IGIHE

Category: Rubrique

  • SPLA Urged to Distance itself From Politics

    {{South Sudan’s vice-president, Riek Machar, has strongly directed the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) to distance itself from the ongoing political debates in the country.}}

    Machar told the army to be exemplary in the desired unity of the people of South Sudan and not take sides in debates of political nature.

    The vice-president issued the strong-worded statement to the army during the celebration marking the 30thanniversary of the founding of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in 1983.

    The event, attended by senior army generals, was organised by the army general headquarters in Juba and invited the vice-president to grace the occasion.

    As a national army, Machar told them not to belong to any tribes or political party while calling on the civil populations to respect the army as the defender of the people and territorial integrity of the nation.

    South Sudan army has not yet succeeded to transform from the bush life of a guerrilla army, composed of different tribes in a form of alliance, to a professional, non-partisan national army.

    SPLA chief of general staff, Gen. James Hoth Mai, had earlier warned the forces against indulging in the ongoing political processes in the country.

    There were fears that if the political debates within the SPLM were not done in accordance with its democratic principles and fair process, the army could be attracted and polarized, as well as communities.

    Hoth however reminded the army that they did not belong to individual leaders, adding they were ready to work with any president in the country and the only political role they would play was to vote for the person they individually chose during the ballot box.

    The ruling party, SPLM, has been undergoing transformational process prompted by the weaknesses revealed by the party’s various secretariats in the states which suggested that it had “lost direction and vision.”

    The party is also supposed to hold its national elections in every five years to elect a new leadership.

    The last national convention was held in May 2008 in which president Kiir was confirmed the party chairman after taking over from late John Garang de Mabior who died in a mysterious circumstance in plane crash in 2005 while on his way back to South Sudan from a visit to Uganda.

    Machar and other high ranking officials in the party during the political bureau meeting in March this year blamed the party failure to the chairman, Salva Kiir Mayardit, whom Machar criticized for not providing the needed guidance and vision as the ship’s captain.

    He also criticised him for not doing enough as president of the government in the nation-state building, saying he could not seriously fight the rampant corruption, polarizing tribalism and overwhelming insecurity as well as strengthen the country’s poor economy and its isolating international relations.

    Machar also told the president and chairman that he was ready to take up the challenge of correcting the failures if he was given the chance to lead the party and compete in the 2015 presidential elections.

    He asked Kiir, who was his running mate and deputy for the last eight years to support him in the process, promising that he would tackle the issues head-on.

    Kiir however reportedly said he would also seek to contest again for the chairmanship and compete in the 2015 elections.

    The internal party consultative meetings also aimed to pass the party’s basic documents and prepare for a national convention in which a leadership will be elected.

    The confirmed or newly elected chairman of the party will be ready to contest for the 2015 presidential elections.

    Accompanying the vice-president during the army celebration was Nhial Deng Nhial, the current foreign minister, who also served as defence minister for two years.

    ST

  • Desmond Tutu Angers ANC Youth

    {{South Africa’s ruling ANC youth wing hit out at former archbishop Desmond Tutu, after the Nobel Prize winner said he would not vote for the party at the next elections.}}

    The ANC Youth League said on Monday that Tutu must make remarks “anchored by reality and facts” after he cited the challenges of persistent inequality as one reason he would not be voting for the party.

    “Any utterances that he makes, particularly on so emotive a subject, must be factual and represent the reality of South Africa,” the ANC Youth League said reply.

    “(Young people) expect the Archbishop and other leaders to speak truth anchored by reality and facts and not anecdotal information based on creativity and imagination.”

    Tutu is widely regarded as the voice of South Africa’s moral conscience.

    Under apartheid, Tutu campaigned against white minority rule and was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize.

    In a recent newspaper article the 81-year-old said he had voted for the ANC in the past polls since the advent of democracy in 1994.

    But in recent years the cleric has been increasingly critical of the ruling party.

    In 2011 he accused the ANC government of kowtowing to trade partner China when it delayed a tourist visa for Buddhist leader the Dalai Lama.

    South Africa will hold its fifth general elections in 2014.

    {wirestory}

  • Iran Hard-liners Urge Election ban on 2 candidates

    {{Hard-line Iranian lawmakers have petitioned authorities to bar two contenders — a moderate former president and a protege of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — from running in next month’s presidential election.}}

    According to a report Wednesday by the semi-official Fars news agency, about 100 lawmakers appealed to the country’s Guardian Council, which vets and short-lists all those seeking to run in the June 14 election.

