Tensions are elevated and security is expected to be heightened ahead of the countrywide shutdown protest called by the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party on 20 March. The EFF has called the protest to condemn the ongoing electricity supply crisis – locally referred to as loadshedding – and to call for President Cyril Ramaphosa …
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced his long-awaited reshuffle on 6 March. This reshuffle has been anticipated ever since he secured re-election as ANC president at the party’s elective conference in December 2022. The reshuffle was further necessitated by the need to bring the newly elected ANC deputy president, Paul Mashatile, into government as national deputy president …
Nigeria will hold its general election on 25 February in what will be a decisive election for the country’s future. Nigeria is currently wrestling with several overlapping challenges including a security crisis in the south, an economy overly dependent on oil revenues, limited economic opportunities for the burgeoning youth population, and ballooning public debt. With …
President Cyril Ramaphosa was re-elected as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) on 19 December. Ramaphosa’s re-election follows a bruising and chaotic three days as factional tensions within the party played out during the ANC’s 55th national elective conference still underway at the Johannesburg Expo Centre. Ramaphosa narrowly defeated his rival, former health …
In his weekly letter on 4 December, President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged to take drastic steps to address the country’s worsening energy security crisis, including approaching neighbouring states to purchase additional electricity. The country’s persistent energy challenges were greatly exacerbated by the 28 November announcement that the Kariba Dam hydroelectric power station would need to drastically …
The Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) party – founded only in March of this year – dominated Lesotho’s 7 October general election. This has paved the way for RFP founder and leader, and reportedly Lesotho’s richest man, Sam Matekane, to become the country’s prime minister. The RFP won 56 of the country’s 120 National Assembly seats, …
Recently ousted Democratic Alliance (DA) mayor of Johannesburg, Mpho Phalatse, filed papers on 4 October with the Gauteng High Court seeking to have the council sitting in which she was deposed declared null and void on procedural grounds. She was removed by a vote of no confidence on 30 September after the nine-party coalition she …
Angola will hold its national general election on 24 August in what is expected to be the closest vote in the country’s post-independence history. The expectation of this highly competitive ballot has raised tensions across the country and heightened fears of violent unrest in the aftermath of the election regardless of the result. More than …
Kenya will hold its general election on 9 August in a major test of stability in a country where elections are frequently marred by allegations of fraud and ethnic and politically motivated violence. The worst example of this was the 2007 elections in which at least 1 100 people were killed and over 500 000 displaced in …
The details of a proposed regional peacekeeping force deployed to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are expected to be made public in the coming days. The deployment was proposed after a meeting of the East African Community (EAC) in mid-June aimed at easing the rising tensions between DRC and Rwanda. The two countries …