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Electoral authorities in Guinea on Saturday declared President Alpha Conde winner of Sunday's election with 59.49% of the vote, defeating his main rival Cellou Diallo.
Some people went to the streets to protest immediately after the announcement. Such demonstrations have occurred for months after the government changed the constitution through a national referendum, allowing Conde to extend his decade in power.
Opposition candidate Cellou Diallo received 33.50% of the vote, the electoral commission said. Voter turnout was almost 80%.
Political tensions in the West African nation turned violent in recent days after Diallo claimed victory ahead of the official results. Celebrations by his supporters were suppressed when security forces fired tear gas to disperse them.
They accuse the electoral authorities of rigging the vote for incumbent president Alpha Conde.
At least nine people have been killed since the election, according to the government. The violence sparked international condemnation by the U.S. and others.
``Today is a sad day for African democracy,'' said Sally Bilaly Sow, a Guinean blogger and activist living abroad. The government should take into account the will of the people who have a desire for change, he said.
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
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.
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.
\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.
Vice-President Saulos Chilima has returned to court Tuesday to press President Peter Mutharika to sack Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson, Jane Ansah and her fellow commissioners after Parliament, the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court of Appeal found them incompetent and their positions untenable.
Chilima has been accusing the head of the electoral body of misconduct and is backed by electoral stakeholders that Ansah should not preside over the fresh presidential elections.
But Ansah, a judge of the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal, has defiantly refused to step down.
This month Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the ruling of the High Court sitting as the Constitutional Court which found Ansah and MEC incompetent.
On April 1 2020 MEC chief elections officer Sam Alfandika told Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee that the commission wrote President Peter Mutharika to consider hiring new commissioners as the current ones' tenure is expiring on June 5.
(CMC): More than 383,000 voters in Suriname will go to the polls on Monday to elect a new government amid predictions that voter turnout could decline.
The paper reported that another setback for the polls is likely to be a “polluted’ voters list.
The National Democratic Party (NDP) of President Desi Bouterse, has dismissed an opinion polls published on Friday indicating that the ruling party would be defeated in the election.
In the 2015 poll, the party won 27 of the 51 seats and 80 per cent of the votes cast.
The research agency, Idos, in a statement Friday noted: “With a few days to go to the ballot box on May 25, a substantial part of the voters can still be counted among the floating voters.
A Zambian couple jailed for homosexuality in 2019 were freed this week as part of an amnesty for convicted prisoners to mark Africa Freedom Day, a government gazette said.
Japhet Chataba, 39, and Steven Samba, 31, were both found guilty of \"performing unnatural acts\" and sentenced to 15 years in prison in November last year.
Their names were among the 2,984 prisoners pardoned by President Edgar Lungu as part of Africa Freedom Day celebrations on Monday.
The pair's conviction had sparked a diplomatic row with US ambassador to Zambia, Daniel Foote, who said he was \"horrified\" by the judgement.
Foote was accused of \"questioning the constitution\" and recalled to the US last December after Lungu declared him persona non grata.
Amadou Toumani Touré , byname ATT (born November 4, 1948, Mopti, French Sudan [now in Mali]), Malian politician and military leader who twice led his country. He served as interim president (1991–92) after a coup and was elected president in 2002. In March 2012 he was deposed in a military coup. He officially resigned the next month.
Touré studied to be a teacher and later joined the army in 1969, receiving military training in France and the U.S.S.R. At one time he was a member of the Presidential Guard in Mali, but he had a falling out with the president, Gen. Moussa Traoré, and lost this position.
Touré first came to international prominence on March 26, 1991, as the leader of a coup that toppled Traoré (who had himself come to power in 1968 in a coup against Modibo Keita). Touré’s coup was generally welcomed because of Traoré’s repressive policies, which had led to popular unrest, often manifested in violent riots, in 1990–91. It was after days of such rioting that the coup took place, and it seemed to many that Touré had acted in the name of the people and brought stability and democracy to the country. Be this as it may, the pro-democracy forces in the country lost little time in organizing the 1992 presidential election, in which Touré did not stand, and he retired as president on June 8, 1992.
