinance be enforced in the 11th District.

The ordinance bans people from sitting, sleeping and storing property in certain areas of the city, and was recently expanded to include banning encampments within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers. It has attracted fierce disagreement from activists and protesters who repeatedly tried to disrupt council meetings during the summer when expansion of the law was being considered.

Bonin repeatedly voted against the ordinance and its expansion, joining critics in claiming the law ``criminalizes'' homelessness. Park portrayed Darling as being similar to Bonin, including his approach to homelessness.

``I have called out irresponsible and failed approaches to homelessness and homeless interventions that we have seen in our community,'' Park said during the campaign. In responding to Saturday's protesters, Park mentioned the criticism she had faced during the campaign.

``Even in the darkest days of the race we never let the distractors get us down and we're not gonna let them today,'' Park told the audience in Loyola's Roski Dining Room, which included former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and newly elected City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto. Later, Park led the crowd in a round of applause for ``our police officers.''

The disruptions during Park's swearing in Saturday came one day after Councilmember Kevin de León got into a physical altercation with a community activist at a Christmas tree lighting event in Lincoln Heights and was confronted by protesters earlier in the day when he returned to City Hall for the first time in nearly two months after being recorded making racist remarks during a 2021 strategy meeting.

As for Park's protesters, they later told the Mar Vista Voice website that they perceive Park's policies as ``racist'' and vowed to ``be loudly opposing her policies in all public forums throughout her tenure as a councilmember.''

Angolan Opposition UNITA Rejects Ruling Party’s Election Win

Angola President Joao Lourenco shows his marked finger during the voting process at a polling station in Luanda, Angola, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022. President Joao Lourenco is running for a second five-year term while his party, the Peoples' Movement for the Liberation of Angola, known by its Portuguese acronym MPLA, is campaigning to extend its 47-year run as the country's ruling party. (AP Photo)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Angola’s opposition party has filed a complaint against the election victory of the ruling MPLA party in which President Joao Lourenco won a second term and the party got a reduced majority in the legislature.

The main opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, known as UNITA, said Tuesday that it has submitted an objection to the results.

“UNITA reiterates that it will not recognize the results announced by the National Electoral Commission until the complaints already in its possession are resolved,” the party said in a statement.

If UNITA’s written complaint is rejected, the party can take the objection to the Constitutional Court, which must rule on the complaint within 72 hours, according to Angola’s electoral regulations.

The Peoples Movement for the Liberation of Angola, known by its Portuguese acronym MPLA, won with 51% of the votes cast, extending its 47-year rule of the country, according to the electoral commission’s results.

As the party’s leader, Lourenco, 68, welcomed the official results which have given him a second five-year presidential term.

UNITA got its best-ever result, coming in second with about 44% of the votes, according to the electoral commission.

However, UNITA on Tuesday claimed that according to its calculations it should have won the election with 64% of the vote.

Although UNITA’s leader, Adalberto Costa Junior has rejected the official results, he has urged calm. There have been no reports of major demonstrations in the capital, Luanda, or other cities.

Voter turnout was low on voting day last week with just 45.7% of registered voters casting their ballots.

In the national legislature, the MPLA lost the two-thirds majority that it needs to pass major bills, although it won a majority with 124 of the National Assembly’s 220 seats. UNITA has nearly doubled its presence in the legislature to 90 seats. The remaining seats were won by smaller parties.

UNITA had campaigned for the support of Angola’s young, urban population and it won in Luanda, Angola’s most populous province, and in Cabinda and Zaire, the country’s main oil-producing provinces.

Angola is Africa’s second-largest producer of oil and has rich diamond deposits, but the majority of the southern African country’s 34 million people remain in poverty, according to the U.N, and unemployment is currently above 30%.

Both the MPLA and UNITA are former rebel movements that fought Portuguese colonial rule. The MPLA won power with backing from the Soviet Union and established Marxist rule when Angola became independent in 1975. UNITA fought a bitter civil war against the MPLA, with support from the U.S. and apartheid-ruled South Africa.

In a negotiated truce, the MPLA agreed to multiparty elections held in 1992. UNITA furiously rejected the MPLA’s win and the country was plunged back into civil war that only ended in 2002.

