Africa's Gandhi' - 

The country known under British rule as Northern Rhodesia becomes an independent state within the Commonwealth on October 24, 1964. 

Kenneth Kaunda, leader of the main nationalist party and nicknamed "Africa's Gandhi" for his non-violent activism, becomes its first president. 

He rules for 27 years under a single-party system, during which time he hosts many who struggled against repressive and colonial regimes including South Africa's ANC and Zimbabwean exiles including Robert Mugabe.

Widespread hunger in the country's northern copper belt region in 1986 sparks riots, and the following year Zambia breaks off ties with the International Monetary Fund. 

In 1989, in dire economic straits, it adopts austerity measures. A year later riots again fuelled by economic hardship claim 45 lives.

- First multi-party elections  -

Multi-party democracy is adopted in 1990 after a referendum.

A year later Frederick Chiluba and his Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) win the first multi-party elections, marking the end of Kaunda's rule.

Chiluba launches a privatisation programme, which concerns 250 state firms.

In a contested election in 1996 he wins a new mandate after barring Kaunda from returning via a constitutional amendment. 

Under popular pressure in 2001, Chiluba says he will not stand in the next presidential election, having failed to change the constitution in a bid for a third term.

- Successive presidents -

In 2002 Chiluba's chosen successor Levy Mwanawasa is inaugurated after narrowly winning in a vote marred by accusations of fraud. He wins a second mandate in 2006, but dies two years later.

Vice President Rupiah Banda steps in and wins a close race against Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front (PF), who goes on to win the next election in 2011, tainted by sporadic violence in Lusaka and mining towns.

Sata, dubbed "King Cobra", is accused of abuses by the opposition, while former supporters say he reneged on his promises.

Sata dies in 2014, and in January 2015 interim leader Edgar Lungu of the PF is sworn in, pledging to unite the country and rebuild the economy.

- Contested election -

In August 2016 Lungu narrowly wins the presidency against main rival Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND) after a violent campaign that saw clashes between the top two parties.

A month later the constitutional court throws out Hichilema's fraud claim and Lungu is confirmed president.

It later rules that Lungu can run for a second term in August's election, dismissing the opposition's arguments that Lungu will by then have already served two terms.

- 'Brutal crackdown' -

In June Amnesty International warns that repression under Lungu has pushed Zambia to the edge of a "human rights crisis".

The organisation points in the last five years to "an increasingly brutal crackdown on human rights, characterised by brazen attacks on any form of dissent".

On August 1 Lungu orders the deployment of the military to quell violence ahead of the elections.

In several parts of the country, supporters of the ruling PF and the UPND opposition clash armed with machetes, axes and slingshots.

Key dates in the post-independence history of Zambia, which goes to the polls August 12 after a violent presidential election campaign:

 *"UGAIDI  WA  MASHEIKH  MIAKA   YOTE  USHAHIDI  HAKUNA,  LAKINI  "UGAIDI  WA  MBOWE  USHAHIDI TAYARI   NA KESI CHAPUCHAPU  KULIKONI?*

*Masheikh  waachiwe  huru  polisi  ikipata  ushahidi  iwalete  mahakamini*

*MAONI YA Sauti  ya  wazalendo  halisi  Africa* 

Kwa  mara  ya  kwanza  mtuhumiwa  wa  kesi  ya  ugaidi  asiyekua  Muslimu  apatikana Tanzania.

Mh  Freeman  Mbowe  mwenyekiti  wa  chama  cha  upinzani  Chadema  amekabiliwa  na  tuhuma  za  ugaidi.

Dunia  imemshuhudia  kamanda  wa  jeshi  la  Polisi Mh  IGP  Simoni  Siro  mbele  ya  vyombo  vya  habari  akitamba kuwa: "Jeshi  la Polisi lina  ushahidi  wa  kutosha  na  ushahidi  umekamilka  Kwa  tuhuma  za  Mh  Mbowe."'

Dunia inataka kuaminishwa vijana watatu waliokuwa walinzi wa Mheshimiwa Mbowe amabo wote ni waislamu kuwa Waislam uwa Tanzania wanahusishwa na ugaidi hili kwa Waislamu wa Tanzania wanatakiwa wafikiri zaidi nini kitakachoendela kupikwa na utawla wa CCM dhidi ya Waislamu 

_Dunia  imepata  mshangao  mkubwa  sana  kumbe  jeshi  la  polisi  linaweza  Kupata  ushahidi  wa  tuhuma  za  ugaidi  kwa  haraka  hivo  na  kesi  kuanza  kwenda  chapuchapu kiasi  hicho  mpaka  kwa  njia  ya  mtandao? ????.?_

Kwanini  jeshi  la  polisi  limekosa  ushahidi  wa  tuhuma  za  ugaidi  kwa  Masheikh, Maimamu na Waalimu wa Madrasa  Zaid  ya  200. waliojazwa  mahabusu  mbalimbali  za  Tanzania kwa zaidi  ya  miaka  Mitano kwa madai upelelezi  haujakamilika  na hata  mahakamini  hawapelekwi  tena  kwa  muda  mrefu na  hakuna  uhakika  kama  upelelezi  huo  unaendelea!!.

Wazalenzo  halisi   Africa tunakuomba  Mh  Kamanda  Siro  ujitokeze  tena  mbele  ya  dunia  kupitia  vyombo  vya  habari  uieleze  dunia  Kwanini  uliwakamata  masheikh  ili  Hali  hauna  ushahidi  wa  makosa  yao? ??

Njoo  Kamanda  Siro  uieleze  Dunia  Kwanini  umeshindwa  kuthitibisha  tuhuma  za  ugaidi  kwa  Masheikh  kwa  miaka  Mitano  na  Zaidi  na  bado  unaendelea  kuwashikilia? ??

*Je  waislamu  wakisema  imetungwa  sheria  ya  ugaidi  kupambana  na  uislamu  Watakuwa  wamekosea? ????*

Waislamu  wakisema  jeshi  la  polisi  linatumia  vibaya  sheria  ya  ugaidi  kupambana  na  waislamu  je  watakua  wamekosea? ?????

Ikiwa  leo  masheikh  Zaidi  ya  200  kwa  miaka  Zaidi ya  mitano  mumewapa  tuhuma  za  ugaidi  lakini  hadi  sasa  hakuna  ushahidi  je  huku  sio  kutumia  kivuli  cha  ugaidi  kuwakomoa  waislamu? ??

Wazalenzo  halisi  Africa hatujasahau  mauaji  ya  imamu  aliyekuwa  mwanafunzi  wa  chuo  kikuu  alipouawa kwa  kupigwa  risasi  akipita  bank wilayani  Temeke  eneo  la  mtoni  na  kesho  yake Mh  Siro  uliitangazia  dunia  kuwa  imamu  Salumu  alikua  gaidi  kwasababu  alisikika  akisema  "Allah  akbar"

Haukupita  muda  Mh  Siro  ukapanda  cheo  kuwa  IGP kutoka  kuwa  RPC  wa  mkoa  wa  Dsm, bado  kuna  maswali  mengi  sana  kifo  cha  Imamu  Salumu  na  Tamko  la  kamanda  Siro  ndiyo  limempandisha  cheo  au  kitu  gani? ???

Na  je  ilifaa  kweli kumpandisha  cheo  mara  baada  ya  kuwajeruhi  waislamu  waliokua  Wana  uchungu  wa  mwenzao  kuuawa  na  Kamanda  Siro  kuhalalisha  kifo  cha  imamu  Salumu  kwakusema  Allah akbar? ???????

Wazalendo  halisi  wanatoa  wito  kwa  jeshi  la  polisi  kujitokeza  Tena  hadharani  kuitangazia  dunia  kuwa  haijapata  ushahidi  wa  tuhuma  za  ugaidi  za  masheikh  na  hivo  waachiwe  huru.

Wazalenzo  halisi  wanalipongeza  jeshi  la  polisi  kufanya  uchunguzi  haraka  kwa  tuhuma  za  Mh  Mbowe  na  kuipeleka  kesi  haraka Haraka  mpaka  kwa  njia  ya  mtandao  ili  imalizike  haraka 

Lakin  wazalendo  halisi  wanahoji  kwanini  jeshi  la  polisi  limeshindwa  kufanya  haraka  hiyo  kwa  masheikh wenye  tuhuma  kama  za  Mh  Mbowe? ????

Wazalendo  halisi  wanahoji  au  kwakuwa  wale  masheikh  ni  waislamu? 

Washatkiwa,, watatu wanaoshtakiwa na Mbowe wote ni Waislamu isipokuwa Mbowe itabidi kwa hili tumbadili jina mheshiwa Mbowe tumuite, Mheshimiwa Hamisi Mbowe kuonesha jinsi ugaidi unavyosingiziwa kwa Waislamu wa Tanzania. 

Imekuaje uchunguzi wa Mheshimiwa Hamisi Mbowe umekamilika kama miujiza?

Waislamu wa Tanzania kwa hili la ugaidi wanatakiwa wafikiri kwa mapana.

Au  kwakuwa  mataifa  ya  nje  ikiwemo  Marekani  wameanza  kuinyoshea  kidole  nchi yetu  ?

Je  jeshi  la  polisi  linataka  waislamu  pia  waanze  maandamano  yasiyoisha  kushinikiza  kuachiwa  masheikh  ndiyo  kesi  itaenda  na  ushahidi  utakuwa  tayari? ?

Pia kulikoni waislamu wamegawanywa kwa mafungu baina ya  Waislamu wa bara na wa Zanzibar wale masheikh wa Zanzibar wameonekana hawana hatia hawa wa huku kwetu wanaozea magerazani?

*#WAACHIWE  MASHEIKH,  AACHIWE  MH  MBOWE  WAWE  HURU  WOTE  SIO  MAGAIDI#*

*Sauti  ya  wazalendo  halisi*

Also, like in the last two presidential elections, the results in 2021 humongous not easy to rig . In the 2015 presidential by-election, President Lungu beat Hichilema by just 1.68%. In 2016, he scraped over the line in the first round with 50.35%. Hichilema, who received 47.63%, filed an ultimately unsuccessful petition calling for the election to be nullified, citing irregularities and allegations of fraud.

Much about the 2021 campaign therefore is familiar to Zambians. But will the result be too?

For me Zambia is a democracy. It means the people have decided and the people's voice was followed and respected and I am also proud of my leader President Edgar Lungu for conceding defeat and choosing peace over violence," says 50-year-old Rose Mumba, a supporter of ex-president Edgar Lungu.

While Hichilema won by a landslide, some analysts have now pointed to irregularities in the election. Cheeseman said the Zambian election was of "poor quality" and was manipulated. Hichilema only won because his margin was so big, adding the results "could easily have been rigged for the ruling party."

Change of power from incumbency to the opposition is not that common in southern Africa. In recent years, only Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera upset the ruling party in the country's recent election. In Angola, Namibia, South Africa, and Mozambique, the ruling parties have not lost power since the 1990s, and neighboring Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa was quick to warn any opposition parties from harboring similar ambitions.

Zambia itself was facing questions over its democracy, as the outgoing President Edgar Lungu was accused of becoming increasingly authoritarian. Citizens and opposition figures who publicly criticized government policy were arrested. Even Hichilema was once tried for treason charges after allegedly blocking Lungu's presidential motorcade during Zambia's previous election. In 2019, another opposition leader Sean Tembo of Patriots for Economic Progress (PEP) was arrested on charges of defamation for questioning the purchase of a $400 million (€340 million) presidential jet amid a ballooning national debt crisis.

Will it be this June, Hichilema made it clear he believes he would win if there was a level playing field. “In a free, fair and credible election, [Lungu] has no chance,” he said. “People will be looking at how the economy has collapsed, the job losses, declining health services sector, how difficult it has become to survive and just put food on the table.” He also made it clear, however, that he does not consider this election to be free and fair. Indeed, there are several causes for concern.

The first is the violence perpetrated by ruling party cadres and with the complicity of the police. In the run-up to elections, the media has reported on several instances of violence. Most of these incidents are started by PF activists attacking members of the opposition, especially the UPND. The situation is made worse by police who display bias by failing to apprehend the perpetrators.

The second is the unfair and selective application of the Public Order Act. This colonial-era legislation was supposed to have been expunged from the statute books. Instead, it is used to restrict opposition activities such as holding of public meetings, rallies, and demonstrations. While the PF has been allowed to campaign continuously since 2016, members of the opposition are subjected to arrests and harassment when they try to meet supporters. Hichilema has been detained 15 times, including from April to August 2017.

The third was the decision by the Electoral Commission to compile a new voter register in a period of just 38 days at the end of 2020. The result of this process is that the number of registered voters in areas considered to be PF strongholds is an estimated 345,000 higher than before, while the size of the electorate in perceived UPND strongholds is 70,000 lower. According to an investigation by News Diggers, there are also 20,000 illegally registered Malawians on the roll who have been bribed to vote for the ruling party. An alleged discrepancy has also been detected between the physical register and the electronic register, whereby 420,000 voters cannot be accounted for. The Electoral Commission has refused demands to conduct an independent audit of the voters’ roll.

The fourth is the introduction of biometric verification to process voters at polling stations with high turnouts. This scheme was hatched late in the electoral cycle and has been widely condemned as it appears to be aimed at reducing numbers of voters especially in areas likely to support the opposition.

Deploying the military

In the final days of the campaign, more reasons for concern have emerged. On 30 July, two PF supporters were found hacked to death in Kanyama constituency in Lusaka. In response, President Lungu ordered in the army to help the police maintain law and order. The next day, the Electoral Commission banned the UPND from engaging in campaign activities in Kanyama.

