Screenshot from a Depart of Defense video of an unidentified aerial phenomenon.
US Department of Defense/US Navy
Plus, what’s happening in Chad, three months after rebels killed the president, Idriss Déby.
National Election Board of Ethiopia personnel patrol a warehouse stacked high with boxes of polling kits in Addis Ababa in October 2020.
Photo by Eduardo Soteras/AFP via Getty Images
Ethiopia’s party system is extremely volatile due to the prevalence of weakly institutionalised and fragmented political parties.
Former DRC President Joseph Kabila, left, congratulates his succesor, Felix Tshisekedi, on his inauguration in January 2019.
EFE-EPA/Kinsela Cunningham
After endless, futile negotiations with the Kabila camp, Tshisekedi appears to have finally recognised the limits of the coalition government and has lost patience.
Nigerian youths protest against police brutality.
Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Although the Nigerian government has announced the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, protesters have not let up. They are now calling for wider reforms.
President Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast.
Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images
President Alassane Ouattara (78) has been blowing hot and cold on whether he’ll be seeking a third term.
Lesotho’s embattled prime minister deployed troops onto the streets in April, ostensibly to ‘restore order’.
Molise Molise/AFP-GettyImages
South Africa’s numerous interventions in Lesotho contribute to the acrimonious nature of its political culture.
Lesotho Prime Minister Tom Thabane and his new wife, Maesaiah, at the Magistrate Court in Maseru.
AFP-Getty Images/Molise Molise
The doctrine of equality is ingrained both in theory and in the express provisions of Lesotho’s constitution.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari at a campaign rally ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Stefan Heunis/AFP via Getty Images
One year after the 2019 general elections in Nigeria, courts and not the electorate, are busy deciding actual winners of the polls.
A UN Security Council session in New York. Kenya wants a seat at the table.
Bryan R Smith/EPA-EFE
The country has not had a seat at the Security Council table for 24 years.
Sudan’s military is working hard to retain control of the country.
Shutterstock
When the establishment retains some leverage over reformers change can be slow, superficial, and short-lived. Sudan appears to be a textbook case of this scenario.
Omar al-Bashir seems to have reached the end of his long political road.
EPA-EFE
Al-Bashir’s ability to play a skillful combination of internal and external balancing acts, plus ruthless repression and a divided opposition, kept him in power for three decades.
Campaign ads for Ali Bongo in his successful 2009 bid to succeed his father as president of Gabon. The Bongo family has lead Gabon uninterrupted for over 50 years.
Reuters/Daniel Magnowski
Gabon’s strongman president, Ali Bongo, is barely clinging to power after contested elections, a stroke and a coup attempt. The Bongo family has run this stable central African nation for 52 years.
In Ghana, “skirt-and-blouse voting” means to vote for different parties for presidential and legislative positions.
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A dictionary of African politics reveals the witty and insightful political terminology that people in different African countries use.
AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Flickr/Embassy of Equatorial Guinea
The African Peer Review Mechanism got off to a good start, but enthusiasm soon waned.
Supporters of MDC’s Nelson Chamisa believe he could win Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections.
EFE-EPA/Aaron Ufumeli
Nelson Chamisa has the opportunity to foster peace, tolerance and democracy within Zimbabwe’s main opposition party.
South Africans head to the polls in May 2019 but there are challenges.
Niyazz/Shutterstock
South Africa’s electoral commission’s failure to ensure a credible voters’ roll threatens to undo its legacy of free and fair elections.
The end of Robert Mugabe’s rule was greeted with momentous national celebration.
GCIS
For many Zimbabweans Robert Mugabe will remain a contested figure.
South Africa’s Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.
EFE-EPA/Mike Hutchings
South Africa’s Constitutional Court has performed remarkably well in protecting democracy since 1995.
One of the new resolutions on land related to Namibia’s urban areas, like the capital city Windhoek.
Grobler du Preez/Shutterstock
The question of land has been hotly contested in Namibia ever since independence.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is now more popular than his governing party, the ANC.
EFE-EPA/Stringer
The ANC has lost so much support among its traditional voters it’s now forced to look beyond them to retain power.