US President Barack Obama would do well to refocus America’s interventions in Africa to support peaceful activists fighting for democracy.
Articles on African politics
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Press freedom has changed little in the past decade. If the African Union is to commit to the principles of democracy, it needs to do more to uphold freedom of expression and protects its journalists.
South Africa’s transition to democracy was based on the values of inclusive politics, reconciliation, human rights and constitutionalism. Twenty-two years on, how has the country fared?
A central goal of Thabo Mbeki’s African Renaissance was the right of African people to determine their own future. But the country he governed struggled to embrace his pan-African vision.
As South Africa celebrates 22 years since the end of apartheid this month, a new survey by Afrobarometer suggests the country still has a long way to go in fulfilling the promises of freedom.
The relationship between advocacy organisations based in Western capitals and their marketed constituency of marginalised and disadvantaged African groups is tenuous. What then, is the goal?
Opposition parties have emerged at different stages of Zimbabwe’s post-independence history but none have seriously threatened ZANU-PF dominance.
If the governing ANC ignores the calls for Zuma’s resignation,it may undermine South Africa’s leadership on the continent. It creates the idea that he can undermine the constitution with impunity.
It is normal for resistance movements to adopt rough survival strategies and techniques while fighting an oppressive regime. Unfortunately that culture takes root and is permanently nurtured.
African elections and referendums are still a heady mixture of the graceful and the shameless.
Lobbying political actors to achieve particular outcomes is an acceptable practice in a democracy. But state capture, as is allegedly happening in South Africa, denotes holding the state to ransom.
Democracy resulted in a sea change in the governing ANC. In the past, only highly committed idealists joined the party. Today’s splits and factions are about patronage and clientelism.
Ironically, the only feasible way of removing President Zuma lies outside the prescribed formal structures of the constitutional processes – at the head office of the governing ANC.
If South Africans are to make the radical changes they must to become truly great, the new generation will have to find a way of understanding the country’s past in its profound complexity.
The Constitutional Court judgment in the opposition’s case against President Jacob Zuma represents the exercise of judicial authority and expertise at the highest level by international standards.
Angola’s Dos Santos is buying time. His promise to step down is an attempt to diffuse growing political tensions, as repression continues. He might relinquish his position, but not his power.
South Africa’s governing ANC has to respond to public outcry about state capture or run the risk of electoral losses.
Lula led an unprecedented shift in the country’s foreign policy towards the global South. He also helped elevate Brazil to the status of a global player. But, six years on, disillusionment reigns.
Seasoned social rights activist Mark Heywood argues that the constitution provides South Africans with more rights and entitlements than they may be aware of.
The heavy-handed tactics used by Uganda’s authorities during the 2016 elections have raised questions about a return to an oppressive past.
Top contributors
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Professor of World Politics, SOAS, University of London
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Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria
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Professor of Public Affairs, Tshwane University of Technology
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Political Scientist, University of the Western Cape
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Professor of Democracy, University of Birmingham
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Honorary Professor of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand
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Professor in Political Science, University of South Africa
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Visiting Professor and Professor Emeritus, University of the Witwatersrand
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Professor and Head of Department of Political and Conflict Studies, Nelson Mandela University
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Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of South Africa
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Steinberg Postdoctoral Fellow in International Migration Law, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Faculty of Law, McGill University
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Yarik Turianskyi is Manager of the Governance and African Peer Review Mechanism Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs and guest lecturer in African Governance and Eastern European Politics, University of Pretoria
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Emeritus Associate Professor in Public Law, UCT. Visiting Adjunct Professor, WITS School of Governance; Director, Africa Programme, University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge
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Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester
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Lecturer, Nelson Mandela University