It was a day of the sharpest political contrasts when South Africans and the wider world celebrated the life of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela on 10 December at the...

Calls are growing for Graça Machel to stand for president. To many of her fellow Mozambicans, the idea is both appealing and logical. Her husband, Nelson Mandela, has...

Nelson Mandela's face appeared magisterially on a tableau draped over the front of the Elysée Palace as African leaders and European bureaucrats walked across the courtyard for the...

Deals to trade mining concessions for arms from Russia and China were arranged privately during the period of the coalition government by Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front leaders,...

According the party’s website, ‘Agang, which means “build” in Sesotho, stands for clean government to restore the promise of freedom to all South Africans: equality, dignity and hope...

President Michael Sata laid the first stone for the expansion and upgrading of Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in Lusaka on 7 November. The China-financed US$360 million project is...

Portugal appears to have succumbed to Angolan pressure to drop more investigations of top officials in Luanda. Last week, the Portuguese Central Investigation and Criminal Prosecution Department, the...

Knowledge Katti, the oil exploration millionaire and close associate of Prime Minister Hage Geingob, appears to be on the verge of another business coup. Katti represents one of...

The German firm Wilhelm Guth Ventiltechnik has been supplying components to Robert and Grace Mugabe's dairy in defiance of international sanctions. Its wholly-owned subsidiary, Guth South Africa, has...

The governing Frente de Libertação de Moçambique and President Armando Guebuza emerged from the local elections on 20 November still in power nationwide. Yet cracks have appeared. Some...

The reputations of almost all members of the political establishment – with the possible exception of the opposition United Democratic Front – have been severely battered by the...

Konkola Copper Mines, a subsidiary of Anil Agarwal's London-listed Vedanta Resources and Zambia’s second-largest copper producer, is having a rocky ride under the Patriotic Front government. In opposition,...

Konkola Copper Mines, a subsidiary of Anil Agarwal's London-listed Vedanta Resources and Zambia’s second-largest copper producer, is having a rocky ride under the Patriotic Front government. In opposition,...

In the coming weeks, some statisticians in Abuja could shake up Africa’s economic and diplomatic hierarchy. The boffins look set to chart the rise of Nigeria’s economy to...

Many of South Africa’s difficulties are primarily internal, caused by policy paralysis and the governing African National Congress (ANC)’s intense disputes with its partners in organised labour. A...

The government is on a credit binge and is taking on billions of dollars’ worth of loans. Its new-found creditworthiness is based on wealth from mineral resources and...

Reports of criminal investigations in Portugal into Angolan money-laundering have angered President José Eduardo dos Santos. Relations between the two countries were ‘not well’, he said last month....

Another key bilateral relationship of Angola’s could also come under stress after Interpol issued a Red Notice on the owner of Angolan soccer club Kabuscorp FC, General Bento...

Hopes of a credible alternative to SWAPO in next year’s elections were dashed when last week’s congress of the Rally for Democracy and Progress ended in bitter recriminations....

Police officers and their accomplices may be behind the current wave of kidnapping, private sector security sources have told Africa Confidential. The abductions are fuelling public anxiety over...

India’s Vedanta Resources has moved to placate President Michael Sata after claims that the head of its Zambian subsidiary, Kishore Kumar, had insulted the Lusaka government. Kumar had...

It is becoming clear that the cost of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front’s July electoral victory is the loss of the financial credibility built up by Tendai...

For a party that could so skilfully engineer the July national election, the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front has been curiously inept at managing its own internal democracy....

South Africa’s hotel and casino billionaire Sol Kerzner is going into business with China’s Fosun International. The deal is for a huge new resort on China’s Hainan Island,...

Four-and-a-half years of transition finally came to a peaceful conclusion on 25 October when Malagasies went to the polls for the first round of the presidential elections. After...

Angola has been flexing its military muscles to remind Congo-Brazzaville exactly who is boss. In a security operation beginning on 13 October, Angolan forces seized 40 Congolese soldiers...

Hopes that President Ian Khama Seretse Khama might adopt a more accommodating policy on the small San (Bushman) community have been dashed. Botswana continues to receive plaudits for...

The unilateral decision by the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana to abrogate the 1992 General Peace Agreement with the Frente de Libertação Moçambicana may not critically threaten long-term stability but...

A long-awaited meeting of the Patriotic Front’s Central Committee on 18 October was expected to see President Michael Sata end the succession wrangles once and for all. Yet...

The state-owned national airline, Air Zimbabwe, has approached controversial British tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten for cash to help revive its operations. The programme may result in its privatisation....

