Somaliland Holds Credible Presidential Election – IRI

HARGEISA (Somalilandpress) — IRI found that Somaliland’s election was peaceful, without major incident and generally met international standards. Hundreds of thousands of Somalilanders turned out to vote in their fourth election, and although wanting international recognition, did not wait to continue to build their nascent democracy. The international community should credit such democratic progress and the example it sets for others.
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Doubts Rise in Rwanda as Election Is Held

KIGALI, Rwanda — President Paul Kagame uses Twitter. He has lunched at Google. He started out as a skinny rebel fighter in the bush, marched into Rwanda’s capital in the midst of a genocide and then rose to make his country one of the developing world’s most orderly and crime-free societies.
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Democratization via Elections in an African “Narco-state”? The Case of Guinea-Bissau

Recent development cooperation with Guinea‐Bissau, focusing on good governance, statebuilding
and conflict prevention, did not contribute to democratization nor to the stabilization
of volatile political, military and economic structures. The portrayal of Guinea‐
Bissau as failed a “narco‐state”, as well as Western aid meant to stabilize this state, are
both based on dubious concepts. Certainly, the impact of drug trafficking could endanger
democratization and state‐building if continued unchecked. However, the most pressing
need is not state‐building facilitated by external aid that is poorly rooted in the social and
political fabric of the country. Rather, it is grassroots nation‐building that is a pre‐condition
for the creation of viable state institutions.
Keywords: Guinea‐Bissau, elections, democratization, informal institutions, aid, nationbuilding,
institution building, drug trafficking
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Political Rights In Ethiopia

To generate ideas on how to support the strengthening of human rights protection
and good governance in Ethiopia a roundtable discussion was convened in
Ottawa on May 4, 2007, through the collaboration of the Solidarity Committee
for Ethiopian Political Prisoners-Canada (SOCEPP-Canada), Amnesty International
Canada, Partnership Africa Canada, SubSahara Centre, the Canadian Network of
NGOs in Ethiopia, and the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee
(CPCC). In the still supercharged political atmosphere stemming from the contested 2005 legislative elections in Ethiopia the by invitation- only gathering was designed to provide a space for in-depth and candid discussion, in order to encourage
constructive dialogue. The roundtable brought together more than 30 opinion leaders from the Ethiopian diaspora in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, a senior advisor to the Government of Ethiopia, representatives of Canadian nongovernmental
organizations with ties to Ethiopia, officials of both the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency and
others.
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Elections in Sudan 2008/9: A Complex Challenge in Need of Urgent Donor Attention

The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on 9 January 2005 marked the formal conclusion of the civil war between the Sudanese Government (based in Khartoum) and the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). According to the CPA, in 2011, after a six-year Interim Period following the peace agreement, “there shall be an internationally monitored referendum … for the people of South Sudan to confirm the unity of the Sudan by voting to adopt the system of government established under the Peace Agreement; or to vote for secession” (Ch. I, Para 2.5).
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NDA Memorandum to US government delegation peace and democracy in Sudan

The Sudan had a viable democratic system whose government was on the verge
of reaching a peace agreement in 1989. To abort that agreement, a minority
party, the National Islamic Front, staged a military coup d'etat and established an
oppressive dictatorship imposing its partisan program on the majority of the
peoples of the Sudan claiming diviue suction for its program. The NIF regime
branded the majority Moslem citizens of Sudan as heretical, and the Christian
and other denominations of the Sudan as infidels who should be converted, if
necessary, by force. The regune applied the same judgements to Sudan's
neighbouring coutthies. They claimed they had a divine mission to apply their
W brand of Islam ark the peoples of the Sudan, their neighbours, and beyond. Their
means to realise those aims are a Jihad policy which justified them to suppress
internal opposition, wage holy war ngainst armed resistance, and apply
expansionist and terrorist policies regionally and internationally.
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Civil Society, Democracy and Development: International Experiences and the Ethiopian Context International Conference

There are different definitions to the term civil society but what is unique in most definitions is that there is consensus on the fact that civil society activities are driven to benefit citizens by groups, individuals and associations. More often than not the term Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) is erroneously taken to mean civil society. Civil society involves a broad range of civic elements including trade unions, faith-based organisations, community-based organisations and associations, social movements and networks and people who participate in public discourses and activities. Over the last decade or so there has been a profound increase in the number of civic organisations with concomitant increases in their capacity, scope of influence, public profile and audiences. This proliferation of civic networks has been facilitated by the same factors that have enhanced globalisation including technological advancements and socio-cultural, economic and political integration. These processes in this era of globalisation have not been devoid of challenges for coalition building for civil society but they have also been accompanied by new opportunities.

