confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
ZIMBABWE: On European tour, presidential contender Chamisa calls for mass mobilisation to ensure credible elections
Patrick Smith
We start with the Zimbabwe opposition's
roadshow in Europe, which is likely to be followed by as a more
discrete visit to London by Nigeria's President Muhammadu
Buhari to see his doctor. Tunisia's leading
Islamist party Ennahda has scored a win in local elections but it
remains in coalition with the secularist Nidaa Tounes at national
level. And Kenya has reinforced its relations enough
with the World Bank and IMF to negotiate another $1 billion credit.
ZIMBABWE: On European tour, presidential contender
Chamisa calls for mass mobilisation to ensure credible elections
In a barnstorming speech to the Chatham House think tank in London, Nelson
Chamisa, presidential candidate for the opposition Movement of
Democratic Change Alliance, said his supporters would organise massive
street demonstrations if their conditions for free and fair elections
were not met. So far, Chamisa says that President Emmerson
Mnangagwa's government has not responded to requests for a
meeting with opposition parties on the modalities of the elections.
Top of Chamisa's list was for the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) to open an international competitive tender for the
printing of the ballot papers, and a guarantee of full accountability
in the bidding and contract award process.
Although the elections are due between the last week of July
and the last week of August, the ZEC is yet to release a timetable for
its operations. Most importantly, these would include publication
of biometrically registered voters' roll, which is said to be running
at around 5.4 million, a substantial increase on previous
elections.
The MDC also wants an agreement to establish an
'infrastructure for peace in the elections', says Chamisa.
That should amount to a peace accord signed by all parties. Civic
activists are raising concerns about 'low-level violence' and threats
against voters although no one is predicting a repeat of the thuggery
in the 2008 elections in which hundreds of opposition supporters were
tortured and killed.
Although President Mnangagwa has said he would have no problem in
handing over power to the opposition should they win, the military,
which is a powerful force in the current government, has been silent on
the issue.
After his week in Europe, Chamisa is due back in Zimbabwe at the
weekend to preside over his biggest test for far as MDC leader – the
management of the party's primary elections. Last week, ZANU-PF set the
bar low with several disputed contests and claims that the central
committee had been trying to impose candidates on dissident local
branches.
Both Chamisa and former finance minister Tendai Biti,
who is accompanying him on his European tour, insisted that the MDC's
primaries would be better managed than their opponents'. Given their
MDC Alliance is an amalgam of seven smaller parties, how they run the
primaries will an important indicator of the strength of the party's
organization. They could also affect their ability to reach out to the
opposition groupings run by former ZANU-PF luminaries such as Joice
Mujuru and Dumiso Dabengwa.
Chamisa and Biti acknowledged the party faced severe funding
constraints but claimed there was a new wave of popular support,
especially in the countryside where they claimed that ZANU-PF's grip
had been slackening.
NIGERIA: Fresh concerns about President Buhari's
health as he flies out for medical consultation in London
After spending a couple of weeks in Britain to attend
the Commonwealth summit last month and to meet with senior officials
from Royal Dutch Shell, President Muhammadu Buhari is to return to
London to see his doctor.
The trip, which the Presidency says will last four days, has prompted
fresh worries about Buhari's health following his extended absences
from the country last year for treatment of undisclosed ailments.
Whatever the facts about Buhari's health, critics say the Presidency's
unwillingness to release any details about his ailments, let alone a
prognosis, creates political uncertainty within the country at a time
of growing regional insecurity.
On 1 May Boko Haram militants stepped up their suicide
bombing campaign, attacking a mosque in Mubi in Adamawa State, killing
26 people, one of their deadliest attacks since the insurgency began a
decade ago. Those attacks seem to have been launched by Abubakar
Shekau's faction of Boko Haram which has
consistently targeted mosques and market places, causing maximum
civilian casualties.
Abu Musab al-Barnawi's faction of Boko Haram,
an affiliate of Islamic State (Da'ish's) organisation in West Africa,
is said to be extending its reach across the Lake Chad basin into Borno
and Adamawa States.
Alongside the factions which grew out of Boko Haram, violent
crime and communal fights are escalating in northern Nigeria and the
Middle Belt. Intelligence sources are unclear about what relations they
may have to Shekau's or al-Barnawi's insurgents. Some suggest that Boko
Haram will try to exploit the spreading clashes between herders
and farmers
Police blamed 'bandits' and cattle rustlers for an attack on
Birnin-Gwari, Kaduna State on 6 May in which 45 people were killed.
Whatever lies behind the killings, the attackers were well-armed and
showed a high level of organisation. Cattle rustlers in the area have
eluded capture by police or the government's special task forces for
several years but they seem to be exploiting the wider insecurity in
the region to step up their attacks.
TUNISIA: Islamist Ennahda resurgent in much-delayed
local elections amid rising economic gripes
Seven years after protestors in launched what came to be known as the
Arab Spring with the overthrow of the Ben Ali regime
in Tunisia and the forcing out of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt,
economic and security conditions in both countries have deteriorated.
Although there is little hankering for the ancient regimes, opposition
to the successor regimes is patchy and divided. The region's most
significant Islamist grouping – the Muslim Brothers – is proscribed in
Egypt, and most of its senior figures are in detention. But the
Brothers' counterpart in Tunisia, Ennahda, has fared better, due to the
canny leadership and rhetoric of its eminence grise Rachid
Ghannouchi.
Arguing his party was committed to multi-party democracy – although its
critics insist this is a tactical ploy disguising its theocratic
intentions – Ghannouchi has steered the party into coalition with the
secularist Nidaa Tounes party. Now Ennahda could emerge the strongest
party according to early results the first local elections in the
country since the ousting of Ben Ali.
Significantly for both Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda, most of their votes
came from middle aged and elderly people. Young Tunisians – most
affected by unemployment and inflation – stayed away from the polls.
Even the promise of more devolved local government failed to inspire
them to vote.
KENYA: World Bank offers Kenyatta government
concessional US$1 billion as concerns rise about mounting debt
The economic balancing act – mixing opaque mega loans from Asia with
cooperation with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund – is
working for President Uhuru Kenyatta's government, at
least in the short term.
After many difficult meetings between officials in the Jubilee
government and IMF last year, over levels of state spending and
indebtedness, the World Bank announced on 4 May that it was lending
Kenya US$1 billion to develop infrastructure in the north of the
country. This follows an earlier $1.4 bn credit for health, farming and
transport in the region.
Relations between Nairobi and the Washington multinationals had frayed
after it emerged that scheduled IMF disbursements had not been made
last year triggering an embarrassing public row over whether the
government's economic programme had veered off course.
This latest World Bank credit will be useful as it targets areas such
as Turkana and Lamu where the government is pushing ahead with its oil
production and pipeline plans. Announcing the credit, Bank officials
point out that poverty levels in northern Kenya – running around 38% –
are almost double the level in the rest of the country, especially the
much more prosperous counties around Nairobi and the old central
province.
The week ahead in very brief
SOUTH AFRICA/UNITED STATES: President
Trump's demand for more loyalty to Washington in UN votes targets
Pretoria
SUDAN: More cuts to diplomatic service
as government plans to close 13 foreign missions and lay off officials
in seven more
LIBYA/EUROPEAN UNION: Italy claims 80% drop
in migrants' Mediterranean crossings after coastguards step up action