Since then, UNITA has transformed itself from a rebel group into a political party, particularly under the new leadership of Costa Junior, who didn’t fight in the civil war. Costa Junior has succeeded in gaining support from other opposition politicians and intellectuals.

UNITA legally challenged its loss in the 2017 election but the courts ruled in favor of the MPLA.

NIGERIA: Tribunal Begins Hearing In Atiku, 3 Others’ Petition Against Buhari’s Election

Atiku Abubakar image via Twitter

BY ALEX ENUMAH

ABUJA (THIS DAY) -- The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Wednesday commence hearing in the petitions filed by candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, his party, the PDP and three other political parties and their presidential candidates against the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and his party the All Progressives Congress (APC) with an appeal to litigants to shun actions that may put the panel in a negative light.

Atiku and three other presidential candidates are challenging the outcome of the February 23 presidential election in which President Muhammadu Buhari was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Chairman of the five member panel, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, who made the appeal, at the special sitting of the panel, specifically warned counsel and parties in the various petitions to avoid discussing daily proceedings of the tribunal in the media and other public space.

Bulkachuwa however warned that the tribunal would not hesitate to weild the big stick over any one found culpable in that regards, adding that the task of the tribunal is a serious national assignment and must be seen as such by all.

The chairman who stressed that no matter how an election was conducted, there are bound to be complaints, hence the establishment of the tribunal to give speedy hearing on such complaints.

Bulkachuwa, disclosed that there are currently 786 petitions against the outcome of the 2019 general election, with Imo State having the highest number of 76.

The presiding judge assured that the panel would be fair to all and would give equal time to all litigants, in its efforts at ensuring that justice is done and done expeditiously in all the cases before it.

Responding, counel in the matters promised to play by the rules and give maximum cooperation to the panel.

While Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Levi Ozoukwu is leading the legal team of Atiku and the PDP, Wole Olanipekun SAN and Lateef Fagbemi SAN are leading that of Buhari and APC respectively.

Other members of the presidential panel include, Justices Abdul Aboki, Samuel Osiji, Joseph Ikyegh and Peter Olabisi-Igeh.

The tribunal in stating that proceedings would be on a daily basis called the first case, the petition of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP) and his Presidential candidate, Chief Albert Owuru.

Congo Set To Inaugurate New President From Opposition

Supporters of Congolese President elect Felix Tshisekedi sell souvenirs outside his party headquarters in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Wednesday Jan. 23, 2019. Tshisekedi is to be inaugurated Thursday Jan. 24, 2019, having won an election that raised numerous concerns about voting irregularities amongst observers as the country chose a successor to longtime President Joseph Kabila. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

KINSHASA, CONGO (AP) — Congo is set to inaugurate an opposition leader as its unexpected new president in the Central African country’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence nearly 60 years ago.

The 55-year-old Felix Tshisekedi, son of the late opposition icon Etienne, will be sworn into office on Thursday at the Peoples’ Palace, the seat of the national legislature in the capital, Kinshasa.

Several African heads of state are expected to attend the ceremony, putting aside reservations over alleged election fraud that brought Tshisekedi to power.

Many Congolese hope that Tshisekedi will bring change after 18 years of rule by President Joseph Kabila. However, Tshisekedi must work with a legislature dominated by members of Kabila’s ruling coalition.

Tshisekedi’s supporters are gathering at the venue, entertained by traditional dancers.

Congo Runner-Up Fayulu Asks Court To Order Election Recount

Accompanied by his wife and his lawyers, Congo opposition candidate Martin Fayulu receives the receipt after petitioning the constitutional court following his loss in the presidential elections in Kinshasa, Congo, Saturday Jan. 12, 2019. The ruling coalition of Congo's outgoing President Joseph Kabila has won a large majority of national assembly seats, the electoral commission announced Saturday, while the presidential election runner-up was poised to file a court challenge alleging fraud. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

BY MATHILDE BOUSSION, SALEH MWANAMILONGO

KINSHASA, CONGO (AP) — Congo’s presidential runner-up Martin Fayulu has asked the constitutional court to order a recount in the disputed election, declaring on Saturday that “you can’t manufacture results behind closed doors.”

