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[Monitor] Finance minister Matia Kasaija was last night on the defensive following accusations that he irregularly dangled a top government job to secure the exit of his opponent in a parliamentary contest.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
President Museveni's message on the effects on Covid-19 was yesterday delivered by the Secretary General of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), Ms Justine Kasule Lumumba, to the Inter-party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) meeting where Justice Forum (Jeema) took over its leadership from the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party.
Appeal
Ms Lumumba also challenged Jeema to prioritise a meeting between the IPOD members and the Electoral Commission officials to discuss alternative ways the elections can be conducted based on the recommendations from scientists.
However, the FDC party president, Mr Patrick Amuriat Oboi, said it should not be scientists to determine the fate of the elections but stakeholders including the political parties.
The deputy president of the Democratic Party (DP), Mr Mukasa Mbidde, told the meeting that elections are not \"scientific expeditions\" for scientists to decide.
Follow Constitution
The president of Jeema, Mr Asuman Basalirwa, said elections are guided by the Constitution and other electoral laws and it should not be scientists to determine how, when and who should contest for elections.
The Resident District Commissioner (RDC), Mr George Bakunda, said the government of Rwanda has put in place stringent measures against the truckers entering into the country which has in turn paralysed movement at the border.
\"We have a challenge of trucks currently being held at Mirama border because of the strict measures Rwanda government has introduced to manage the truck drivers in their country.
He said truckers who have spent about two weeks at the border post have parked their trucks as they wait for Rwanda to ease the measures.
\"When a driver reaches at the border, he has to hand over this truck to another driver who is supposed to be stationed at the border in Rwanda and takes it to its destination or he can choose to offload the goods and put them on another truck which is based in Rwanda to take these items to where they are supposed to be delivered,\" Mr Bakunda said.
However, one of the stranded drivers, Mr Jonathan Wanyama wondered why only trucks, especially those transporting fuel and gas are allowed to enter Rwanda yet others carrying food items are not allowed.
Uganda’s two key opposition figures, Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and People Power leader MP Robert Sentamu Kyagulanyi (aka Bobi Wine) on June 15 announced a strategy for joint political activities under the United Forces of Change.
Bobi Wine and Dr Besigye have branded their partnership a political pressure group meant to push back against President Yoweri Museveni’s government.
Before he joined mainstream politics in 2017 as a member of parliament for Kyadondo East, Bobi Wine was a Dr Besigye supporter.
At some point, the seeming popularity of Bobi Wine’s People Power created suspicion and hostility with the FDC, the largest opposition party in Uganda.
Our strategies may differ at some point but our objective is the same,” said Bobi Wine at the launch.
A High Court in the Ugandan capital Kampala earlier this week ruled that the president had the right to decide who follows him on social media platform Twitter.
The court presided over by Justice Andrew Bashaija held that even though personal Twitter handles could be used for official communication by a public official, it remained an individual and private property.
A Ugandan national living in the diaspora, Hillary Innocent Taylor Seguya, took the president and two other public officials to court for blocking him on Twitter.
“The President is a public officer and a holder of a Twitter social media platform handle @KagutaMuseveni and there is no other official handle for his office.
He opened the Twitter handle when he was holding the office of the President and he has since been using it in his official and not in private capacity,” the petitioner’s suit read in part.
As polls suggest the opposition alliance will win on 23 June, President Mutharika has been trying to forcibly remove the country's chief justice.
When Peter Mutharika was declared the official winner of Malawi's hard-fought presidential elections in May 2019, he would not have expected - or wanted - to be doing it all again just one year later.
Moreover, in his 5 June State of National Address, Mutharika asked parliament to reverse the court ruling that demanded Malawi switch from its first-past-the-post system to one that requires the victor to garner a 50+1 majority.
In the annulled 2019 elections, President Mutharika of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was declared the winner with 38.6% of the vote.
Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) garnered 35.4%; Saulos Chilima of UTM came third with 20.2%; and Atupele Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) received 4.7%.
Our plan is to distribute between 2 million and 3 million kilograms of additional maize seed targeting districts in Eastern, Northern and parts of central regions whose rainy season goes up to July.
So with our efforts to provide additional seeds to farmers, we believe that the country will be food secure during and after Covid-19 pandemic.
