Source: In defense of communism

http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/03/01/2017/world-shambles-interview-cj-polychroniou

Interviewed by Marcus Rolle and Alexandra Boutros – 3rd January 2017

“We live in ominously dangerous times” stated the opening line of an article by C.J. Polychroniou (with Lily Sage) titled “A New Economic System for a World in Rapid Disintegration,” which was recently published in Truthout. And while the aforementioned piece was mainly a scathing critique of global neoliberal capitalism and a call for a new system of economic and social organization, its underlying thesis was that the world system is breaking down and that contemporary societies are in disarray.

Is the (Western) world in shambles? We interviewed C.J. Polychroniou about the current world situation, with emphasis on developments in Europe and the United States, and sought his views on a host of pertinent political, economic and social issues, including the rise of the far right and the capitulation of the left.

Marcus Rolle and Alexandra Boutri: Let’s start by asking — what exactly do you have in mind when you say, “We live in ominously dangerous times?”

C.J. Polychroniou: We live in a period of great global complexity, confusion and uncertainty. It should be beyond dispute that we are in the midst of a whirlpool of events and developments that are eroding our capability to manage human affairs in a way that is conducive to the attainment of a political and economic order based on stability, justice and sustainability. Indeed, the contemporary world is fraught with perils and challenges that will test severely humanity’s ability to maintain a steady course towards anything resembling a civilized life.

For starters, we have been witnessing the gradual erosion of socio-economic gains in much of the advanced industrialized world since at least the early 1980s, along with the rollback of the social state, while a tiny percentage of the population is amazingly wealthy beyond imagination that compromises democracy, subverts the “common good” and promotes a culture of dog-eat-dog world.

The pitfalls of massive economic inequality were identified even by ancient scholars, such as Aristotle, and yet we are still allowing the rich and powerful not only to dictate the nature of society we live in but also to impose conditions that make it seem as if there is no alternative to the dominance of a system in which the interests of big business have primacy over social needs.

In this context, the political system known as representative democracy has fallen completely into the hands of a moneyed oligarchy which controls humanity’s future. Democracy no longer exists. The main function of the citizenry in so-called “democratic” societies is to elect periodically the officials who are going to manage a system designed to serve the interests of a plutocracy and of global capitalism. The “common good” is dead, and in its place we have atomized, segmented societies in which the weak, the poor and powerless are left at the mercy of the gods.

I contend that the above features capture rather accurately the political culture and socio-economic landscape of “late capitalism.” Nonetheless, the prospects for radical social change do not appear promising in light of the huge absence of unified ideological gestalts guiding social and political action. What we may see emerge in the years ahead is an even harsher and more authoritarian form of capitalism.

Then, there is the global warming phenomenon, which threatens to lead to the collapse of much of civilized life if it continues unabated. The extent to which the contemporary world is capable of addressing the effects of global climate change — frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought, rising sea levels, waves of mass migration — is indeed very much in doubt. Moreover, it is also unclear if a transition to clean energy sources suffices at this point in order to contain the further rising of temperatures. To be sure, global climate change will produce in the not-too-distant future major economic disasters, social upheavals and political instability.

If the climate change crisis is not enough to make one convinced that we live in ominously dangerous times, add to the above picture the ever-present threat of nuclear weapons. In fact, the threat of a nuclear war or the possibility of nuclear attacks is more pronounced in today’s global environment than any other time since the dawn of the atomic age. A multi-polar world with nuclear weapons is a far more unstable environment than a bipolar world with nuclear weapons, particularly if we take into account the growing presence and influence of non-state actors, such as extreme terrorist organizations, and the spread of irrational and/or fundamentalist thinking, which has emerged as the new plague in many countries around the world, including first and foremost the United States.

What is the state of the Left in today’s Europe?

Since the collapse of Soviet communism, the European Left has been in a state of complete disarray, although the crisis of Europe’s Left dates back to the 1970s — i.e., long before the collapse of “actually existing socialism.”  But let’s be clear. What do we mean today by the term European Left? The European Socialist and Social Democratic parties abandoned long ago any pretext to being “socialistic” and, in fact, have become advocates of austerity and staunch supporters of free-market capitalism. There are some communist parties still around, but most of them are completely marginalized and lack political influence.