Opposition parties and other groups condemned the deployment of the military as unwarranted. They have raised the fact that Zambia’s military has a record of harassing and intimidating members of the public when called upon to maintain law and order.

ZAMBIA  has done it again. On 17 August, President Edgar Lungu conceded defeat and congratulated Hakainde Hichilema on a remarkable victory. In the election five days earlier, the long-time opposition leader had won in a landslide, defeating the incumbent along with 14 other candidates. For the third time in the country’s history, power changed hands via the ballot box – not just democratically but peacefully. Along with Malawi, Zambia is now leading the way as one of a very small number of countries to move away from authoritarianism during the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition to the fact that it happened as democracy is generally receding worldwide, Zambia’s achievement is particularly striking for two reasons. First, it came after a period of growing repression that had weakened key democratic institutions and led to fears the country could become the “new Zimbabwe”. Second, despite President Lungu enjoying so many advantages of incumbency that the opposition was effectively competing with one hand tied behind its back, Hichilema won comprehensively. While several commentators were predicting a second-round run-off would be needed, the opposition figure garnered 2.8 million votes, or 59% of the valid votes cast. That was 1 million votes more than Lungu in a country with just 7 million registered voters, or a winning margin of over 20 points.

After every opposition victory in Africa, there is a wave of optimistic media coverage wondering whether further transfers of power are about to be unleashed across the continent. With the 2021 Zambian elections, this has been heightened by the emphatic nature of Lungu’s defeat. However, while there have been moments when events in one country have inspired those in another – such as the impact of the freeing of Nelson Mandela on pro-democracy movements across Africa in 1990 – there is a tendency to exaggerate the spill over effects of a democratic process in one country. Nothing that happened in Zambia shifts the political reality in Cameroon, Uganda, or Zimbabwe. Hichilema’s success can only be repeated if the conditions that gave rise to it are also replicated.

Put another way, Zambia’s democratic success story will only inspire change elsewhere if the political context and the strategies used by opposition parties and civil society groups are reproduced. That will be extremely difficult in more authoritarian states with less experience of the will of the people determining who holds power – and in some countries it will be all but impossible in the near future. This caveat notwithstanding, the lessons of the Zambian election about how entrenched authoritarians can be removed from power are worth learning – for opposition parties, civil society groups and all those who care about democracy.

It’s the economy, stupid

The most obvious lesson from Zambia is that economic crisis can undermine the hold on power of genuinely repressive regimes. This might seem obvious, but the focus on ethnic, regional, or racial voting in Africa has often obscured the extent to which people vote on the economy. Swing voters are more likely to line up behind the opposition, and ruling party supporters are most likely to stay at home, when they blame the government for economic pain.

Ahead of the election, nearly all of Zambia’s key economic indicators were extremely poor. Unemployment was high and particularly acute among the youth, one of the groups that helped swing the outcome in Hichilema’s favour. Corruption was endemic, inflation was in the double digits, and the high cost of living left about 40% of Zambians unable to eat as normal. The staggering external debt – $12 billion, up from $1.9 billion in 2011 – took money away from social services, while service delivery was so poor that sporadic protests flared up in urban centres.

Exploiting this favourable economic context, Hichilema positioned himself as the business savvy leader that Zambia needed, giving people hope that the country can overcome the recent debt default and put money back into people’s pockets. Against this backdrop, Lungu’s efforts to buy support by channelling money through “empowerment schemes” proved to be ineffective. As in the famous opposition victories of 1991 and 2011, Zambians took money and gifts from whoever offered them, but voted with their hearts and their brains.

Opposition learning and unity

These elections were Hichilema’s sixth attempt at winning the presidency and, crucially, he had learned at least three key lessons from previous defeats. First, the opposition was more coherent this time, after Hichilema persuaded eight opposition parties to back his United Party for National Development (UPND) ahead of the election. Although the allying parties were small and lacked clear power bases, they were led by well-known figures, including some who had served as ministers under Lungu. Importantly, these individuals were united in their opposition to the governing Patriotic Front (PF) and seen as credible by many voters. This elite pact legitimised Hichilema as an inclusive national leader and presented the UPND as the most viable vehicle for removing the PF from power.

Second, Hichilema made a real effort to expand his support base beyond his traditional constituencies in the Western, Southern and North-western provinces. He targeted the urban areas of Lusaka and the Copperbelt, where he focused on unemployment and rallied youths on social media, speaking in their language and using the popular moniker “Bally”. He also appointed Mutale Nalumango, an experienced politician from the Bemba-speaking Muchinga and Northern province – ruling party bases – to be his running mate. While the opposition was becoming broader, the PF was beset by factionalism, driven by dissatisfaction with Lungu’s decision to run for a third term and his deeply unpopular choice of running mate, Nkandu Luo.

Third, the UPND protected the vote. Unlike in 2016, when UPND election monitors had a limited presence in key areas, the opposition appears to have deployed agents in almost all the 12,152 polling stations in 2021. This made it very difficult for the government to manipulate the vote. Once the counting was done and the votes were tallied at constituency level, party agents faxed the signed results forms to their representatives at the national totalling centre in Lusaka to make sure their figures matched those announced by the electoral commission. An early intervention by UPND representatives during the official announcement of results to stop the release of disputed figures for the Feira constituency laid down an important precedent and shut down the opportunity for electoral fraud.

Civil society matters

Civil society groups in Africa have often been criticised for being too aggressive on the one hand or too pliant on the other. They are regarded as too elitist by some, or too reflective of the divisions in society by others. Similarly, international funding for civil society has often been branded a waste of resources by those who lament “Dead Aid”. Zambia, however, shows just how important civil society groups can be, and why it is essential to support them through hard times.

In 2021, they played several critical roles. First, civic organisations campaigned throughout the country to raise awareness on the importance of voting and vote protection. Institutions like Alliance for Community Action (ACA), Governance, Elections, Advocacy, Research Services (GEARS) and People’s Action for Accountability and Good Governance in Zambia held a series of meetings on voter education, sensitising the population. Civil society organisations also carefully monitored all 156 constituencies on voting day. While GEARS deployed about 10,000 observers, the Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG), which also deployed 1, 600 monitors, conducted a parallel vote tabulation that captured the election results at polling station level, ensuring that any manipulation would be exposed.

Finally, civil society initiated several court cases against the abuse of state power. The persistent attack on the erosion of the rule of law and human rights raised awareness among voters and helped delegitimise the governing party. Though they did not always win, the cases drew attention to the erosion of democracy. There were also some important victories, not least by legal advocacy group Chapter One Foundation, which successfully obtained a court order that stayed the government’s shutdown of social media platforms on election day.

The diffusion of democracy

These lessons can be learned by opposition parties and democracy activists across the continent. But they will not always be easy to reproduce. While Hichilema’s win was celebrated by other opposition leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Nelson Chamisa and Uganda’s Bobi Wine, the conditions that made it possible are not present in their respective countries.

Although Lungu’s regime was repressive, and there were fears that the army would be used to repress opposition protests, the military remained politically neutral. And while many Ugandans and Zimbabweans demand change, there is no popular memory of replacing the government via the ballot box to give voters confidence that their votes matter, and to empower the electoral commission to believe it is safe to announce an opposition victory. The lessons of Zambia are still pertinent in these countries, but it will take many years of struggle to put them into practice.

President Saied’s sacking of the government may be popular, but what Tunisia needs is to strengthen its democracy, not dismantle it.

Tunisia’s President Kais Saied (left) meeting with the US Defence Secretary in September 2020. Credit: DoD/Lisa Ferdinando.

On 17 December 2010, 26-year-old fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the town of Sidi Bouzid after police confiscated his cart. Driven to the edge by economic despair and humiliation at his harassment, he became the spark of Tunisia’s 2010/11 uprising against economic underdevelopment, corruption and dictatorship. These protests led to the ouster of long-time strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and inspired the so-called Arab Spring movements elsewhere in the region.

Following its revolution, Tunisia respected the rules of democracy. It enshrined a progressive new constitution in 2014 and built institutions to safeguard freedoms, albeit imperfectly. In 2015, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, a group of four civil society organisations that helped mediate efforts to consolidate pluralism. While Egypt witnessed a slide into fierce authoritarianism in the wake of the Arab Spring, and Syria, Yemen and Libya fell into civil war, Tunisia stood out as an Arab democratic lodestar.

Today, however, Tunisia’s political gains are in peril due to the recent exceptional measures taken by President Kais Saied. On 25 July, he responded to protests against a tattered economy, endemic corruption and inept handling of the pandemic by sacking Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, suspending parliament, stripping parliamentarians of immunity, and assuming judicial authority. Saied thus monopolised the three branches of power: legislative, executive and judicial. In justifying these actions, he appealed to Article 80 of the constitution, which allows the president to take extraordinary measures in the case of “imminent danger”. However, this clause necessitates consultation with the head of government and speaker of parliament, and that the parliament be in continuous session – none of which applied to Saied’s measures.

The reaction of the international community – from the West to the African Union – has so far been tepid. Policymakers and legal experts have been caught up in semantics of whether Saied’s measures constitute a coup, a soft coup or a constitutional coup. In the meantime, the hopes of staying on democratic course in Tunisia are shrinking with every day that passes.

A more authoritarian Tunisia

Over a month on, Tunisia remains in limbo with no checks and balances on President Saied’s power. In fact, he just announced an indefinite extension of the emergency period that was initially in place for 30 days. No new prime minister has been named or cabinet formed, nor has a roadmap or calls for a national dialogue been announced. Saied has repeatedly declared that he will not retract his actions and negotiate with the “corrupt”, but without specifying who falls into this category.

Saied justified his exceptional measures as a response to the demands of the people who called on the government to step down on 25 July, some clashing with security forces and attacking the offices of Ennahda, the party with the largest bloc in parliament. His actions enjoy public support, with local polling suggesting 87% approve of them.

Tunisians had every right and reason to mobilise. The country is suffering one of the worst COVID-19 mortality rates per capita in Africa and the Middle East. Public services remain inadequate and the unemployment rate stands at around 17%. Tourism has suffered due to terrorist attacks in 2015 and the pandemic, and government debt stands at 85% of GDP.

If there is anything the turmoil leading up to 25 July has shown, it is that Tunisia’s young democracy was fragile and one that preserved corruption and kleptocracy. What Tunisia is experiencing now, however, is not a socially accountable democracy. It is a populist version with Saied presenting himself as the voice of the people in their revolt against the corrupt political class. He has launched investigations into political figures and parties suspected of corruption and placed travel bans on them. There is a possibility he might soon target political opponents more selectively.

There is no doubt that systemic reforms against corruption are desperately needed in Tunisia, but the solution is to strengthen, not dismantle, democracy. Political and civil society actors must be unequivocal in their stance: we will not prop up a more authoritarian Tunisia. The country needs to root out corruption, not give absolute power to a single individual. Those suspected of corruption should be subject to due legal process.

Tunisia needs to appoint a new prime minister, but this is not enough. It needs a roadmap out of the crisis through a national political dialogue and institutional continuity. Even if discredited in the public eye, political parties and parliament cannot simply be upended. It is the votes of the Tunisians that should determine which new representatives are entrusted with helping them out of the crisis. A capable government needs to be formed with a broad consensus of political parties and civil society to help bolster the sluggish economy and address the ravages of the pandemic.

Two foreseeable scenarios

There are two foreseeable scenarios for Tunisia right now. One is the creation of a third republic. The first Tunisian republic began in 1959 and ended with the ouster of Ben Ali in January 2011. The second followed and was enshrined by the 2014 constitution. A third republic would require a referendum on a new political system and constitution as well as fresh parliamentary elections. If this occurs, Saied is likely to seek a constitution that enshrines a presidential system. Tunisia’s current parliamentary system is complex and has stalled progress, but it is much harder for a parliamentary system to pave the way to dictatorship than a presidential one.

The second possible scenario would be a return to constitutional legitimacy, namely by reinstating parliament and returning immunity to parliamentarians with the exception of those deemed by law as corrupt. This may also involve the appointment of a caretaker government to help the country out of the crisis and organise early legislative elections. In this scenario, Saied could seek a revised electoral law that makes it harder for smaller parties to win seats. Parties currently need to get at least 3% of the vote to be represented in parliament, but the president could push for this to be amended to 5%. Proponents argue that this would lead to a less fractured parliament and thus make reaching consensus easier. Critics say it would alienate smaller parties and their voters.

Regardless of which scenario plays out, Tunisians need guarantees that their democracy will not be demolished. So far, early signs warrant concern. The day after Saied’s power grab, security forces raided the offices of Al Jazeera, which is seen as sympathetic to Ennahda. A few days later, independent Tunisian MP Yassine Ayari, an outspoken critic of the government and military, was sentenced to two months in jail by a military court. He became the first MP to be prosecuted since Saied lifted parliamentary immunity.

Accountability, human rights, and rule of law must be preserved in Tunisia. These are essential for keeping in check authoritarian drift by the president and overseeing reforms launched by any incoming cabinet. Tunisians need assurances that new elections will take place without intimidation and that there will be no disruptions to the normal procedures of changing the constitution.

Tunisia’s civil society needs to pressure the leadership to return the country to the correct course. If we don’t, we will have been complicit in potentially compromising our fledgling democracy. We will also have been complicit in prolonging the woes of Tunisians because the current impasse will hinder the ability of the authorities to address the country’s dire economic and health troubles.

Let us all not forget the struggle of the Tunisian people towards building a progressive pluralistic society and raising the hopes of democratic aspirants across the Arab world. Civil society must defend public and private rights and freedoms. We must re-align with citizens’ right to self-determination through the ballot box. It is imperative to help Tunisia during this critical juncture before it is too late. Don’t let Tunisia’s democracy slip.

