Governance

The fifth national general election in South Africa was far from mundane. The election was underlined by the significance of the country’s 20th anniversary of its political transition to a democratic dispensation.

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.

Dear President Goodluck Jonathan,

Greetings of Peace!

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan administration has consistently claimed it is not in touch with Boko Haram members, emphasizing the faceless nature of the group. This, the administration claims makes its efforts of combating the insurgence very difficult.

Political epistemology grapples with issues of knowledge about political phenomena, by attempting to unravel the issues of certitude, validity of truth claims and logic.

Pambazuka News 673 (April 2014) carried nine articles on ‘sub-imperialist’ BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

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.

The kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls by Boko Haram has outraged the world; particularly after their captors promised to sell the girls as slaves. They are portrayed as Muslim fundamentalists seeking to impose a harsh Sharia Law over the whole of Nigeria.