Malawi's constitution limits a president to two five-year terms. President Bakili Muluzi wants a third (AC Vol 41 No 22). His main opponent, Brown Mpinganjira, ex-Minister of Educa...

Botswana's famously democratic politics are as stable as usual but they cannot solve all the problems. First, the politics. A year into President Festus Mogae's first five-year ter...

The African National Congress swept to victory in the local government elections on 5 December, winning 59 per cent of the total vote (AC Vol 41 No 23). The opposition Democratic A...

Procedures for voting in the local government elections of 5 December were complicated but voters seemed to take that in their stride and the poll was accepted as free and fair, wi...

President Robert Mugabe held onto the party presidency at the special congress of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front on 13-15 December.

Cocksure of its diplomatic and military position, the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola has secured parliamentary approval of a new and renewable 60-da...

Angola's go-slow on the development of its massive offshore oil fields is sending ripples through the world's biggest oil companies, worried about lower investment returns and prof...

Frederick Chiluba seems to want to keep his job, although the constitution says a president may serve only two five-year terms. His ambition could be frustrated if his lieutenants,...

King Mswati III vies for the title of Africa's last absolute monarch with Mohammed VI of Morocco. Mswati is the more absolutist but his standing is falling so fast that some say th...

The assassination of pioneering Mozambican journalist Carlos Cardoso in central Maputo on 22 November shows the growing threat to African reporters.