As tensions rise in Mozambique following rebel leader Afonso Dhlakama's abrogation on 21 October of the 1992 peace deal, more questions are being asked about the government's opaque...

Zimbabwe celebrated World Food Day on 16 October in its own, idiosyncratic way. The local United Nations office took out an advert in the press pointing out, among...

The inability of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front government to maintain sufficient levels of food production, energy and water supplies is a major problem for locals and...

When three gunmen shot down Finance Ministry Budget Director Paul Mphwiyo outside his home in Area 43 in Lilongwe on 13 September, officials initially blamed criminals who wanted...

The proposed buyer of the national fuel distribution company Zuva Petroleum, Woble Investments (Private) Limited, is using the global commodities trader Glencore’s money for the acquisition, says a...

The political fortunes of President Joyce Banda have seen an unexpected turnaround. A win in the May 2014 parliamentary, presidential and local elections had looked highly unlikely but...

The African National Congress approaches elections next April-May – and the 20th anniversary of majority rule – with party and country alike in poor shape. Social and economic...

None of the opposition parties can seriously challenge the African National Congress for power at the centre in the next elections but growing political volatility gives them opportunities...

On the evening of 24 September in New York, President Jacob Zuma was in high spirits. Earlier that day, he had addressed the United Nations General Assembly debate...

Insisting that major infrastructure contracts go to competitive tender has got Transport and Communications Minister Paulo Zucula the sack, say senior political sources. President Armando Guebuza moved him...

The widely discredited 20 September election saw pro-royal politicians take nearly all 55 parliamentary seats. Traditional chiefs loyal to King Mswati III had vetted all the candidates. Media...

After intense lobbying by Belgium, on 24 September the European Union lifted its ban on diamond imports from the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and its partners – Marange...

As African policymakers call for greater industrialisation on the continent, South Africa-based African Rainbow Minerals is defending its decision this year to set up a processing plant in...

President Robert Mugabe’s government has announced that it will be putting even more business the way of its Asian trading partners. This is after refusals by the United...

In May 2012, when the Movement of Democratic Change’s Elton Mangoma was still Energy Minister, he worried that the China Africa Sunlight Energy deal could be a case...

Mauritius has invited Indian officials to a new round of discussions, in early October, on the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) signed by the two countries in 1982....

A short drive north out of Port Louis, a new road passes a couple of sugar plantations before signs in both English and Chinese announce your arrival in...

Such is the competition for Mozambique’s mining permits that the government has threatened to revoke licences from companies that do not quickly develop their concessions. Mining legislation requires...

The head of the firm FBC Holdings, John Mushayavanhu, is at the centre of a mysterious plan to buy a controlling stake in a national fuel distribution company,...

The official start of the presidential election campaign on 24 September has triggered an immediate flurry of activism, even if many Malagasies don’t really believe the long-awaited poll...

Sakunda Energy, the fuel import and distribution company linked to the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, may be about to be taken over by the major international oil...

A campaign to endorse President Michael Sata as the Patriotic Front’s candidate in the 2016 general elections has turned into a major battle between two of the PF’s...

It took President Robert Mugabe and his advisors the best part of a month to name a cabinet that mainly redistributes the top jobs to the old political...

Opposition reactions after President Robert Mugabe’s re-election and inauguration have lacked drama. Movement for Democratic Change supporters in urban strongholds believe they were robbed of victory on 31...

The Movement for Democratic Change’s application to the Constitutional Court to void the elections created uncertainty over the timetable for the inauguration of President Robert Mugabe and, with...

As the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique’s armed stand-off continues with the opposition Resistência Nacional Mocambicana (Renamo), Frelimo is beginning to worry about the impact on the coming...

The date has been set for the first round of the long-awaited presidential election: 25 October. A second round, if needed, and the parliamentary polls follow on 20...

Inspired by a vision from God, King Mswati III has declared his country a ‘monarchical democracy’. This will make it clear to the international community that Swaziland is...

Iqbal Survé has gone into business with state-owned Chinese and South African companies. Survé’s Sekunjalo Group bought a stake in South Africa’s Independent News & Media which produces...

Former President Rupiah Bwezani Banda’s support for the United Party for National Development is weakening his own Movement for Multiparty Democracy. To oppose the governing Patriotic Front (PF),...

President Robert Mugabe’s victory in the 31 July elections has not settled the uncertainties surrounding Zimbabwe’s political and economic future. It may even have heightened them. Post-election nervousness...

The successor to President Armando Guebuza is expected to be decided in September at one of two meetings of the governing Frente de Libertação de Moçambique’s Political Commission,...

