Malawi’s president, Joyce Banda, needs no reminder that her honeymoon in office is over. When she assumed office in the aftermath of Bingu wa Mutharika’s sudden death, not many people, least among them Banda herself, would have thought that in just under two years, her presidency could be beset by so many problems and challenges. […]
Mugabe
Posted inNews/Politics
Time to rethink justice in Africa
I recently attended a public lecture by acclaimed author, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, titled The Language of Justice in Africa. The lecture was on how the English language has assumed its powerful status in Anglophone Africa and how the justice systems in these countries, premised on English codes, may actually be miscarrying justice by virtue of […]
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Tsvangirai, it’s time to step up or step down
To anyone who has been paying close attention to developments in Zimbabwe since 2009 – after the formation of the government of national unity (GNU) – the 2013 election result was almost a forgone conclusion. Governments of national unity, as I have written elsewhere, create a false sense of security and unity in deeply polarised […]
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Zimbabwe, it’s complicated
This month marks two key milestones in Zimbabwe, a country that for over one and a half decades has attracted significant attention to itself because of an ailing economy, limitations on civil liberties and political rights and what has been described as the ”mass exodus” of its people to other countries the world over. One, […]
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On Zim’s wounded political beasts
Addressing the recent ZANU-PF annual congress, party leader and Zimbabwe president, Robert Mugabe likened the (mis)fortunes of his party to those of a wounded beast. “We are now like a wounded beast,” Mugabe said, adding emphatically, “You know how a wounded beast fights. Let’s fight back and restore our own pride.” Mugabe’s unhappiness with the […]
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Frank Chikane’s cautionary tale
Thabo Mbeki “looked like a soldier who was ready to die, if he had to, for the sake of his country; a lamb to be slaughtered for a cause”. This is Frank Chikane’s description of his leader waiting for word from the ANC on whether Mbeki was to step down from office. Chikane, who was […]
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Will the real pharaoh please stand up
The resignation of Egypt’s cabinet this week shows the paralysing complexities surrounding the process of transition to democracy in post-revolution societies in the Arab world. Only in Tunisia, the country that ushered in this huge wave of change in North Africa, has the transition to democracy been relatively smooth, albeit accompanied by some challenges. It’s […]