Only in Greece do you have a communist party that still carries some influence inside the labor movement, but it is essentially a Stalinist party and has actually worked hard to maintain political stability and thus the status quo. Nonetheless, until very recently, the Greek Communist Party was far more popular than the Coalition of the Radical Left, popularly known as Syriza, which has been in government since January 2015, thanks to the terrible financial and economic crisis that broke out in early 2010 and has since converted the country to a German/European protectorate.

There are, of course, grassroots movements and parties of the radical Left to be found in virtually every European country, but they lack mass popular support. The rise of Syriza in Greece was seen as representing a new dawn for the European Left, but its complete sellout to the euro masters and its actual conversion to a neoliberal and thoroughly corrupt political party has actually been one of the biggest setbacks for progressive forces throughout the continent.

You were expressing strong reservations about Syriza, in fact through these pages, long before its rise to power. What actually went wrong with the Greek Radical Left?

Syriza was a loose organization of various leftist groups (old-fashioned euro communists, anarcho-communists, Maoists and even social democrats), and its appeal was confined mainly to the intellectual class. It lacked a cohesive ideological worldview and, in fact, [it] was difficult to pinpoint its stance on a variety of crucial issues due to the many political factions that it represented.

Naturally, the great majority of the Greek voters saw Syriza as being nothing more than a movement of political clowns, with Alexis Tsipras at its helm. However, a close look around Syriza’s core leadership would have revealed a group of people who were simply political opportunists, people hungry for power. To me, therefore, it was obvious that, in the event that Syriza came to power, two things would happen: first, a split between radicals and opportunists, and second, the capitulation of the opportunists (Alexis Tsipras and his gang) to the domestic economic elite and the euromasters. And this is precisely what has happened.

After five years of brutal austerity and the sharpest decline of the standard of living in any postwar European country, the Greek people voted into power Syriza, believing that its leader, Alexis Tsipras, would carry through with his pre-election promises of ending austerity and subsequently re-boosting the economy, tearing into pieces the EU/IMF bailout agreements, and forc[ing] the cancellation of a major portion of the debt. But shortly after coming to power, the opportunists realized that the option was either complete surrender to the capitalist forces or stepping down from power. They opted for the former, just so they could stay in power, even if it meant completing the carry out of the neoliberal agenda of the European Union and the IMF as part of the financial bailout of the country.

Syriza has been in power for nearly two years now, and, during this time, it has shoved the neoliberal agenda down the throat of the Greek people with more forcefulness and determination than any previous government. It agreed to a new, far more brutal and humiliating bailout plan, and is now overseeing the complete privatization of the economy and the further deterioration of the standard of living, thereby fulfilling the long-held view of the European neoliberal masters that Greek wages and the nation’s standard of living should not be above those found in nearby Balkan countries like Bulgaria and Romania. Any public official or government minister standing in the way to the implementation of the neoliberal agenda was either isolated or pushed out of the government. Indeed, one of Tsipras’ most pronounced traits as prime minister of Greece is the ease with which he is selling out his former comrades.

To secure his goals and aims, i.e., the sellout of the country, he even ended up recruiting as his lackeys academics from abroad, such as the president of the (allegedly progressive) Levy Institute, Dimitri Papadimitriou, and his wife, Rania Antonopoulos, who is currently serving as the Greek Alternate Minister for Combatting Unemployment. Shortly after having accepted the position of Minister of Economy and Development as a result of a recent cabinet reshuffle, Papadimitriou — when asked about his research as an economist in which he challenged the European dogmas of austerity and neoliberalism and advocated the introduction of a “parallel” currency for the deeply ailing Greek economy — replied by saying that, “until last week I was an academic, and academics may say … things. But when the time comes to implement a program, then they realize that some things may have been wrong!”

Of course, the Greek media had a feast over the amazing opportunism and the hypocrisy of this man, but his reaction has been rather typical among pseudo-progressives and social democrats all throughout modern history. Unsurprisingly, Papadimitriou also went on to say that Greeks, Spaniards and Italians live beyond their means, thereby displaying his obedience to the EU and IMF masters, and that one of the major comparative advantages that Greece now enjoys is that it is a country with “cheap labor.”

What has been happening in Greece may represent an extreme example because of the actual state of the economy, but it is quite representative of the state of politics of contemporary European Left. That is, a Left without political convictions and values, a Machiavellian Left that prefers to serve the Masters of Mankind than seek to reorganize society from below.

