Protesters outside the army headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan.
EPA-EFE/Stringer
The African Union’s policy offers no wriggle room for a discretionary response to coups, a scourge that imperils the consolidation of democracy.
DRC’s new President Felix Tshisekedi (left) and outgoing President Joseph Kabila. The two have agreed to share power.
Hugh Kinsella/EPA-EFE
The Democratic Republic of Congo has implemented power-sharing agreements before but none of them have worked.
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.
The Zimbabwean government recently shutdown the internet by ordering mobile companies to withhold mobile data.
EPA-EFE/STF
Shutting down or controlling access to the internet has become a go-to strategy among some African states who want to control the political narrative.
President Muhammadu Buhari attends a campaign rally ahead of the 16 February elections.
EPA-EFE/Stringer
There are question marks over whether Nigeria’s upcoming elections will be credible.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power was not without challenges.
Shutterstock/Alexandros Michailidis
Ethiopia has gone through a series of changes that’s put the country on firm democratic footing.
Many have been displaced by violence in the Central African Republic.
EPA/Stringer
The volatile conditions in the Central African Republic make the administration of justice difficult.
UN forces at a luxury tourist resort outside Bamako, Mali, in 2017 following an attack.
EPA/Stringer
Mali has had a tumultuous 2018, and 2019 might not be any better.
Julius Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighter are using President Cyril Ramaphosa’s anti-corruption campaign against him.
EPA-EFE/Kevin Sutherland
The Economic Freedom Fighters’ strategy of painting President Ramaphosa and his allies as corrupt is unlikely to succeed.
Voters line up in South Africa’s last election. Their concerns are shifting.
EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook
South African voters are worried about how their country is being run. Most still support the ANC but in far fewer numbers.
Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili is a candidate in Nigeria’s upcoming 2019 elections.
Flickr
Can Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili become the next Nigerian president?
Cameroonian President Paul Biya votes in the presidential elections in the capital Yaounde. He has been in power for 36 years.
EFE/EPA/Nic Bothma
President Paul Biya’s credibility and legitimacy are increasingly being tarnished, amid growing support for opposition candidates.
Supporters of Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in the capital Bamako.
Legnan Koula/EPA/EFE
Incumbent Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta will be Mali’s next president but an unremarkable first term, and a flawed election, could put a dent in his legacy.
Deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo is heading up the inquiry into corruption in South Africa.
EPA-EFE/Kim Ludbrook
Justice Zondo needs to get under the skin of the politics of state capture in South Africa, to get on record what happened, and why.
The Vaal River in Gauteng, South Africa’s richest province, is polluted.
EPA/Jon Hrusa
South Africa’s local governments lack a clear separation of legislative and executive powers.
There are widespread concerns in Nigeria about vote buying and intimidation.
IIP Photo Archive
Nigerians go to the polls in 2019 in an election that the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari wants to win by any means necessary.
Anti-Joseph Kabila protesters left five people dead and scores injured in Kinshasa.
Robert Carrubba/EPA-EFE
Emmanuel Shadary is President Joseph Kabila’s preferred presidential candidate meaning that Kabila could remain in power if not in office.
Malian president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta at the recent AU Summit in Mauritania.
EPA-EFE/Ludovic Marin
Mali faces huge challenges. Through the upcoming presidential election, Malians will tell the next president what they will and won’t accept for their future.
An artist’s impression of Somaliland.
Shutterstock
The arrest and sentencing of Somalilander Naima Qorane for publishing pro-unity poetry is just the tip of the iceberg in a state that’s eager to maintain its sovereignity as a nation.
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa (centre) at a ZANU-PF rally in Bulawayo.
Aaron Ufumeli/EPA
The world waits to see if Zimbabwe will pass the democracy test as it holds its first election after Robert Mugabe next month.