President Hichilema came to power on a raft of big promises. None will be straightforward to fulfil.

Hakainde Hichilema’s recent landslide victory in Zambia confounded expectations that ruling parties will always be able to successfully manipulate elections. The opposition leader didn’t just defeat the incumbent but won with 59% to Edgar Lungu’s 38.7%.

It is easy to assume that this outcome was the result of a supremely effective campaign by the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND). But the vote was perhaps more a reflection of other factors. After ten years in government, the majority of people had become disgruntled with the Patriotic Front (PF), which had come to be seen as ineffective and corrupt. The government had left the economy in a dire state, with debt skyrocketing, unemployment high, and the cost of living rising. And President Lungu had become increasingly unpopular, including by running for a third term, and picking a similarly unliked running mate in Nkandu Luo.

These factors drove a high voter turnout of 71% as Zambians, including many first-time voters, went to the ballot box on 12 August to vote for change in both areas perceived to be UPND and PF strongholds. In his acceptance speech, Hichilema assured the nation that he would bring such change as he repeated his campaign promises to grow the economy, create jobs, restore respect for the rule of law, improve investor confidence and fix the mining sector. On 24 August, he was sworn-in as Zambia’s seventh president.

HH’s three big challenges

President Hichilema faces three key challenges in fulfilling his promises.

The first is to assemble a strong team of ministers to steer the functions of state and superintend over various ministries. He has vowed to appoint a lean cabinet, but one that is representative of all Zambia’s ten provinces. This is taking longer to do than expected. So far, just one cabinet minister – the minister of finance – has been appointed, raising concerns as to whether it is constitutional for a single minister to function without a cabinet. Hichilema’s challenge is compounded by the fact that he is also reducing the size of the cabinet from the previous 30 ministers in order to save public funds.

The main difficulty facing Hichilema is in balancing the myriad of competing interests that helped him come to power. Within the UPND alone, he has to contend with four factions: the founding members known as the Anderson Mazoka faction; the group that has supported his leadership since 2006; the former members of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party that have backed his presidential bids since 2015; and the eight smaller parties that joined the opposition alliance ahead of the 2021 elections. As it is, there is already a perception the MMD grouping has an upper hand, as the vice president and the minister of finance come from that faction. In addition to these groups, there are women and youth, who believe they were decisive in the UPND’s victory and ought to be well represented.

The second challenge arises from the state of the public institutions he inherits. In his inaugural address, Hichilema promised to restore the rule of law and the protection of human rights, both of which had been eroded to a point that Zambian citizens lived in fear. To achieve this, he has granted law enforcement and investigative agencies autonomy to discharge their functions without the requirement of presidential oversight or approval. This is a promising move, but given their decay over many years, there will be an urgent need for institutional reform to ensure these institutions play their rightful role in preserving the rights of citizens and enforcing the law.

The final challenge is Hichilema’s promise to stabilise the economy and boost investor confidence by attracting foreign direct investment. In just a few days following his inauguration, the Kwacha strengthened from K19 to the dollar to K14.80. But what people want and expect are jobs, funded basic services, and an affordable cost of living. This will be neither straightforward nor quick. The last seven years saw gross mismanagement of public resources, misdirection of so-called empowerment funds to partisan causes, and the contraction of unsustainable foreign debt, in large part to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the PF ruling elite. Part of the solution therefore will be to tackle corruption and recover stolen funds, and some are already demanding that previous leaders, including Lungu, be investigated. But this could create other political problems for the new president who may need to tread carefully.

Despite his massive mandate, the UPND lacks the numbers in parliament to institute legislative reforms. With 82 MPs, plus 8 nominations, the party still controls just over half the national assembly and is well short of the two-thirds majority necessary to carry out major constitutional reforms. It is unclear, however, how long the former ruling party will last as a coherent grouping; it is possible the PF will soon disintegrate as the reality of not having access to state resources dawns on its supporters.

Hichilema campaigned on a platform full of promises voters needed to hear. The nation is full of expectation and hope in its new Mr Fixer, but this will not last long if people do not start to see improvements to their lives and livelihoods.

Thousands of monitors, a PVT and behind-the-scenes diplomacy played a key role, yet questions about the future of observation remain.

From left: Commonwealth observer mission lead Jakaya Kikwete; former Zambian president Rupiah Banda; Edgar Lungu; Hakainde Hichilema; AU observer mission lead Ernest Bai Koroma.

Today marks exactly 100 days since Hakainde Hichilema was inaugurated as president of Zambia. After a decade and half in opposition, the leader of the United Party for National Development (UPND) defeated the incumbent Edgar Lungu in elections on 12 August 2021. He took office 12 days later.

Hichilema’s successful election campaign was aided by his opponent’s unpopularity and a set of promises to change course. He vowed to tackle the erosion of democracy and human rights, address high unemployment especially among the youth, and rebuild an economy faltering under the weight of huge debt, government incompetence, corruption, and effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Hichilema also pledged to reverse the breakdown of rule of law, the lack of diversity in public office, a politicised and ineffective civil service, rampant corruption, poor governmental communication with the public, and Zambia’s weakened voice in international affairs.

100 days into the new presidency, there are some hopeful signs of progress on some fronts as well as some highly alarming signs of broken promises on others.

Promising steps

Of promising steps towards progress, many of which are still on paper, five stand out.

First, Hichilema has developed a clear strategy aimed at fixing the economy and its debt crisis through better fiscal management and accountability. Meanwhile, the appointment of the well-regarded Situmbeko Musokotwane as Finance Minister, the internationally respected Denny Kalyalya as Governor of the Bank of Zambia and the experienced Felix Nkulukusa as Secretary to the Treasury strengthen the country’s ability to secure an IMF package. Such a bailout would help Zambia attract foreign direct investment, reassure ratings agencies, and re-negotiate debt payments.

The government’s 2022 budget is also positive and bold. It promises to recruit 30,000 new teachers and 11,200 healthcare staff, increase social expenditure, support small businesses, and invest more attention in agriculture. It also vows to decentralise resources, including by increasing the Constituency Development Fund from K1.6 million ($90,000) to K25.7 million ($1.4 million). And it abolishes school fees for state schools, making good on the UPND’s promise of free education.

Hichilema’s government continues to face several economic challenges, however. In mining, the government has formulated a better mechanism of collecting royalties, which had been a perennial source of conflict with extractives companies. But questions remain, stemming from the previous administration’s takeover of the Glencore-operated Mopani copper mines and its handling of the liquidation of the Vedanta-owned Konkola mines. It remains to be seen whether the new administration will return these mines to previous owners or seek new investors. There are also still question marks over how the government will finance its plans, especially after reducing taxes. It is betting on economic growth and improved revenues from copper, but Zambia’s economy is precarious and failure to reach a deal with the IMF or a fall in copper prices could lead to a dramatic collapse.

Second, Hichilema has greatly improved dialogue between the public and the presidency. Unlike Lungu, who governed through press aides and airport tarmac addresses, the new president regularly hosts press conferences and has appeared on a live phone-in radio show.

Third, Hichilema has presided over a relatively open democratic environment. He has shown greater commitment to civil liberties and stopped the culture of violent political cadres operating in markets and bus stations. It is still early days, but the climate of fear and lawlessness that characterised much of Lungu’s rule is slowly disappearing. One hopes that the arrest of a peacefully protesting Kasonde Mwenda, the leader of a small opposition party, for “conduct likely to cause breach of peace” in September is an isolated incident and not the start of a slippery slope.

Fourth, the new president has restated his commitment to the rule of law. Although he has walked back promises to repeal the repressive Cyber Security Act and the Public Order Act, long used by governments to curtail the activities of the opposition and civil society, Hichilema has maintained plans to review the constitution, enhance judicial independence, and improve the operations of the electoral commission. On corruption, his priority is to recover stolen funds, given that watchdog institutions lack capacity and the judiciary remains compromised.

Finally, the new president has attempted to reposition Zambia on the world stage. Hichilema is repairing the country’s frayed relationship with the West, while being careful to not disrupt ties with China. More significantly, he is strengthening regional ties – particularly with the DR Congo – through diplomatic visits and promoting greater trade and investment within the southern African region and Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement. Hichilema has also used his platform to support democracy in the region – he notably invited opposition figures from Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Tanzania to his inauguration – and speak out against global debt injustice and vaccine inequality.

Alarming signs

Those are some of the positive signs from Hichilema’s first 100 days. The negative signs are, in many ways, much more significant and centre on the new president’s principles. In the election, the UPND tried to set itself apart from the corruption and lawlessness of Lungu’s Patriotic Front (PF). Hichilema’s speeches were dominated by calls for a return to constitutionalism and good governance. It is on these fronts that the last 100 days have been the most concerning.

Here are some examples.

Pardoning corrupt former officials

Hichilema has shown a worrying contradiction in his approach to former officials accused of corruption.

On the one hand, he has said that it is up to agencies such as the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to investigate suspects and potentially prosecute them. This is well and good; the judiciary and executive are separate arms of government.

On the other hand, however, Hichilema has said several times that if former officials return stolen money to the government, they should be given amnesty. It is not clear if this is an instruction or merely advice, but since the president appoints ACC officers – and his predecessor held great sway over the agency – we can assume it will be treated as a directive. This is unconstitutional in a variety of ways. As Hichilema pointed out, he has no legal power to instruct the ACC. The pardoning of officials who may have engaged in millions of dollars’ worth of grand corruption would be a betrayal of justice. And it would also violate the principle that all people are equal before the law.

Under Lungu, the government targeted its opponents with trumped up charges and tried to prosecute them without evidence. Hichilema appears ready to violate the same principle, albeit in the opposite direction; by saving people from prosecution despite clear evidence of wrongdoing.

It is additionally worrying that the new administration has not replaced officials in anti-corruption bodies. Under Lungu, these agencies were spineless and followed political instructions rather than following the constitution. Keeping these personnel in place does not inspire hope that these bodies can now act independently of the executive or hold those in power accountable.

Creating new public offices without following the law

Historically, State House has had five advisors to the president, responsible for press and public relations, economic affairs, political affairs, legal affairs, and policy and project implementation – each assisted by two deputies known as chief analysts. Instead of working through these existing offices, Hichilema has created a series of new advisory positions. These include State House Media Director, Special Assistant to the President for Public Policy, Special Assistant to the President for Policy Compliance, and State House Economic Advisor.

His motivations for doing this may be perfectly legitimate, but these actions have not been constitutional. The president is legally empowered to create new public offices, but only through the relevant commission or a specially designed statutory instrument, which has not been the case. It is also concerning that most of these appointments have not been announced and only a few have taken the oath of office publicly, as required by the constitution.

Weakening the civil service

In opposition, Hichilema vowed to depoliticise the civil service and fill it with qualified, competent, and experienced professionals. While he has yet to announce any reforms that would help achieve this, he has taken several steps that undermine the service.

First, the new president destabilised it through a nearly wholesale dismissal of permanent secretaries, the most senior officials tasked with advising ministers and implementing policies. It is unlikely all those sacked were incompetent, unqualified, or corrupt so their removal was likely due to their perceived political affiliation.

Second, Hichilema has appointed several individuals who lack civil service experience or even relevant qualifications. They appear to have been recruited due to their loyalty and are therefore more like Partisan Secretaries, who will last as long as their party is in power, than  Permanent Secretaries.

Third, Hichilema has centralised power by creating several new positions around the presidency in a move that demonstrates his lack of faith in the civil service and his desire to run government from State House. The creation of these parallel positions, many of which already exist in the civil service, undermines existing officials, leads to the duplication of functions, and is an inefficient use of public resources. Worse still, many of those appointed to this “mini civil service” lack the relevant qualifications for their roles.

Undermining the fight against corruption

When it became clear that Lungu had lost the elections this August, the incumbent had initially planned to challenge the results in the Constitutional Court, which was widely seen as biased in his favour. It was only after an unexpected closed-door meeting with Hichilema that he switched tack. In a short, televised address, a visibly subdued Lungu conceded and congratulated his soon-to-be successor.

Moments later, Hichilema delivered his own speech. He welcomed his election victory before addressing Lungu, saying “do not worry; you will be okay, sir”. He later tried to walk back these words, but this remark was widely seen as the public expression of the two men’s private political settlement; namely, that Lungu would drop his planned legal challenge in exchange for immunity after stepping down.

If this is the case, this deal would be deeply inappropriate. It would undermine the Director of Public Prosecutions and law enforcement agencies whose responsibility it is to decide who should be investigated and prosecuted. And it would bypass the National Assembly, the body with the power to remove a former president’s immunity in the face of clear evidence presented by the sitting president.

Failure to reflect diversity

One key criticism of Lungu’s rule was that he marginalised Zambians from Southern, Western and Northwestern provinces – regions that have historically voted for Hichilema. 26 of his 32 cabinet ministers, for instance, were either from the Chewa-speaking Eastern province or from one of three Bemba-speaking provinces. This preference was also seen clearly in the top leadership positions of the police, army, air force, national service, and office of the president.

Hichilema promised to do things differently if elected but has barely delivered. All five heads of Zambia’s security services as well as the top positions in the National Assembly and judiciary are held by people from the regions that have traditionally voted for him. His 27-person cabinet is relatively representative of Zambia’s ten provinces, but areas that have historically voted for PF are grossly underrepresented while 16 ministers come from ethnic groups that have typically formed the core of Hichilema’s base.

