confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
SOUTH AFRICA: Race tightens in the ANC's 'make or break' leadership vote due on 16 December
Patrick Smith
This week we start with the frenzied preparations for
leadership elections which could change the shape of South
Africa's politics – whoever wins. We have further reports from Kenya, Congo-Kinshasa and Zimbabwe.
SOUTH AFRICA: Race tightens in the ANC's 'make or
break' leadership vote due on 16 December
The rhetoric and the stakes are rising steeply this week
before some 5,000 members of the African National Congress gather at
the Nasrec stadium near Soweto for the party's elective congress on
Saturday.
With Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and
former chair of the African Union Commission Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma dominating the race for the ANC presidency, the
party has become increasingly factionalised. Both sides promise to
unify the ailing party but the prospects of a surprise win by a third
candidate such as ANC Treasurer Zweli Mkhize are
improving.
With Ramaphosa's supporters going to town on President Jacob
Zuma's patronage network and his ties to the Gupta brothers –
suggesting also that his ex-wife Dlamini-Zuma would try to protect him
from prosecution if she wins – this election is about personal
interests as much as political directions.
Increasingly, Ramaphosa supporters are suggesting that a
Dlamini-Zuma win could split the party and threaten its chances of
winning a national victory in the 2019 elections.
KENYA: Opposition postpones swearing-in of people's
assembly after warnings from diplomats and
government
Pulling back from a plan to inaugurate Raila
Odinga as the 'people's President' on Jamhuri day on 12
December, the National Super Alliance said it would continue with its
plans for 'people's assemblies' but wanted to keep the campaign as
peaceful as possible.
Accordingly, NASA officials such as Musalia Mudavadi
emphasised that Odinga's inauguration has been postponed rather than
cancelled. The swearing-in was meant to have taken place in Mombasa
under the aegis of Governor Hassan Joho, a staunch
Odinga ally. But the ruling Jubilee party had insisted the plan
amounted to treason, prompting concerns of another confrontation
between oppositionists and police.
NASA leaders had to weigh up the damage to their credibility
from postponing the swearing-in against the risks of more violent
clashes and loss of lives if they went ahead. Alongside state security
officials, several foreign diplomats had warned NASA against going
ahead.
This raises questions about whether the party will continue
with its campaign for electoral reform, and especially its
establishment of people's assemblies in counties controlled by
NASA-supporting governors.
So far, NASA's commercial boycott of Safaricom telecoms
company (for its role in the elections) and President Kenyatta's
Brookside dairy farms seem have proved more effective than its
political protests. The World Bank forecasts that Kenya's economic
growth rate could fall by 2% next year, partly as a result of the
political confrontation.
CONGO-KINSHASA: Suspicions grow about state
involvement as UN calls for full probe into
killings of 14 peacekeepers
Such is the state of political turmoil and suspicion in
Congo-Kinshasa, there is little agreement about what lay behind the
murderous attack on a United Nations base at Semuliki, in Beni, North
Kivu on the night of 7 December.
The attackers were said to have been fighters from the Allied
Democratic Forces, a militia initially backed by Sudan's
government to destabilise Uganda over a decade and a
half ago. At least 14 UN peacekeepers were killed, more than ever
before in the UN's 18-year-old deployment in Congo-K. The UN also
reported that five Congolese soldiers were killed in the ensuing
three-hour firefight at the base.
Curiously, Congo's government denies this and says only one of
its soldiers is missing. It also insists that its soldiers killed 72
fighters in the attacking force, a claim that no other source has
substantiated. Some sources believe that the attack needs to be seen in
the context of Congolese politics, and elements of the opposition may
have been involved in the attack. The next issue of Africa
Confidential will carry a report.
ZIMBABWE: Harsh spending cuts ahead of next year's
elections raise doubts about the Mnangagwa government's first budget
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, a
close ally of new President Emmerson Mnangagwa,
promised bold spending cuts and concessions on Indigenisation Act rules
in his budget speech on 7 December.
With a pledge to cut the budget deficit to 3.5% of GDP from
its estimated level of 9.4% this year, Chinamasa has set a tough target
for the ruling party which has to face an election in eight months'
time.
Chinamasa may be gambling that a clear break with the fiscal
indiscipline of the past could entice new capital flows into the
economy and restart business and even create some jobs in the short
term. The government's foreign reserves are said to be dwindling
dangerously.
THE WEEK AHEAD IN VERY BRIEF
LIBERIA: Supreme Court rejects electoral
fraud claims but wants checks on voters list before next round of
elections
NIGERIA: Ex-Vice-President Atiku
Abubakar stars at opposition congress, calling for united
front against President Buhari
EGYPT: Presidents El Sisi
and Putin sign $20 billion deal for Russia's
Rosatom to build nuclear power stations by 2028
LIBYA: Oil production boosted after meeting
between heads of government, state oil company and central bank on 9
December
CAMEROON: Renowned bilingual writer and poet Patrice
Nganang held in Yaoundé after lamenting political trends