For the next decade Touré occupied himself with nonmilitary activities, mostly concerned with public health. In 1992 he became the head of Mali’s Intersectoral Committee for Guinea Worm Eradication, and he was associated with campaigns to eliminate polio and other childhood diseases as well as working for the control of AIDS in Africa, often collaborating with the Carter Center, the nonprofit humanitarian organization run by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. Touré also was active in trying to resolve disputes in the Great Lakes region (Rwanda, Burundi, and Democratic Republic of the Congo) and served as a United Nations special envoy to the Central African Republic after a coup occurred in that country in
Common Ground held a voter registration drive-thru on July 11th modeled after the drive-up COVID-19 community testing sites. Common Ground helped those who needed to register, re-register or check their registration status in the Sherman Park neighborhood. Leaders and volunteers wore masks and gloves and followed doctor-approved safety precautions to protect themselves and those coming []
The post Common Ground Hosts Voter Registration Drive-Thru appeared first on Milwaukee Community Journal.
Opponents of Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Wednesday sought to end a political crisis by proposing reforms to neuter his authority and hand executive power to a prime minister, although they abandoned a demand for his resignation as a prerequisite for dialogue.
Mass protests
\tThousands of people took to the streets of the capital Bamako twice in June to demand the immediate resignation of Keita saying he had been unable to resolve Mali’s numerous crises, while corruption and economic hardship have flourished.
“He (the prime minister) could not be dismissed by the president,”
\tChoguel Kokala Maiga, a leader of the M5-RFP opposition coalition, on Tuesday presented a nine-point proposal that included the appointment of a prime minister by the opposition.
“He (the prime minister) could not be dismissed by the president,” Maiga said, adding that the prime minister should be able to appoint his government and other senior officials in the administration, justice, armed forces and security departments.
Demands
\tAmong the group’s proposals are the dissolution of the national assembly, a transitional legislative body, the renewal of members of Mali’s highest court, and a government of national unity.
Government will have to purchase over 137,000 television sets if they are to facilitate distance learning as proposed by President Museveni.
In his televised address on Monday, Mr Museveni postponed the partial reopening of schools for another one month but said \"children must continue studying under the distance learning programme\" on televisions and radios.
He made a number of proposals to facilitate the programme, among them; provision of two television sets to each village and a radio set to each home.
Mr Museveni says much as there are fears that the TV sets could bring about congregation, thereby undermining social distancing of the children, he is optimistic that it is easy to identify any child who has the virus since they are from one village.
\"Children from the same village, if they have sickness it would have already shown up,\" added Mr Museveni.
President Nana Akufo-Addo said the country’s health minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu is in a stable condition after contracting the new coronavirus.
“Let us wish our hardworking minister for health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, a speedy recovery from the virus, which he contracted in the line of duty,” Akufo-Addo said in an broadcast, giving an update on the pandemic situation in Ghana.
Let us wish our hardworking minister for health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, a speedy recovery from the virus.
Ghana has recorded 11,964 positive coronavirus cases, one of the highest in the region, but has also carried out one of the highest number of tests in the continent at 254,331 and has one of lowest number of deaths from the virus.
With 54 deaths reported thus far in Ghana, the ratio of deaths to positive cases stands at 0.4%, compared to the global average of 5.5%, and the African average of 2.6%, Akufo-Addo said.
Maputo — The first military base of Mozambique's former rebel movement, Renamo has been dismantled in the central province of Sofala - but when international observers visited the place, there was nobody there.
Under the peace agreement signed between President Filipe Nyusi and Renamo leader Ossufo Momade on 6 August last year, all Renamo bases should have been dismantled by 21 August, but until now there had been no movement at all on this clause in the peace deal.
A brief declaration by Mirko Manzoni, the Special Envoy to Mozambique of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, dated Saturday, said that an inspection team, consisting of representatives of the Mozambican government, Renamo and the international community, set off on foot from the town of Dondo in Sofala \"to inspect the nearby Renamo base\".
Manzoni claimed that all the Renamo former guerrillas who had once been at the base \"are at home and are beginning their new lives.
No information has even been released as to how many Renamo bases exist, or where they are located.
