Africa

Cote D’Ivoire is supposed to have a long-awaited presidential election this year. Elections are, of course, a crucial marker on the way to true liberal democracy in Africa and anywehere. But human rights observers have increasingly expressed concerns that rushing to have an election just for the sake of having an election might prove to do more harm than good.

The Council on Foreign Relations has a report (available here with other resources and information) urging the United States to push for an expanded peacekeeping mandate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Whether now is a time when the United States will be inclined to engage in the Congo or anyplace else in which the self interest is not clear is another matter entirely. But given the United States’ historic role in destabilizing the Congo/Zaire for dubious Cold War positioning, pressing for serious UN action is the least Washington can do.   

The breakaway faction of the African National Congress will not succumb to name calling or fear as it prepares for the final steps that will lead to the establishment of a new party in South African politics. The leaders of the dissidents along with their supporters will meet this weekend in what will likely result in a new organization formalizing the recent separation as a political divorce barring some unforeseen detente and reconciliation in the days to come. Mark this down as the weekend that will embody the biggest change in South African politics since the CODESA era that led to the 1994 elections.

The nearly ubiquitous thrum of chaos continues apace in the eastern parts of the Congo where virtual chaos lends a de facto stateless air to daily life. United Nations peacekeepers have been unable to halt the advance of rebels in that part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Conflicts between the rebels and government forces have displaced at least a quarter of a million in this latest barrage of conflict that has been ongoing since August.

A summit of sub-Saharan African leaders who met in Harare on Monday could not break the impasse in that country’s political negotiations.  If not exactly an example of quiet diplomacy, the summit did not either take the form of carrying a big stick with which to prod President Robert Mugabe to concede on some of the sticking points that almost certainly derive from his intransigence. As a general rule, any time that status quo ante prevails in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe wins.

It appears that South Africa’s parliament is set to dissolve the Scorpions, the high-profile independent police organization that has been the source of so much controversy since its inception. The Scorpions have been behind many of the investigations into Jacob Zuma’s various alleged indiscretions, so the timing of the decision should come as a surprise to no one.

The release of the Waki Report in Kenya, which laid responsibility for post-election violence at the end of last year on a host of individuals and institutions, including the police, is fueling serious recriminations and resistance from some of the country’s police agencies. Time and again in Africa it has been shown that police and security forces can as easily be a destabilizing force as a force for good. Let’s hope that in this case the discontentment does not manifest itself as anything more than bureaucratic infighting.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that economic growth will slow and will be outpaced by inflation over the next year. There have been some tentative signs of political stabilization across the continent. Let’s hope that economic instability does not fuel its political counterpart.

This is a telling quotation from (this string of citations is long) an op-ed from the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram via a translation in the United Arab Emirates paper The National via the blog Negev Rock City via Andrew Sullivan:

“Marrying a pirate is every Somali girl’s dream. He has power, money, immunity, the weapons to defend the tribe and funds to give to the militias in civil war.”

All together now: Arrrrr.

But amusement value aside, the quotation is telling because it really is not all that exceptional. In any society where poverty reigns, those who have access to money or power even if — especially if? — they gain their status via crime will have more than their share of followers and hangers on, and this will include women who will use sex, and perhaps romance, to advance their own positions.

At The Mail & Guardian Ferial Haffajee pulls no punches in  condemning “the infantilization of politics” in South Africa. A taste:

If there’s one thing driving me into the arms of the ANC –Mark2, it’s Youth League president Julius Malema and his ilk. And I’m not alone.

As he announced UDI last week, former ANC chairperson Terror Lekota was applauded only when he verbally klapped Malema, asking why we should be harangued and frightened by children.

He’s so right.

In the post-Polokwane universe it is the rantings of Malema, which have scarred the body politic. From his injunction to kill for [ANC president Jacob] Zuma to his loose invocation of the phrase “We are willing to lay down our lives for …” and his lax approach to the independence of the judiciary, the young man with the dead eyes has, for too many months, been allowed to bully this nation. His understanding of power is not that it is a stewardship granted by citizens to leaders, but that it is a force to be unleashed across the land like a disciplining whip.

Commentary such as this makes one wonder just how much support a new party will have (and by extension the ANC will lose) when everything finally settles. Undoubtedly the ANC will continue to maintain a majority. But that majority party makes a mistake in taking a sanguine approach to the challenge it faces.