He could be risking more than the court’s refusal. Congo’s electoral commission president Corneille Nangaa has said there are only two options: The official results are accepted or the vote is annulled — which would keep President Joseph Kabila in power until another election. The Dec. 30 one came after two years of delays.

“They call me the people’s soldier ... and I will not let the people down,” Fayulu said. Evidence from witnesses at polling stations across the country is being submitted to the court, which is full of Kabila appointees.

Rifle-carrying members of Kabila’s Republican Guard deployed outside Fayulu’s home and the court earlier Saturday. It was an attempt to stop him from filing, Fayulu said while posting a video of them on Twitter: “The fear remains in their camp.”

Fayulu has accused the declared winner, opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi, of a backroom deal with Kabila to win power in the mineral-rich nation as the ruling party candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, did poorly.

The opposition coalition for Fayulu, a businessman vocal about cleaning up widespread corruption, has said he won 61 percent of the vote, citing figures compiled by the Catholic Church’s 40,000 election observers across the vast Central African country.

Those figures show Tshieskedi received 18 percent, the coalition said.

The church, the rare authority that many Congolese find trustworthy, has urged the electoral commission to release its detailed vote results for public scrutiny. The commission has said Tshisekedi won with 38 percent while Fayulu received 34 percent.

Earlier on Saturday, the commission announced that Kabila’s ruling coalition had won an absolute majority of national assembly seats. That majority, which will choose the prime minister and form the next government, sharply reduces the chances of dramatic reforms under Tshisekedi.

Congolese now face the extraordinary situation of a presidential vote allegedly rigged in favor of the opposition. “This is more than an electoral farce; it’s a tragedy,” the LUCHA activist group tweeted, noting a ruling party majority in provincial elections as well.

This could be Congo’s first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, but observers have warned that a court challenge could lead to violence.

During the turbulent years of election delays, many Congolese worried that Kabila, in power since his father was assassinated in 2001, was seeking a way to stay in office to protect his sprawling assets.

“Even if Tshisekedi’s presidency survives these court challenges, he will be compromised beyond repair and reliant on Kabila, whose patronage network controls most of the country’s levers of power, including the security forces,” professor Pierre Engelbert, a fellow with at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, wrote on Friday.

Statements on the election by the international community, including African regional blocs, have not congratulated Tshisekedi, with some looking forward to final detailed results and many urging against violence.

Congo’s 80 million people have been largely peaceful since the vote, though the U.N. peacekeeping mission reported at least a dozen deaths in protests in Kwilu province. Authorities also noted demonstrations in Kisangani and Mbandaka cities.

Internet service has been cut off across the country since election day.

Tshisekedi, who has been largely quiet since the election, had not been widely considered the leading candidate. Long in the shadow of his charismatic father, the late opposition leader Etienne, he broke away from the opposition’s unity candidate, Fayulu, to stand on his own.

After election results were announced, Tshisekedi said Kabila would be an “important partner” in the transition.

Fayulu, who was backed by two popular opposition leaders barred by the government from running, is seen as more of a threat to Kabila’s interests.

The difference between Tshisekedi and Fayulu in official results was some 684,000 votes. One million voters were barred from the election at the last minute, with the electoral commission blaming a deadly Ebola virus outbreak. Elsewhere, observers reported numerous problems including malfunctioning voting machines and polling stations that opened hours late.

The presidential inauguration will be on Jan. 22, the electoral commission said Saturday.

___

Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

The Shameful Chaos Of America's Elections

BY JOE MATHIS

A voting booth in New York. Image: Drew Angerer/Getty via The Week

WASHINGTON (THE WEEK)--Is America, the world's oldest democracy, capable of pulling off a half-way competent election?

You'd be forgiven for wondering. Nearly a week has passed since the midterm elections, yet an unsettling number of high-profile contests — in Georgia, Florida, and Arizona, for example — remained unresolved through the weekend. Allegations of fraud and demands for recounts, once a rarity, now seem to be the norm. And in the background, we have the president repeatedlyshouting on Twitter about elections being "stolen."

