KINSHASA, Congo — Congo headed to the polls Wednesday to vote for president as authorities scrambled to finalize preparations in an election facing steep logistical and security challenges, with voting starting nearly 2 1/2 hours late in the capital.

Some 44 million people — almost half the population — were expected to vote, but many, including several million who were displaced by conflict in the vast country’s east, could struggle to cast their ballots. The fighting has prevented 1.5 million people from registering to vote.

Voter Raymond Yuma in the capital of Kinshasa said he’s voting for hope.

“When you wake up in the morning you’re hoping for good things, good work, and I want security,” said Yuma. He sat beside three other people on a bench waiting in line for the doors to open. None of their voting cards were legible.

In eastern Congo, people said they weren’t finding their names on voting lists.

“The voters displayed on lists at the polling station are fewer than those who are lining up. I can’t find my name on the list and this could cause scuffles here because I also want to vote,” said Jules Kambale at a polling station in Goma. 

Waiting for polls to open during the more than two-hour delay, people grew agitated and began arguing, particularly in the capital.

Both outside observers and locals have warned of challenges that could affect the credibility of the vote in one of Africa’s largest nations and one whose mineral resources are increasingly crucial to the global economy.

On the eve of the vote, some polling stations in Kinshasa told Associated Press journalists they were still waiting for materials. Thousands of stations, particularly in remote areas, might still not have what they need on Wednesday. 

A major concern is that ink on voting cards has smudged, making many illegible. That means people could be turned away from polling stations. In addition, the voter registration list hasn’t been properly audited.

“The organization of the elections raises lots of doubt regarding the credibility, the transparency and the reliability of the results,” said Bienvenu Matumo, a member of LUCHA, a local rights group.

A candidate needs a majority of votes in the first round to win.

President Felix Tshisekedi seeks his second and final five-year term, running against about 20 other candidates. His main rival appeared to be Moise Katumbi, the former governor of Katanga province and a millionaire businessperson whose campaign in 2018 was thwarted by the previous regime of former President Joseph Kabila.

But the opposition remains fractured, making Tshisekedi the likely favorite.

The son of a late, popular opposition figure, he has spent much of his presidency trying to consolidate power over state institutions and working to overcome a crisis of legitimacy after a contested election five years ago.

Some voters didn’t want to disclose who they were backing, but Kinshasa is a Tshisekedi stronghold.

“He’s someone who’s done a lot of things for the country … he’s fought for democracy,” said business owner Joseph Tshibadi. Even though Tshisekedi hasn’t succeeded in quelling violence in the east, Tshibadi is willing to give him more time. 

“The beginning is always hard,” he said.

After waiting for nearly three and a half hours, Tshibadi was the first person to vote at a school in the capital. He said voting was easy, and he voted for Tshisekedi because he wants to give him another five years to try and improve the security situation.

“I feel very happy, because I voted for my candidate, and I think he’s going to win with 90%,” he said.

In the eastern city of Bunia, displaced people vandalized a voting center over a dispute between the electoral commission and voters, said Jean-Marcus Loika, a local journalist who saw the attack.

The voting machines and the ballots were vandalized and the police stepped in, he said. 

Gunshots were heard in the area, which has prevented people from voting, he said.

Locals and analysts said the vote is likely to be extended past Wednesday.

Nicolas Teindas, the director for the international observation mission for the Carter Center, said the sooner the voting is finished the better because it becomes challenging to manage people’s expectations. “In the end people want to know who is their president,” he said.

The election commission says it has made changes in the process to make it more credible, spending more than $1 billion on the vote since planning began two years ago. 

A key change from 2018 is that results from each of the 75,000 voting stations will be released one at a time, rather than being announced in bulk.

The results should be the manual ones rather than the electronic count, said Rev. Eric Nsenga, a coordinator for the joint electoral observation mission between the Church of Christ for Congo and the Congolese National Episcopal Conference. He also warned against publicly releasing partial results as they are compiled in case it inflames tensions.

Already, some observers have alleged that the process has been far from transparent.

On Monday, the East African Community said its election observer mission was not granted access to Congo by authorities. Last month, the European Union canceled its observation mission after Congolese authorities did not authorize the use of satellite equipment for its deployment.