What is your explanation for the rise of Donald Trump, and do you actually see a future in “Trumpism”?

Understanding the phenomenon of Donald Trump demands that we look beyond the individual himself and, instead, into the way US society has evolved over the last few decades. Millions of Americans have seen their livelihoods either entirely collapse or be threatened by economic forces which they neither understand or control. For example, they (and Donald Trump) blame Mexico and China for the loss of American jobs, but no one is taking the trouble to point out to them that the bulk of the products that China, for example, exports to the United States are being produced by US or multinational corporations who opted to move their operations outside the US in order to take advantage of cheap labor opportunities. In the meantime, wages in the US have remained stagnant over the course of the last 25 years for the great majority of the population, while the economy has grown considerably. But the economic gains end up almost exclusively in the hands of a tiny corporate and financial elite, which also controls the political agenda.

“Trumpism” and disingenuous populism represent the future of American politics, especially since the economic policies that the Trump administration will implement will surely further deteriorate the state of inequality in this country and thus do nothing to ameliorate anger and anxiety about the future, which were the driving forces that sent so many people into Donald Trump’s arms.

Note: This interview has been condensed and edited for concision. Reprinted with permission from Truthout.

AfricaFocus Bulletin
January 16, 2017 (170116)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

Ghana, Gambia, and Gabon are all small African countries with names
beginning with the letter “G,” which held presidential elections in
2016. But neither the electoral landscapes nor the electoral
outcomes can fruitfully be analyzed without giving greater weight to
the contrasts than to the similarities. The same applies to the even
wider set of 14 African countries with presidential elections last
year, or the 8 so far scheduled to hold elections in 2017.

For a version of this Bulletin in html format, more suitable for
printing, go to http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/afr1701.php, and
click on “format for print or mobile.”

To share this on Facebook, click on
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/afr1701.php

As this Bulletin is published in mid-January, the most pressing
uncertainty about Africa’s elections is for Gambia, where outgoing
President Yahya Jammeh reversed his decision to accept his election
defeat in December (see
http://www.africafocus.org/docs16/gamb1612.php), meeting with
widespread condemnation both internationally and domestically.
And for the latest news as of this morning, see
http://tinyurl.com/h2p3vzn and follow this Gambian news site
(http://jollofnews.com).

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains several summary commentaries on
Africa’s elections in 2016 and 2017: Vera Songwe on the contrasting
outcomes in Gabon, Ghana, and Gambia; Abdi Latif Dahir on five
elections to watch in 2017; Kim Yi Dionne reviewing public opinion
on the wide variations in the extent of freedom to organize in 36
different African countries. Also included are several links to
additional recent analyses worth noting.

Also of related interest

Two videos of particular relevance, given the nomination of
ExxonMobil executive Rex Tillerson for U.S. Secretary of State. Both
Chad and Equatorial Guinea held elections in 2016, with leaders who
have been in power for 26 and 37 years respectively continuing
in their positions.

Rachel Maddow on Chad and ExxonMobil December 13, 2016 – 16 minutes
video: http://tinyurl.com/jp57m7z
transcript: http://tinyurl.com/gn5yqvh

Rachel Maddow on Equatorial Guinea and ExxonMobil January 12, 2017 –
4 minutes
video: http://tinyurl.com/hqwc73m
transcript not yet available

List of Africa’s rulers longest in office, updated for 2017
https://qz.com/852384/

For general reference and news related to African elections

Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa
Resources includes an election calendar for each year beginning in
2005

Election Calendar

Afrobarometer – extensive data and analysis on public opinion in 36
African countries
http://afrobarometer.org

Quartz Africa
https://qz.com/africa/ – sign up for their weekly brief at
https://qz.com/africa-weekly-brief/

AllAfrica.com
http://allafrica.com/governance

——————————————————–

The Trump Election: Intersecting Explanations

An intersectional database of articles and books, compiled by
AfricaFocus editor William Minter

http://www.noeasyvictories.org/usa/trump-win-reasons.php

* 21 relevant explanations, any of which arguably sufficient to have
tipped the balance of the narrowly decided electoral college outcome

* As of January 15, 2017: 244 recommended articles, 23 books for
deeper background

* Voter suppression is among the most important factors, but also
among the least prominent in the public debate. See
http://www.noeasyvictories.org/usa/voter-suppression.php

