Comment & analysis

Malawi’s tumultuous elections, held last week, left the country reeling and at risk of violence. While peaceful campaigns marked the lead-up to the vote, havoc reigned on election day, when numerous polling centers didn’t open and many had no ballot boxes.

The Kenyan government’s brutal human rights violations against the Somali community in Kenya as well as its its unlawful military and diplomatic actions in the Jubba regions of Somalia have gone largely uncommented upon.

In June 1994, as the Secretary General of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) I led a delegation to meet France’s then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alain Juppe.

Destitution and a government bureaucracy that is easy to manipulate make Kenya a prime space for global terrorism. First of all, it is crucial to appreciate that global terrorism is a business.

At the end of March 2014, Ivorian President Alassane Outtara declared in Abidjan: “we are determined to ensure that [the 2015 elections"> are transparent and truly democratic”.

Ngwazi Dr H. Kamuzu Banda, as our founding president preferred to be called, was rather quite an enigmatic a figure. For someone who lorded over us for some good three decades, it is simply incredible how little Malawians ‘intimately’ knew the man. This was not an accident of course.

For many years, the Horn of Africa has been characterized by wars, anarchy, terrorism, piracy and instability. Amid the chaos and uncertainty in the region, Somaliland managed to maintain cordial relations with its neighbouring countries.

Abahlali BaseMjondolo (AbM), the acclaimed, leftist shack dwellers’ movement which erupted onto the public arena in 2005, recently decided to give its electoral support to the opposition, centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA) in South Africa’s 2014 National and Provincial Elections.

For nine years our movement has boycotted elections. We have been clear that no political party represents the interests of the poor and that it was necessary for us to build our own power in order to present our own needs and demands to society.

Fifty years ago, China’s first Premier Zhou Enlai paid his first visit to Africa. Now, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is paying official visits to Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola and Kenya.