The vote is taking place as violence surges in eastern Congo, where more than 120 armed groups are fighting for power and resources or to protect their communities. They include the resurgence of M23 rebels, allegedly backed by neighboring Rwanda, which denies it.
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Urban food security is a growing problem as populations swell in cities around the world. In Nairobi, urban farming technology is being used to help ease the food shortage problem. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Amos Wangwa
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CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who has ruled with an unquestioned grip for the past nine years, won reelection to a third, six-year term in office, election authorities announced Monday. He ran against three virtually unknown opponents.

El-Sissi recorded a landslide victory, securing 89.6% of the vote, the National Election Authority said. Turnout was 66.8% of more than 67 million registered voters.

“The voting percentage is the highest in the history of Egypt,” declared Hazem Badawy, the election commission chief, who announced the official results in a televised news conference.

The vote was overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on Egypt’s eastern border, which has threatened to expand into wider regional turmoil.

The North African country is also in the midst of an economic crisis, with monthly inflation surging above 30%. Over the past 22 months, the Egypt pound has lost 50% of value against the dollar with one third of the country’s 105 million people already living in poverty, according to official figures.

A key Western ally in the region, el-Sissi has faced international criticism over Egypt’s human rights record and harsh crackdown on dissent. A career army officer, el-Sissi, as defense minister, led the 2013 military overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president amid widespread street protests against his one-year rule.

El-Sissi was first elected as president in mid-2014, then reelected in 2018. A year later, constitutional amendments, passed in a general referendum, added two years to el-Sissi’s second term, and allowed him to run for a third, six-year term.

His victory in the latest election was widely deemed a foregone conclusion. His three opponents were marginal political figures who were rarely seen during the election campaign.

Hazem Omar, head of the Republican People’s Party, came second with 4.5% of the vote, followed by Farid Zahran, head of the opposition Social Democratic Party with 4%. Abdel-Sanad Yamama, chairman of the Wafd Party, received less than 2% of the vote.

An ambitious young presidential hopeful, Ahmed Altantawy, dropped out of the race after he failed to secure the required signatures from residents to secure his candidacy. He was considered el-Sissi’s most credible opposition figure and said that harassment from security agencies against his campaign staff and supporters prevented him from reaching the vote threshold for candidacy.

In the months prior to the election, el-Sissi vowed to address the country’s ailing economy without offering specifics.

Experts and economists widely agree that the current crisis stems from years of mismanagement and lopsided economy where private firms are squeezed out by state-owned companies. The Egyptian economy has also been hurt by the wider repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, which rattled the global market.

El-Sissi’s government initiated an ambitious IMF-backed reform program in 2016, but the austerity measures sent prices soaring, exacting a heavy toll on ordinary Egyptians.

Last December, the government secured a second IMF deal on the promise of implementing economic reforms, including a floating exchange rate. The cost of basic goods has since jumped, particularly imports.

Timothy Kaldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, said a quick fix to Egypt’s economy is highly unlikely.

Inflation will remain high and investors weary, he said. “Without inclusive growth and investment, Egypt will never reach a stable footing.”

Under el-Sissi’s watch, thousands of government critics have been silenced or jailed. They are mainly Islamists but also prominent secular activists and opposition figures, including many of those behind the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
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As Senegal gears up for elections in February, some reporters are turning away from coverage, citing attacks and threats. In a bright spot, some journalists and police are training together to find a better way forward. For VOA, Senanu Tord reports from Dakar, Senegal. (Camera:  Senanu Tord, Video Edited by: Jon Spier)  
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Bamako, Mali — A South African paramedic who had been held by jihadists in Mali for over six years has been released, security and humanitarian sources told AFP on Sunday.

Gerco van Deventer, 48, was kidnapped in Libya on November 3, 2017, on his way to a power plant construction site around 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) south of the capital Tripoli.

Three other Turkish engineers seized at the same time were freed seven months later, but van Deventer remained in captivity and was moved to Mali.

“We learned that the South African hostage was released the day before yesterday,” a Malian security source told AFP.