Elections are designed to produce order. Instead, we're getting chaos. There are two main reasons for this.

First, it's become glaringly obvious that American elections are easily gamed. Elections are carried out at the state level: The rules for those elections are made by partisan state legislatures — and in Republican-led states, at least, those legislatures have been on a mission to make it harder to vote. Concerns about non-existent "voter fraud" have been used to justify a system of rules that, not coincidentally, makes it more difficult for Democratic constituencies to register and vote.

After the rules are made, the elections are overseen directly by elected partisans whose conflicts of interest couldn't be more apparent. Georgia's Brian Kemp and Kansas' Kris Kobach, both Republicans, acted as their states' chief elections officers during their own runs for governor this year. Kobach was defeated so handily that it wouldn't have mattered if he put his thumb on the scale, but Kemp's apparent victory in Georgia is so narrow that you can't blame his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, for refusing to concede until the results are officially certified: It doesn't appear to have been a fair election.

The second problem is that it's very easy to game an election simply by screaming bloody murder about how your particular election is being stolen — whether it's true or not.

Take Florida. State law is very clear: Elections that end up with the winning candidate beating the losing candidate by a half-percentage point or less are automatically recounted. The idea is to produce fair results. Both the gubernatorial and Senate races ended up within that close margin. Gov. Rick Scott — a Republican running in the Senate race — has responded with allegations of fraud. He has offered no evidence to support his claims.

This isn't just petulance. It's strategy.

On Friday, Politico reported that national Republican leaders are frustrated with Rep. Martha McSally, who at the end of the weekend was losing a close Senate race to Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat. Why were party leaders angry? Because McSally wasn't pressing the issue of fraud as aggressively as they wanted — even though, as CNN reports, "there are no allegations or evidence to support those claims."

Once again, Republicans mostly own this undemocratic moment. It's not that Democrats are incapable of bad faith in politics: As liberals became increasingly concerned about gerrymandering in recent years, a conservative friend of mine noted that shaping congressional districts for partisan advantage had long been a Democratic custom. "It's only when Republicans got good at it that liberals got mad about it," he said.

Right now, though, Republicans are creating most of the rules that make American elections less free and less fair, then crying "foul" when they lose elections anyway. They're helped by the fact that counting millions of votes quickly is difficult, and accuracy is vulnerable in a system prone to breakdown. When the results don't produce the GOP candidate as the victor, Republicans react by shaking voter confidence and undermining the legitimacy of the vote.

American democracy is in crisis. It has been, arguably, since the Supreme Court put an end to Florida vote-counting in 2000 and thus handed the presidential election to George W. Bush. Bush, of course, appointed justices who proved decisive in gutting the Voting Rights Act, which compounded the sense of alarm. The century started with a rarity — a close election that gave the victory to the popular vote loser — and has spiraled downhill from there. How many allegations of fraud, true and untrue, can the system endure before voters lose all confidence in their government? How many election results that seem to contradict the will of the voters?

One obvious solution to all of this is to stop letting partisans make the rules. California and Arizona have an independent commission that draws congressional district lines. More states should apply that model — and expand the authority of such commissions to include more questions about election rules, vote counting, and voter eligibility. And the newly Democratic House of Representatives can make a high priority of restoring and reforming the Voting Rights Act to ensure that all American citizens have rightful access to the ballot.

The good news is that Americans seem to have a real appetite for making our elections better. Voters in Florida last week approved a measure to restore voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences, while Michigan voters approved measures to automatically register voters and to allow no-excuse absentee voting. Counting millions of votes will always be hard — we will always have challenges and recounts — but there's plenty we can do to make our elections better, and to increase our collective confidence in the results.

As Zimbabwe’s Leader Preaches A New Era, Military A Concern

Military tanks in Harare, Wednesday, Aug, 1, 2018. Rioting erupted Wednesday in Zimbabwe’s capital as opposition supporters clashed with police and army troops over delays in announcing results from the presidential election, the country’s first since the fall of longtime leader Robert Mugabe. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

BY FARAI MUTSAKA

HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — As Zimbabwe’s president preaches democratic reform in a country emerging from decades of repression, the scenes of soldiers dispersing opposition protesters after a disputed election have cast a shadow on promises of a new era.