++++++++++++++++++++++end editor’s note+++++++++++++++++

Africa’s mixed political transitions in the 3 Gs: Gabon, the Gambia,
and Ghana

Vera Songwe

Brookings Institution blog, December 22, 2016

http://www.brookings.edu – Direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/j3reoma

Africa has gone through a number of leadership transitions in 2016
and with each one the edifice that will shape Africa’s leadership
and political transition process is being molded. 2016 has been
another of year progress on the African leadership transition front.
This year there have been 16 elections, in seven of the elections
there was an effective leadership transition and over 60 percent of
the elections were conducted in a free and transparent manner with
satisfactory citizen involvement and little or no unrest–such as in
Ghana or Cabo Verde.  Overall, the leadership transitions have been
largely peaceful, constitutional, and transparent. However, the
experiences across countries and sub-regions have been quite varied
and provide us with many lessons for the future. I will use Gabon,
Gambia, and Ghana (the “three Gs”) to illustrate these experiences.

Three elections, in Gabon in August, and the Gambia and Ghana in
December, are shaping the narrative of this dynamic process and
providing important lessons for the transition process. First, the
struggle for change continues: While Africa is slowly moving towards
more participatory political transitions, the fight has not
completely won. In addition, the growing importance and maturity of
electoral commissions; citizens’ increasing awareness that their
votes matter; the slow but certain move away from tribal politics to
issues politics; and now regional, rather than foreign, ownership
around leadership transitions all contribute towards the deepening
of democracy on the continent. Each of the countries–Gabon, the
Gambia, and Ghana–have tackled these issues differently.

The Struggle for Change Persists

Ghana is the pride of Africa when it comes to democratic
transitions. Once again, its most recent election has proven this
point.  Despite the tense and intensely fought campaign both parties
continue to pledge respect for the process. Indeed, there is much to
celebrate around Africa’s leadership transitions, but much remains
to perfect the process the continent over. This year many elections
were held freely and fairly on the continent, and both incumbents
and new leaders were elected to office–including Benin, Cabo Verde,
São Tomé and Príncipe, and Zambia for example. And in an
unprecedented move the President of Mauritania and Angola all
declared they will not seek re-elections at the end of the term. A
very positive and encouraging trend if the pronouncements come to
pass.

However, in a number of countries the old has not given way to the
new, and the evolution of democracy is still in motion with too-
often deadly consequences for the citizens in Burundi, Gabon, and
the Gambia to name a few. These examples demonstrate that the
concept of leadership transition has not yet been fully adopted. A
number of lessons can be drawn from these latter experiences. The
populations are increasingly more vocal about transparency of
elections. Both sides incumbent and opposition have increasingly
equal chances of getting their voices heard and results tend to be
closer in these countries. There is still a need for vigilance, and
the tendency to slip remains. Peaceful leadership transitions are
not yet the norm.

Election Commissions: Strong, Credible, and Independent Institutions
are Emerging

In the three Gs, the role of the electoral commissions has been a
determining factor. In fact, electoral commission heads are
increasingly becoming the new villains and/or heroes in the African
struggle for peaceful leadership transitions.

In Gabon, the head of the electoral commission’s independence was
largely questioned primarily by the opposition and the people of
Gabon, as well as international election observers. Notably, the
final results of the election were not announced by the head of the
electoral commission, as constitutionally stated, but by the
minister of the interior–an institution with no independence from
the incumbent. Gabon’s incumbent President Ali Bongo won by 49.9
percent over 48.2 percent for his rival Jean Ping, less than a 6,000
vote difference and suspiciously high turnout in Bongo’s home
province. Violence and protests erupted not long after the
announcement.

The Gambia’s electoral commission performed and fared much better:
Three months before the election, the head of the electoral
commission Alieu Momarr Njai pledged in a memorable but unpublicized
speech to uphold the integrity of the commission and protect the
integrity of the process.  During the launch of the electoral
process he said:

Election results may be rigged to predetermine who will win or lose,
and election may be disrupted, casting doubt on the legitimacy of
the process, but I stand here today to pronounce to you that, as far
as our concerted efforts are in play, this will never be the case in
our dear country. The Independent Electoral Commission believes that
an election without integrity subverts the purpose of a democratic
election, and cannot be considered fair and equitable. The IEC will
ever concentrate on conducting free and fair elections. This, I
believe we will ever achieve by upholding governing principles such
as: respect for principles of electoral democracy; ethical conduct;
accuracy and transparency.