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US Policy and democracy in Africa

With a population of sixty-seven million, Ethiopia is the second largest nation in Sub-
Sahara Africa. It is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. Christianity adopted
since the third century of the Christian era and Islam as of the sixth century. Its
geopolitical sphere spans over East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Middle and
Near East. It holds a special place in the African context as a symbol of independence
and for its active role in the liberation of the continent from colonial rule. It is the seat of the African Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and many other
International Organizations. Ethiopia was a member of the former League of Nations
and later a founding member of the United Nations, the World Bank and IMF and
similar organs. Ethiopian and US relations were established in 1902, centenary of
which was celebrated recently in both countries.
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Democratic governance and political leadership in Africa

Current Situation in Africa: Every time one reads about Africa there is always a sense of ennui especially when the state of political instability, economic and social hopelessness seems to be a permanent feature of the continent. One would have wanted to say that this chaos characteristic of Africa is limited to a few isolated places. But it is not. From the Maghreb to West Africa and from Central Africa to East and Southern Africa, the continent suffers from fissiparous political tendencies leading to internal implosion and occasionally to full scale civil wars in which Africa’s neighbours and outsiders are directly or indirectly involved.
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For a democratic Horn of Africa in the new millennium

In these twilight days of the second millennium, the four countries that constitute the Horn � Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea � are in the grip of political, economic and cultural crises that could spell even more disasters in the New Millennium.
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Opinion: How to stop Africa's democratic backsliding

Fifty years after the first wave of independence, most of Africa is still waiting to benefit from democracy. Rulers extending their terms in office certainly aren't helping matters any.
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Africa & democracy: all articles

From Angola to Somalia, Rwanda to Zimbabwe, conflict and poverty scar Africa. But Africans everywhere are investing huge energies in search of democratic change and social betterment. openDemocracy writers examine the new worlds of an old continent.
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Lack of citizenship rights a major cause of conflict in Africa

(Kampala, Uganda, 21 October 2009)—The lack of citizenship rights generates conflict and undermines democracy in many countries in Africa, according to two new studies by the Open Society Institute. The reports, the culmination of years of research, analyze citizenship laws from all 53 countries in Africa.
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The Regime of Action Islam in the Sudan by Mohamed Suliman

Action Islam

The victory of the Iranian revolution in 1979 exerted a tremendous impact on the Islamic world. The argument went around then that if a few dedicated Islamists can topple the mighty regime of the Shah, well- organised and disciplined Islamic movements everywhere else could surely aspire to similar success. Few months after the victory in Tehran, a group of over four hundred armed Islamists from 11 nationalities attacked Mecca and occupied the Ka’aba. That first multi-national armed Islamist insurrection was defeated, actually annihilated. So was the fate of other uprisings in Syria, northern African Muslim countries and even in northern Nigeria. Osama Ben Laden was certainly not the first to lead a multi-national armed Jihadist group!

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Democratisation of Africa from the Interreligious Perspective

Africa went through three traumatic experiences. It was enslaved by the
Arabs and later by the West and colonised by the West. Slavery was abolished and
decolonisation began in the late 1950’s with Ghana having celebrated its 50 years of
independence in 2007. South Africa was the last country to be freed from white rule
in 1994. Postcolonial Africa was faced with a mammoth task to democratise itself
(Arnold 2005:xiii).
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Democratisation processes in Africa

Eshetu Chole and Jibrin Ibrahim (eds.)
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Challenges of Nation-Building, and Democratization in Africa

Challenges of nation-building, and democratisation in Africa

The first challenge is in the definition. There is no agreed definition of nation-building. A 2003 study by James Dobbins and others for the RAND Corporation defines nation-building as “the use of armed force in the aftermath of a conflict to underpin an enduring transition to democracy.
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Opposition Parties and Democratisation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Article in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 24, 1, Jan. 2006. This article presents a classification of the regimes in Africa followed by a descriptive analysis of opposition parties’ behaviour and analyses the effects of that behaviour on democratisation, participation, competition, legitimacy, and regime survival. It argues that opposition participation in elections and acceptance of election results is conducive to democratic development in the country.
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African Politics: Beyond the Third Wave of Democratisation

About the book

In September 2006 the University of the Western Cape (UWC) hosted the third biennial conference of the South African Political Studies Association. The conference was generously sponsored by the programme on the Dynamics for Building a Better Society of the Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad (VLIR). VLIR also provided much appreciated funding for the present publication of papers presented at the conference. This book comprises nine such papers, which were selected through peer review from more than 30 papers submitted to be considered for inclusion in the volume. After peer review, the selected papers were converted into chapters, most sharing in some way or form the themes of democracy and democratisation in Africa, hence the book’s title. The organisers of the conference are especially proud of the fact that many of the chapters were authored by younger scholars in the field. The project has thus provided these scholars with an opportunity to publish their research, and to do so alongside established scholars in the field.
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Mapping the path for democratisation of Africa

Can Africa's history of undemocratic and authoritarian states be overcome? Wafula Okumu says hard work and commitment lie ahead, but that there is cause for optimism.


22 April 2005 - Wafula Okumu
Source: Pambazuka news

The awarding of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize to Professor Wangari Mathai, has widely been considered as an acknowledgement, in part, of the role the civil society has played in the democratization of Africa. Presently there are at least 12 retired presidents in Africa who had completed their constitutional terms and handed over power peacefully after elections. Last year witnessed elections in Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia in which long-serving presidents were replaced in elections won by candidates from the ruling parties. Read more