The new president’s record on other forms of inclusion is even worse. Even though the constitution calls for equal gender representation in public offices, just five cabinet ministers are women, which is half the figure under Lungu. To address electoral imbalances, the constitution allows the president to nominate eight persons to parliament, but Hichilema filled all the slots with men except one. Only one of Hichilema’s ten provincial ministers is female. He has further made no appointments of either youth, constitutionally defined as someone between the ages of 18 and 35, or persons with disabilities – a clear violation of the constitution.

Looking ahead

For someone elected on the promise to restore constitutionalism and the rule of law, Hichilema’s first 100 days provide little inspiration. Nonetheless, his political position seems secure, for now.

The new president remains popular, though his continued approval will depend on how he navigates the tough conditionalities that could come with an IMF deal. His central bank governor recently announced plans to remove subsidies on electricity, fertiliser, and fuel. If these moves are not carefully phased or strategically communicated, they could lead to urban discontent. This will especially be the case if a public sector wage freeze comes next and Hichilema’s administration is unable to provide employment for the many young people who voted for him.

Unless Hichilema incorporates more figures from underrepresented regions and women into his government, he also remains vulnerable to a political rival that could combine populist policies in urban centres with promises to rural areas that feel marginalised. This effective opposition, however, does not yet exist. The PF is in disarray while other opposition parties are mostly led by elitists without grassroots support or the language to connect with ordinary voters.

The fact that the revolutionary’s death was totally ignored by Zanzibar’s official media speaks volumes on the government’s much-vaunted “national reconciliation.”

Comrade Ali Sultan Issa Al-Ismaily, who passed away on January 3, 2022, three months shy of his 90th birthday, was iconic, if controversial, figure in Zanzibari politics.  The fact that his death was totally ignored by Zanzibar’s official media speaks volumes on the government’s much-vaunted “national reconciliation.”  

He may have been an occasional critic of the government but if anything, Ali Sultan was as fierce in his lifelong commitment for the emancipation of Zanzibar’s poor and the oppressed as he was gentle with those he loved. 

Ali Sultan’s reputation had preceded him beyond the borders of Zanzibar. His international contacts included Che Guevara and Raul Castro, younger brother of Fidel, the Cuban revolutionary leader.  

He once told me of an incident when he hosted Che in Zanzibar in January 1965.  Ali first met Che in Cuba in 1962 and then in Geneva in 1964 during the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) conference. 

When the Argentinian paid a courtesy call at night on President Abeid Karume he found the president anxious, telling him that “your friend Ali Sultan” was plotting against his regime.  

Luckily, during the day Che had quizzed Ali about the situation in Zanzibar and he detected no inkling from Ali’s side that he was opposed to Karume.  Che duly assured the president of his judgment which placated Karume.  

The following morning Che related the incident to Ali who believed that Che’s intervention probably saved his life.

In 1996 while in Cuba for the return of Che’s remains from Bolivia, Ali Sultan was asked by a film crew to reminisce about his time with Che. Ali could not contain himself.  He broke down and the recording had to be aborted.

Rubbing shoulders with the world’s political luminaries

Ali Sultan began rubbing shoulders with the world’s political luminaries when he was in his early 20s.  In 1957, he met Joseph Stalin’s successor, Nikita Krushchev, when he attended an International Youth Festival in Moscow.  Krushchev called him over at an official reception and asked him to open that night’s Kremlin Ball by dancing with a politburo member.

In 1960, Ali Sultan held talks with Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Ahmed Sekou Touré in Guinea and Mao Zedong in Wutan as well as Zhou Enlai.  A public speech he made in China attacking Marshal Josip Tito’s revisionism in Yugoslavia made it to the front page of Rénmin Ribào (People’s Daily), China’s largest newspaper and the organ of the central committee of the country’s Communist Party. 

In Hanoi, he was invited by Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese revolutionary leader, to his official residence, for a pep talk on liberation strategy.

Ali considered himself dexterous having worked at various jobs including, as a checker at the Zanzibar docks, a seaman on international steamers, a fireman on a ship, a teacher of English to a son of a ship’s captain, and a performer of odd jobs whenever he jumped ship at various ports, including Calcutta, and Vancouver.  

He was a waiter in a Cape Town hotel, a clerk at Dar es Salam port, dishwater in London hotels and a petty trader following his spell in jail in the aftermath of the assassination of Sheikh Karume in 1972.

Later, he was a hotelier, although he once told me that he regarded that more as a philosophy, a disposition, than an occupation. But, beyond all that, Ali Sultan left an enduring mark as a politician first with the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) and, later, with its breakaway Umma Party and after the revolution on January 12, 1964, when Zanzibar became a one-party state, the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP).

Serving the revolution with aplomb

Ali served the revolution with aplomb, sincerely believing that his participation and that of his Marxist comrades would mitigate its flaws.  Two of his closest relatives were murdered during the revolution when he was out of the country.  His paternal uncle, Sheikh Nasser Issa Al- Ismaily, was brutally killed on the first day of the revolution at his rural home in Mfenesini after his house was first torched.

Sheikh Nasser was the father of the Cambridge-educated Sheikh Issa Nasser Ismaily, who has written a number of books on Zanzibar in  Swahili, Arabic and English, including Will Zanzibar Regain her Past Prosperity?  His then father-in-law, Sheikh Amour Zahor, was shot and buried alive in October 1964.

Ali’s first appointment in the revolutionary government was as area commissioner for Chake Chake, in Pemba. He incited the wrath of the islanders when he resorted to using the cane against those that he regarded were indolent. 

While there he once shared a bed with Frank Carlucci, the visiting US consul, and famously tried to convert him to Marxism. Carlucci, a CIA operative, was deputy director of the spy agency during the Jimmy Carter administration and later became President Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, and then deputy defence minister. 

Carlucci’s now declassified report to the US State Department on his Pemba visit paints Ali as a dedicated administrator popular with the masses. “While not difficult whip up enthusiastic African demonstrations, [Ali Sultan] Issa’s performance all more impressive since armed forces nowhere to be seen except at Mkuani (sic) pier for ship landing,” reads part of the report.

Ali served for two months in Pemba before he was dispatched to the Zanzibar High Commission in London as a consul. He was then appointed a minister of education and of health as well as a member of the then dreaded Revolutionary Council. In early 1972 he was dropped from the Revolutionary Council and appointed chairman of the State Fuel and Power Corporation.  

A few weeks later he was arrested, tried for treason and sentenced to death, following Sheikh Karume’s assassination.   He was severely tortured in prison.  The death sentence was ultimately commuted and he served a prison term of six years and eight months.  

He was released from prison on December 8, 1979.  Because he was a prisoner of conscience, he was adopted by a wealthy German branch of Amnesty International, group 88 in Saarbrucken. 

They facilitated his travel to join his family in Britain.  On January 19, 1979, Colonel Ali Mahfoudh and I were at London’s Heathrow Airport to welcome an emaciated Ali Sultan and listen to the gory details of his imprisonment and of our other comrades.  At least three of them perished under torture.

Once in the 1980s when we were having coffee in a bustling street near the Mtendeni area in Unguja he was approached by a man who Ali was quick to introduce to me.  “This is one of the gentlemen who used to torture me in prison,” he said.  The man quickly turned on his heels and walked away, with his tail between his legs.

In October 1982, Ali Sultan was rearrested for distributing pro-democracy T-shirts and leaflets. He was detained without trial for a year. 

Later, he abandoned all his revolutionary credentials to become a pioneering hotelier.  In 1987 he visited Washington and met deputy defense secretary Carlucci in his office. Their discussions included Ali’s hotel venture.  Afterwards, Carlucci wrote him a note saying, “Your capitalist success exceeds all my expectations.”

Dropping from school to enjoy life

Ali Sultan Issa was born in Wete, Pemba, Zanzibar’s lesser island, on March 4, 1932.  He attended primary and secondary schools in the larger island of Unguja but dropped out when he was in Form 2, telling his class teacher, Aboud Jumbe, who later became Zanzibar’s second President and Tanzania’s Vice-President, that he could no longer attend school as he needed to earn money to enjoy life.

A typical Zanzibari, Ali’s ancestry was mixed. Although he was decidedly Arab in appearance, his paternal side tracing its origins from Oman and his maternal side from Yemen, he also had African roots.  His paternal great grandmother was a Zaramo from Tanganyika and his maternal grandmother, Bibi Ruzuna binti Tamim, was a Nandi from Kenya.

Bibi Ruzuna was once the wife of the colourful Harrow-educated Sultan Seyyid Ali bin Hamoud whose mother was from Nyasaland (present-day Malawi) and who was forced by the British to abdicate in 1911 after attending King George V’s coronation in London.  

Zanzibar’s throne then passed into the hands of Seyyid Ali bin Hamoud’s brother-in-law, Seyyid Khalifa bin Haroub, the grandfather of Seyyid Jamshid bin Abdallah bin Khalifa who was deposed by the 1964 revolution.

Bibi Ruzuna had three children with the sultan but when she left the palace she was married to Ali’s grandfather, Ali Muhammed Bakashmar al-Abbassy.  He was among the first teachers at the isles’ first secular school, established by Sultan Ali bin Hamoud, and was later appointed kadhi (Islamic judge) in Pemba towards the end of the 1930s following the transfer to Unguja of Sayyid Omar bin Ahmed bin Sumeit.

Ali’s uncle, on his maternal side, was Ahmed Rashad Ali, the celebrated propagandist and broadcaster with Radio Cairo. Rashad was famous for spewing out anti-British polemics in his popular broadcasts which were listened to all over East Africa.

I vividly remember Bibi Ruzuna, kanga-clad, sweeping and spring cleaning the front of her modest house in the Ng’ambo area near Msikiti Maiti in Unguja.  It is from her that I think Ali inherited his trait of being a stickler for tidiness.  Ali was fastidious, at times agonisingly so. He liked his things to be neatly and methodically arranged and had an aversion to dust and crumbs.

Ali’s mother was a formidable lady, both in spirit and stature. By his own admission, he was terrified of her disciplinarian streak.

Ali grew up partly under Bi Ruzuna and partly under the wings of his strong-willed mother. She was a single mother, after demanding a divorce from Ali’s father.  

They began leading a peripatetic life, a result of her reduced circumstances moving from house to house, from neighbourhood to neighbourhood seeking solace in her relatives’ abodes or cheaper rental accommodations.

Committing class suicide

As a scion of the landed gentry — his father was a big landowner in Pemba — Ali Sultan committed class suicide at the onset of his political career in the 1950s by joining the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), on May 1, 1954, while living in London.  He had stumbled into communism as a seaman in Canada, where he had jumped ship, on his way to Britain.  

But it was in London that he cut his communist teeth by attending ideological classes by the CPGB and receiving instruction by seasoned Marxists in Britain as well as in communist countries.  

He was also trained in intelligence, sabotage and weaponry, including hand grenades and plastic bombs, in Czechoslovakia, China and North Vietnam.

London in the 1950s was a different place for African students, particularly those with political inclinations or social conscience.

When Ali arrived there in August 1953, he immediately came under the wings of Abdulrahman Babu, an old friend from home who was eight years older than him.  Then an avowed anarchist, Babu, charismatic and charming, was already established and moving in anti-colonial circles espousing Pan-Africanist ideals.

Ali first stayed with Babu in lodgings in London’s Shepherd’s Bush where the latter had a clerical job at a post office.  Afterwards, Ali moved in with another Zanzibari, Khamis Abdallah Ameir, a member of the Young Communist League in the leafy neighbourhood of Swiss Cottage.  

Their opposite neighbour was Mbiyu Koinange, who represented Kenya African Union (KAU), Jomo Kenyatta’s party which was devoted to achieving independence to Kenya.  In 1960 it changed into the Kenyan African National Union (KANU).  

In a spirit of pan-Africanism, the Zanzibari Marxists assisted Koinange in his anti-colonial work.  They met a number of freedom fighters from other African countries at Koinange’s residence.

Ali attended evening classes at the University of London and mingled with other East African students at the East Africa House at 36 Great Cumberland Place, near Marble Arch.

At the time, Babu was also at the forefront of the African liberation struggle as he assisted the Labour MP Fenner Brockway in running the Movement for Colonial Freedom, a political and civil rights advocacy group founded in 1954.  

It had the support of many MPs, including future prime minister Harold Wilson and ministers Barbara Castle and Tony Benn.  The Movement also supported Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution.

Leading Marxist movements in Zanzibar

It was no surprise that when Babu, Ali Sultan and Khamis, eventually returned to Zanzibar in that order they, together with Badawi Qullatein, formed the nucleus of the Marxist movement in the islands, with Babu as their undisputed leader. 

It was natural for Ali Sultan to be part of that movement as he always sided with the underclass, consisting of the peasants, the urban poor and the unemployed. 

At the height of his political career in the early 1960s Ali had developed a comradeship with Cuban revolutionaries, particularly Che and Raul Castro.  Ali used camaraderie to advance Zanzibar’s interests. 

Through that relationship he was able to establish the Havana office of the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) of which he was a senior cadre, first as its organising secretary for Pemba, then director of its International Department and, for a period, as acting secretary-general when Babu, the holder of the post, was on an extended tour abroad. 

ZNP’s Havana office was manned by Babu’s devotees —  Salim Ahmed Salim, Mohamed Ali Foum and Ali Mahfoudh.

Perhaps crucially, was Ali Sultan’s achievement in lobbying the younger Castro to receive a batch of 18 young Zanzibari militants who owed their allegiance to Babu.  

The colonial authorities were hoodwinked into thinking that the youths were heading to Cuba for courses on trade unionism but once in Havana, they received intensive training in guerrilla warfare. Some of them, again thanks to Ali, had already completed basic military courses in Egypt. 