The suspension of Congress of South African Trade Unions Secretary General Zwelinzima Vavi on 14 August, after he admitted to sexual misconduct with a Cosatu employee in his...

Angola's Vice-President Manuel Domingos Vicente is facing demands for his impeachment, following revelations that he secretly renewed his official position on the board of China Sonangol International Holding,...

The violent stand-off between President Armando Guebuza's government and the former Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Renamo) rebels, now entering its sixth month, looks increasingly intractable. The latest round of...

Harare has been eerily quiet since the elections, in shock at the Movement for Democratic Change's disastrous electoral performance. Former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's triumphalist eve-of-poll rally had...

The drums were rolling ahead of 31 July, the deadline set by international organisations for Andry Rajoelina, President of the Haute Autorité de la Transition, to organise credible...

Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra embarked on her maiden state visit to Africa in late July. Her first stop was Mozambique, where on 1 August she promised to...

The stage is set for days, perhaps weeks, of confrontation following claims by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and local monitoring groups of extensive rigging in the 31 July...

Canadian entrepreneur Duane Parnham has partnered with a well connected Namibian, Knowledge Katti, to make a bid for Navachab gold mine, which AngloGold Ashanti is selling as part...

The business affairs of the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), Gideon Gono, are back in the headlines since evidence emerged that three of his children...

The deposed leader of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) has staked a claim to political space well to the left of the governing party. Julius Malema...

‘We must not sell our souls in order to receive investments from anywhere in the world,’ Malusi Gigaba told an infrastructure conference in Johannesburg on 16 July. He...

Political tensions and street clashes have been increasing ahead of the 31 July deadline set by the Groupe internationale de contact sur Madagascar (GIC-M), which has set key...

It was uncharacteristically foolish of President Robert Mugabe to fast-track the election date to 31 July, in the face of protests from some in his own party and...

The prospects for free, fair and transparent elections on 31 July took another knock with the chaotic ‘special votes’ on 14-15 July. The problems were mainly logistical, stemming...

President Hifikepunye Pohamba and Prime Minister Hage Geingob have been trying to quell the rebellious SWAPO Party’s Youth League – but without much luck. In June, Premier Pohamba...

The pace of President Jacob Zuma’s cull of his opponents in the African National Congress is picking up as he lays the groundwork for next year’s general elections...

Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) delegates meet next year for their national conference, where they will face growing calls to find a way to ease out...

Angola and Brazil share close political and commercial ties so June's mass protests and clashes in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo resonated loudly in Luanda. On paper,...

The Constitutional Court will soon announce its decision on granting an extension to the 31 July election date. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been pressing on...

The death in a car accident of Edward Chindori-Chininga, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Mining and Minerals, came within days of its damning report on revenue...

Malawi will not give up an inch of its lake, sources close to President Joyce Banda say. At issue in the row with Tanzania is where the frontier...

South Korea is adamant that it did not and will not authorise the arrival of some 100,000 young Malawian workers, as announced by President Joyce Banda and her...

Chinese entrepreneur Han Fang, new President of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce in South Africa, moved to the country two decades ago and has since established a business...

Although it now seems likely that the Constitutional Court will bow to pressure and postpone the election for a few weeks beyond 31 July, the beneficiaries of any...

Civil society, the media and all Mozambique’s political parties are heavily engaged in scrutinising and politicking over the new electoral register. The register should be complete by the...

As the booming trade in smuggled ivory and timber devastates northern Mozambique’s environment, Attorney General Augusto Paulino has launched an investigation into the claimed involvement of Agriculture Minister...

President Joyce Banda opened Parliament in May and announced a strong budget in an attempt to regain ground lost to an opposition that is already in election mode....

Unreconciled opponents of Prime Minister Hage Geingob, the expected heir to the presidency, resent their marginalisation within the ever-governing SWAPO party. The critics, many of them opposed to...

Development of the Husab uranium mine, the largest under construction globally, seems to be proceeding. The site, 60 kilometres inland from Swakopmund and 15 km. south of Rio...

By seven to two, the Zimbabwe Constitutional Court ruled on 31 May that elections must take place before 31 July, a month after Parliament expires under the old...

The ProSavana project has been set up to repeat a Japan International Cooperation Agency programme that helped to turn Brazil's Cerrado region into a major agricultural producer. Its...

South Korean diplomats are working to help Daewoo Logistics regain at least part of a huge land-lease deal the company lost after Madagascar's 2009 coup d'état. In May,...

Zimbabwe's new constitution finally passed into law on 22 May and the way is now clear for elections. The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front is pushing for the...