The people of the Gambia and many others did not expect such clarity
of vision from the head of the electoral commission, and many
dismissed this as normal election propaganda. However, Njai kept his
word. He pronounced the elections results in favor of the opposition
candidate Adama Barrow and called for President Yahya Jammeh, who
has been in power for over 22 years, to step down, eliciting pride
and jubilation from the people of the Gambia. The Gambia’s troubles
have instead come from Jammeh’s withdrawal of his concession and
determination to stay in power.

In Ghana, the head of the election commission benefitted from a
robust and solid system, which has a history of inclusion,
transparency, and most of participation by all members of the
political exercise. The continuous process undertaken by the
Ghanaian electoral commission to continuously educate the electorate
and the political parties is clearly a lesson for the rest of the
continent on how to build trust and interact with the population.

However, even in Ghana there are lessons to learn from the election,
such as how to manage delays in the announcement of the election
results and or glitches in the system on election day. In Ghana the
commission needed more time to ensure everyone eligible to vote had
voted and to count the votes.  Tensions began to mount as the
population waited for the elections results to be proclaimed, both
sides began proclaiming victory and the supporters of each candidate
began filling the streets.

This could have led to severe unrest. However, the communication of
the election committee head asking the people for patience while all
the votes were counted was an example of good election management.
The people could only heed to this request because of the trust
built by the commission and a legitimate sense of ownership of the
commission.  Therefore, while independently elected, the first task
of every election commission is to build trust with the people. As
African countries prepare for more elections this should be an area
that gets special attention.

Ownership: The People’s Voice, The Continent’s Voice

Ethnic politics is slowly giving way to issues politics. The economy
is taking center stage in elections. In Ghana, as in the Gambia, the
last few years have seen citizens suffer under the weight of
weakening currencies, erosion of purchasing power by over 50
percent, increasing poverty, joblessness, and interest rates above
25 percent. Similarly, the rise of corruption, noted by Ghanaian
President John Mahama in his concession speech, undermined all the
achievements of Mahama presidency–and most of all his struggle to
give affordable and reliable power to the people of Ghana. The
results of these elections increasingly show that while there will
always remain a thread of local politics in elections, the
electorate is becoming more sophisticated and are voting on issues
broader than ethnic origins. Citizens are more engaged and are
owning the election agenda.

African leaders are also increasingly more active in the resolution
of African leadership transition issues. During the crisis period of
the Gabon elections the French and the European Union were the most
active and vocal voices. The French president called for a recount
and the EU asked that all results be published, but Chadian
President Idriss Déby, as head of the African Union, was the central
mediator of the proceedings. In the case of the Gambia, the African
Union alongside five other presidents of ECOWAS countries have taken
it upon themselves to mediate a settlement of the impasse. The
acknowledgement and ownership of the transition agenda by Africa’s
leaders is an important part of assuring peace and stability during
transition crises.  The cases of Burundi and the Gambia should
provide lessons on how to make such negations successful. What
incentives could be put in place to minimize difficult transitions?

As the Ghanaians celebrate the peaceful election of new President
Nana Akufo Addo, as President Bongo of Gabon settles into his second
term, and as the Gambians wait anxiously for a resolution, the
continent must heed the lessons of these three transitions and begin
putting in place systems that allow citizens more ownership of the
process, ensure that election commissions are truly independent and
equipped to build trust with citizens, and encourage candidates that
acknowledge the increasing sophistication of the electorate so
campaign messages must have content and can no longer rely solely on
identity politics.

**********************************************************

The five African elections to watch out for in 2017

Abdi Latif Dahir

January 03, 2017 Quartz Africa

The five African elections to watch out for in 2017

Last year, a public survey of elections by the Pan-African research
network Afrobarometer showed Africans distrusted national electoral
commissions and the quality of their elections. Just over 40% of
Africans in 36 countries believed that the last elections in their
country were free and fair; 25% said they trusted their electoral
commissions “a lot”; and many described elections where bribery was
rampant, media bias persisted, and voters were often threatened with
violence at the polls.

Yet elections across the continent are always markers of important
democratic milestones and are followed closely by observers and
citizens alike. In 2016, congratulations poured into Ghana after the
country elected Nana Akufo-Addo as its new president. Several
incumbent presidents, including Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Zambia’s
Edgar Lungu and Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon all won re-election too–
despite protests from opposition members, violence, and internet
shutdowns. And after 22 years in power, The Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh,
who once said he will rule for “one billion years” conceded defeat
live on television, only to reject the outcome of the elections a
few days later.

