Category: Politics

{Malema in an interview said “we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun”.}

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has brought a case of treason against opposition leader Julius Malema after he threatened a violent overthrow of the government, the party’s spokesman said on Tuesday.

The move follows an interview Malema gave to Al-Jazeera television Sunday in which he said that if the government used violence to suppress protest “we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun”.

ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa announced on Twitter that the party had gone to police to lay a charge of treason against Mr Malema, leader of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

“The ANC has just opened a case of high treason against EFF and its leader Julius Malema in his personal capacity with Hillbrow police station,” Mr Kodwa confirmed to News24.

Earlier, the ANC released a statement saying Mr Malema’s remarks “are a call to violence, inflammatory, treasonable and seditious”.

In the interview, Malema said: “We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through a barrel of a gun”.

OUSTER OF ZUMA

The EFF has been demanding the ouster of President Jacob Zuma for several months, accusing him of corruption.

EFF deputies regularly disrupt parliamentary sessions, sometimes shouting anti-Zuma slogans.

Last year, EFF MPs were expelled from the assembly by security guards after fights broke out.

“We are a very peaceful organisation, we fight our battles through peaceful means, through the courts, through parliament, through mass mobilisation, we do that peacefully,” Mr Malema told Al-Jazeera.

“But at times the government has attempted to respond to such with violence, they beat us up in parliament. They sent soldiers to places like Alexandra (township) where people are protesting.”

”These remarks are a call to violence, inflammatory, treasonable and seditious and should be treated with extreme seriousness,” said the ANC statement.

Mr Malema’s utterances “also are in clear violation of the Electoral Code and the Charter on Elections Ethics signed by a number of political parties – including the EFF, last week”, it said.

In signing the Charter, political parties committed themselves to upholding and promoting Constitutional values, alongside the Elections Code in the run-up to the August 3 local government elections.

The EFF leader, 35, was expelled from the ruling ANC in 2012 when he was head of the party’s youth wing.

A year later he founded the radical leftist EFF which entered parliament with 25 deputies after May 2014 elections, becoming the third largest party.

{Swearing-in ceremony follows Machar’s return to the capital after UN peace deal aimed at ending two-year war.}

South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar has returned to the capital after two years of war in what is seen as a step towards ending a conflict that has killed tens of thousands.

After landing at Juba airport on Tuesday, Machar was inaugurated as vice president by President Salva Kiir ahead of forming a unity government.

“Our people are tired of war and they need peace, now,” Kiir said. “Together we can accomplish far more than when we are divided. Our strength lies only our unity.”

About 2.3 million South Sudanese have been driven from their homes since war erupted in December 2013, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis.

Kiir and Machar signed a peace deal in August, but fighting intensified in some areas afterwards.

“The war was vicious. We lost a lot of people in it, and we need to bring our people together so they can unite, reconcile, and heal the wounds,” Machar said. “As long as there is political will, we can overcome all of these challenges and all of these obstacles.”

Almost 200,000 live in camps for displaced people, protected by UN peacekeepers. In one camp in Juba, people ran through the streets celebrating after Machar’s arrival.

‘We are all South Sudanese’

“The return of Dr Machar will change many things,” Chotlith Jany, a youth leader, told Al Jazeera. “People believe that all the fighting that took place, all the suffering … will end.”

Machar’s return had been expected last week, but a series of delays by the government and rebels prevented it.

If peace holds, the unity government will now have to set about repairing an economy near the point of collapse. Fuel prices have plunged on the global market, depriving the country of its main source of income.

South Sudan’s diplomatic relationships have also been strained by the conflict.

Last week, the government attempted to arrest an official from the body monitoring the peace deal, the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC).

Diplomatic sources told Al Jazeera that security officers entered a meeting of foreign ambassadors and diplomats and attempted to arrest Aly Verjee, the Deputy Chief of Staff to JMEC.

“A national security officer was sent to arrest him and take him to the airport,” Michael Makuei, the information minister, said, adding South Sudan was a sovereign country and had the right to arrest him.

Speaking at the presidential residence after Machar’s return, Kiir apologised to the people of South Sudan, and the international community.

“Thank you for the long patience,” Kiir said. “We are all South Sudanese.”

{Youth leader turned opposition politician told Al Jazeera “we will remove the government through the barrel of a gun”.}

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has said it plans to sue opposition politician Julius Malema after he threatened to remove President Jacob Zuma’s government through the “barrel of a gun”.

