Despite having little to show from his first full term in office, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa is the strong favorite to win the country’s election Wednesday. A disunited opposition, voter apathy and state coercion have paved the way to victory for the incumbent.
According to Sierra Leone’s electoral commission, incumbent President Julius Maada Bio was reelected to a second—and constitutionally final—term in the June 24 presidential ballot. But opposition in the country as well as international observers have raised serious concerns about the credibility of that result.
The end of the war in Tigray in November 2022 brought relative peace to the region and eased international pressure on Addis Ababa. Yet, it has precipitated the explosion of another devastating war, this time between Ethiopian government forces and their erstwhile partners in the Tigray war from the country’s Amhara region.
The coup in Niger caught much of the outside world by surprise, given the country’s image as a relatively stable outlier in a region beset by upheaval. But if foreign observers were stunned by President Mohamed Bazoum’s ouster, it did not come as a shock to many Nigeriens, and not solely because of Niger’s history of military coups.
Upon taking office in 2020, Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye reversed some of his predecessor’s repressive measures, raising hopes that he might deliver on his promised reform agenda. But recent developments have renewed concerns that Ndayishimiye’s initial overtures would not materialize into substantive policy reforms.