Politics

Zimbabwe announces date for presidential, parliamentary elections

Published

11 months ago

May 31, 2023

Ifeoluwa Dada

Zimbabwe announces date for presidential, parliamentary election

Zimbabwe has announced the dates for its presidential and parliamentary elections.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday disclosed that the elections would hold on August 23, 2023.

The president is seeking a second term in office. Mnangagwa replaced strongman ruler, Robert Mugabe in 2017 after a military coup.

The country is battling against entrenched poverty, recurring power outages, and debilitating unemployment, all of which have led to widespread resentment.

The president has insisted that his administration under the ZANU-PF party has performed commendably. He also blamed Western sanctions for the country’s economic woes and failure to service a burgeoning debt.

The president will face a close contest with Nelson Chamisa, 45, who leads the newly formed Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC).

Chamisa’s party is demanding access to, and an audit of the voters’ roll, as well as public media access which it says will help level the playing field ahead of the polls.

The announcement of the election dates coincides with parliamentary discussions on electoral reforms. The upper house of parliament in February approved legislation that banned civil society organisations from engaging in politics and allows the state to interfere in their governance and activities, such as making changes to their internal management and funding.

The President of Zimbabwe is elected using a two-round system, while the Zimbabwean legislature is made up of 270 members of the National Assembly, 210 members elected in single-member constituencies, and 60 women elected by proportional representation in ten six-seat constituencies based on the country’s provinces.

Related Topics:Elections Featured Zimbabwe

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Politics

Burkina Faso investigating reports of northern killings

Published

11 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A government spokesman has revealed that Burkina Faso is looking into reports that 223 people were killed by the Burkinabe army in two villages in the north in February.

The killing was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), causing a rift between the junta-led West African state and some foreign media that published the report. The HRW report released on Thursday said that the military had executed residents of Nodin and Soro, including at least 56 children, as part of a campaign against civilians suspected of working with jihadist terrorists. The report was based on interviews with witnesses, members of civil society, and other groups.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, a spokesman for the government, said that HRW’s claims were “peremptory” and that the junta was not unwilling to look into the claimed crimes.

“An investigation has been launched into the killings in Nodin and Soro,” Ouedraogo said in a late-evening statement, quoting a statement from a regional prosecutor on March 1.

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s militaries took over in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023, violence in the area has gotten worse. This is because of the ten-year fight with Islamist groups related to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Attacks on Burkina Faso got much worse in 2023, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to the U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Politics

S’Africa lengthens troop deployment in Mozambique, Congo DR

Published

3 days ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech that South Africa’s military would keep sending troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are both in the middle of wars.

The extension will leave 1,198 members of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) in eastern Congo for an unknown amount of time. They are there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force helping Congo fight rebel groups.

The statement also said that 1,495 members of the SANDF would keep working in Mozambique, where they have been since 2021 helping the government fight dangerous extremism in the north.

After two SANDF troops were killed and three were hurt by a mortar bomb in Congo in February, South Africa’s military operations abroad have been looked at more closely at home this year.

Meanwhile, the major opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, said that Ramaphosa sent troops into a war zone without being ready.
Under the supervision of the UN, the SANDF has taken on many dangerous and difficult peacekeeping tasks over the years to help war-torn African countries stay stable and peaceful.

In 2003, South Africa was one of the first countries to send troops to Burundi to help the peace process. During the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peacekeeping mission in 2000, the SANDF led attempts to stabilize the country’s politics, rebuild and improve infrastructure, and train DRC troops.