The early April visit of India's Steel Minister, Beni Prasad Verma, scarcely made headlines in Zimbabwe's media. With elections on the horizon, Zimbabwe is more obsessed than ever...

Parliamentarians were up in arms after hearing that up to 100,000 young Malawians could be soon on their way to work in South Korea’s factories and farms in...

President Armando Emílio Guebuza met President Xi Jinping to discuss investment and solicit help in strengthening Mozambique's human resources ahead of the second session of the...

Vice-President Guy Scott’s forthright criticism of South Africa as a regional hegemon highlights a paradox in the Patriotic Front government. President Michael Sata’s officials regularly make outlandish remarks...

The battle for control of parliament is on. President Michael Sata and his Patriotic Front insist there is no foul play behind the stream of defections from the...

When the Cour spéciale électorale (CES, Special Electoral Court) announced on 3 May the final list of candidates for the presidential poll on 24 July, the number had...

President Robert Mugabe’s chances of holding elections acceptable to the Southern African Development Community before July have been dashed. This, however, owes more to the partisan zeal of...

A series of high-profile resignations has followed the introduction of laws governing conflicts of interest and corruption but there is considerable uncertainty about how much further the governing...

The main opposition party, the Resistência Nacional Moçambicana, wants its share of the riches currently benefiting the ruling Frente de Libertação de Moçambique and its senior members. Renamo...

’Angola is sitting on a powder keg’, says Isaías Samakuva, leader of the main opposition party, the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola. He was talking...

President Robert Mugabe is insisting on general elections by 29 June, when the present Parliament ends, despite the objections of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

In opposition, he lambasted the role of Chinese companies in the Zambian economy, but President Michael Chilufya Sata’s April state visit to China marked a point of closure...

In April, Zambian President Michael Chilufya Sata was in China praising the Beijing government. Vice-President Guy Scott was doing much the same thing in mid-March – but at...

The much-anticipated trial in the US$55.3 million-Nuctech scanner case, in which the three defendants are charged with inflating invoices and pocketing a $12.8 mn. kickback, got off to...

Speaking at a conference on China-Africa relations hosted by Frontier Advisory in South Africa, Zimbabwe’s Deputy Premier Arthur Mutambara urged greater African regulation of Chinese investment.

A group of Angolan anti-corruption campaigners and other civil society activists is trying to get Angola and Switzerland to reopen an investigation into a notorious mid-1990s debt deal...

Elísio de Figueiredo has for some years been Angola’s Ambassador ‘Without Portfolio’ to France and is widely regarded as a key presidential ally and dealmaker.

President Jacob Zuma puzzled his central African interlocutors and CAR politicians by claiming they had made a ‘passionate plea’ for South African troops to return to the troubled...

President Jacob Zuma and his allies have begun their long-awaited purge of trades unionists, party members and government officials judged to have opposed him at the African National...

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande may be moving to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation to replace Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. This is under serious consideration, senior African National...

Anadarko and other oil companies predict that gas finds in Cabo Delgado could double Mozambique’s annual gross domestic product. Meanwhile, vast coal reserves are believed to lie in...

General Alberto Joaquim Chipande’s key business move was the formation of Quionga Energia SA this January. Also involved are his long-time ally Gen. Raimundo Pachinuapa and former Finance...

An intervention force from the Southern African Development Community will soon deploy in eastern Congo-Kinshasa. It looks like a rerun of the 1998-2003 Congo war but some...

The SWAPO government has turned down a request from a Chinese state-backed company for unlimited numbers of work permits. Eastern China Non-Ferrous Metals Investment Holding (ECE) is developing...

Elias Masilela warned Africa of the dangers of allowing Chinese firms to operate unregulated across the continent at Ernst & Young’s Strategic Growth Forum in Cape Town, South...

The governing Patriotic Front’s tactics are far from original. The PF’s attempts to dominate the media and gaol opponents hark back to the era of the one-party state...

If or when he stands down, many expect President Michael Sata to try to impose his choice of presidential candidate for the 2016 elections – widely thought to...

A political row erupted in South Africa after 13 troops were killed and some 27 wounded on a mission to Central African Republic which is poorly understood locally...

President Joyce Banda's faces her toughest political test with the arrest on 11 March of eleven former top officials who have been linked to a treason plot. The...

Resolution of the dispute over the border between Malawi and Tanzania on Lake Malawi (Lake Nyasa to Tanzanians) seems no nearer. The Africa Forum, an advisory body of...

The real winners of the constitutional referendum were the hardliners of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. They now have a document that enshrines ZANU-PF's supremacy, whatever happens...

