Southern Africa Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive Africa Watch by email every week. Tanzanian President John Magufuli claimed an overwhelming if dubious victory in a general election this week that was heavily slanted in his favor. But opposition leaders have rejected the results of Wednesday’s polls, which showed Magufuli winning a second five-year term with 84 percent of the vote, according to the country’s National Electoral Commission. The opposition has called on their supporters to stage peaceful anti-government protests, even as […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive Africa Watch by email every week. Preliminary election results in Guinea show President Alpha Conde headed for a landslide victory, likely securing a controversial third term despite months of violent protests. Clashes between opposition supporters and security forces have continued since Sunday’s vote, leaving at least eight civilians and two police officers dead, according to the government. Conde’s main opponent, Cellou Dalein Diallo, has escalated tensions by prematurely claiming victory and accusing the ruling […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. A campaign to get the Nigerian government to shut down a notoriously corrupt police unit has evolved into the most significant protest movement in Nigeria in decades, with demonstrators across the country calling for sweeping police reforms and an end to human rights abuses by security forces. President Muhammadu Buhari has tried to quell the protesters by promising to meet their demands, even as security forces have responded with a brutal crackdown, including the use of live ammunition, killing at least 10 […]

The global economy is gradually healing from the economic blows dealt by the coronavirus pandemic, but the recovery remains fragile and halting. Reduced trade is more a symptom than a cause of those trends—and what governments do in terms of additional fiscal stimulus will do far more to determine the shape of the recovery in the United States and other countries. Still, trade policy could be a factor, supporting or undermining the nascent recovery. President Donald Trump’s trade wars have already complicated the direct response to COVID-19 infections—by making imports of some critical products more expensive or harder to find—and […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Ethiopian lawmakers voted to sever ties with leaders of the northern Tigray region this week in a move that one Tigrayan official called “tantamount to a declaration of war.” The decision by the upper house of Ethiopia’s national parliament, the House of Federation, is the most severe in a series of tit-for-tat provocations between Tigrayan leaders and federal officials and puts Tigray at risk of losing up to $281 million in federal budget subsidies. Tensions between the two sides arose early in […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Three African countries are gearing up for fraught presidential elections this month that have raised fears of violence and disrupted democratic norms. In Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea, incumbents are seeking constitutionally questionable third terms, while in Tanzania, the government appears to be restricting the opposition’s ability to even compete. In Guinea, where rallies against a third term for President Alpha Conde have been ongoing since last year, Amnesty International reported this week that security forces killed at least 50 protesters between October […]