These young Cuban-trained comrades, as Babu’s disciples were known, were to play a decisive role in the early days of the Zanzibar Revolution when they tried to give the revolution its ill-suited ideological colours. 

They were also instrumental in curbing serious human rights abuses, including murders and rape, perpetrated by lumpen elements from the ASP, the architects of the revolution. 

Ali Sultan is also credited with securing scholarships for young Zanzibaris, from across ethnic and political backgrounds, to study in the People’s Republic of China, the former Soviet Union and in a number of East European countries.

Leaving ZNP

More than anything else, however, in the annals of Zanzibar’s chequered political history Ali Sultan will be remembered for convincing Babu in 1962 that the ZNP had lost its worth as a progressive, anti-imperialist party after being hi-jacked by conservative elements in its leadership.

In fact, Ali famously argued that the arrest, trial and 15-month imprisonment of Babu for seditious charges in 1962 was the handiwork of the British colonialists in cahoots with the leaders of the coalition government between the ZNP and the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party (ZPPP), a breakaway faction from the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP). 

Ali set out his position in a celebrated statement entitled “Condemn Me Now, But History Will Absolve Me” which he delivered at a press conference after his expulsion from the ZNP. Immediately the tract was in great demand in urban Zanzibar.  

I remember cycling excitedly to his home in Malindi at the behest of my father to fetch him a copy.

Ali took part of the title from that of a two-hour speech by Fidel Castro “History Will Absolve Me” (Spanish: La Historia me absolverá) which Castro delivered as his defence in court on October 16, 1953, in refuting charges brought against him after he led an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Cuba.

Other ZNP radicals who subscribed to Ali’s position included, Salim Rashid, Ali Mahfoudh, Mohamed Ali Foum, Salim Ahmed Salim and Badawi Qullatein.  

Although at the beginning Babu was reluctant to ditch the party which he had so assiduously built, in the end, the pressure from the likes of Ali Sultan was so huge that Babu and the bulk of his followers defected to form the Marxist Umma Party in 1963. 

The rupture with the ZNP, almost on the cusp of the Revolution on January 12, 1964, created an anti-comrade animus from former ZNP zealots that has proved difficult to heal nearly three decades since the event.

Ali is credited with having organised the Pemba wing of the ZNP. Aside from his brilliant organising skills as a political leader, Ali led an extraordinary life and he was wont to relate it, warts and all, to anyone who cared to listen.  

Always a gadfly, he delighted for most of his life in provoking Zanzibari conservative sensibilities, using bad language. He was a man of voracious appetites for the pleasures of life — a hedonistic indulgence in booze, marijuana and parties.  

I only mention this because he himself was remarkably candid, or careless, in detailing his exploits in his published memoirs, Race, Revolution, And the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar: The Memoirs of Ali Sultan Issa and Seif Sharif Hamad.  

Over the years, I had observed him in polite political circles as well as in soirées in London, Nairobi and Zanzibar.  On each of the occasions, he was in his element. It was as if the two sides of his life, the social and the political, had coalesced into a unitary narrative of the bawdy and the sophisticated.  

He unashamedly displayed his foibles.  Subtlety, and discretion, were not his métier. The unambiguous telling of his life would make a lesser soul recoil, but not Ali. He was not the one to apologise for his rackety lifestyle although he did apologise publicly for any abuse of power when he was in government. 

Ali Sultan’s marriage life

Ali Sultan was married to at least four women at different times.  His first marriage was to a South African domestic servant in Cape Town where he had jumped ship when he was barely 20.  

We do not know much about her except that her name was Sophia, was a Cape Coloured and had converted to Islam after marrying Ali.  It was a marriage of convenience as Ali was living in straitened circumstances.

He married his first Zanzibari wife, Aysha Amour Zahor, in 1958. It was a good match, by Ali’s own account. He politicised her and she not only turned progressive but was also politically active in the women wing of the ZNP, assisting in the party’s mobilisation efforts, addressing women meetings of the ZNP and participating in international conferences. 

Theirs was a politically progressive family as was reflected by the names of their children. 

They named their eldest daughter Raissa, after a Russian ballerina. The second daughter was named Fidela, after Fidel Castro. Then followed Maotushi, named after Chairman Mao. They chose Stalin as the name for their only son, but he wisely changed it to Sultan.

Aysha, who now resides in the Gulf, had lived and worked in Beijing, China, for several years until she was forced to flee during the Cultural Revolution.  Ali had divorced her when he took a second wife, the English Maria (née Neil) in 1966.  

He and Maria agreed to be divorced in 1980 after he found it difficult to adjust to a new life in Britain.  

Maria predeceased him in 2015. Ali had remained close to their children — Sarah, Salim, Omar and Johanna. With Eshe, Ali had his last born, Natasha, named after a character in Leo Tolstoy’s War And Peace who was born in 1985.  Earlier in the 1960s he also had a son, Malik.

A brilliant raconteur

I will always remember Ali Sultan as a brilliant raconteur who used his magpie memory to recall events, almost at will, with dates and days when the said events took place.  

He would tell you something and later would correct himself with something like: “I told you the other day that such and such happened on a Wednesday on March 26, 1953. Well, I’ve just remembered; it was not a Wednesday, it was a Thursday.” 

Ali was a good laugh.  Once apropos of nothing he started chuckling, telling me: “One day just before midday a police car was sent to my house to collect me. I was told I was summoned by [President] Karume to the small State House, what used to be the residence of  Karimjee Jivanjee. I panicked wondering what I had done. 

“Upon arrival, I found Brigadier Yusuf Himid had just got there. He appeared petrified. Soon after Colonel Ali Mahfoudh’s car also arrived.  None of us was any the wiser about the intent of the meeting.  We all thought we were in for some sort of confrontation with the president.” 

But when they entered the residence, Ali said, they found Karume in a jovial mood, saying: “I asked the cooks to prepare a big pot of pilau especially for us, for our lunch.” 

There was relief all around as the palpable state of fear, among the invitees, immediately dissipated.

A born survivor

Ali Sultan’s life defied odds and proved that he was a born survivor.  Although he was, in the beginning, steadfast in his communist beliefs, in old age he was reduced to a bundle of contradictions.

He described himself as a socialist rather than as a Marxist believing that he had joined the capitalist class by being the first in the isles to establish the first beach resort hotel, Mawimbini Hotel.  

Despite that, he still accepted the broad theoretical postulations of Marxism. 

He performed the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Makkah, but later, albeit with restrained abandon, he resumed a life of debauchery, sincerely believing that Allah’s compassion will save him in the afterlife.

Notwithstanding his rakish and unconventional ways, I will miss his winsome personality, charm and political insight. I shouldn’t forget to add his easy laughter, sarcastic at times, and his rendition of the songs of the late Umm Kulthum, the Egyptian diva.

Ali Sultan died peacefully in the afternoon of January 3, 2022, with a smile on his lips.

Ahmed Rajab is a London—based Zanzibari born journalist. He is available on Twitter as @ahmedrajab. These are the writer’s own opinions and do not necessarily reflect on the viewpoint of The Chanzo Initiative. Do you want your views to feature on our pages? Contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com for further inquiries.  

Petty traders, popularly known as Machinga, from Dar es Salaam on Tuesday presented President Samia Suluhu Hassan with six pleas that they think if effectively dealt with they will go a long way to put many of the traders’ cries to a stop.

The traders submitted the pleas during a State House function in Dar es Salaam following an invitation by the Head of State who said she wanted to have a discussion with the traders’ representatives and see if they are on the same page with the government on the recently-concluded exercise of “arranging” the traders.

The controversial exercise, which has been criticized by some and lauded by others, involved removing the traders from areas that authorities saw unfit and taken to government-designated areas that authorities thought conducive for traders’ activities.

Tuesday’s meeting also came after two fires destroyed the traders’ businesses at the Kariakoo and Karume markets on July 10, 2021, and January 16, 2022, respectively whose real sources are yet to be confirmed as authorities continue to investigate.

Presenting the pleas on behalf of other Dar es Salaam petty traders, Yusuf Namoto, chairperson of the traders’ association asked President Samia to intervene in improving the areas that authorities have taken them to, pointing out that some areas have unfriendly infrastructure that prevents traders from doing their activities properly.

“Some of the areas lack passable roads, they have no power, water and no toilets,” said Namoto. “Others are without customers at all for there are no bus routes in those areas. Worse still, other traders are yet to be relocated since they were removed from their previous areas.”

Namoto also asked the Head of State to make sure that desks designated for dealing with petty traders’ issues in each district government office are improved so that some issues can be solved at district levels instead of seeking national intervention.

“We also ask the government to formulate a specific policy and regulations that will recognize Machingas,” Mr Namoto said. “[These] will ensure that Machingas obtain representations in various representative organs just like how it is the case with other special groups.”

He said through their collectivism, petty traders in Dar es Salaam have established Machinga Saccos Limited as a solution to many financial challenges facing petty traders in Dar es Salaam. Namoto asked President Samia if she can be so kind as to boost the Saccos fund by contributing a few shillings to it.

The petty traders of Dar es Salaam also want to have a share in the 10 per cent of the municipal fund released as loans to special groups. Machingas want this fund, as well as the one expected to come from the mobile money transaction levies, to pass through the Machinga Saccos Limited so that they too can benefit from the loans.

“We assure you [President Samia] that we have the ability to lend ourselves this money and make sure that we pay them back,” offered Mr Namoto assuringly. “Because we have a good database, which comprises information of each one of us, which we have been using to lend our members in partnership with the CRDB Bank, Equity Bank and Maendeleo Bank.”

The traders also propose that the National Housing Corporation (NHC) change the use of some of its houses by turning some of them into Machinga Malls where the small traders can be arranged and who will pay on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

“We have held some preliminary discussions with NHC Director-General [Dr Maulid Banyani] and we are waiting for an approval [for the plan to go ahead],” said Mr Namoto. “We think that if the plan wins an approval, it’ll contribute to the increase of NHC’s revenues.”

President Samia, on her part, said that her administration cannot afford to ignore these pleas that aim at ensuring petty traders enjoy smooth conduct of their activities, admitting that the government alone is not capable of providing solutions to the country’s growing population of unemployed young people.

“The government now officially recognizes this group [of petty traders] as one among Tanzania’s] special groups, among the special groups under the newly-formed Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women, and Special Groups,” said President Samia.

She admitted that the exercise to arrange petty traders gave birth to its own challenges, including those presented by the traders’ representatives, but assured them of her government’s commitments to work on them for the benefits of both the government and the traders.

President Samia said it was the government’s goal to improve Tanzania’s private sector, which involves the country’s group of petty traders. She said her mission as a president is to make sure that petty traders settle in conducive areas and do their activities properly so that they can graduate from being petty traders to becoming middle- or large-scale traders.

“The end goal is to widen [Tanzania’s] tax base,” she pointed out. “This is why the government understands the issues raised here and we will do whatever it takes to work on them to ensure smooth conduct of petty traders’ business in Tanzania.”

Five years ago, I said  here  that elections may be the only way to restore lasting peace to in SOUTH SUDAN  I contended that the 2015 peace deal would not be implemented under President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar and that the country was likely to see another round of violence between forces loyal to these two men.

Only hours after the article was published, the bodyguards of the two rival leaders engaged in a dogfight at the Presidential Palace in Juba, plunging the fledgling republic back to war for the second time in under three years. Although my warnings proved prescient, they were obvious to an observant eye.

Today, I am repeating the same argument: only the conduct of free, fair, and credible national elections offers a real opportunity for a new beginning. This is not because South Sudan is ready for democracy – far from it – but because elections offer the most credible pathway for retiring Kiir and Machar and for putting an end to the rule of militias. They would also provide the best opportunity for establishing a state upon which the South Sudanese people can eventually build a democratic future.

Ignoring reality

Just like in the past, there will no doubt be sceptics who – despite being unable to think up plausible alternatives to the rule of militias – will have no trouble coming up with reasons why elections shouldn’t be held. Indeed, the tragedy of South Sudan comes from two sources: the corrupt and violent warlords who perpetuate the rule of militias to feed their insatiable appetite for money and power through endless cycle of un-implementable power-sharing deals; and the so-called international friends who suffer from a lack of imagination and resolve to address fundamental problems and so legitimise quick fixes that make them feel useful.

Take the aforementioned dogfight in July 2016. This incident should have made it obvious that Kiir and Machar needed to be retired. Yet rather than accepting that reality, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional security organisation that mediated the 2015 peace agreement, along with the Troika of Norway, the UK and US, which provided funding and diplomatic pressure for the deal, ignored it. Instead, they brought the two rival leaders back together in another power-sharing deal signed in September 2018.

Before the ink was dry on that new deal, the stubborn reality was staring everyone in the face again. It was no surprise that for a year and half, the two men could not begin implementing what they had agreed. Moreover, even since establishing a long-delayed unity government for the second time in February 2020, Kiir and Machar have been unable to implement key provisions of the deal.

This includes the unification of rival militias into a national army, which is the heartbeat of the agreement. Without this, it’s difficult to move the country forward. And yet, it has not and probably never will be implemented. This is because Kiir’s regime is deeply unpopular, even among his own Dinka tribesmen of Bhar el Ghazal and Upper Nile regions, and he fears he would lose power without a personalised security state.

After all, Kiir’s record since South Sudan gained independence in 2011 has been a horrifying disaster. In that time, GDP per capita has plummeted from over $1,500 to just $230, while the poverty rate has soared from 50% to 82%. The South Sudanese Pound has lost 99% of its value, going from about SSP3 to $1 to over SSP440 to $1. Over 400,000 people have been killed in the civil war and millions have been displaced. Civil servants and security forces often go for months without salaries. And the country’s membership of IGAD, the East African Community, and the African Union have been suspended due to unpaid membership fees.

