The party that once dominated Cape Verdean politics has had a disastrous year and faces a divisive power struggle
In a speech delivered in Cuba in 1966, the father of Guinea-Bissau's and Cape Verde's independence movement, Amilcar Cabral, offered delegates an African saying: 'When your house is burning, it's no use beating the tom-toms.' In other words, the way to eliminate colonial rule was not to speak out against it but rather to take up arms and fight it. Half a century later in Cape Verde, Cabral's successors in the Partido Africano para a Independência de Cabo Verde (PAICV) have a major fire in their house and are beating every drum in sight.
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