Category: Politics

{Ms Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, 67, is a long-standing heavyweight in the ANC.}

With South African President Jacob Zuma facing growing calls to resign over a series of corruption scandals, attention is turning to one potential contender to succeed him – his former wife.

Ms Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, 67, is a long-standing heavyweight in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, holding several ministerial positions since the end of white-minority rule in 1994.

Confirmation last week that Ms Dlamini-Zuma will not run for re-election as head of the African Union (AU) Commission fuelled rumours that she may position herself for a shot at the top job back home.

Her high-profile term running the executive branch of the AU, which is headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, comes to an end in July after four years in the international spotlight.

“There is no doubt that some behind-doors lobbying on her behalf is already underway,” Mcebisi Ndletyana, associate professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg, told AFP.

DLAMINI-ZUMA ADVANTAGES

After failing in their bid to impeach him this week, Mr Zuma’s opponents now hope to prosecute him on graft charges after he leaves office, and the advantages of having his ex-wife – with whom he remains on good terms – succeeding him are clear.

“It may provide a bit of comfort, because I don’t think that she would like to see the father of her children jailed,” Prof Ndletyana said.

But Ms Dlamini-Zuma’s name recognition also presents a dilemma to the ANC, where some factions want a clean break from her ex-husband’s tarnished reign.

“Although she is an accomplished politician, those who are opposed to Zuma may not be too happy with another Zuma taking over,” Prof Ndletyana said.

The ANC normally puts forward its party leader as the presidential candidate, so Ms Dlamini-Zuma would first have to climb her way to the summit of the party in order to succeed.

If she does make a bid for power, her big moment would be the ANC’s elective conference next year where the new party president will be chosen and lobbying for positions is likely to be a bruising exercise.

Mr Mavuso Msimang, a former senior official under Ms Dlamini-Zuma when she was minister for home affairs, described her as “an extremely intelligent person”.

“It’s a real possibility that she would become president,” Msimang told AFP.

He said she should be “considered on the merit of her experience in the ANC” over years of service.

“I don’t think she would continue the legacy of her former husband,” said Msimang, who added that he was in favour of a female president.

A medical doctor by training, Ms Dlamini-Zuma, like her polygamist ex-husband, hails from the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

The couple met in exile in Swaziland, during the depths of the apartheid era. In 1972, Ms Dlamini-Zuma became Mr Zuma’s second wife and the couple went on to have four children.

They divorced in 1998 but still enjoy good relations, often shaking hands and hugging in public at ANC events or government conferences.

ANTI-APARTHEID CREDENTIALS

Ms Dlamini-Zuma boasts anti-apartheid struggle credentials as an underground member of the ANC when it was still banned.

She went on to become democratic South Africa’s first health minister between 1994-1999, appointed by Nelson Mandela.

Mandela successor, Thabo Mbeki, put her in charge of foreign affairs, where she worked to implement his much-derided “quiet diplomacy” with neighbouring Zimbabwe as it sank into a deep crisis under President Robert Mugabe.

In Zuma’s administration, she served as home affairs minister, where she was credited with limited reforms to a department mired in bureaucracy and corruption before she took the African Union Commission posting in 2012.

The soft-spoken Dlamini-Zuma is a loyal ANC member and is seen as relatively scandal-free after being out of domestic politics during the turmoil of recent years.

But she appears to lacks the easy charm and common touch that her former husband has used so effectively to shore up support, and she still must overcome widespread prejudice over her gender.

The ANC in its 104 years of existence has never had a female leader. In any leadership bid, her main rival will be Zuma’s deputy Cyril Ramaphosa, a business tycoon and former trade unionist who is the second-in-command in the ANC.

Zuma’s term as ANC leader is set to end in 2017. Under the constitution he must stand down as state president after serving a maximum two terms that end in 2019.

{Libya’s new unity leaders took over the website of a rival authority in the capital.}

Libya’s new unity leaders worked to tighten their hold on Tripoli Friday, taking over the website of a rival authority in the capital whose head is refusing to stand aside.

A week after arriving by sea with a naval escort, the UN-backed unity Cabinet appears to be winning the support of key institutions that control Libya’s wealth and, crucially, militias in the capital.

But a call by Tripoli’s unrecognised prime minister Khalifa Ghweil on Wednesday for his ministers not to cede power, contradicting an earlier announcement, highlighted the still-chaotic situation.

It was unclear how much influence Mr Ghweil, an engineer from the port city of Misrata east of Tripoli, still wields in the largely tribal nation.