Kiir has turned a new nation full of hope into violent kleptocracy that is both a tragedy and a laughingstock. He knows therefore that without ruthless suppression by security forces that are singularly loyal to him, the South Sudanese people will free themselves of his failed leadership. This is why he cannot and will not implement the security arrangements agreed in the peace deal. Giving him more extensions will not change this disturbing reality.

For his part, Machar has lost the faith of his troops and the Nuer civilians who followed him. He seems to have settled for personal enrichment and whatever semblance of power he can exercise at Kiir’s mercy.

The only way out

When a nation finds itself in an equilibrium of a violent and corrupt militia rule such as we have in South Sudan, there are three ways through which it can be escaped.

The first is for another well-organised insurgency to challenge it. This has not happened for various reasons beyond the scope of this article. The second is for a multi-ethnic, grassroots movement to mobilise the population to force change. This has been made difficult by the efforts of Kiir, Machar and other warlords to divide the people as well as by the terror unleashed on political opponents by the notorious National Security Service (NSS) in the form of assassinations, enforced disappearance, torture and arbitrary arrests.

This leaves the third option, which is for the international community to step in and take necessary measures to help citizens regain their agency. If our so-called international friends are genuine about helping South Sudan overcome its corrupt equilibrium, there is perhaps still some hope. This is how it could work.

There are currently over 17,000 UN peacekeepers in South Sudan. Instead of waiting for Kiir and Machar to create a unified national army, which they will not do, the US, the penholder on South Sudanese issues at the UN Security Council, could strengthen the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS). Working with like-minded countries, including Kenya which sits on the UN Security Council, the US could make the provision of security for the conduct of free, fair, and credible elections a key priority for UNMISS. Additionally, it could increase the number of forces by an additional 5,000 to 7,000 to be contributed by African countries. The renewal of UNMISS mandate is coming up this March, which provides sufficient time to prepare for general elections in 2023.

These peacekeepers could be deployed across polling stations. The key will be to keep the number of polling stations small – so enough peacekeepers are available at each of them – while providing sufficient time for voters to make their way there. There are 79 counties in South Sudan, including the contested region of Abyei. If each county is allocated five polling stations, this will give a total of 395 sites. And if each polling station is protected by 30 well-equipped, well-trained troops, this means 11,850 peacekeepers would be required in total. Remaining forces could be organised into mobile units that patrol other areas, particularly in highly contested regions.

To accommodate the limited number of polling stations, voting could be allowed to take place over three to five days. Once the voting is complete, the counting could take place within each polling station in the presence of the peacekeepers, journalists, regional and international elections observers, and the representatives of political parties. To minimise fraud, the results could be announced at each polling station, in accordance with the 2012 National Elections Act, and aggregated at county, state, and national levels. That way, maximum confidence in the integrity of the results can be ensured.

Such an election could also ensure the participation of citizens in refugee camps and in the diaspora, who are eligible to vote in the presidential race. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) could facilitate this process in coordination with a new electoral commission to be established.

Giving UNMISS the mandate and capacity to provide security for elections would take away Kiir’s biggest advantage: his ability to manipulate the security forces to extend his corrupt and illegitimate rule through sheer intimidation. If this were to happen, the South Sudanese people would finally be able to put into effect what they unanimously called for during last year’s National Dialogue, which is for Kiir and Machar to exit the political landscape. With the support of our neighbours and friends from around the world, we could finally end the corrupt violent rule of militias in our country.

*- Yachokoza mjadala kuhusu hali duni ya shule za serikali*

*- Wanafunzi Mlandizi wanakalia vumbi kwa kukosa madawati*

*Na Titus Mwombeki*

Siku moja baada ya Baraza la Mitihani (NECTA) kusitisha utaratibu wa kutangaza shule bora na mwanafunzi bora wa matokeo ya kidato cha nne, Baraza hilo limeshauriwa kuboresha mazingira, vigezo na viwango vya ushindani baina ya shule na shule ili kuchochea ubora wa elimu badala ya kufuta kabisa utaratibu wa ushindani. 

Ushauri huo umetolewa na Mwanaharakati wa Maendeleo, Edward Kinabo, wakati akitoa maoni yake kuhusu uamuzi huo wa NECTA na hali ya elimu nchini. 

Jana, Kaimu Mtendaji wa NECTA, Athumani Salumu Amasi, alisema Baraza hilo limesitisha kutangaza shule bora na wanafunzi bora kwa kile ilichoeleza kuwa utaratibu huo haukuwa na tija kwasababu ya mazingira ya shule ni tofauti, na kwamba kufanya hivyo kulikuwa kunazitangazia shule biashara tu.

Akizungumzia uamuzi huo wa NECTA, kupitia taarifa yake iliyosambazwa kwa vyombo vya habari jana, Kinabo, amesema ushindani ni muhimu katika elimu kwani huchochea hamasa, bidii pamoja na wajibu wa shule na wanafunzi kutaka kufanya vizuri zaidi na kwamba NECTA haikupaswa kufuta kabisa ushindani bali walipaswa kuboresha utaratibu wa ushindani.

"Kama hoja ya NECTA ni kuepuka kushindanisha shule zote na wanafunzi wote kwa kuwa wanasoma katika mazingira tofauti, basi kilichopaswa kufanywa na NECTA si kufuta kabisa ushindani, bali ni kuyapanga matokeo ya shule hizo katika makundi tofauti tofauti ya shule zinazofanana na kisha kuzitangaza shule bora zilizofanya vizuri zaidi kulinganisha na shule nyingine kwenye kundi husika. Na wangeweza pia kutangaza mwanafunzi bora kwa kufuata utaratibu huo huo", alisema Kinabo. 

Mwanaharakati huyo  alifafanua kuwa shule za binafsi zingeweza kupimwa kwenye kundi lake na shule za serikali zingeweza kugawanywa katika makundi kadhaa kulingana na mfanano wa mazingira yao.

Kinabo ambaye pia alikuwa mgombea ubunge wa jimbo la Kibaha Vijijini kupitia Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA) katika uchaguzi mkuu wa mwaka 2020, alisema hatua ya NECTA ya kusitisha ushindani kwa hoja ya  shule kuwa na mazingira tofauti, ni sawa na serikali kukubali kuyakumbatia matabaka katika elimu, jambo ambalo alisema ni kinyume na malengo ya kitaifa na kimataifa yanayosisitiza haki na fursa sawa kwa watoto wote kupata elimu iliyo bora. 

"Serikali inapaswa kuhakikisha ushindani unaendelezwa na shule zote zinaboreshwa ili kuondoa matabaka na kuwahakikishia watoto wa kitanzania haki na fursa sawa ya kupata elimu iliyo bora. Siyo sahihi hata kidogo kuridhika na hali ya baadhi ya wanafunzi kusoma kwenye shule zenye mazingira bora na wengine mazingira duni", alisisitiza. 

Alidai kuwa hatua hiyo ya NECTA ya kufuta ushindani wa shule, inaonekana kulenga kuficha aibu ya shule nyingi za serikali hususan ya sekondari za kata ambazo nyingi zimekuwa hazifanyi vizuri kulinganisha na shule binafsi. 

"Serikali inapaswa kuchukua hatua za kuboresha mazingira na ubora wa elimu inayotolewa kwenye shule zake zote za msingi na sekondari badala ya kuweka mpira kwapani, kwa kukimbia changamoto ya kiushindani kutoka kwa shule binafsi" aliongeza Kinabo.

Akitoa mfano wa hali duni ya elimu inayozikabili shule za serikali, Kinabo alisema shule za msingi katika mamlaka ya mji mdogo wa Mlandizi, wilaya ya Kibaha, mkoani Pwani zinakabiliwa na changamoto kubwa ya uhaba wa madawati, hali inayosababisha wanafunzi wengi kusoma wakiwa wamekaa sakafuni. 

"Tatizo la madawati ni kubwa karibu kwa shule zote za Mlandizi, zikiongozwa na shule ya msingi Mtongani. Hali kama hii ndiyo inayosababisha wanafunzi wa shule za serikali kukosa msingi mzuri wa elimu na kufanya vibaya kulinganisha na wa shule binafsi", alisema Kinabo na kuonesha picha za baadhi ya wanafunzi wa mji wa Mlandizi wakiwa wamekaa chini kwa kukosa madawati 

Alitoa wito kwa serikali kupitia TAMISEMI na Wizara ya elimu kuingilia kati kwa haraka na kutatua tatizo kubwa la madawati lililopo kwenye shule mbalimbali nchini, hususan kwa kuanzia na Mji wa Mlandizi na wilaya ya Kibaha, kwani tayari kumeshathibitika kuwa na changamoto kubwa ya uhaba mkubwa wa madawati.

Pia, alitoa wito kwa wafanyabiashara, wamiliki wa viwanda mbalimbali vilivyopo wilaya ya Kibaha pamoja na wadau mbalimbali wa elimu nchini, kujitokeza kwa wingi katika kuisaidia serikali kwa kuchangia madawati.

Katika hatua nyingine, Kinabo, alisema pamoja na viwango mbalimbali vya ufaulu vilivyotangazwa katika matokeo ya mtihani wa kidato cha nne, bado hali ya ubora wa elimu nchini ni mbaya kwasababu ya mfumo wa elimu na mitaala yake kushindwa kuzalisha wasomi wenye ujuzi na stadi zinazohitajika katika soko la ajira.

Alisema kwa mujibu wa ripoti ya utafiti wa shirika la UNICEF na Tume ya Kimataifa ya Elimu, iliyozinduliwa mwishoni mwa mwaka jana, asilimia 75 ya vijana wa kitanzania hawana ujuzi wala umahiri unaohitajika katika soko ajira na asilimia 62 ya watoto wa umri wa miaka 10 Tanzania, wa shule za msingi, hawawezi kusoma vizuri hata sentensi fupi ya kawaida, huku asilimia 83 wakiwa hawamudu kuhesabu vizuri tarakimu. 

*Kwa ujumla, ripoti hii, ya hivi karibuni kabisa,  imeweka bayana kuwa wanafunzi nchini Tanzania hawapati msingi mzuri wa elimu wala kujengwa katika ujuzi na stadi muhimu zinazoweza kuwapa fursa ya kuja kuajirika au kujiajiri*, alifafanua kuhusu ripoti hiyo.

Ili kuboresha hali ya elimu nchini, Mwanaharakati huyo, ameishauri serikali kuongeza uwazi na ushirikishwaji wa wadau wengi zaidi wa elimu  katika mchakato  wa kupokea  na kuchakata maoni ya kuboresha mfumo, mitaa na sera ya elimu  unaoendelea nchini. 

Alisema ushiriki wa kina wa wadau katika mchakato huo na uzingatiaji wa maoni yao ndiyo utakaosaidia  kufanya mageuzi makubwa na yenye tija ya mitaala ya elimu, mfumo wa udhibiti ubora wa elimu, maslahi ya walimu pamoja na motisha, ili sera, mipango ya elimu pamoja na bajeti za sekta ya elimu, viweze kujielekeza kwenye haja ya kuzalisha wasomi wenye ujuzi na stadi zinazokidhi mahitaji ya soko la ajira nchini na dunia nzima kwa ujumla.

 Answer: with the support of the pro-democracy movement he now oppresses.

Everyone knows the legend of the Trojan Horse: after years trying to storm the city of Troy, the Greeks pretended to withdraw their troops and gifted a beautiful wooden horse to the Trojans, claiming it was a step towards peace. Greek soldiers, hiding inside the horse were smuggled into the walled city. Once in, they opened the gates letting their army in to invade and sack the city. I see a chilling parallel with what has happened to Tunisian democracy.

Awaiting the winner of the 25 February elections is a raft of challenges, none more consequential than the security crisis whose lethality and extent, especially over the past three years, raised existential questions about the federation. There are currently dozens of armed groups across Nigeria, some of which have the capacity to disrupt the elections at the local and regional levels, clouding the results and triggering the kind of political disputes that could leave the entire electoral process in disarray.

U.S. Hailed Nigeria Election Results While Election Observers Cried Foul

When and how Washington congratulates foreign leaders on contentious election victories matters.

Young voters put their faith in digital technology. But at polling units nationwide, many were transported to an election's twilight zone. 

 Victor Madu, a 25-year-old part-time student at the National Open University of Nigeria, always believed that he had no business with elections in the country. His position was based on two premises: the absence of credible candidates, and the level of malpractice historically synonymous with the country’s electoral process.

A scandal from the last regime forced the president to fire senior officials, suspend his VP and risk breaking the ruling coalition.   

he arrest of Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director General, Martha Chizuma, last December, following a criminal defamation complaint from Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Steven Kayuni, reveals how delicate and fragmented government systems can be when it comes to rooting out corruption.

In a January 2022 leaked audio, Chizuma alleged she was finding it extremely hard to make progress against the corrupt, as there was little support from the presidency and some government agencies, notably the DPP.

The allegations and, perhaps, the leaked audio itself, infuriated President Lazarus Chakwera. He issued Chizuma a strong warning. Later, Chakwera would say that Chizuma regretted her actions and that he had forgiven her.

Until recently, to prosecute a corruption case, the ACB had to obtain consent from the DPP. That changed last September, when Parliament amended the Corrupt Practices Act (CPA) to remove the relevant provision. Proponents of the amendment said the previous piece of legislation delayed cases, leaving the anti-graft body with a backlog of cases awaiting trial.