Monday’s development came a day after Malema told Al Jazeera that the ANC used violence to suppress dissent, citing an incident last year when members of his Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party were ejected from parliament after heckling Zuma.

“We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun,” Malema, Zuma’s one-time protege and a former ANC youth leader, said on Talk to Al Jazeera.

“Part of the revolutionary duty is to fight and we are not ashamed if the need arise for us to take up arms and fight.”

EFF protest marches were often met with violent resistance by security forces, he said.

In response to the comments, the ANC said it would pursue legal action against him.

“These remarks are a call to violence, are inflammatory, treasonable and seditious and should be treated with extreme seriousness,” the ANC said in a statement.

“The ANC calls on state authorities to urgently investigate this matter and act against such conduct.”

Al Jazeera’s Tania Page, reporting from Johannesburg, said the “EFF don’t have any military hardware and are not capable of carrying out the threat to remove the government over a barrel of a gun”.

Despite that, she said, the party was a potent political threat to the ANC.

“Within a year of forming the EFF, Malema won six percent of the votes in the last general election,” she said.

“They [the government] are worried about his appeal to young voters and the appeal to the discontented within the society.”

South Africa will hold local government elections on August 3.

The EFF and the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, are expected to make inroads into majorities held by the ANC in large metropolitan areas, including the capital Pretoria.

Malema has accused the ANC of failing to address inequality between blacks and whites since Nelson Mandela swept to power on a wave of optimism at the end of apartheid in 1994.

{Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has urged citizens to defend the state and its institutions ahead of planned anti-government protests.}

In a televised speech, Mr Sisi said attempts to destabilize Egypt would not succeed if the country stood united.

Security has been stepped up across the country, with officials warning they will deal firmly with protesters.

Discontent has worsened following a recent deal to cede sovereignty over two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

Mr Sisi has defended his decision, saying the islands of Sanafir and Tiran always belonged to Saudi Arabia.

Secular and leftist activists have called for demonstrations on Monday in defiance of an anti-protest law that bans unauthorised gatherings.

The protests have been scheduled on a holiday that marks the anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982.

“I see there are people calling once again for damage to (Egypt’s) security and stability,” Mr Sisi said, repeating that there were “evil” forces conspiring against his country.

“Our responsibility is to protect security and stability, and I promise Egyptians that no one will terrorise them again.”

Troops have been deployed to key areas of Egypt’s main cities, and agents have rounded up dozens of activists, journalists and lawyers from their homes and cafes in Cairo.

In a statement, Egypt’s Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar said “security forces… will confront with extreme rigour any attempt to disturb public order,” the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.

Observers say public dissatisfaction with Mr Sisi has grown recently because of the poor state of the economy and recent alleged cases of abuse by security forces.

As former armed forces chief, Mr Sisi led the army’s overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, an ex-Muslim Brotherhood official, in 2013 following mass protests.

Since then, more than 1,000 people have been killed and 40,000 are believed to have been jailed in a sweeping crackdown on dissent, most of them from the outlawed Brotherhood.

Local and international human rights activists say the situation in the country has never been worse, with Amnesty International saying Egypt has reverted “back to a police state”.

{April 24, 2016 (ADDIS ABABA) – South Sudan’s first vice-president designate, Riek Machar, has confirmed to arrive in the national capital, Juba, on Monday after two years in the bush and abroad.}

Machar who leads the armed opposition faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) fled Juba in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused him of allegedly planning a coup, an accusation he dismissed as a ploy to silence voices of political opponents.

The confirmation that he will travel to Juba on Monday came after the South Sudanese government finally announced it had accepted that the top opposition leader and his chief of general staff, Simon Gatwech Dual, and 195 troops and their weapons be airlifted to Juba on Monday.

The government on Saturday issued permission for landing of the aircrafts that will carry Machar from Pagak, his General Headquarters via Gambella airport across the border in Ethiopia together with accompanying delegation.

The top opposition leader’s press secretary said it is confirmed that Machar will travel to Juba on Monday.

“Dr. Machar will travel to Juba on Monday, April 25, 2016. He has confirmed that he will travel on Monday,” James Gatdet Dak told Sudan Tribune on Sunday.

He blamed the delays on the government for refusing to grant planes’ landing permission to transport the opposition leader and his forces.

The two leaders signed a peace agreement in August 2015 to end the 21 months of the civil war, and to form a transitional government. Machar has however not yet returned to Juba after 8 months from the signing of the peace deal. Many schedules have been cancelled.