Libya’s warring rivals have come under intense international pressure to rally behind the unity government at a time when the country is grappling with a growing jihadist threat.

The Islamic State group has exploited the turmoil in Libya since the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi five years ago, raising fears that it is establishing a new stronghold on Europe’s doorstep.

WEBSITE TAKE-OVER

In a sign of its widening influence, the UN-sponsored administration of prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj took over the website of the unrecognised Tripoli authorities on Thursday.

The site now bears the logo of the unity government, and the names of Ghweil’s cabinet have been replaced by those of a presidential council created under a power-sharing deal in December.

That agreement was inked by some lawmakers from both sides but not endorsed by the country’s two rival governments.

The other administration, which has long claimed international legitimacy because it was appointed by the parliament elected in the last polls in 2014, has so far refused to back the unity government.

The reason behind Ghweil’s apparent U-turn was unclear but it hinted at divisions within the Tripoli authorities that were installed by a militia alliance that seized the capital in 2014.

A statement issued a day earlier in the name of his so-called National Salvation Government had said that it was ready to step aside.

FRESH VIOLENCE

The fear is that a new power struggle could spark fresh violence in a country that has been in turmoil since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed Gaddafi.

Much now depends on the support of powerful militias that overran Tripoli two years ago, forcing the government backed by the international community to take refuge in the country’s far east.

A politician close to the unity government said money was a key factor because some of the militiamen who brought Ghweil to power are no longer being paid by his authorities.

According to a security source in Tripoli, there were talks between the unity government and armed groups for weeks before Mr Sarraj’s arrival to ensure it went smoothly.

“There is no security body or armed group now opposed to the unity government, and they are holding back while the situation, and this government’s actions, become clear,” he said.

{The head of a coalition ruling western Libya and the capital, Tripoli, appears to have reversed a decision to dismiss his administration.}

The statement, posted on Khalifa Ghweil’s website, has caused confusion.

In it he threatens to prosecute any of his ministers who co-operate with the leaders of a UN-back unity government waiting to take national control.

Tripoli’s justice ministry had said earlier that ministers were standing aside to prevent further bloodshed.

The UN-brokered unity deal, agreed in December, is aimed at reconciling splits after five years of conflict.

Libya has been in chaos since the 2011 overthrow of long-serving ruler Muammar Gaddafi by Nato-backed forces.

Since 2014 the country has had two competing administrations, the one in Tripoli, which is backed by powerful militias, and the other about 1,000km (620 miles) away in the eastern port city of Tobruk.

Some rival lawmakers signed up to the UN agreement to form a unity government but the deal has not yet been backed by all the country’s many militia brigades that formed after the uprising.

The Tobruk-based administration, formed by a parliament chosen in national elections in June 2014, is split over its backing for the unity government.

It is not uncommon in Libya to get contradictory statements within the space of minutes or hours from an institution or official.

In the broader context of developments this month, the two statements published by members of the Tripoli-based administration are indicative of a split within this group and its militia backers – as well as what looks like a last-ditch effort to remain in power.

This is because many stand to lose their privileges with the new unity government trying to take the helm.

Nevertheless it remains unclear who is in charge given the claims and counter-claims. We are likely to see more of this posturing until the UN-backed government is able to assert itself.

Speaking to the BBC, a Tripoli government adviser said, “Things are not clear at the moment.”

In his statement, Mr Ghweil warned ministers in his National Salvation Government: “Given the requirements of public interest… you are requested to continue your mission in accordance with the law.”

Leaders of the unity government, known as the Presidency Council led by Fayez Sarraj, arrived in Tripoli a week ago and have been operating from a naval base.
At the time Mr Ghweil said they were not welcome and urged them to “surrender” or return to Tunisia where they had been based for the last few months.

Western countries want the unity government to unite as many factions in Libya as possible against an increasingly powerful affiliate of the group known as Islamic State.

The UN says it is considering lifting sanctions on Libya’s estimated $67bn (£46.8bn) sovereign wealth fund if it can regain control of the country.

{Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has told the BBC he will step down in 2020 when his current mandate ends.}

Mr Bashir also denied allegations of abuses perpetrated by the Sudanese forces in renewed violence against black African villages who took up arms in the country’s western Darfur region.

The president has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on counts of genocide and war crimes.

Mr Bashir has been in power since 1989. He won elections in April last year.
He told the BBC’s Thomas Fessy that his job was “exhausting” and his current term would be his last.

“In 2020, there will be a new president and I will be an ex-president,” he said.

However, sceptics will say that he had already pledged to step down in the past and later went back on his word, our correspondent says.