Leaders of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo) are poised to benefit personally from the expected bonanza from the development of Nacala port, Africa Confidential has learned....

The referendum on 16 March takes place less than a month after the starting gun was fired. No one doubts a favourable result but only the turnout will...

Malagasy have been waiting a long time to have their electoral say but on 5 February, the electoral commission postponed the long-awaited presidential election from 8 May to...

After declining previous invitations, on 15 February President Michael Chilufya Sata announced his maiden trip to China would finally take place in April. China has invited the President...

According to a mining industry expert, much has changed since the September 2011 election of President Michael Sata and the Patriotic Front government. ‘Under the MMD [Movement for...

In the last few years, Chinese builders have won contracts for more than 18 government-funded infrastructure projects for roads, stadiums‚ schools‚ hospitals‚ airports and public buildings in Botswana....

President Ian Khama has been slow to stamp out shadowy deals between Chinese investors and government institutions, in particular the murky business of the 500 million pula (US$62...

Uranium-rich Namibia is still rolling out the red carpet for Chinese mining and exploration firms. Back in January, it was announced that Zhonghe Resources (Namibia) Development had received...

Ahead of the fifth BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Summit in Durban on 26-27 March, South African companies are demanding that the African National Congress...

Gao Jianke revealed in late January that Wesizwe Platinum had received a US$650 million loan from the China Development Bank for the expansion of the Bakubung mining project,...

A referendum on Zimbabwe’s new constitution has been set for 16 March. Despite a challenge by the National Constitutional Assembly, a pro-democracy group, which was dismissed by Judge...

President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address to Parliament in Cape Town on 14 February was drowned out by news of the arrest of Olympic champion Oscar...

The National Development Plan is ‘a road map to a South Africa where all will have water, electricity, sanitation, jobs, housing, public transport, adequate nutrition, education, social protection,...

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan managed to calm business and assuage the public with an assured budget speech. The programme is slick and Gordhan is winning praise for...

At its Mangaung conference in December, the African National Congress resolved to put economic diplomacy at the heart of the South Africa’s foreign policy. Now a bitter battle...

Zambia’s next elections are not until 2016 but Wynter Kabimba, the Justice Minister and Secretary General of the governing Patriotic Front, is positioning himself to succeed President Michael...

President Michael Sata’s promise to reduce mass employment is yet to be fulfilled. Although he has raised the necessary finance, public institutions are having trouble translating it into...

President Joyce Banda wants to build a parliamentary majority from defectors from the Democratic Progressive Party to her own People’s Party. She founded the PP after the...

Cyril Ramaphosa, the African National Congress’s new Deputy President, is finding that the smooth path to power that was promised him may be strewn with boulders. He agreed...

The once-ardent relationship between Namibia and China appears to be cooling. Over the past six months, the Windhoek government has cancelled two tenders, amounting to about US$500 million,...

Namibia is dragging its heels with two other state-owned Chinese companies (see Raw deals for Windhoek), China Gezhouba Group (CGG) and China National Machinery and Engineering Corporation (CMEC),...

The African National Congress (ANC) government has ordered South African state-owned companies to mount an aggressive trade offensive into Africa to counter the onslaught of investments by foreign...

Chinese businesses use personal ties to Mozambican politicians and officials to run a network of illegal timber exports that mask the environmental impact of logging. So concludes the...

In January, Arvin Boolell urged India to revise rather than abandon the India–Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement. Mauritius has no capital gains tax and the treaty allows funds...

Vice-President John Landa Nkomo died after a long illness on 17 January, aged 79. His death set in motion yet another tortuous competition for the vacant post among...

President Jacob Zuma is to be the face of the African National Congress in the 2014 elections and after winning them will gradually transfer power to Cyril Ramaphosa....

The pro-Kgalema Motlanthe African National Congress leaders have been purged from the National Executive Committee. That includes Tokyo Sexwale, Mathews Phosa, Fikile Mbalula and leaders from provinces or...

Professor Reg Austin, one of the staunchest comrades of the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), has resigned from the new Human Rights Commission. Austin had been nominated...

Former trade unionist Cyril Ramaphosa was elected as the African National Congress’s new Deputy President at the Manguang conference in December 2012. Ahead of the conference, opponents of...

A host of policy, factional and personal battles lie ahead for Jacob Zuma in 2013, despite his resounding re-election as President of the African National Congress at the...

Downgraded by the rating agencies and facing spiralling trade and budget deficits, South Africa needs its policy makers to make some tough decisions this year. Many will...

After a great deal of brinkmanship, President Robert Mugabe conceded in mid-December that elections could not be held before June 2013. During the first part of the year,...