A foreign humanitarian source said that van Deventer was released on the border between Mali and Algeria, adding that she had briefly met the freed hostage at the border.

The security source said van Deventer was currently under observation at a hospital in Algiers.

His wife, Shereen van Deventer, told AFP that she did not wish to comment immediately, saying they were “a little overwhelmed as a family” by the news and the number of calls.

The two sources confirmed information given by an influential South African charity, Gift of the Givers, which was involved in mediation efforts for his release.

The NGO said in a statement it got involved “at the request of the family” and “made contact with JNIM” — the Al-Qaeda-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen, to whom van Deventer was sold in 2018.

Gift of the Givers claims that “the initial request for Gerco was $3 million, and over a period of time we negotiated the amount down to $500,000.”

But it did not specify whether the money was paid and if so, by who, saying in the statement that the family could not afford the ransom. 

Van Deventer, an emergency paramedic, had been working for a security company, according to his family, who had launched a fresh appeal in March for his release.

His wife told AFP in an online interview at the time that she and their three children “desperately need him home.”

There was a flurry of negotiations for his release during the first few years after his kidnapping, but the COVID-19 pandemic put the brakes on those efforts until earlier this year, she had said.

The Sahel has been ravaged by a jihadist campaign that began in northern Mali in 2012, sweeping over into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger in 2015.

Mali has been ravaged by different groups affiliated to al-Qaida and the Islamic State, as well as by self-declared self-defense forces and bandits.

The north in particular has seen intensified military clashes following the withdrawal of U.N. forces at the demand of the ruling junta, which set off fighting between the military and Islamist and separatist forces to control the area.

Kidnappings of foreigners and Malians are common.

In March, French journalist Olivier Dubois, 48, and 61-year-old American aid worker Jeffery Woodke — kidnapped in 2021 and 2016 respectively — were freed.

Dubois posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday that the news of van Deventer’s release was “A wonderful Christmas present!!!!”

In a post-release interview with Radio France Internationale (RFI) earlier this year, Dubois had said he spent slightly more than a year with van Deventer in captivity and said the South African “needs to go home.”

Gift of the Givers helped in efforts to secure the 2017 release of Stephen McGown, another South African held in Mali for nearly six years.
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N’DJAMENA — Chad holds a referendum on a new constitution on Sunday that looks unlikely to mend deep divisions between the junta and opposing groups that have fueled a political and security crisis in one of the world’s poorest countries.   

The military authorities have called the vote as a vital stepping-stone to elections next year — a long-promised return to democratic rule after they seized power in 2021 when President Idriss Deby was killed on the battlefield during a conflict with insurgents.   

The proposed constitution would establish autonomous communities with local assemblies and councils of traditional chiefdoms among other changes.   

But some of the political opposition and rebel groups have called for a “No” vote or said they will boycott the poll. They question the independence of the election commission and reject the new constitution for not engaging with their wishes including for federalization.   

Decades of instability and economic mismanagement have hampered development in the oil-producing central African country, where nearly 40% of its 16 million people depend on humanitarian aid.   

Brice Nguedmbaye Mbaimon, who coordinates a coalition voting “No”, said Chad had experienced a unitary state for over 50 years without tangible progress.   

“It is time to let the population organise into federated states and steer their own development,” he told Reuters.   

Haroun Kabadi, coordinator of groups voting “Yes”, said the new constitution does offer more independence as it would allow Chadians to choose their local representatives and collect local taxes for the first time.   

“These people talking about a federation simply want to divide Chadians into micro-states and fuel hatred between communities,” he said by phone.   

Meanwhile others are calling for a boycott, including former Prime Minister Albert Pahimi Padacke, who told Reuters the junta had too much control over the referendum process.   

“This is not fair, and it is not democratic. That’s why we have called on Chadians not to participate in this farce.”   

The Africa-focused Institute for Security Studies has warned that tensions around the vote could lead to a repeat of unrest that saw scores killed by security forces amid pro-democracy protests in October 2022.   

A central concern is that the referendum could help cement the power of junta leader, Deby’s son Mahamat Idriss Deby, who has already extended a proposed 18-month transition to democracy.   