    One of the lawmakers, Javad Karimi Qodoosi, says they want ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani barred for supporting the opposition in the disputed 2009 vote.

    Qodoosi says the lawmakers also want the Council to disqualify Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a close confident of Ahmadinejad, for his alleged un-Islamic attitudes.

    Rafsanjani and Mashaei last week submitted their candidacies to the Council, which is to announce the finalists later this month.

  • Sharif Claims Victory in Pakistan Elections

    {{Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif has declared victory in the country’s general elections as preliminary results showed a clear lead for his party, making it almost certain that he will become prime minister for a third time.}}

    Turnout in Saturday’s vote was nearly 60 percent, the election commission said, which according to official statistics is the highest since 1977.

    The election will bring the first transition between civilian governments in a country that has been ruled by the military for more than half of its turbulent history.

    Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), thanked his supporters as he addressed a crowd of about 300 people at his campaign headquarters in Lahore.

    “Through this vote and campaign I have felt how much love Pakistan has for me. And I have twice as much love for you,” he told his supporters.

    “Thank God that he has given us the chance to help you, to help Pakistan, to help the young people. We will fulfil all the promises that we have made.”

    {Agencies}

  • Leftists Protest Hollande’s 1st Year

    Tens of thousands of supporters of leftist parties marched through central Paris on Sunday to express disappointment with President Francois Hollande’s first year in power, criticizing the leader for reneging on his promises to rein in the world of finance and enact economic stimulus.

    Hollande, a Socialist, rose to the presidency last May, promising to spare France the austerity measures imposed elsewhere in Europe.

    And the French government has largely avoided the deep spending cuts, big tax hikes and the wide-ranging reforms of many of its neighbors.

    Instead, it has nibbled around the edges of its deficit, cutting 10 billion euros ($13 billion) in spending and increasing taxes, largely on the rich, by 20 billion euros.

    That’s relatively little for a country with 2 trillion euro economy of which 57% is government spending.

    Still, France’s economy has continued to deteriorate, with growth stagnating and unemployment rising above 10%.

    Leftists who took the streets on Sunday — largely from parties to the left of Hollande’s mainstream Socialist Party — rejected the notion that Hollande had spared France a worse fate.

    “Salaries are frozen. They continue to reduce hiring in the public sector,” said Brigitte Blang, a 64-year-old teacher from eastern France. “We’re waiting for true leftist policies. There’s money in the coffers!”

    Paris police said 30,000 people showed up, although protest organizers said there were 180,000.

    After speeches, the crowd marched to another Paris square.
    Several protesters acknowledged that they voted for Hollande a year ago — either simply to ensure the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy’s defeat or because they had hope for his leadership.

    Hollande’s failure to keep the support of those on the far left protesting in Paris on Sunday while also angering the right —who think his economic reforms and budget cuts haven’t gone far enough — has made him one the least popular presidents in modern French history.

    In a sign of how he is being squeezed from both sides, police said 15,000 people — largely right-leaning — gathered in another part of Paris on Sunday to protest the recent passage of a law legalizing gay marriage.

    Hollande and his ministers have pleaded for more time to allow their policies to take hold.

    {agencies}

  • SADC Slams Door in Tsvangirai’s Face

    {{Zimbabwe’s Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s “diplomatic offensive’’ suffered another setback on Wednesday when Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba and his premier Hage Geingob snubbed the MDC-T leader, forcing him to take his roadshow to central and West Africa.}}

    The cold shoulder in Windhoek followed similar indifference in Luanda where Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos could not be bothered leaving Mr Tsvangirai to meet low-level government officials.

    Mr Tsvangirai embarked on a Sadc tour last week to exert pressure on member-states to compel President Mugabe to postpone elections till the implementation of so-called reforms.

    Impeccable sources say Sadc, the guarantor of the GPA, was “sick and tired” of Mr Tsvangirai’s antics that have also drawn fire from his MDC counterparts who described the tour as “silly and embarrassing’’.

    The NCA queried why Mr Tsvangirai was only demanding reforms now when he had spent the past four years in the inclusive Government.

    Mr Tsvangirai sought to meet the Namibian leaders on Wednesday, but was snubbed, prompting him to switch his itinerary to central and west Africa.

    This comes ahead of the 21st session of the African Union General Assembly which convenes in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from the 19th to the 27th of this month.

    {Herald}

  • Harvard Dons Say Neither Uhuru nor Raila Attained 50% vote

    {{An exit poll during the March 4 polls claims that there was a statistical tie between CORD leader Raila Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta with both failing to hit the 50% plus one mark.}}

    The poll conducted by two US political scientists puts Raila ahead at 40.9% while Uhuru who was declared the winner of the presidential contest, at 40.6%.

