It looks like Zambia's closest election ever, as eleven runners sprint, hobble and lurch towards the finish of the first-past-the-post contest on 27 December. The real prize is...

Maize meal helped drive Kenneth Kaunda from power and could do the same to the Movement for Multi-party Democracy which defeated him in the 1991 elections. When Kaunda...

The blip of optimism has gone, the agony will continue. Forget serious efforts to end the guerrilla war and hold elections, at least until late 2003 or 2004....

Angolan troops have made raids into Zambia and nobody agrees about what is going on. After a bad patch, relations between the neighbours had seemed warmer lately and...

All South Africa's main newspapers lose money. Journalists fear that that their publishers, by sharp cutbacks in editorial staff, will make the papers even blander and limit investigation...

Madagascans expect a close race in the 16 December presidential election when the main challenger to long entrenched President Didier Ratsiraka is the rank outsider, media magnate and...

A cartoon in the state-owned daily Herald on 19 November showed the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, glad-handing his backers - the independent press, the European Union, Britain and...

A born-again Executive Outcomes operation is at the centre of allegations of a military contract between ex-South African Defence Force soldiers and the Sudanese army. A former director...

The New National Party, heir to the old Afrikaner-apartheid tradition, hitched up in June 2000 to the Democratic Party, whose members claim to inherit South Africa's liberal tradition....

The African National Congress often deals with its opponents by co-opting them, offering jobs and a hearing in exchange for an end to opposition. Co-option began with the...