Yaounde, Cameroon — Officials in the Central African Republic say at least 300 rebels have dropped their weapons in the past month in an operation jointly organized by United Nations peacekeeping forces and government troops. Yet, while a total of about 5,000 fighters have put down their arms in the past decade, peace seems to elude the troubled nation. 

Officials in the country say the rebels who have dropped their weapons since June 10 belong to the Coalition des Patriotes pour le Changement, or CPC.  

The government sees the CPC as a network of six rebel groups created in 2020 to disrupt the country’s presidential and legislative elections in December of that year. 

Government spokesperson Balalou Maxime, speaking on state television Wednesday, congratulated the approximately 250 CPC rebels for dropping their weapons when attacked by the Central African Republic military. He said he wants other rebels still hiding in the bush to know that they will be killed if they do not do the same. 

This week, forces of the U.N. stabilization movement in the Central African Republic, or MINUSCA, said an additional 44 fighters of another rebel group, the UPC, laid down their arms in the southeastern town of Mboki. MINUSCA said many weapons were seized but gave no further details.  

Central African Republic officials say the operation to neutralize armed groups or get fighters to surrender is aimed at making the country more peaceful before local elections slated for October. 

These would be the first local elections in the country since 1988.  

At least 5,000 rebels have surrendered their arms within the past 11 years, officials say, but fighting has yet to stop. The U.N. says some of the rebels who surrender end up rejoining armed gangs due to hardship and poverty. 

Halidou Halale, president of Cattle Ranchers Union in the Central African Republic, stressed that rebels who are cattle ranchers are willing to drop their weapons in exchange for a few cattle or goats as a source of livelihood. He said rebels either refuse to surrender or they return to armed groups after surrender because of hunger. 

Rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, have often reported that rebel and armed groups in the country commit war crimes, including deliberately killing civilians, raping women and girls, and destroying civilian property.  

In 2019, the government and 14 armed groups signed an African Union and U.N.-sponsored peace agreement. However, the deal failed to stop the fighting, as six of the 14 armed groups refused to honor their commitments following disagreements over power sharing and amnesty for arrested or fleeing rebels. 

The Central African Republic has been wracked with violence and instability since 2013, when a rebel group forced then-President Francois Bozize out of office.   
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Mbabane, Eswatini — The sentencing Tuesday in Eswatini of two former members of parliament to lengthy prison terms on charges of terrorism marks a significant escalation in the tensions between the monarchy and those advocating for democratic reform in the southern African nation. Human rights groups condemned the convictions, saying the court decision raises questions about human rights and political repression. Pro-democracy activists say they are undeterred.  

The convictions of Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, who were sentenced to prison terms of 25 and 18 years respectively, sent shock waves throughout Eswatini and the international community. 

The two men were arrested in July 2021 during pro-democracy protests that were violently put down by security forces, leaving dozens of people dead. Demonstrators were pressing for reforms to a complex system of non-party elections that ensured Eswatini’s ruler, King Mswati the third, faced no meaningful dissent.  

Rights group Amnesty International urged Eswatini authorities to immediately quash what it called “the unjust and baseless convictions and sentences of the former members of parliament.”  

Alpheous Nxumalo, a spokesperson for the Eswatini government, told VOA’s English to Africa Service the convictions were “discharged through the provisions of the law, which guarantees the rights of each and everyone who has been sentenced to appeal to a higher court.” He added that Eswatini’s international partners and friends should respect the country’s sovereignty and rule of law. 

Thantaza Silolo, a spokesperson for the Swaziland Liberation Movement (SWALIMO), told VOA that despite the harsh sentences handed down by the Eswatini High Court, the country’s pro-democracy movement remains resolute in its pursuit of democratic reform. 

“These MPs were strong inside the chambers of parliament and outside in calling to say we need a prime minister that is elected by the people, not a prime minister that is being appointed by the King and for that reason, they were sentenced, they were arrested and charged with heinous offenses as if they were criminals, they were murderers and terrorists,” Silolo said. “Yet, these are just advocates for change. These are just people who have been calling for freedom and we maintain as a movement that … we will continue to push for their release.” 

