By Research and Advocacy Unit It is a frequent assertion that the staunchest defenders of democracy come from the middle classes, underlining the advantages of education and formal employment. However, recent work in Zimbabwe suggested that this might not be the case for the country. Examining active citizenship amongst Zimbabweans, […]
By Roger Southall It can be tough when you are a former president in a democracy you have attempted to subvert, especially when that democracy comes back to bite you. Former South African president Jacob Zuma is finding this out the hard way. Zuma is holed up in his expansive […]
By Francis Fukuyama, Barak Richman, and Ashish Goel Among the many transformations taking place in the U.S. economy, none is more salient than the growth of gigantic Internet platforms. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, already powerful before the COVID-19 pandemic, have become even more so during it, as so […]
By Patrick Guramatunhu “What we know is victory is certain, it’s only a matter of time. Every struggle has its own unique characteristics. We know exactly what we are doing – please do not panic,” Nelson Chamisa told his audience over the weekend. If MDC knew what it was doing […]
People were hungry during lockdown. So Francis Zaake, a Ugandan member of parliament, bought some rice and sugar and had it delivered to his neediest constituents. For this charitable act, he was arrested. Mr Zaake is a member of the opposition, and Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has ordered that only […]
Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga’s suspension of by-elections cannot be read in isolation as it is part of a well-thought-out strategy to stifle democracy in Zimbabwe. Chiwenga on Friday amended the Covid-19 regulations to stop the holding of parliamentary and municipal by-elections scheduled for December 5. The Covid-19 pandemic was used as […]
By Nic Cheeseman For the last few years the African political landscape has been dominated by high profile changes of leaders and governments. In Angola (2017), Ethiopia (2018), South Africa (2018), Sudan (2019) and Zimbabwe (2018), leadership change promised to bring about not only a new man at the top, […]
By Takura Zhangazha I recently came across, via YouTube, a talk delivered in May 2018 by former Greece Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis at the Cambridge Forum, Massachusetts, the United States. Its title was Is capitalism devouring democracy? Given his leftist credentials, the main body of the talk was essentially pointing […]
Early results – which the regime is banning the media from reporting – indicate a win for the opposition after government plans to fix the poll went awry A showdown is looming after the country’s Catholic bishops announced they knew who had won the presidential election on 30 December, as […]
By Martina Schwikowski Voters in several African nations, including Nigeria and South Africa, are headed to the ballot box in 2019. But despite the numerous elections, experts don’t expect much change on the continent. “Vote not fight” is the slogan that helped to make Nigeria’s iconic rapper 2Baba, known previously […]