“The pattern of delay and obfuscation echoes the long-honed tactics of Idriss Deby who came to power by force in 1990 and then held on to it for three decades,” analysts at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies said.   

Around 8 million Chadians are registered to vote in the referendum. Provisional results are expected to be announced on Dec. 24.   

The military regime in Chad is one of several juntas in West and Central Africa, which has seen eight coups since 2020, sparking concerns of a democratic backslide in the region. 

 
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CAIRO — A boat carrying dozens of migrants trying to reach Europe capsized off the coast of Libya, leaving more than 60 people dead, including women and children, the U.N. migration agency said.

Saturday’s shipwreck was the latest tragedy in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, a key but dangerous route for migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Thousands have died, according to officials.

The U.N.’s International Organization for Migration said in a statement the boat was carrying 86 migrants when strong waves swamped it off the town of Zuwara on Libya’s western coast and that 61 migrants drowned, according to survivors.

“The central Mediterranean continues to be one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes,” the agency wrote on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East, even though the North African nation has plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

More than 2,250 people died on the central European route this year, according to Flavio Di Giacomo, an IOM spokesperson.

It’s “a dramatic figure which demonstrates that unfortunately not enough is being done to save lives at sea,” Di Giacomo wrote on X.

According to the IOM’s missing migrants project, at least 940 migrants were reported dead and 1,248 missing off Libya between January 1 and November 18.

The project, which tracks migration movements, said about 14,900 migrants, including over 1,000 women and more than 530 children, were intercepted and returned to Libya this year.

In 2022, the project reported 529 dead and 848 missing off Libya. More than 24,600 were intercepted and returned to Libya.

Human traffickers in recent years have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country’s lengthy borders, which it shares with six nations. The migrants are crowded onto ill-equipped vessels, including rubber boats, and set off on risky sea voyages.

Those who are intercepted and returned to Libya are held in government-run detention centers rife with abuses, including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture — practices that amount to crimes against humanity, according to U.N.-commissioned investigators.

The abuse often accompanies attempts to extort money from the families of those held, before the imprisoned migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats to Europe.
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DUBAI, UAE — Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces battled the army outside the central city of Wad Madani on Saturday, pressing an attack that has opened a new front in the 8-month-old war and forced thousands to flee, witnesses said.

Crowds of people — many of whom had taken refuge in the city from violence in the capital Khartoum — could be seen packing up their belongings and leaving on foot in video posted on social media.

“The war has followed us to Madani so I am looking for a bus so me and my family can flee,” 45-year-old Ahmed Salih told Reuters by phone.

“We are living in hell and there is no one to help us.” He said he planned to head south to Sennar.

Sudan’s army, which has held the city since the start of the conflict, launched airstrikes on RSF forces to the east of the city, the capital of Gezira state, as it tried to push back the assault that started Friday, witnesses said.

The RSF responded with artillery and RSF reinforcements were seen moving in the direction of the fighting, the witnesses added.

RSF soldiers have also been seen in villages to the north and west of the city in recent days and weeks, residents said.

The United Nations said 14,000 people had fled the area so far, and a few thousand had already reached other cities. Half a million people had sought refuge in Gezira, mainly from Khartoum.

The Sudanese Doctors Union warned in a statement that hospitals in the area, which had become a humanitarian and medical hub, were emptying out and could be forced to shut.

It also said that more than 340 children and staff relocated from the Maygoma orphanage in Khartoum needed urgent help relocating again.

The fighting has raised fears for other army-held cities in southern and eastern Sudan where tens of thousands of people have been sheltering.

“I urge the RSF to refrain from attacks and for all parties to protect civilians at all costs. Perpetrators of terror will be held accountable,” the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said.

The army and RSF last week cast doubt on an East African mediation initiative aimed at ending a war that has triggered the largest internal displacement in the world and warnings of famine-like conditions.

In Khartoum and cities in Darfur that the RSF has already taken, residents have reported rapes, looting and arbitrary killing and detention. The group is also accused of ethnic killings in West Darfur.

The RSF has denied those accusations and said anyone in its forces found to be involved in such crimes would be held accountable.

On another front, activists reported fresh clashes after weeks of relative calm around the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.