Political analyst Sibusiso Nhlabatsi sees the sentences as a major setback for democracy and human rights in Eswatini. She said the sentences are a classic example of “guilty until proven innocent,” with mere allegations being enough to secure a conviction. 

“You can see that the intention was to induce fear and I think most of Emaswati will now live in that shadow of fear — we don’t want to do what these people did and even members of parliament will say we don’t want to do what the other members of parliament did because we might follow suit,” Nhlabatsi said. “I think through this judgment the state has successfully entrenched itself. It has successfully been able to threaten anyone who may want to raise a voice against the establishment.” 

According to human rights activist Lucky Dlamini, the harsh sentencing of the MPs signals a wider attack on democracy and human rights in Eswatini. He said the country is a dictatorship, with the monarchy using state security forces to suppress dissent and violate fundamental human rights. 

“We remain under a cruel system of government which is an absolute monarchy where there’s immunity [for] the security forces against human rights activists and political activists and human right defenders, where they cannot be able to access justice in the courts, where they cannot be able to hold on to demonstration, where they cannot exercise freedom of the right to political participation, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of access to the media, the right to freedom of assembly,” he said. 

A lawyer for the two former MPs said they plan to appeal their sentences. 
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LONDON — Discontented, economically squeezed voters have turned against sitting governments on both right and left during many of the dozens of elections held this year, as global power blocs shift and political certainties crumble.

From India to South Africa to Britain, voters dealt blows to long-governing parties. Elections to the European Parliament showed growing support for the continent’s far right, while France’s centrist president scrambled to fend off a similar surge at home.

If there’s a global trend, Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer said at a summit in Canada in June, it’s that “people are tired of the incumbents.”

More than 40 countries have held elections already this year. More uncertainty awaits — nations home to over half the world’s population are going to the polls in 2024. The world is already anxiously turning to November’s presidential election in the U.S., where an acrimonious campaign was dealt a shocking blow by an assassination attempt against Republican nominee and former president, Donald Trump.

Unpopular incumbents

Aftershocks from the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and spiking prices for food and fuel have left dissatisfied voters eager for change.

“Voters really, really don’t like inflation,” said Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester. “And they punish governments that deliver it, whether they are at fault or not.”

Inflation and unemployment are rising in India, the world’s largest democracy, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party unexpectedly lost its parliamentary majority after a decade of dominance. Modi was forced to rely on coalition partners to govern as the opposition doubled its strength in parliament.

In South Africa, sky-high rates of unemployment and inequality helped drive a dramatic loss of support for the African National Congress, which had governed ever since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule in 1994.

The party once led by Nelson Mandela lost its parliamentary majority for the first time and was forced to enter a coalition with opposition parties.

In Britain, the center-left Labour Party won election in a landslide, ousting the Conservatives after 14 years. As in so many countries, Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a jaded electorate that wants lower prices and better public services — but is deeply skeptical of politicians’ ability to deliver change.

US-China tensions

Caught between world powers China and the United States, Taiwan held one of the year’s most significant elections.

Lai Ching-te, of the Democratic Progressive Party, won a presidential election that was seen as a referendum on the island’s relationship with China, which claims Taiwan as its own.

Beijing regards Lai as a separatist and ramped up military pressure with drills in the Taiwan Strait. Lai has promised to strengthen the defenses of the self-governing island, and the U.S. has pledged to help it defend itself, heightening tensions in one of the world’s flashpoints.

In Bangladesh, an important partner of the U.S. that has drawn closer to China, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won a fourth successive term in an election that opposition parties boycotted. The U.S. and U.K. said the vote was not credible, free or fair.

Political dynasties

In several countries, family ties helped secure or cement power.

