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By Vivian Lowery Derryck
President and CEO of The Bridges Institute

Mali burst onto the international scene in January 2012 when disgruntled fighters returning from Libya renewed their interest in a separate state carved from territory in northern Mali.  Their success in destabilizing the north led to a March coup, UN resolutions, the formation of an ECOWAS force, a French intervention, kidnapping and chaos in Amenas, Algeria, internal displacement of more than 204,000 persons, plus refugee flows of more than 200,000 to Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger—and that’s not the half of it.

Watching from Washington, I thought that those in the Africanist community who cared deeply about Mali should form a “watch” to involve civil society in monitoring the situation.  In Addis, at the 2012 African Union Summit, I asked Malians if a watch would be helpful, but Malian friends and colleagues said that a watch would be premature because they had not determined their own goals.  So I waited.

By Steve McDonald
Director, the Africa Program and the Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity 

This month has seen some remarkable events on the continent, all with wide ranging implications.  They include the death of the “novelist laureate” of Africa, Chinua Achebe, the seizure of Bangui by rebels and flight of the president in the Central African Republic (CAR), the arrest of former Zambian President Rubiah Banda, the constitutional referendum in Zimbabwe, and the first round of the Kenyan elections.

By Jeffrey Paller
The original version of this article appeared in African Arguments

Politics is more than elections

A few hours before an official winner was declared in Kenya’s election, New York Times correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman tweeted: “Raila REJECTS Kenyatta victory in Kenya election. A 2007 type scenario could be shaping up. See story at http://nytimes.com.” This rhetoric is not unique: Throughout the week after the vote the media warned of a 2007-like crisis. But what this election has demonstrated is that comparing elections without looking at the process and politics of what happens between obscures more than it explains.

Analysts, journalists and even political scientists tend to treat elections as fixed events. Elections are compared to other elections; electoral violence is compared to previous instances of electoral violence; and all other institutional progress (and digression) is swept aside. But in new democracies a lot happens between elections, both good and bad. Power arrangements are re-shaped, societal transformations occur, and political institutions are strengthened and weakened. In Kenya, there is a new constitution; there are new leading candidates; there is a new electoral commission; there is an integrated international community; there is a stronger and more ubiquitous press; there is a new national land policy.

Continue reading for stories including Pan-Africa Insurance shares reaching new heights, Egyptian president calling for parliamentary elections in April, Kenyatta and Odinga tied in polling, and learning Chinese as a lucrative investment in Zimbabwe.

November 14, 2012

By David Zounmenou, Senior Researcher & Dimpho Motsamai- Researcher: Institute for Security Studies (ISS), Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division, ISS Pretoria

Grand Mosque of Djenné