As the 2010 Fifa World Cup draws to a close, Oliver Meth and Dan Moshenberg ask whether the legacy of the games will give South Africa any cause for celebration. Despite former president Thabo Mbeki’s hopes that the games would turn ‘the tide on centuries of poverty and conflict’, there’s little sign that ‘the private lives and domestic spaces in which real democracy either begins or founders’ have been transformed, conclude Meth and Moshenberg.

Horace Campbell’s on lessons from the Dudus saga in Jamaica sparked several reactions and responses from our readers. Here is a selection of what people had to say.

As the DRC commemorates 50 years of independence, Mwaura Kaara finds there’s little official acknowledgement of the life of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first and only elected prime minister, removed from office after two months and eventually assassinated. The celebration ‘should have reflected on Lumumba’s main contribution to the Congolese struggle’, writes Kaara, ‘his articulation of the idea of a united Congo, a vision that sought to build a united nations across all ethnic and tribal divisions despite fierce European opposition.’

The challenges of conducting online transactions from Africa, Ghana’s elimination from the World Cup and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s first foray onto Facebook are among the stories featured in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, brought to you by Dibussi Tande.

Zimbabwe’s coalition government, formed under the auspices of a Global Political Agreement in 2008, has struggled to overcome the challenges the country faces. Jonathan Oshupeng Maseng’s paper identifies and discusses the issues heightening the rift between coalition members Zanu PF and the Movement for Democratic Change, whose political battles are stalling socio-economic progress. ‘The focus must be on achieving the objectives set out in GPA rather than on political disputes advancing their own interests,’ says Maseng.

As South Africa's World Cup begins to near its end, questions continue to be asked about the tournament's legacy for the country. Highly critical of the self-serving tendencies of South Africa's soccer elite, Dale T. McKinley laments the long-term neglect of the game's developmental and social potential. Once a genuine 'people's game' in the country, soccer has, as with so much, been entirely subsumed by rapacious commercial interests, McKinley writes.

Following Ghana's controversial exit from the World Cup after Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez's goal-line handball, Cameron Duodu charges that governing body Fifa's rules must be changed to fully stamp out cheating.

With the DR Congo having passed 50 years of independence, Carlo Ungaro reflects on a turbulent history, the originally pervasive support for Mobutu and the greed of myriad interests in destabilising the country.

Cheating in global sporting arenas such as the World Cup not only brings down the ‘beautiful game’, it also sends negative shock waves to the world’s spectators who lay witness to the prevail of deceit, writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. The values of society will lose their gravity as notoriously deliberate offences on the field are attributed to the divine ‘hand of God’ with little or no retribution, warns Bofelo.

As the World Cup draws to its much-anticipated finale, the democratic integrity of South Africa continues to be intoxicated, writes Patrick Bond. Bond recounts a recent anti-xenophobia rally in search of a better society, which was only to result in a run-in with the law. Bond unearths the deliberate distortion of South Africans’ constitution and freedom of speech to accommodate Fifa – soon to move on, leaving little benefits behind for its host society.

there is no place you can stand your feet
on the loamy soil of the vast home district
without a view of the majesty of Mt. Elgon.
whether you are behind Kapsokwony kiosks
urinating pints of refuse after an illicit binge
or you are chewing sugar cane at Cheptais
you may be weeding acres of Kopsiro corn
or watering the herd on the banks of Nzoia
a child chasing birds from a sunflower farm
in Kaptama or kins of Chebyuk clans at war
all behold the Mountain and its stony tower
it is rumored that old curses lie under rocks
of the highest peak waiting for provocation.

it is on the lush slopes of this Mount of God
that new songs of affliction sear the nights.
the bull frogs of the malarial swamps croak
not to their reluctant mates but to the sky.
the swamps are now smelling of dead men
so strong is the smell that it kills sex mood
among entire clans of frogs across the land.
the bull cows low low like the herds of oxen
with no sense of mischief or even bravado
in their calls to the strangely silent heifers.
the roosters now crow only in the daylight
as songs of sedition take over village nights.