Pakistan held messy parliamentary elections – under the eye of the country’s powerful military — that saw well-established political figures vie to become prime minister. The winner, atop a coalition government, was Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, younger brother of three-time premier Nawaz Sharif.

Opponents say the election was rigged in his favor, with opponent and former prime minister, Imran Khan, imprisoned and blocked from running. The situation remains unstable, with Pakistan’s Supreme Court ruling that Khan’s party was improperly denied some seats.

In Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest democracy, former Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto was officially declared president more than two months after an election in which he won over 58% of the vote.

His two losing rivals alleged fraud and nepotism — Subianto’s vice president-elect is outgoing leader Joko Widodo’s son, and Subianto was the son-in-law of Indonesia’s late dictator, Suharto. The country’s highest court rejected their arguments.

Some outcomes were predictable. Russian President Vladimir Putin was reelected to a fifth term in a preordained election that followed his relentless crackdown on dissent. Rwanda’s election extended the 30-year rule of President Paul Kagame, an authoritarian leader who ran almost unopposed.

Far right’s uneven march

The far right has gained ground in Europe as the continent experiences economic instability and an influx of migrants from troubled lands.

Elections for the parliament of the 27-nation European Union shifted the bloc’s center of gravity, with the far right rocking ruling parties in France and Germany, the EU’s traditional driving forces.

The EU election triggered a political earthquake in France. After his centrist, pro-business party took a pasting, President Emmanuel Macron called a risky snap parliamentary election in hope of stemming a far-right surge.

The anti-immigration National Rally party won the first round, but alliances and tactical voting by the center and left knocked it down to third place in the second round and left a divided legislature.

New faces, daunting challenges

A presidential election tested Senegal’s reputation as a stable democracy in West Africa, a region rocked by a recent spate of coups.

The surprise winner was little-known opposition figure Basirou Diomaye Faye, released from prison before polling day as part of a political amnesty.

Faye is Africa’s youngest elected leader, and his rise reflects widespread frustration among Senegal’s youth with the country’s direction. Senegal has made new oil and gas discoveries in recent years, but the population has yet to see any real benefit.

Mexico elected Claudia Sheinbaum as the first female president in the country’s 200-year history. A protege of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the 61-year-old former Mexico City mayor vowed to continue in the direction set by the popular leftist leader.

She faces a polarized electorate, daunting drug-related violence, an increasingly influential military and tensions over migration with the U.S.

Uncertainty is the new normal

On July 28, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will seek to extend a decade-plus presidency marked by a complex political, social and economic crisis that has driven millions into poverty or out of the country. Opposition parties have banded together, but the ruling party has tight control over the voting process, and many doubt votes will be counted fairly.

South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, is scheduled to hold its long-delayed first elections in December. That would represent a key milestone, but the vote is rife with danger and vulnerable to failure.

Looming above all is the choice U.S. voters will make Nov. 5 in a tense and divided country. The July 13 shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, in which the former president was wounded and a rallygoer was killed, came as Democrats agonize over the fitness of President Joe Biden, who has resisted calls to step aside.

The prospect of a second term for Trump, a protectionist wary of international entanglements, is evidence of the world’s shifting power blocs and crumbling political certainties.

“The world is in the transition,” said Neil Melvin, director of international security at defense think tank the Royal United Services Institute.

“There are very broad processes on the way which are reshaping international order,” he added. “It’s a kind of anti-globalization. It’s a growing return to the nation state and against multilateralism.”
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Abuja, Nigeria — Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council’s effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.

The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.

Nigerian authorities and visitors chatter with members of the U.S President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they tour a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council’s three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.

The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.

The tour was part of the council’s effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.

“They’re doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria,” said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. “This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they’re really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional.”

The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.

Akila Usofi, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit. 

“We’re happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility,” Usofi said.

Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria’s University of Lagos.

Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council’s top priorities.

“In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she’s also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities,” Laurent-Mantey said. “And I think for us it’s very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans.”

In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.

The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
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