Could this pandemic be a blessing in disguise in terms of emphasis on food production and household income or its disruption in normal flow of work?
We want to see farmers earning more income, households living quality lives and food security becoming part and parcel of the routine fixture.
We have also selected some 17 districts which are tea growing areas in regions across the country and working with Uganda Developed Corporation tea factories will be established there.
Violence rocked Guinea's capital Conakry on Friday as supporters of opposition leader Cellou Diallo clashed with security forces who tried to disperse them.
They threw stones and blocked roads. Police responded with teargas and bullets. The clashes erupted as soon as provisional results released by the electoral commission showed president Alpha Conde winning with a big margin.
Conde, 82, won twice as many votes as his nearest rival, opposition candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo, with 37 of 38 districts counted, according to preliminary results from the commission.
Opposition supporters accuse the electoral authorities of rigging the vote for incumbent president Alpha Conde.
Sekou Koundouno, head of mobilisation for the opposition coalition FNDC said Conde had committed 'high treason'.
\"He is an illegal and illegitimate candidate who is stubbornly pursuing his obsession to turn Guin ea into a monarchy in which, by the way, he will dictate orders to his subjects,\" said Kounduno.
Diallo maintains that he won with a landslide despite irregularities, according to his own tally. He remains barricaded in his home which security forces have besieged since Monday.
ICC warning
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor warned on Friday that warring factions in Guinea could be prosecuted after fighting erupted.
“I wish to repeat this important reminder: anyone who commits, orders, incites, encourages and contributes in any other way to crimes … is liable to prosecution either by the Guinean courts or the ICC,” she said.
#ICC Prosecutor #FatouBensouda: "I wish to repeat this important reminder: anyone who commits, orders, incites, encourages or contributes, in any other way, to the commission of #RomeStatute crimes, is liable to prosecution either by #Guinean courts or by the #ICC."
— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) October 23, 2020
Many people have been killed since clashes began on Monday. Scores too had been killed in the run up to the vote as protestors marched against Conde's bid for a third term.
There were also tax measures such as increased import duty on agricultural imports to 60 per cent, up from 25 per cent.
In Kenya, the tax bracket for people earning rental income was moved up to Kshs15m (Shs525.9m) from Kshs10m.
Kenya, Mr Muhammed Ssempijja, partner tax, E&Y says, also reduced the corporation tax rates and PAYE to 25 per cent from 30 per cent.
Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, while appearing on NTV recently said the measures taken by government are expected to address concerns on purchasing power.
Uganda currently might not afford to amend tax rates since the finance ministry in the Shs45.5 trillion budget set a higher target for the taxman.
Joseph P. Bradley , (born March 14, 1813, Berne, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 22, 1892, Washington, D.C.), associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1870. Bradley was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Electoral Commission of 1877, and his vote elected Rutherford B. Hayes president of the United States. As a justice he emphasized the power of the federal government to regulate commerce. His decisions reflecting this view, rendered during the period of rapid industrialization that followed the American Civil War, were significant in assuring a national market for manufactured goods. His refusal to allow constitutional protection for the civil rights of blacks assisted in the defeat of Reconstruction in the South.
A farm boy with a thirst for learning, Bradley managed to find a way to attend Rutgers College. He thereafter passed the New Jersey bar. He grew to be both a reflective master of the law and an active participant in large undertakings; the Camden & Amboy Railroad was his most important client. In 1870 Bradley was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ulysses S. Grant and was assigned, as a traveling circuit justice, to the Fifth (Southern) Circuit. His first major civil-rights case was United States v. Cruikshank, which he heard initially in federal circuit court in 1874. It concerned an armed attack by whites who killed 60 blacks at a political rally in Louisiana. Bradley ruled that such rights as the citizen’s right to vote, to assemble peaceably, and to bear arms and the rights to due process and equal protection were not protected by the federal government but by the states. When the case reached the Supreme Court, the majority held the same view.
In 1883 Bradley and the court majority declared unconstitutional two sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had forbidden discrimination on the ground of colour in inns, public conveyances, and places of amusement. Bradley held that the act was beyond the power of Congress because the Fourteenth Amendment barred discriminatory actions only