{{‘No aerial bombing’}}

The UN says more than 2.5 million people have been displaced in Darfur since 2003 – with more than 100,000 this year alone.

President Bashir said that there was no reason for the UN peacekeepers and aid workers to stay in the troubled Darfur region.

He denied reports of recent abuses in the mountains of Jebel Marra where government forces launched an offensive in January.

“All these allegations are baseless, none of these reports is true,” he said.
“We challenge anyone to visit the areas recaptured by the armed forces, and find a single village that has been torched.

“In fact, there hasn’t been any aerial bombing.”

The president said that people who fled the fighting had gone to government-controlled areas which was “proof that the government does not target citizens”.

President Bashir said that UN estimates that more than 100,000 people have been displaced in Darfur since January because of the fighting were “highly inflated and not real”.

“Only a very small number of people have been displaced and they have either reached our positions or [gone to] where the UN peacekeepers [Unamid] are deployed.

The president said that UN forces and Unamid “have no vital role to play” in Darfur, “not even in defending themselves and their units”.

“As peace has returned to Darfur, I think that they have no role to undertake and that’s why we want them to leave.”

Likewise he said there was no role in the region for aid workers because there is no food crisis in Darfur.

He said that estimates that 2.5 million people were living in camps in Darfur were “much too inflated” and the true figure is closer to 160,000.

The president dismissed the ICC as a “politicised tribunal” and that evidence of his popularity in Sudan could clearly be seen by the huge crowds that greet him.

“These are the same crowds I’m accused of having committed genocide and ethnic cleansing against. This is why I’ve defied the tribunal, and [why] I’ve been travelling freely around the world.”

Mr Bashir was re-elected last year with about 94% of the vote in an election boycotted by the main opposition parties who said it was not free and fair.

{Contrary to earlier reports, Tripoli-based PM Khalifa Ghweil refuses to cede power to UN-backed unity government.}

Libya’s new unity government has been thrown into chaos, as the head of its rival Tripoli-based authority apparently refused to cede power.

Contradicting an earlier announcement that his National Salvation Government was ready to step aside, Tripoli’s unrecognised Prime Minister Khalifa Ghweil urged his ministers not to stand down in a statement on Wednesday.

“Given the requirements of public interest… you are requested to continue your mission in accordance with the law,” he said, threatening to prosecute anyone working with the new government.

The reason for the U-turn was not immediately clear, but suggests a split within the Tripoli authority that seized the city two years ago forcing out the internationally recognised government.

The move derails a United Nations push to end the instability that has ripped Libya apart for five years, one day before its envoy Martin Kobler reports to the Security Council on his progress.

Moments before Ghweil’s statement, Kobler had urged a rapid and complete handover of power to the unity government, warning that a fragile peace in Tripoli may not hold if the new government were unable to deliver.

The UN envoy had also called on Libya’s internationally recognised eastern parliament to hold a long-sought vote on whether to approve the UN-backed Government of National Accord, and said that the chamber risked being sidelined if it failed to do so, according to Reuters news agency.

Ghweil’s administration seized Tripoli in mid-2014 with the support of powerful regional militias, forcing the government backed by the international community to flee to the country’s far east.

Sarraj’s Government of National Accord was created under a power-sharing deal agreed by rival politicians in December.

He arrived in Tripoli under escort by sea last week, established his headquarters at a naval base and had been moving to bolster his authority.

{President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday said since the Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza has rejected the proposal of a stabilising force from the African Union for his country that was currently witnessing political crisis, the idea could not be imposed on the country.}

Buhari therefore urged the people and government of Burundi to explore dialogue in resolving the current political differences in the country.

According to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the President spoke while receiving the former Burundian President, Mr. Pierre Buyoya, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He said Nigeria would continue to support peace processes in the continent through the AU which had already intervened in Burundi.

‘‘Nigeria has been playing a key role in the continent through the AU. We participated fully in ensuring a truce in Mali, and we want citizens to enjoy the impact of the truce, although the terrorists are not helping matters,” he said.

‘‘Nigeria is always committed to regional and continental peace, and we will continue to do our best.’’

The President told the former President of Burundi, who is the High Representative of the AU Mission to Mali and the Sahel, that he remained hopeful that there would be an amicable solution to the situation in Burundi.

In his remarks, the former President commended Nigeria for the role it played in restoring peace to Mali, adding that the AU was working to promote security in the Sahel, particularly through fighting trans-border terrorism.

He also urged Nigeria to use its clout to work for peace in Burundi, warning that the “country is gradually inching towards a civil war.”