In 2017, more African countries will pursue the democratic path by
conducting presidential, legislative and municipal elections. Some
281 sworn lawmakers–they are 347 legislators in total–will kick
things off in Somalia by voting for a president later on Jan. 24.
Incumbent president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is considered a
frontrunner and is among dozens of candidates who are vying for the
presidency.

Here are the key elections to watch as millions of people head to
the polls.

1. Rwanda

When: Aug. 4, 2017

President Paul Kagame will be seeking a third, seven-year term since
winning the country’s second election in 2010 with 93% of the vote.
Dubbed as the “global elite’s favorite strongman” and the “darling
tyrant,” Kagame is a media-savvy politician who uses his sleek
website and over 1.5 million Twitter followers to propagate his
message of progress and development. Kagame is also credited with
transforming the landlocked nation’s economic development, boosting
youth employment and trade, reducing poverty and advocating for
technology as a tool for prosperity.

Yet, the country’s transformation under Kagame has come with a
catch. Kagame is accused of muzzling the press, restricting free
speech, and silencing dissidents–in some cases, even allegedly
assassinating opponents who fled to Uganda and South Africa.

But the upcoming election will point more to the future of Rwanda
than to its troubled past. In 2015, a constitutional amendment
allowed Kagame to run for this new term and two more five-year terms
after that, meaning that he could stay in power till 2034. The
controversial move was criticized by many in the international
community and questioned whether Kagame was even interested in
fostering a new generation of leaders to take on the mantle of
leadership. “I don’t think that what we need is an eternal leader,”
Kagame said when he announced his candidacy early last year. And in
2017, he will have to work hard to prove to his critics that he
doesn’t count on being one.

2. Kenya

When: Aug. 8, 2017

Kenyans will go to the polls to elect almost 1900 public officials
including the president, senators, county governors, members of the
national and county assemblies, and women county representatives.
This is yet another high-stakes election, which is tilted in favor
of incumbent president Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.
The two, however, will go into election facing an energized
opposition who have used the administration’s failings as a rallying
point.

Since Kenyatta came to power in 2013, the country has been bedeviled
with deadly terrorist attacks; teachers, nurses and doctor strikes;
failing banks; and several corruption scandals that have drained
tens of millions of dollars from government coffers.

Even though the opposition is yet to pick a candidate, Kenyatta will
likely face Raila Odinga, a longtime opposition figure who has been
angling to become president for almost 20 years. The opposition has
also accused the country’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries
Commission of being inept and biased, with a British court recently
convicting two British businessmen of bribing election commissioners
to get contracts for printing ballots.

Like previous elections in the past two decades, the fear of
violence, ethnic polarization, and escalating political tensions
looms large. Kenya walks a tight rope and depending on how the IEBC
conducts the election, might see it maintain its fragile democracy
or slide into yet another gloomy post-election period.

3. Angola

When: Aug. 2017

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos arrives for an EU Africa Summit in
Lisbon, Sunday Dec. 9, 2007. European and African leaders are
scheduled to sign a strategic partnership agreement on Sunday, after
a two-day summit marked by tensions over human rights in Zimbabwe.

In Dec. 2016, president Jose Eduardo dos Santos surprised many
observers by announcing that he will step down as president before
the 2017 elections. The ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation
of Angola party has elected João Lourenco, a former defense
minister, as vice president ahead of the next parliamentary
elections. In Angola, the leader of the winning party automatically
becomes president.

But Angola is still dominantly a one-party state, ruled by dos
Santos and his family, who have amassed wealth and power over the
last four decades. Yet, the fourth elections in the country since it
gained independence from Portugal in 1975, come at a time when the
country has been hit by the slump in global crude prices–
diminishing its foreign exchange revenues. The 2017 elections will
test the maturity of Angola’s democracy and if successful, confer a
measure of legitimacy on its government

4. Liberia

When: Oct. 10, 2017

After 10 years in office, it is the end of the road for Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia, and Africa’s first female president.
Sirleaf leaves office after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, dealing
with the Ebola crisis, passing a Freedom of Information bill, and
taking on the taxing effort of rebuilding a country ravaged by war.
But by Oct. 25, 2017, Liberia will have a new president-elect, who
will take the mantle of an economy battered by low global commodity
prices and post-Ebola decline in official inflows.