Machar’s spokesperson said the chief of general staff of the SPLA-IO army, Dual, and the troops plus their weapons will also arrive in Juba on Monday.

PUBLIC RECEPTION

Dak said the leadership of the opposition faction of the SPLM-IO has called on all the residents in Juba to turn out on Monday at the airport for the reception of the first vice-president designate.

“We call on the people, the residents in Juba, to come out in big numbers on Monday morning for the reception of the First Vice-President designate,” Dak announced.

Machar, according to the schedule, will immediately take oath of office to take up his post as first vice president upon arrival.

He will straight from the Juba airport drive to the Presidential Palace (J1) for the swearing in ceremony after which he is expected to hold a brief meeting with President Salva Kiir. He will thereafter go to the mausoleum of late John Garang de Mabior to pay his respect and retire to his residential area at Jebel Kujur, also popularly known as Pagak 2, where his forces are stationed.

Dak said the leadership has called on the government to allow the people to move freely to the airport for the reception of the top opposition leader.

Machar on Tuesday is expected to make consultations with his officials and with President Kiir on the long-awaited formation of the transitional government of national unity in which the government will have 16 national ministers in the new cabinet, SPLM-IO will 10 and other political parties and former detainees will have 4 ministers, 2 each.

In accordance with the August 2015 peace agreement which ended 21 months of civil war, the opposition leader will also be the commander-in-chief of a separate army and police, with separate structures from the other army and police commanded by President Kiir.

The two rival national armies and police forces will however reunify during the transitional period after achieving security sector reforms laid out in the peace agreement.

The transitional government will run the country for 30 months from formation until elections are conducted at the end of the interim period.

{Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo expected to win Equatorial Guinea’s poll, boycotted by much of the opposition.}

Citizens of Equatorial Guinea are heading to the polls in a vote expected to hand the incumbent president, Africa’s longest serving leader, another seven-year term in office.

The country’s opposition leaders and international civil society groups have already dismissed Sunday’s vote as “not credible”

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo faces six mostly unknown opponents, with most of the opposition boycotting the poll.

Obiang, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea for nearly 37 years after overthrowing his uncle in a coup, is accused of presiding over one of the world’s most corrupt and repressive governments.

Critics accuse the 73-year-old of failing to distribute the country’s oil wealth to the population of about 700,000.

But according to the poor living in the slums, the money seems to be going to a few people. They allege it is going to the president’s family, the inside circle of the government. They say there is not enough distribution of wealth.

Some opposition parties are boycotting the election, some are participating. They are saying it was really difficult for them to campaign. They are saying this process won’t be credible. But some key countries have been very quiet about this election.

The main thing we want to see right now is how many people come out to vote. The people expect the president to win, but the key thing is the numbers, will the turn out be high?

According to the UN 2014 Human Development Report, the country has the highest per capita gross domestic product of Any African country – about $37,000. But it ranks 144 out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index that measures social and economic development.

As a result, Equatorial Guinea has by far the world’s largest gap of all countries between its per capita wealth and its human development score.

Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa, reporting from the port city of Bata, said many people living in the country are still “poor, frustrated and unemployed”.

“Opposition leaders say much of the nations oil wealth goes to the president and his family,” she said.

“They also accuse some in the international community of ignoring alleged human rights abuses because of oil interests.”

Equatorial Guinea is the third-largest oil producer in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In the last election in 2009, Obiang won 97 percent of the vote.

His Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea regularly wins parliamentary votes with a similar majority, always falling barely short of 100 percent.

‘We live in a police state’

Opposition parties say campaigning has been difficult ahead of Sunday’s vote.

“We are not free here. There is no freedom of speech,” UCD party leader Bonifacio Nguema told Al Jazeera.

“Some opposition members have been beaten up and arrested. We live in a police state.”

Amnesty International says torture and arbitrary detention of government critics have been routine practices in the country under Obiang’s rule.

The government denies allegations made by the opposition and international rights groups about human rights abuses and corruption.

Instead, Obiang’s supporters say that the president has boosted Equatorial Guinea’s economy and brought peace and security to the country.

Energy Minister Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima says political stability is essential for the country and the incumbent president is the person to provide it for the next seven years.

“We must continue to develop and transform the country,” he said. “We need to modernise, grow democratically in a climate of humility so we have peace and economic stability.”

Election results will start to come in after the polls close at 9pm local time and final results are expected on Monday.