The amendment came amid bad blood between the two agencies, with the DPP Kayuni refusing to grant the ACB consent to prosecute a case involving a British national and longtime security contractor, Zuneth Sattar, and businessperson Ashok Nair. Also known as Ashok Sreedharan, Nair is a close associate of Sattar, whose relations with the previous regime of Peter Mutharika made him notorious in the corridors of power. Sattar’s companies were awarded tenders in the Malawi Police Service, the Malawi Prisons Service and the Army. There are allegations that, through Nair, he has been bribing public officers in exchange for government contracts.

Chizuma’s leaked audio has been a bone of contention between her and the DPP. Police arrested and charged Chizuma with making use of speech capable of prejudicing a person against a party to judicial proceedings, contrary to section 131 (1) d of the penal code.

Police spokesperson, Peter Kalaya, said: “High Court Judge, Anabel Mtalimanja, ruled in September 2022 that any individual or party that felt aggrieved by the contents of the leaked audio clip could proceed to complain to police for criminal action against the ACB director general.”

Western embassies condemned the heavy-handedness and unorthodox manner in which Chizuma was arrested. They threatened to issue economic sanctions and travel bans against government officials.

Chakwera fires DPP

Angered with the development, and under pressure from his Western funders, President Chakwera suspended Kayuni. He also instituted a Commission of Inquiry on the arrest of Chizuma.

In its recommendations, the Commission censured Kayuni for bringing a personal complaint to the police in his capacity as DPP.

“I consider this a great failure for Kayuni and a great disappointment to me,” said Chakwera. “As such, to prevent him from using a public office to settle personal injury, I have removed Kayuni from office with immediate effect and I thank him for his many years of service.”

Another bone of contention was the lack of trust among offices mandated to fight corruption. Releasing its findings in January 2023, the Edward Twea-led Commission of Inquiry recommended that the DPP and ACB collaborate to complete prosecution of major corruption cases to restore public confidence in the institutions.

The Commission found Chizuma culpable in the audio tape saga; all charges against her were, however, dropped. Her lawyer, Martha Kaukonde, claimed the inquiry disregarded her client’s testimony.

“My client is obviously disappointed that what she presented to the Commission regarding the main issue that the inquiry [has] to do with the manner and appropriateness of the arrest, was not presented,” Kaukonde said.

No to selective justice

President Chakwera won the presidency on an anti-corruption platform. He pledged to deal with corruption with the seriousness it needed. But two years down the line, there are allegations the fight against corruption has become a political tool to silence critics.

The Catholic Church, which wields significant moral authority in Malawi, said in a statement last year that no one should be pressurised, intimidated or influenced by threats, or by any other means in the carrying out of their work for the good of the country.

“We plead, in the interest of building a more just and transparent Malawi that benefits all its citizens, that any of the investigations or cases which the ACB is dealing with are not in any way obstructed or influenced. Let no suspect, however powerful, wealthy or who their connection are, be shielded or protected provided that he or she is given proper recourse to the legal processes of the courts,” said the Catholic bishops in a statement.

On 25 November, 2022 Vice-President Saulos Chilima was arrested by the ACB. The bureau said it had arrested him on allegations that between March and October 2021, Chilima received $280,000 and other items from Sattar as a reward for helping the businessman’s companies – Xavier Limited and Malachitte FZE – secure government contracts.

Chilima was charged with three counts of corruption: two for receiving advantage for using influence in regard to government contracts; and one for failing to make a full report to a police officer or an officer of the ACB that an advantage had been corruptly given.

In June last year, Chakwera fired some senior government officials who were involved in suspicious dealings with Sattar. The ACB found that 84 individuals allegedly received money from the businessman. Out these, 13 have been extensively investigated, including the vice president. Chakwera said, constitutionally, he was unable to remove Chilima from office.

“As for the Vice President, his office is unique in that the Constitution does not provide for his suspension or removal from it by the President, because he holds that office by the will of Malawian voters, which I respect,” said the president. “As such, the best I can do for now, which is what I have decided to do, is to withhold from his office any delegated duties while waiting for the Bureau to substantiate its allegations against him and to make known its course of action in relation to such.”

From the arrest of Chilima and Chizuma, and the sacking of Kayuni as DPP and many who are to follow, the cardinal point is that President Chakwera is finding it tough going in the fight against corruption. While some of his former ministers were removed from office on corruption allegations, their cases are stuck in the courts.

Critics want Chakwera to go beyond political rhetoric and deal with corruption decisively.  The opposition has complained of selective justice and politics of retribution after former ruling Democratic Progressive Party politicians and sympathizers were targeted in the anti-graft fight, whose cases range from alleged corruption to abuse of public office. However, the president has to play a delicate balancing act. Chastising his Tonse coalition partners risks straining its cohesion ahead of next year’s parliamentary and local government elections. Doing anything less would wreck his anti-corruption credentials and torpedo his chances for a second term.

 India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s recent call for the African Union’s full membership in the G20 in June 2023 revives the longstanding debate over the G20’s enlargement. The call for the AU’s membership echoes previous calls by other members. Before hosting the G20 Summit last year, Indonesia – not unlike the way Modi has gone about it – raised the issue for discussion. More recently, US President Joe Biden championed the cause of full membership for the AU.  Ostensibly, Washington wants to enhance representation; keener observers suspect other motives, not least countering growing Chinese influence in Africa.

South Africa is the only African country with a permanent seat in the G20, while the European Union (EU) is the sole non-state entity represented. Despite almost half the G20 members belonging to the Global North, the Global South and swing states enjoy relatively stronger positions within the G20 than other platforms. Remarkably, Africa still does not have a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, and faces underrepresentation or limited influence in institutions such as the IMF and, more than a little surprisingly, its own African Development Bank; only five of the top ten shareholders are African states, with the US, Japan, Germany, Canada and France the other significant minority shareholders.

While the African Union joining the G20 would improve global governance and continental representation, India’s interest in this issue goes beyond representation. New Delhi’s realpolitik, strategic, domestic and international considerations play a significant role in its AU call.

The G20 is essentially an economic club, representing approximately 85% of global GDP. If the AU joined it, the G21 would be even more representative, Africa’s population constituting 17% of humanity, and its economy adding $3 trillion into the G21 pot. And with its inordinate share of minerals powering the digital age, it is Africa’s strategic importance to the future that would be at the heart of the G21’s raison d’etre.

India’s Domestic and Global Quest

India’s AU request plays into Modi’s bigger agenda to project himself to domestic audiences as an influential global figure by fusing India’s prestige as host of the G20 meetings with his own as current G20 president. Karishma Mehrotra and Gerry Shih have commented on India’s unprecedented PR campaign around this year’s summit: projecting a hologram onto Humayun’s Tomb; parading G20-themed floats at local religious festivals; incorporating the G20 logo into nationwide pupils’ exams; launching a national billboard campaign themed ‘India: Mother of Democracy’, all of which raise the ruling BJP’s Hindu nationalist jingoism to new heights.

Part of Modi’s goal is to position himself as the voice of the developing world. Indeed, this quest carries echoes of India’s anti-colonialist history as a bulwark of the Non-Aligned Movement, recalling first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy approach.

Prime Minister Modi emphasised the connection between being the voice of the Global South and his support for the African Union’s membership, stating in a speech, “Giving a voice to the Global South is the way forward; that is why I firmly believe African Union be given full membership of G20.” This sentiment reflects India’s commitment to advocating the interests and representation of developing nations on the international stage.

Modi’s AU advocacy aligned as it is with Washington’s entrenched China antipathy, may be an attempt to balance the latter’s growing influence, cultivated over the past two decades via what some detractors describe as ‘debt trap diplomacy’. Given, however, that both India and China are BRICS members, Modi’s support for AU membership at the G20 will ultimately count as part of the longer struggle to rebalance global power in favour of the South. In realpolitik terms, however, it allows New Delhi autonomously to pursue global influence and leverage, furthering its geopolitical goals.

Contrary to India’s insistence on G20’s enlargement, India does not welcome enlargement in BRICS – a quintet organisation in which Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are members. This is partly due to the fact that any possible BRICS engagement will not favour India, but will likely increase Chinese influence on the bloc. Forty nations have shown interest in joining BRICS. Among these possible members, African nations have shown great interest, such as Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Comoros, and Gabon. Because the influence of India might decrease with the enlargement of BRICS, Modi does not show a similar embracement of the Global South’s representation.

Moreover, looking at this year’s G20 guest list, Indian strategic choices betray its domestic preoccupations. India invited Oman and the United Arab Emirates, two Gulf countries hosting thousands of Indian migrant workers whose remittances constitute an important source of family and wider support. Considering the region is already represented by Saudi Arabia in the G20, the choice is more about bilateral relations than regional representation. Similarly, the invitation of Bangladesh to the summit shows the alliance’s role in the invitation.

Most of the G20 members declared their support for the African Union’s membership application. For example, Canada, Brazil, China, Russia, South Africa, France, the US, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, India, Japan, and Italy, already announced that they will support the AU’s membership. Should it happen, it will be the first-ever enlargement since the club’s foundation in 1999. Indeed, this will test their honesty and a chance for better global representation in important institutions such as G20. Moreover, because G20 discusses issues that affect the continent significantly, such as climate, food security, and trade, it is important for around 50 countries to be represented by more than just South Africa.

The coup in Libreville Gabon is less a marker of democratic erosion than a signal of the revolt against France’s neocolonial domination.

We want France out of our country because France does not bring any positive thing except trouble, poverty, terrorism and so on,” Aboubacar Salou Maiga says rather emphatically. Maiga, 44, is a Nigerien citizen who alongside hundreds of others, welcomed the recent military coup that ousted Niger’s democratically-elected leader, Mohamed Bazoum. He believes Russia can be a fairer partner for Africa’s development. “Russia is a serious country. Their partnership is a win-win whereas France is a thief,” he adds.

The political crisis in Niger, a uranium-rich state in central Sahel, has continued to escalate since the 26 July putsch, adding to the increasing number of former French colonies that have cut ties with France. French forces have been kicked out of Mali and Burkina Faso following similar military takeovers in those countries amidst a wave of anti-French sentiment sweeping across the region.

Niger’s coup leaders also revoked military cooperation agreements with France, and recently ordered the French ambassador, Sylvain Itte, to leave the country within 48 hours – an ultimatum Paris has defied, creating a tense standoff.

But with the latest coup  in oil-rich Gabon where the military has placed President Ali Bongo under house arrest hours after he won a third term in an election held over the weekend, France’s presence in the region faces more uncertainty. Ali Bongo took over  in 2009 following the death of his father, Omar Bongo Ondima, who had ruled Gabon since 1967.

Equatorial empire

In 1910 Gabon became one of the four colonies within the federation of French Equatorial Africa alongside the Central African Republic, the Republic of Chad, and the Republic of Congo.

“Anti-French sentiments are rooted in a colonial history marked by violence and extraction that has left deep wounds,” Professor Adeline Masquelier told African Arguments. Masquelier is a professor at the Department of Anthropology, Tulane University and author of three books on Niger.

“Rumours that Mohamed Bazoum, the democratically elected president of Niger, was a puppet of the French government served to legitimize the recent coup in Niger. Though the coup was triggered by fears that President Bazoum had plans to reform the presidential guard and demote the top brass, including General Tchiani, Niger’s self-appointed military leader, coup leaders have taken advantage of the growing anti-French antipathy among the population to assert their authority,” she added.

French presence in Africa dates back to the 17th century, but it was not until the 19th century during the scramble for Africa that it expanded its reach considerably with the conquests of West and Equatorial Africa and the establishment of protectorates in Tunisia and Morocco. For almost a century and a half since then, France maintained a colonial empire in Africa stretching from the Maghreb through the Western and Central sub-Saharan regions.

Unlike the British who relied on the cooperation of local chiefs, French colonies were run under a direct rule system – a style of administration responsible for the different outcomes colonization had in Francophone countries in comparison to their Anglophone neighbours.

“Both British colonial rule and French colonial rule resulted in the exploitation of valuable African resources. The extent to which France has continued to meddle in the politics and economics of its former colonies is what distinguishes it from its European counterparts,” Masquelier added.

French officials controlled every aspect of the administration and affairs of their colonies, and declared everything and everyone in these colonies to be French: “But more as in French property. In other words, as subjects of France rather than citizens. The idea behind the insistence of the rightness and dominance of French language and French culture was for Africans to aspire to be French, but of course they could never really be French because they were black and not actually from France,” Prof. Catherine E. Bolten of the University of Notre Dame, told African Arguments.

Post-Colonial Bullies

Though French colonial rule ended in 1960 when a host of African countries gained independence, France has continued to maintain a hegemonic influence over its former possessions in Africa, both to serve its interests and maintain a last bastion of prestige. This was achieved through a host of political, security, economic and cultural links which helped to project France as a global power while placing the former colonies in the position of vassals. To that end, France signed cooperation accords with its former colonies. Among other strategic links, the accords allowed France to maintain troops in the former colonies and to establish a framework that would allow France to intervene militarily in the region.

Under President de Gaulle, French aid and assistance were made contingent on the signing of these accords, in effect robbing the former French colonies of their full sovereignty. Also, France has until now retained its economic grip on its former colonies through its imposition of a monetary zone that shares the same currency, the CFA franc, created in 1945 as a means of ensuring France’s control of the resources, economic structures, and political systems of sub-Saharan African colonies.

“Backed by the French treasury, the CFA franc is tied to the Euro, and previously the French franc, which means that its value on the global market follows that of the Euro. All the stipulations concerning the CFA franc ultimately benefit France, not African nations, ensuring that France retains control over the West African economic zone and the Central African economic zone. For instance, France can veto any decisions taken by one of the two central banks within the CFA franc zone,” Masquelier added.

