If Mozambique has attracted international headlines over the past year, it has been mainly for the return to armed conflict in central Mozambique by the ex-rebels Renamo as well as for new discoveries of world-class gas reserves in the country’s offshore waters. But while the results of Mozambique’s municipal elections, which took place on Nov. 20, have not attracted the same level of international attention, they are an important indicator of the health of political pluralism in a country touted as a post-conflict success story with impressive GDP growth. The election results will influence how the Mozambique government deals with [...]
Lists of African success stories do not tend to include Chad. More than half of the country’s citizens live below the poverty line. According to data collected by the United Nations, most have spent less than two years at school. From 2008 to 2010, the European Union and U.N. deployed peacekeepers to the country’s unstable eastern border with Sudan. At one point, rebels managed to assault the capital, N’Djamena. Yet this year, Western powers and the U.N. have turned to Chad to help manage new crises in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR). The supposed basket case has suddenly [...]
Following its “defeat” in the July 31 presidential and parliamentary elections at the hands of ZANU-PF, the fortunes of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have reached their lowest point in the party’s 14-year existence. Any optimism the MDC may have harbored about removing ZANU-PF seems to have been extinguished, and, after five years in a government of national unity, the MDC is back where it has been for most of its lifespan: on the outside looking in, subject to persistent state harassment and seemingly powerless to halt the ZANU juggernaut. Crucially, this time the MDC also lacks the [...]