    Surprisingly, the poll almost accurately predicted the votes secured by then Amani presidential candidate Musalia Mudavadi and Alliance for Real Change candidate Abduba Dida.

    The poll had predicted that Mudavadi would score 3.74% of the votes but from the resultsby the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Mudavadi scored 3.93%.

    However, the poll accurately predicted the outcome for Dida, who garnered 0.43% of the votes as was predicted by the pollster.

    However, the poll also shows that 11.8% of Kenyans included in the survey refused to indicate for whom they had voted for in the historic presidential race.

    According to the survey, the results represent a statistical tie between the two top contenders since due to the survey’s margin of error.

    {{50 plus 1}}

    Harvard University professor James D Long who was one of the researchers maintained that neither Uhuru nor Raila could score the requisite 50% plus one vote as required by law even if the margin of error was slightly higher.

    Prof Long is also the author of the paper, Determinants of Ethnic Voting, which is part of a book he is working on examining how elections undermine or buttress democracy and accountability.

    Regarding the March 4 Kenya’s General Election, Prof Long said: “Even taking account of various statistical uncertainties, there is no reasonable assumption that gets either candidate to 50%,” Long said this while releasing the results of the exit poll on Thursday at a Washington think-tank forum.

    The researcher termed as a statistical myth that Uhuru seriously benefited from a comparatively higher turnout in Kikuyu-dominated parts of the country.

    “The contention that Kenyatta benefited from a comparatively much higher turnout in Kikuyu-dominated parts of the country was shown through the exit poll to be a myth,” Long insisted.

    {{IEBC results}}

    The two Researchers, however, remained mum on likely causes of the discrepancy between their survey’s results and the final results released by the Isaac Hassan-led commission.

    However, the pollsters had no evidence of vote rigging in terms of stuffing of ballot papers or vote buying.

    While responding to a question by a member of the audience why the results Kenyan election could be invalid, Long retorted, “Because people broke the law when they counted votes.”

    The IEBC switched from the electronic transmission and tallying of results to the manual after the latter collapsed.

    However, the Supreme Court later ruled that it was not illegal for the electoral commission to switch to the manual system after the electronic one failed.

    The survey showed that 83% of the Kikuyu voted for Uhuru, while 94% of the Luo voted for Raila.

    From the Kamba, according to the poll, Raila got 63% for while Uhuru got 12%.

    However, Raila got 11% from the Kalenjin, while Uhuru scored 74%.

    Raila has always insisted that the election was not free and fair. On Friday, he made a scathing attack on Chief Justice Willy Mutunga over the Supreme Court judgement that dismissed his petition.

    Raila has also insisted that the IEBC has lost the confidence of Kenyans and cannot be trusted to steer the country’s next election in 2017.

    During their titanic court battle Raila insisted that from the Forms 34 and 36, it was clear Uhuru’s votes were intentionally inflated while his were reduced in an apparent trend to “meet a given threshold”.

    The former Prime Minister had also demanded a forensic audit of the entire electronic system used in the March 4 presidential election, but the Supreme Court declined to grant his request.

    {Standard}

  • Colombia’s FARC Rebels Hopeful for Peace Deal

    {{Colombian government and the FARC rebel group have been holding talks for the last six months, but government negotiators say little progress has been made.}}

    The FARC rebels have rejected the idea of legal prosecution for their actions in the country’s 60-year war, in which thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced.

    The rebels say the peace talks will take time, and the government’s push for a quick deal is aimed at upcoming elections.

    {wirestory}

  • Nigeria: Single 6-year Presidential Tenure Opposed

    {{In NIgeria, the Arewa leaders have opposed plans by the National Assembly to recommend a six-year single tenure for the president and governors under the proposed constitutional amendment, saying that such system if adopted would be counter productive and injurious to the nation’s democracy.}}

    Meanwhile, the South-East Revival Group (SERG) Thursday cautioned political leaders in the country against the use of the anti-corruption agencies to hunt politically perceived enemies.

    They alleged that the recent invitation of an Anambra State governorship hopeful, Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was a confirmation that intimidation and harassment of political opponent was emerging

    Besides, elder statesman and opposition leader, Alhaji Balarabe Musa has criticised President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration for its inability to deliver the dividend of democracy, adding that poor governance by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had resulted in the internal crisis within the party.

    In a statement by the Northern elders under the aegis of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Anthony Sani, they argued that the six-year tenure for both the President and governors which the Senate was said to have recommended “lacks the basic elements of motivation and incentives needed in any management of human affairs for performance” under any purposeful democratic dispensation.”

