The start of the clean-up operation did not take long. Luanda, Angola | AFP | Within three months of taking control of Angola, President Joao Lourenco sacked his predecessor’s daughter as head of the state-run oil company and set about dismantling the empire built by Jose Eduardo dos Santos. A presidential …
Read More »Muntu versus Amuriat
The battle that shouldn’t have been fought Kampala, Uganda | HAGGAI MATSIKO | “I bring to this race 25 solid years of political activism; I bring new energy that is currently lacking in the party. And I belong to the ideology of defiance.” With such words, former Kumi Municipality lawmaker, Patrick …
Read More »Museveni and the army
Museveni and the army: Failing to learn from past mistakes? Kampala, Uganda | HAGGAI MATSIKO | If a position is operationally strategic, President Yoweri Museveni will appoint a soldier to it. If a job is critical to his survival in power, Museveni will appoint a soldier to do it. As …
Read More »New Kenyatta term to open with country bitterly divided
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Uhuru Kenyatta will be sworn in for a second term as Kenya’s president on Tuesday, the final act of an electoral saga that exposed deep and lasting divisions in the country. His inauguration comes ahead after Kenya’s Supreme Court last Monday validated his poll victory, …
Read More »Zimbabwe’s ‘Crocodile’ to snap up the top job
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Nicknamed “the Crocodile” for his ruthlessness, Emmerson Mnangagwa who will take over as Zimbabwe’s next president, is a hardliner with ties to the military who could prove as authoritarian as his mentor Robert Mugabe. It was his political ambition to take over which set off …
Read More »Mnangagwa: More of the same for suffering Zimbabwe?
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Even before Robert Mugabe’s resignation, many Zimbabweans tempered their yearning for his downfall with the knowledge that his likely successor has a similar reputation for brutality and corruption. Emmerson Mnangagwa, who until recently was one of Mugabe’s longest-serving and closest allies, will be sworn in …
Read More »Zimbabwe’s next leader says post-Mugabe era is ‘full democracy’
Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Zimbabwe’s incoming president Emmerson Mnangagwa told adoring crowds in Harare on Wednesday that they were witnessing “unfolding full democracy” as he returned to take power after Robert Mugabe stepped down after 37 years in power. It was his first public speech since Mugabe fired him …
Read More »How Europe’s greenest city kicked out cars
Berlin’s smart transport: How Europe’s greenest city kicked out cars Berlin, Germany | RONALD MUSOKE | Berlin, Germany’s capital and also largest city does not have the most efficient public transport system in the country, partly because of the low incomes of residents compared to other cities around the world. In …
Read More »Why push is increasingly shove in African regime change
Dakar, Senegal | AFP | Regime change in Africa may not guarantee greater democracy but, as Robert Mugabe’s downfall shows, patience for autocrats who overstay their welcome is wearing ever thinner, experts say. After 37 years of outmanoeuvring his political enemies, Mugabe was finally cornered on Tuesday and handed in …
Read More »Mugabe: the last of Africa’s ‘fathers of independence’
Paris, France | AFP | Robert Mugabe, who resigned as Zimbabwe’s president on Tuesday, was the last living African head of state to have fought for his country’s independence before becoming its leader. Mugabe, 93, had used his aura of liberator from a colonial power to stay in power but had …
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