While the CFA was reconfigured after these territories earned their independence from France, it effectively remains a colonial currency. “The fact that policies within the CFA franc zone are dictated by the European Central Bank provides a measure of Francophone African nations’ lack of economic sovereignty. Add to that the fact that France has often removed from office Heads of State who attempted to pull out of the CFA franc zone, and you get a good picture of the meddling France has engaged in over the years to preserve its control over large parts of West and Central Africa,” Masquelier added.

Upon independence in 1958 Guinea under its first president, Ahmed Sekou Toure, refused to sign the cooperation accord.

“Stories from Conakry were that the French responded by bringing massive container ships to Conakry and taking everything French with them that was not nailed down, down to the furniture and files in government offices,” Bolten adds. Paris was communicating an important lesson: “If you refuse our continued dominance over you and our casual involvement in your everyday affairs – always and only on our terms – we will strip you of all moveable infrastructure that was built under our rule.” Bolten continues.

“The situation in Guinea revealed the true nature of the relationship between France and its colonies: that this relationship was never meant to be beneficial to those former colonies, nor would it ever be equal, nor would France allow its colonies to succeed on their own terms without France getting credit for it. In essence, France became a post-colonial bully,” she remarks.

Notes on a colonial currency

As more African heads of state declare the CFA franc a colonial relic that must be discarded so they can earn full independence, the French government maintains that the CFA franc is an African currency that exists for the benefit of African economies. Increasingly, however, the chorus of voices demanding that the currency be abandoned is amplifying, with activists now encouraging Africans to boycott French products. Critics have shown that membership to the CFA zone has stifled development and promoted poverty while others assert that abandoning the CFA franc would be a risky, and probably costly, operation.

“But let’s be frank: French corporations are the ones that benefit from the arrangement. The CFA franc is not a sovereign currency. Far from encouraging investment in local economies and enabling entrepreneurs to obtain credit and export their products competitively, the CFA franc has curbed economic growth and held back job creation. In sum, the continued imposition of the CFA franc is a form of economic imperialism. France would not have retained its prominence as a world power had it not been for the lucrative deals it forced its former colonies to sign at independence,” Masquelier explains.

The result is further plundering of the ex-colonies. “Since Niger’s independence in 1960, France has continued to benefit handsomely from Niger’s natural resources,” says Masquelier. Until recently, the French company Areva extracted the uranium that powered many French nuclear plants while Niger remains one of the poorest countries on the planet, with less than 20 percent of its citizens having access to electricity. “People are resentful that despite having rich resources, Niger has not managed to develop” she says.

In addition to economic interference, France has always seen itself as a guarantor of stability in the region, adopting an interventionist policy in Africa that resulted in a legacy of coup d’etats and military interventions since 1960. The latest of these interventions is Operation Barkhane – a 3000-strong anti-insurgent operation led by the French military against Islamist groups in Africa’s Sahel region. The operation which formerly came to an end in November 2022, was organized with the cooperation of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. But critics blame France for the worsening of the insurgency despite the military operation.

“Despite mobilizing important resources, France has failed to contain the growing insurgent threat, and Nigerien people are frustrated and angry. Rumours, encouraged by propaganda campaigns from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group, of an alliance between France and the extremist factions perpetrating attacks on civilians and soldiers at the Malian and Burkinabe border, have only fueled further antipathy against the former colonial power,” Masquelier adds.

This and more have added fuel to the wave of anti-French sentiment spreading like wildfire across the region with many accusing Macron’s government of meddling in their country’s affairs. Some also blame France for supporting dictatorial regimes in exchange for access to resources and military bases – in short, the perpetuation of the neocolonial system known as FrançAfrique.

Scandals such as the Bokassa diamond saga which cost France’s then president, Valery Giscard d’Estaing his re-election in 1981 on account of diamonds he allegedly received from Central African Republic’s self-appointed emperor, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, or Elf Aquitaine sleaze scandal under the Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand presidencies that revealed the dirty ties between top French officials and Francophone elites, were a hallmark of FrançAfrique.

“Because they promoted French interests, heads of state like Paul Biya in Cameroon and Ali Bongo in Gabon, enjoyed French support regardless of the corruption and abuse they perpetrated at home. As long as they did not try to renegotiate the terms of their countries’ partnerships with France, French officials turned a blind eye to their excesses. Moreover, France has often intervened militarily to keep pro-French African leaders in power, no matter how unpopular they were at home,” Masquelier explains.

A sticky situation

“If the recent string of coups in Francophone Africa are anything to go by, it is that they signal the rejection of France’s paternalistic policies,” Masquelier told African Arguments. French officials are perceived in Africa as proud and conceited, and still acting as if they are in charge.

“It is perhaps for this reason that, a month after the coup, France is persona non grata in Niger while Nigerien officials still talk to American officials, who have been cautious not to condemn the coup” she observes.

Despite his recent efforts to shed the mantle of paternalism and reframe the terms of France’s partnership with African countries, Macron has not managed to convince ordinary Africans that France can be a trustworthy partner. Vowing not to give in to Niger junta’s pressure for France to recall its ambassador, Macron’s insistence that “one shouldn’t give in to the narrative used by the coup leaders that consists of saying France has become our enemy” is unlikely to win over an African public tired of French domination. And as Masquelier notes, “Having refused to recall its ambassador to Niger, France is now in a sticky situation.”

There are now seven countries in the region under military rule some of whom are already seeking new development and military partners, not least with Russia and its infamous Wagner group.

“The latest coup in Gabon further signals a growing confidence among military elites across the continent that they can and should intervene to forge the futures of their nations. This suggests that France must rethink its Africa policies so that they do more than protect French interests if France wants to remain involved,” noted Masquelier.

 ate Ousmane Sonko, whom he later appointed as Prime Minister of Senegal.

Senegal's President Sets Parliament Election on Nov. 17

Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, commonly known mononymously as Diomaye, is a Senegalese politician and former tax inspector who has been serving as the 5th and current President of Senegal since 2024. He is the general secretary of the banned party PASTEF, who won the 2024 Senegalese presidential election in place of disqualified candidate Ousmane Sonko, whom he later appointed as Prime Minister of Senegal.

In a subregion with increasing political and social instability, Senegal seemingly bucked the trend with the country’s latest round of successful elections this spring. Earlier, in February, 

Macky Sall, who led Senegal from 2012–24, seemingly didn’t appear to want to vacate power. On February 3, he unilaterally postponed the country’s planned February 25 elections. Sall framed the decision as ensuring credibility of the election process. However, given some of his political manoeuvres in recent years, many argued that it was his last grasp at trying to maintain power. The backlash was swift and sustained and some argued that his decision created a constitution crisis.

Senegalese citizens take voting very seriously. In a subregion of countries with many instances of contested elections, political instability, and numerous coup d’états, Senegal has peacefully passed power. Certainly, there have been protests, opposition parties and leaders. Civil discourse is widespread, and Senegal has proved to be a consummate site of democracy and citizens are fervent about using the vote to facilitate political change. However, despite this longue durée of democratic political transfer in the recent years, Macky Sall seemed to be further whittling back some of Senegal’s democratic traditions. Sall seemed increasingly threatened by opposition leaders and imprisoned some including the current president Bassirou Diomaye and the prime minister, Ousmane Sonko.

Despite some wrinkles, Senegal has never experienced a coup d’état and the transfer of power has been relatively peaceful. In a world of increasing global instability, Senegal is an example of maintaining democracy amid competing interests.

Power shifts

When Macky Sall was elected president in 2012, the majority of Senegal’s citizens were hopeful. The outgoing president Abdoulaye Wade had overstayed. Like Sall’s recent attempts to maintain power, Wade seemed reticent to relinquish power. Wade went as far as to try to change the constitution to allow him a third term. He also sought to create a political dynasty by trying to ensure that his then increasingly unpopular son follow him. His son, Karim Wade, was found guilty of embezzlement and other illegal activity and would subsequently undergo two prison stints during Sall’s rule.

In recent decades, one trend holds true for Senegalese elections, Senegalese tend to support opposition leaders who they believe would be able to usher in real change and who are perceived to be anti-corruption. In fact, Abdoulaye Wade had been an opposition leader for years. He lived in Point E, a prominent neighbourhood, was a lawyer and as some said: “had his own money.” The premise was that he wouldn’t support corruption and need to steal because he was a man of relative means. Sopi, a Wolof word meaning change, was his party’s slogan for the 2000 election.

 Wade was elected president in spring 2000 after a runoff election with the standing president Abdou Diouf. Diouf had been president for 20 years. He was the successor to Senegal’s founding president, Léopold Sédar Senghor who led from Senegal’s independence in 1960 until 1980. Wade’s win in 2000 was significant as both an opposition party win but also one that disrupted the 40-year postcolonial rule of the Parti Socialiste (PS). The mood in Dakar, Senegal for the deuxième tour, or second round of votes for the 2000 election, was electric. I was able to witness the excitement firsthand when I visited Senegal during this period. From the ground, it seemed first that Abdou Diouf was ready to move on, and second, that the majority of Senegal’s citizens were excited to usher in a new political chapter with Abdoulaye Wade and they did.

Similarly, I was in Senegal in 2011, when tensions rose about Wade trying to seemingly hold onto power directly or indirectly through his son. In January 2011, the Y’en a Marre movement was created to protest the perceived problems with Wade’s presidency. I spent two months in Senegal that summer and frankly, in my visits to date, I’d never seen that level of disruption, rancour, and unease in Dakar. In fact, I recall telling one of my friends that I’d never seen anything like it. She responded that “you haven’t because we’ve never seen anything like it.” Since the mid-1990s, I’ve travelled to and at times, lived in Senegal – often for months and sometimes more than a year. In summer 2011, it was the first time that I’d felt physically unsafe in Senegal. The protests were broad – with some vandalism, burning of tyres, cars, and other objects. Also, large groups of young people would create impromptu protests in different parts of the city. One day, I was travelling with a young family member from a visit on the VDN near the headquarters of Wade’s PDS party. But once we stepped outside and I looked to the left, I realized that it could escalate.

 Traffic on the VDN was blocked. We walked in the other direction to try and catch a taxi at a nearby thoroughfare. These events following Wade’s attempts to maintain power in 2011 seemed to foreshadow events in 2023 and 2024. In fact, under the last months of Sall’s rule, things appeared seemingly more precarious than Wade’s tenure. Three people were confirmed killed during the protests this year with others injured as protestors opposed Macky Sall’s attempted power grab.

Internal politics

The initial prevailing sentiment for President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s presidential term is hopeful. Certainly, he is facing some early criticism, for example, the dearth of women in his cabinet. However, he is in the honeymoon period of his presidency, and it remains to be seen how he will govern. To date, President Faye has fleshed out his initial presidential cabinet, pledged to fight corruption, tackle economic issues, and created a new office of religious affairs.

Faye does have some big issues facing him. Certainly, the pledged economic reform is important. The state has many issues to tackle including high employment rates, low wages, and high inflation. In addition, the country needs to continue to maintain some balance in social, education, and health infrastructure investment. Of course, too, Faye’s administration needs to help calm some of the lingering tensions that resulted from interruption of Senegal regular 2024 elections. Faye has a chance, too, to work with Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, on future cabinet updates that provide more ministerial diversity, including more women cabinet officials. Some of Senegal’s major natural resources include a long-established fishing industry and new oil and gas sources. In recent decades, local fishermen have been pushed out of the industry due to large scale fishing contracts favouring European and Asian countries. These contracts have led to some overfishing and made it dangerous and less profitable for locals to compete. Faye has already proposed to review oil and gas contracts to see if they should be renegotiated to benefit Senegal’s population. Similarly, the growing fishing crisis will likely demand some state intervention.

Regional shifts

Regionally, in West Africa and the Sahel, the Senegalese state faces a number of challenges in rising insecurity including the role of non-state actors, new state actors in the region. One of the Macky Sall’s strengths was to maintain security against external threats. Insecurity in the Sahel continues to rise and there have been a spate of coup d’états, contested elections, and growing political instability in the region. Additionally, during the past two decades non-state actors and militias, including AQIM, Boko Haram, ISIS and others have operated in the region. The trafficking of people – often as migrants some who become forced labourers –has also increased. In addition to the trafficking of people and arms by some of these groups and others, there is trafficking of drugs: illicit ones like heroin, cocaine and cannabis but also pharmaceutical drugs trafficking has risen in recent decades. Finally, too, the region is seeing a rise in the involvement of new states – primarily Russia.

Officially, Russia has engaged more with the continent through Russia–Africa summits, visits by Sergey Lavrov, and meetings with Putin at the Kremlin. In fact, Macky Sall, as chairperson of the African Union, and Moussa Faki Mahamat were invited to the Kremlin in 2022. Russia has close ties with Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger in the subregion. Unofficially, Wagner has increased activity in West Africa and the Sahel, including in Chad. In fact, in late May, Faye visited both Mali and Burkino Faso. It will be interesting to see what role he’ll play on security matters in the Sahel.

Futures

Senegal’s pivot from a potential protracted political crisis to a peaceful transfer of power is a lesson for the continent and for the West. This year, a record number of elections are taking place across the globe. It is expected that some will proceed smoothly, and others might be more fraught. Will other countries, including those in the West, fare as well as in the circumstances that Senegal’s electorate fared this spring? Democracy prevails in Senegal, and it continues to provide a model for other countries. It is imperative that Bassirou Faye and his cabinet continue these traditions while also navigating internal and external pressures.