    They added: “In the single tenure system, there are no incentives, motivation and reward that can inspire for excellent performance” by the political office holders.

    “And this has to do with the fact that the good, the not-so-good and the feckless leaders, are grouped together in the same hall without any distinction. Such a practice cannot deliver on good governance. That may explain why most countries in the world practise multiple tenure systems which enable leaders to aspire for excellence in the hope of reward by way of re-election.

    “This is because election into first term is on the basis of hope while that for second term should be based on performance in the office. Leaders should be elected not only on the basis of hope but also on the basis of performance in the office.”

    SERG said in a statement issued yesterday, by its Coordinator, Chief Willy Ezugwu that “the invitation or any other name by which it is called flies in the face of reason since Mr. Ubah and his company, Capital Oil and Gas have been cleared by the police and a court of competent jurisdiction over attempts to rope him into the subsidy fraud.”

    The members of the group explained that while the court awarded damage in the case involving Ubah, they also argued that “what happened to Ubah on Tuesday falls into a pattern that has become repetitive in recent months as national issue are exploited to clamp down on constitutionally guaranteed liberties at all levels of government”.

    Musa said that “President Goodluck Jonathan has almost turned everybody in the country into his enemy because of the principled opposition against his leadership style”.

    According to him, “even his kinsmen and the people from the South South are not spared under the President’s ruthless political vindictiveness , which he is now adopting to pave way for his 2015 presidential ambition.”

    {NgrGuardian}

  • Zimbabwe MDC Party: Voters’ Lists Being Inflated

    {{Zimbabwean state election officials are dramatically inflating the numbers of electors on new voters’ lists months ahead of crucial polls, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party alleged Tuesday.}}

    It said lists in some voting districts swelled by more than 10,000 names in a 48-hour period, or the addition of about 150 voters a second.

    “This is just impossible,” said party official Douglas Mwonzora. He said a copy of one Harare district list was obtained on a Monday earlier this month. Two days later, a revised copy showed an additional 11,890 voters on the list.

    In other districts the names of active party members were missing or misspelled, making them ineligible to vote, raising fears of voting fraud being planned by officials loyal to President Robert Mugabe’s party, he said.

    The official voters’ registry has denied tampering with the lists and insists it is just collating data in batches.

    A new drive to register voters began Monday, following weeks of campaigning by all political groups for eligible voters not yet listed to have their details added to the nationwide roll containing 5.7 million names in a population of 13 million, slightly less than half of whom are under the voting age of 18.

    Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party, in a shaky coalition with Mugabe brokered by regional leaders after the last violent and disputed elections in 2008, said even Theresa Makone, its co-minister of Home Affairs in charge of voter registration, saw her name was missing in her area.

    Under the coalition agreement, Tsvangirai’s party shares control of that ministry that is also responsible for the nation’s police dominated by Mugabe loyalists. Makone has had little influence over police commanders and senior government officials who have repeatedly vowed their allegiance to Mugabe.

    Makone has told her district supporters that irregularities in their voters’ list were “a tip of the iceberg” in what she suspected was happening countrywide to skew voting. Past elections since 2000 have been marred by allegations of vote rigging.

    Tsvangirai on Sunday began a diplomatic offensive to garner the backing of regional leaders to ensure fair conditions are in place for elections planned between July and September that include large scale corrections to the voters’ lists.

    Last month, the state Electoral Commission said in a continuing clean-up exercise it had removed the names of 350,000 dead voters who had appeared on previous lists.

    Tsvangirai’s party also accuses Mugabe of resisting reforms to sweeping media sweeping media and security laws demanded by regional mediators in the run-up to polling.

    It says “hate speech” against Tsvangirai and his colleagues in the former opposition by the state broadcast monopoly and the main newspapers loyal to Mugabe has not been reined in and the party has been denied fair access to the state broadcaster, the only source of information to many impoverished, rural voters.

    Tsvangirai met with South African President Jacob Zuma, the chief Zimbabwe mediator, on Sunday before heading to Tanzania to meet with President Jakaya Kikwete, current chair of a three nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) “troika” on regional disputes.

    Tsvangirai’s office said he has called for an urgent regional summit on long delayed democratic reforms in Zimbabwe.

    Zuma told Tsvangairia that SADC and the continent-wide African Union organization “will do everything in their power to ensure a free and fair poll in Zimbabwe,” said Luke Tamborinyoka, Tsvangirai’s spokesman.

    {Associated Press}