RSF forces surrounding that city had earlier stopped their advance there after other armed groups said they would get involved.

Residents also reported heavy strikes by the army in Nyala, South Darfur, and in Bahri, one of the cities that make up the wider national capital with Khartoum.

While the army has not made a statement on the fighting in Wad Madani, Sudan’s foreign ministry branded the RSF as terrorists for a “declared attack on a number of safe villages and neighborhoods [in the] east of Gezira state which are devoid of military targets.”

The war between the RSF and the Sudanese army broke out in April after disputes over a transition to democracy and integration of the two forces. 
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kinshasa, congo — Democratic Republic of Congo recalled its ambassadors from Kenya and Tanzania for consultations on Saturday, after a new Congolese military alliance that includes rebels was launched in the Kenyan capital. 

Alain Tshibanda, spokesperson for Congo’s foreign ministry, made the announcement on the X social media platform, formerly called Twitter.  

The envoy to Tanzania was recalled because Tanzania hosts the headquarters of the East African Community, which Congo also belongs to. 

Earlier on Saturday, the Kenyan embassy’s head of mission had been summoned to the foreign ministry in Kinshasa. The Kenyan government could not immediately be reached for comment. 

On Friday, Congolese politicians and groups including the M23 rebels, who have seized territory in eastern Congo, and Corneille Nangaa, a former Congo election commission chief, launched the Congo River Alliance in Nairobi. 

Speaking at the launch, Nangaa, who was sanctioned by the U.S. for corruption and obstructing the 2018 election, said the alliance would bring together various Congolese armed groups, militias, social and political organizations. 

“I am looking for a lasting solution; all communities must live together in Congo,” Nangaa told Reuters on Saturday.  

Congo is due to hold presidential and legislative elections on December 20. 

The new alliance is an additional concern in a region where insecurity has persisted for decades, fueled by ethnic rivalries and a tussle over land and resources with regional implications. 

Bintou Keita, head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo, said in a post on social media platform X that she was “extremely concerned by the creation of a new political-military platform.” 
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GENEVA — As Sudan marks eight months of a horrific war that has killed more than 12,000 people and displaced 6.6 million, United Nations food agencies are warning of a looming hunger catastrophe by next year’s lean season, when food stocks will be at their lowest.

A new analysis released Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — a scientific evaluation of food security — warns that nearly 18 million people across Sudan face acute hunger.

“These figures are the highest ever recorded that coincide with Sudan’s harvesting season,” a period when more food is available, said Adam Yao, Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, deputy representative in Sudan.

Speaking to journalists from Sudan’s Sennar state, he said, “The food crisis is exacerbated by ongoing conflict, escalating violence, low agricultural production, high food prices, climate shocks and displacement.”

He warned that more financial support and unimpeded access to people trapped in conflict hotspots is needed to ward off the worst results.

According to the U.N., vulnerable populations in Greater Darfur, Greater Kordofan and Khartoum are most at risk.

“The Sudanese people require more support more than ever,” said Yao. “Our immediate action to preserve the lives and livelihoods of rural Sudanese communities is absolutely crucial. The longer we take to respond, the more lives we expose to the imminent threat of famine.”

The war, which erupted April 15, was triggered by a power struggle between rival generals from the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Support Response Forces, unleashing eight months of terror, violence and displacement in what is described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

“The suffering is unimaginable, yet the crisis has not been getting the international focus and attention that is warranted, as the conflict continues to upend millions of lives and worsen what was already a dire situation,” said Leni Kenzli, World Food Program spokesperson.

Speaking from Nairobi, Kenya, Kenzli said regular and safe humanitarian access to civilians in areas worst hit by violence was inadequate, as was international financial support for a crisis of this magnitude.

“Since the start of the conflict, WFP has provided lifesaving assistance to over 5 million people, preventing an even worse deterioration of food security, especially in eastern and northern Sudan.

“Yet, this is only scratching the surface compared to the immense needs that we are seeing on ground,” Kenzli said, noting that WFP needed $252 million to provide assistance for 6 million to 7 million people over the next six months.

While the hunger and displacement crises continue to deepen in violent, unstable parts of Sudan, large areas of the country remain relatively calm, and farmers are still able to plant their crops.

