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Published 5th December 2014

Vol 55 No 24


Libya

A tale of two cities

LIBYA: A crow flies above the road to Benghazi
LIBYA: A crow flies above the road to Benghazi. Samuel Aranda / Panos

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

Although Islamist forces have the edge in Tripoli, Haftar’s forces are ahead in Benghazi as a new battle is joined over control of oil revenues

The two main political camps are fighting for power in two distinct conflicts, one centred on Tripoli, the other on Benghazi. General Khalifa Haftar's 'Operation Dignity' troops are at war with Islamist groups for the control of Cyrenaica in the east. Haftar's forces have the upper hand so far. They are loyal to a government in Tobruk under its Prime Minister, Abdullah al Thinni. The other conflict pits militias from the mountain town of Zintan and their allies from the Fezzan against the Islamist Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) alliance, which is supported by backers in the wealthy coastal town of Misurata and in the capital, Tripoli, itself. The Fajr Libya forces control Tripoli, supporting a government under Prime Minister Omer el Hassi, and have the upper hand in that theatre of war.

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Sall clears the decks

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Macky Sall is holding a referendum on returning the presidential term to five years. That will mean an election in 2017

President Macky Sall's re-election campaign is already commanding his agenda. He has confirmed that a referendum on reducing the presidential mandate from seven to five years will ...


Martyr or master-crook

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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The trial of former President Abdoulaye Wade's son Karim Meïssa Wade, which began in July, has been adjourned until 22 December after briefly resuming on 1 December. The anti-...



BLUE LINES
THE INSIDE VIEW

Those literary gannets and prize committees taken aback by the waves of brilliant African fiction and poetry landing on their desks should look at the raw material served up to writers every day on the continent. It takes nothing away from these writers’ creative genius to contrast the life and death importance of political struggles in Africa, as well as helter-skelter social change, with the bland canvas of much electoral politics and social discourse in the West.

Take Zimbabwe, whe...

Those literary gannets and prize committees taken aback by the waves of brilliant African fiction and poetry landing on their desks should look at the raw material served up to writers every day on the continent. It takes nothing away from these writers’ creative genius to contrast the life and death importance of political struggles in Africa, as well as helter-skelter social change, with the bland canvas of much electoral politics and social discourse in the West.

Take Zimbabwe, where the struggle to succeed nonagenarian President Robert Mugabe is worthy of a Shakespearian tragedy or history. Should Mugabe be cast as King Lear? He has the years but not the beard. Nor does he show any sign of recanting or remorse, or even of weakness in his old age. He has artfully procrastinated for a decade as he pretended to consider the claims to two rivals. In common with many First Ladies in Africa, Mugabe’s wife Grace is likened to Lady Macbeth.

Mugabe’s condemnation this week of Vice-President Joice Mujuru for treachery, without producing a scintilla of evidence, suggests another parallel – Prince Hal’s casting aside of his old friend Falstaff. In Harare, the governing party’s elective congress is well underway and pundits are already forecasting the outcome: it will be no Agincourt but the King will put down the rebels. That, however, will not clean out the stench of corruption and deadly rivalries in the court. As they seek a guide to the unfolding plots in the party, some politicians may reach for a copy of Hamlet and turn eagerly to the dénouement in the final act.

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The PF picks two candidates

The bitter split in the governing party is now before the courts. Yet the official candidate, whoever it is, may still have the best chance of winning

A national conference so turbulent that the police fired shots over the heads of the crowd has ended with both factions of the Patriotic Front putting forward their own candidates ...


Good banks from bad

The authorities have created a new lender out of the ashes of BESA but mystery surrounds the state’s exposure – and the identity of the new bank's shareholders

The central bank, the Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA) has come to the rescue of the country's second-largest bank, the Banco Espírito Santo Angola. BESA went into administrat...


The defenestration of Mujuru

The campaign against the Vice-President comes from the top but it leaves the succession issue no clearer than before

Although Joice Mujuru is still nominally the country's only Vice-President as well as Second Secretary of the governing Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, she is unde...


Danger looms as piracy booms

Distracted by the Islamist insurgency in the north and the coming elections, the government has no effective response to the wave of oil theft and hijackings in the Gulf of Guinea

Crashing world oil prices and next February's elections – in which President Goodluck Jonathan must retain his grip on his base in the oil-producing Niger Delta – could...


Banda rejects Cashgate claim

The man charged with stealing the most in Cashgate has said he took the cash to State House

Former President Joyce Banda appears a step closer to involvement in the Cashgate affair after the Anti-Corruption Bureau acquired closed circuit television footage shot at preside...


The succession war has begun

Zuma is moving to protect his future as factions form up for the battle to decide who will be the next president

President Jacob Zuma had barely taken office last May before the first shots in the battle to succeed him were fired. He has already blocked the election of a new leadership for th...


Power scandal rocks ministers

The President returns to find Parliament and people alike outraged by the latest corruption scandal. The CCM is looking for a way out

Having spent much of November convalescing in the United States after prostate surgery, President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete came home to find a country in turmoil over the escrow accou...



Pointers

Grim down south

Peace appears to be returning to the M'zab region (capital Ghardaïa) of southern Algeria where communal violence stoked tension in the run-up to April's presidential election....


Attacks claim securocrats

President Uhuru Kenyatta's sacking of two top officials in response to devastating attacks by Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen seems unlikely to appease an outraged public. Secur...