Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The target for elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo only seems to get further away. This week, the country’s national election commission issued a statement saying it would be unable to organize a vote before April 2019—nearly two and a half years after the expiration of President Joseph Kabila’s mandate. Congo’s opposition and the donor community were expected to lodge strong protests to the new timeline, which would represent a brazen violation of a political accord reached at [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. An ambush in Niger that killed three U.S. Army Special Forces and five Nigerien soldiers this week focused attention on the U.S. military’s presence in West Africa, a region typically seen as France’s domain. The attack, which marked the first time U.S. troops were killed by a militant group in Niger, occurred Wednesday about 120 miles north of Niamey, the capital, near the border with Mali. It was not clear if the Americans were specifically targeted. The International Crisis [...]
Yesterday Angola swore in its first new president in nearly four decades. But how much change did that really represent? Joao Lourenco, who won last month’s election to succeed Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in power since 1979, is from the same party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola—which dos Santos still heads even after resigning as president. Known as the MPLA, the party has ruled Angola ever since its independence from Portugal in 1975. During its long tenure in power, Angola at least nominally became a democracy, and that was 25 years ago. The MPLA’s re-election, albeit in [...]