Adam Yao said that FAO has helped upwards of a million farmers in places such as Sennar, Kosti and the White Nile state to produce between 2 million and 3 million tons of cereal.

He said FAO needs $75 million to support local food production. “We have to get ready now for the planting season, which goes from May to August,” he said.

At the same time, he noted FAO is appealing for a cease-fire “to allow a humanitarian corridor to be opened so that organizations that are distributing food items can have access” to volatile, dangerous areas.

WFP echoed this appeal. Leni Kenzli said, “WFP is urgently calling all parties to the conflict for a humanitarian pause and unfettered access to avert a hunger catastrophe in the coming lean season. Lives are depending on it.”
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Yaounde, Cameroon — Chad’s military government says a majority of about 8 million voters are not ready to vote in the December 17 constitutional referendum that would pave the way for a return to civilian rule. A campaign for voter participation is taking place amid opposition and civil society calls for a total boycott of what they call Sunday’s sham referendum.

The National Commission Charged with the Organization of Chad’s December 17 Constitutional Referendum, or CONOREC, says several million voters have not collected their voter cards less than 48 hours ahead of Sunday’s referendum. 

CONOREC says that without voter cards, civilians who registered will not be allowed to vote in the referendum on a new constitution that sets the stage for elections and a return to civilian rule.

Chad’s military government this week said it had dispatched what it called friendly civil society groups, opposition parties, and government ministers to towns and villages to some 8.5 million voters CONOREC says are eligible to cast their votes on December 17.

Brice Mbaimon Guedmbaye is a former presidential candidate and president of the opposition Movement of Chadian Patriots for the Republic. He says a majority of civilians do not believe the referendum will pave the way for Chad’s military ruler Mahamat Idriss Deby to leave power because he initially refused to hand power to a civilian government in October 2022 as agreed and instead extended the transition period by two years. 

He says civilians are angry and refusing to collect voter cards that will enable them to vote in the December 17 referendum because Deby is intimidating opposition political parties and civil society groups that are against a constitution that maintains Chad as a unitary state with powers centered in the capital Ndjamena. Guedmbaye says many civilians want Chad to adopt a federal system, end the dictatorship and the grip on power exerted by the Deby family on the country for 30 years.  

Mahamat Idris Déby came to power on April 20, 2021, following the death of his father Idriss Déby Itno while fighting rebels in the north of his country. The rebels were fighting to end what they called Itno’s 31-yearlong autocratic rule. 

His son took power and promised to organize elections within 18 months but instead extended his rule until November 2024.

Civil society and opposition leaders say the referendum the military leader is organizing cannot be taken seriously because Deby rules with an iron fist, and cracks down on freedom of speech and assembly. The opposition says CONOREC, the referendum management body, is partisan. Several dozen opposition parties and civil society groups are calling for either a “no” vote or a boycott of the referendum. 

Francois Djekonbe leads a Yes Coalition set up by Chad’s military rulers to campaign for a vote for a new draft constitution, which the military junta says strengthens judicial independence and institutional reforms. He says claims that Deby does not want to leave power are unfounded.

Djekonbe says Chad will — for the first time since it achieved independence from France in 1960 — have a National Assembly and a Senate to both legislate, vote laws and control activities of government ministers. He says the constitution also reinstates presidential term limits of two five-year terms that was abolished by Chad’s former president Idris Deby Itno before he died,  

Djekonbe said the new constitution gives all 23 regions that make up Chad greater financial autonomy in a decentralized system of government, and the possibility of electing their local governors previously appointed by the central government in Ndjamena.

Sunday’s constitutional referendum will enable the junta to manage Chad’s transition until presidential elections are held by October 2024. Chad’s opposition says the constitution to be voted on Sunday does not bar Deby, a 39-year-old military general, from participating in Chad’s 2024 presidential election. 
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As Egyptians struggle with record-high annual inflation, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi appears poised to be declared the winner of a third, six-year term in an electoral race against three low-profile candidates. Cairo-based photojournalist Hamada Elrasam followed voters over the course of the three-day voting period that ended on December 12. Results are expected on December 18. Written in collaboration with Elle Kurancid.
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