Speaking to reporters after being declared the winner of the first vote since the fall of former mentor Robert Mugabe, a relaxed-looking President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday praised the “flowering of freedom.”

But some observers said Zimbabwe’s future depends on whether he can convince the military hardliners and former generals who make up his inner circle to share his vision.

After decades as Mugabe’s enforcer amid killings of thousands of people in Matabeleland in the 1980s, land seizures from white farmers and elections marred by violence, the 75-year-old Mnangagwa now faces what might be his biggest challenge: asserting control over the security apparatus that put him in office.

Jubilant Zimbabweans cheered the military in November when it rolled into the capital, Harare, and pressured Mugabe to resign after 37 years in power.

But when troops returned to the streets on Wednesday amid gunfire that left six people dead, there were no longer hugs, kisses and selfies. Residents fled, and when Mnangagwa’s election win was announced the reaction was subdued, not celebratory.

“We have removed Mugabe but not Mugabe-ism,” opposition leader Nelson Chamisa said.

Asked whether he was confident that the government and military support his claims of democracy, Mnangagwa said: “I cannot guarantee that everybody will share my vision. But I believe that the majority of my party members, as well as the generality of Zimbabweans, will share that vision.”

It was not immediately clear who ordered the military into the streets. Under Zimbabwe’s constitution only the president has the power to authorize the deployment of defense forces. Police have said they invited the military to step in under a law that says they can do so, but some Zimbabwean lawyers said the constitution remains supreme.

Mnangagwa has refused to say whether he knew in advance about the military’s deployment and has not publicly criticized its actions. While hearings began on Saturday for opposition supporters accused of inciting violence in Wednesday’s protests, there was no sign of action taken against soldiers. The president has said he will appoint a commission of inquiry once he is sworn in.

“How (Mnangagwa) manages the internal dynamics will have a strong bearing on how his democratic project pans out,” said political analyst Alexander Rusero in Harare. “Unelected power will define his path if he fails to take strong measures to impose his will on the military and others close to him.”

Zimbabwe’s military has a history of siding with the ruling party and was often been accused of deploying in rural areas to intimidate villagers into voting for Mugabe, according to Human Rights Watch. The opposition ahead of Monday’s peaceful election raised concerns that soldiers were applying that pressure again.

While Mugabe maintained control of the military for most of his rule, the military now appears to control Mnangagwa, said Dewa Mavhinga, the Human Rights Watch director for southern Africa.

“It appears the military is fully in charge” after Wednesday’s actions, Mavhinga told The Associated Press. “The one chance to press the reset button and make a clean break with the past has been lost following the actions of the military in the full glare of the international community.”

Unlike Mugabe, Mnangagwa has attempted to take a conciliatory tone in public and extend a hand to the opposition, mindful that the international community is watching closely while considering whether to lift sanctions and invest in the once-prosperous country.

While the president speaks of freedom of expression, however, the main opposition party accuses soldiers of detaining, assaulting and intimidating supporters in parts of the capital. Police raided the party’s headquarters on Thursday and arrested 18 people.

“Is he even in charge?” Gladys Hlatywayo, a political analyst in Harare, asked of Mnangagwa.” The military put him in power, he is answerable to them.”

Constantino Chiwenga, the general behind the military operation against Mugabe, is Mnangagwa’s deputy in the ruling party and was appointed a vice president. Another general who announced the operation on television, Sibusiso Moyo, is now foreign affairs minister.

The opposition has expressed concern about possible fissures in the establishment, including the military. While addressing the ruling party’s parliamentary candidates in March, Mnangagwa claimed that he was aware of an internal plot to impeach him after the elections.

“One theory is that there is a parallel authority headed by ambitious securocrats which have control of the security institutions,” said Alex Magaisa, a political analyst and law lecturer at Britain’s University of Kent. “That is the problem when power has been delivered to you by others. They own you. They see you as a placeholder, a puppet who has no need to be consulted.”

If Mnangagwa had to rely on the military to win the election he remains in its grasp, Magaisa said.


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