U.S. Department of State Background Note
Although Haiti averages about 302 people per square kilometer, its population is concentrated most heavily in urban areas, coastal plains, and valleys. About 95% of Haitians are of African descent. The rest of the population is mostly of mixed Caucasian-African ancestry. A few are of European or Levantine heritage. Sixty percent of the population lives in rural areas.
French is one of two official languages, but it is spoken by only about 10% of the people. All Haitians speak Creole, the countrys other official language. English is increasingly used as a second language among the young and in the business sector.
The dominant religion is Roman Catholicism. Increasing numbers of Haitians have converted to Protestantism through the work of missionaries active throughout the country. Much of the population also practices voudou (voodoo), recognized by the government as a religion in April 2003. Haitians tend to see no conflict in these African-rooted beliefs coexisting with Christian faith.
Although public education is free, the cost is still quite high for Haitian families who must pay for uniforms, textbooks, supplies, and other inputs. Due to weak state provision of education services, private and parochial schools account for approximately 90% of primary schools, and only 65% of primary school-aged children are actually enrolled. At the secondary level, the figure drops to around 20%. Less than 35% of those who enter will complete primary school. Though Haitians place a high value on education, few can afford to send their children to secondary school and primary school enrollment is dropping due to economic factors. Remittances sent by Haitians living abroad are important in paying educational costs.
Large-scale emigration, principally to the U.S.--but also to Canada, the Dominican Republic, The Bahamas and other Caribbean neighbors, and France--has created what Haitians refer to as the Tenth Department or the Diaspora. About one of every eight Haitians lives
Malawi's governing party has called for a third presidential election, citing irregularities and intimidation in this week's re-run vote as unofficial tallies show incumbent President Peter Mutharika losing to the opposition leader.
Dear Editor,
Mayor Ubraj Narine should focus on the numerous problems plaguing the City Council instead of venturing out on the propaganda trail and postulating on legal matters for which he is immensely unqualified.
The article This call by Mayor Narine should be completely ignored appeared first on Stabroek News.
U.S. District Court Rejects DeKalb County voter purge efforts to Stop Federal Voting Rights Lawsuit, Won’t Order Dismissal Court Recognizes Claim Brought by the Georgia NAACP and the Georgia Coalition … Continued
The post DeKalb county voter purge case proceeds appeared first on Atlanta Daily World.
By Jason Lange and Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Campaign staff for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are advertising their donations to a group that pays bail fees in Minneapolis after the city’s police jailed people protesting the killing of a black man by a white police officer.
At least 13 Biden campaign staff members posted on Twitter on Friday and Saturday that they made donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which opposes the practice of cash bail, or making people pay to avoid pre-trial imprisonment.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement to Reuters that the former vice president opposes the institution of cash bail as a “modern day debtors prison.”
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign on Saturday said it was “disturbing” that Biden’s team “would financially support the mayhem that is hurting innocent people and destroying what good people spent their lives building,” in an email about the Reuters story that called for Biden to condemn the riots.
“It is up to everyone to fight injustice,” Colleen May, who identified herself as an campaign organizer for Biden in South Carolina, Wisconsin and Florida, said in a Twitter post that included an image of her receipt from donating $50 to the Minnesota Freedom Fund.
Despite supporting an embargo, Germany has exported €330 million in weapons to countries involved in the war in Libya.
Since hosting a Libya summit four months ago, the German government has approved arms exports worth €331 million ($358 million) to countries accused of supporting warring parties in the country, according a report from the German Economy Ministry seen by news agency DPA.
In January, Germany hosted a summit of world leaders whose countries have sent arms or soldiers to Libya.
In a closing declaration, 16 countries and international organisations agreed to a weapons embargo for Libya.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres later accused these four countries of breaching the embargo and continuing to provide arms for the conflict.
The Electoral Commission (EC) has outlined measures to curb spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) as it laces its boots for the compilation of a new voters register.
Though it is yet to give an exact date for the exercise, the EC has given indication of compiling a new register once it gets the green light from health experts.
The EC had scheduled April 18 for compilation of the new voters register ahead of the December general elections but had to put it on hold due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.
The move to discard the old voter register, the EC contends, is in favour of the new Biometric Voter Management System (BVMS) which would among other things have a facial recognition ability.
The NDC has however vehemently resisted attempts by the EC to register citizens for a new register amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