it all started with the arrival at old Kapkoto
of the state men of war and their GK guns.
the hunts for a rebel and his bloodish lords
has now sown seeds of blood across the land
and now the district sings new songs of agony
as mounds of farm grass give way to skeletons
some with smashed skulls others without theirs
and yet others with ribs missing here and there.
the wells bear an ill smell from deep rotting flesh.
wherever you lift your nostrils for air it is there:
the smell of death mixing with grass and dry soil.

the songs have no rhythm and reveal no rhymes
they rely more on mimicry in their communication.
steady staccato of AK47s chattering about death
resemble the melodies of these new village songs.
the crrrunch of bones crushing under army boots
bear an uncanny similarity to these new choruses.
this dance style too is a masterful piece of mimicry.
tens of thousands of male villagers hit dry ground
with their naked bodies and smash their genitalia
on coarse shrapnel of bullets from the operation
their tearless eyes remain riveted on Mount Elgon.
as they exclaim and scream the vernacular climax
oxygen mixed with sweat spreads across the land.

the womenfolk hide in the lantana bush nearby
not allowed in the midst of this new male dance
and attempt with ears only their love to identify.
mouths of children are stuffed with maize cobs
and their cowardly buttocks tied with sisal cords
that no noise whether oral or anal may escape
from them and give away the female hideaways.
this is the new native song and dance in fashion
given to the citizens of the afflicted Elgon lands
by sons of the soil and the fathers of the nation.
and as the poet sits now under a canopy of pain
finding the right description for this oral tradition
his eyes on distant Elgon murmur-murmuring curses of stone.

Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Tendai Biti says his government so far has been unable to do anything to fight the endemic corruption in the country. Corruption had become part of culture, he complains. Minister Biti, representing the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in government, says he is close to powerless when it comes to fight corruption in Zimbabwe.

Agathon Rwasa, the leader of Burundi's main opposition party, has said he has gone into hiding after learning that the government wanted to arrest him on charges that he planned to mount a new insurgency. In a tape recording sent to media agencies on Wednesday, Rwasa, a former rebel leader, said that he had also been threatened for rejecting the results of last month's district elections.

The United Nations envoy dealing with Western Sahara is holding consultations in the capitals of the nations comprising the so-called Group of Friends, a diplomatic cluster working to help resolve the dispute over the territory. Christopher Ross, the Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, started his latest trip on 21 June, and has so far visited London, Paris and Madrid. He is scheduled to visit Washington and Moscow at a later date.

What is the potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support processes of democratisation and empowerment in developing countries? This report, prepared for the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, outlines the theoretical background to discussions on ICTs and democracy, and presents case studies from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

A debt relief programme worth $12.3bn (£8.1bn) has been agreed for the Democratic Republic of Congo, it has been announced. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank said the country had made good efforts to reform its economy and governance in recent years.

A court in South Africa has found the country's former chief of police Jackie Selebi guilty of corruption. Selebi, also a former president of Interpol, was accused of having links to organised crime and accepting bribes worth 1.2m rand ($156,000, £103,000). But the court found him not guilty of perverting the course of justice. Selebi had denied both charges.

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai should pull out of the government of national unity to prevent his Movement for Democratic Change from becoming irrelevant, the head of Zimbabwe's National Constitutional Alliance said. Lovemore Madhuku told delegates to a conference held by rights group Zimbabwe Democracy Now at the University of the Witwatersrand yesterday that the MDC could lose credibility and support if it did not act soon.

Amnesty International calls on the government of Zimbabwe to immediately and unconditionally release detained human rights defender, Farai Maguwu. He has been in custody since 3 June 2010, when he presented himself to the police and was arrested on allegations of “publishing or communication false information prejudicial to the state.” A Harare Magistrate denied Maguwu bail following state submissions that more time was needed to continue with investigations. Maguwu’s bail application was repeatedly postponed before being heard by the court.

The United Nations has launched its first compilation of the best practices for its peacekeepers and other workers to prevent, deter and respond to the use of rape as a war tactic. The booklet, titled: "Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence - An Analytical Inventory of Peacekeeping Practice", was launched at the UN headquarters in New York, US.