Former Liberian soccer player and current Senator George Weah smiles
after addressing thousands of supporters of the Congress for
Democratic Change (CDC) party who petitioned him to contest
Liberia’s Presidential elections in 2017, at Party headquarters in
Monrovia, Liberia, 28 April 2016. George Weah contested the 2005 and
2011 Presidential elections, but lost to incumbent Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf on both occasions. Sirleaf’s second term in office will end
in 2017.

More than 1.9 million registered voters will elect presidential and
legislative candidates from 22 political parties, according to the
National Elections Commission. A key contender in the elections is
George Weah, an ex-footballer who is considered by Fifa as the
highest-ranking African footballer of the 20th century, and whose
first presidential bid failed after he lost to Sirleaf. The former
AC Milan footballer and current senator has promised to increase the
national budget, work on religious harmony and support vocational
education.

Weah could also face off with Jewel Howard-Taylor, the ex-wife of
former Liberian president and warlord Charles Taylor. Jewel,
considered the second most powerful woman in Liberian politics, is a
twice-elected senator from Bong County, which has the third-highest
number of registered voters in Liberia. Vice president Joseph Boakai
will also run for president on the government’s record.

5. The Democratic Republic of Congo

When: TBD 2017

Moise Katumbi, governor of Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral-
rich Katanga province, arrives for a two-day mineral conference in
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo March 24, 2014.

On New Year’s Eve, the government and opposition members in the DR
Congo appeared to have signed a deal that could see president Joseph
Kabila step down after the next election. The agreement came after
deadly protests, arrests and internet shutdown that followed the end
of Kabila’s constitutionally-mandated second term on Dec. 19.

As part of the deal, a transitional government will be appointed by
March, and the elections will take place before the end of the year.
If this does take place, it will be the first peaceful transfer of
power since independence in 1960. A peaceful election will also
avert a return to war in the populous, mineral-rich country, where
some five million people lost their lives in the civil war that
lasted between 1994 and 2003. Moise Katumbi, a popular politician
and opposition member, is expected to run to replace Kabila.

The challenge to hold the vote in 2017 will also be enormous, given
that the electoral commission once said that it needed at least 17
months to complete registration processes and hold the elections.
Beyond the election, a new government and president will face the
task of addressing economic, humanitarian and political
instabilities that persist all across the country.

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Only 7 percent of citizens in this African country [Swaziland] feel
free to join political organizations
Kim Yi Dionne,  Afrobarometer Blog, Dec. 16, 2016

http://www.afrobarometer.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/hdk9rlc

“Afrobarometer measures citizens’ perceptions of freedom to assemble
by asking: “In this country, how free are you to join any political
organization you want?” Survey participants could answer completely
free, somewhat free, not very free or not at all free.

On average, across the 36 African countries where Afrobarometer
conducts its nationally representative public opinion surveys, a
majority (58 percent) reported that they feel “completely free” to
join any political organization they want.

But citizens’ perceptions of freedom to assemble varied across the
continent. While 85 percent of Senegalese felt completely free to
join political organizations, only 7 percent felt that same way in
Swaziland.

Why is Swaziland so far below its peers in Africa in protecting its
citizens’ freedom to assemble?

Plainly, Swaziland is not a democracy. It holds elections and has a
parliament, but real power is vested in the last absolute monarch in
Africa, King Mswati III. King Mswati III has ruled Swaziland since
1986, a couple of years after the death of his father, King Sobhuza
II.”

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Additional links worth noting

Brett L. Carter, “Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s
embarrassing attempt to ingratiate himself to Donald Trump,” Jan 9,
2017
http://africasacountry.com – direct URL: http://tinyurl.com/jnthw78

Nic Cheeseman, “Africa’s real story of 2017 will be of close
elections and activists struggling to hold governments accountable,”
Jan 10, 2017
http://www.africanarguments.org – direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/jtgt2tb

Sarah Brierley and George Ofosu, “What will Ghanaians expect from
their new president,” Afrobarometer blog, Jan 6, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/zxb5kfz

Jesse Weaver Shipley, “The market decides if we are free,” Africa is
a Country, Jan. 16, 2017
On President Nana Akufo-Addo’s inauguration speech in Ghana
http://tinyurl.com/hqz7msy

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