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Electoral authorities in Guinea on Saturday declared President Alpha Conde winner of Sunday's election with 59.49% of the vote, defeating his main rival Cellou Diallo.
Some people went to the streets to protest immediately after the announcement. Such demonstrations have occurred for months after the government changed the constitution through a national referendum, allowing Conde to extend his decade in power.
Opposition candidate Cellou Diallo received 33.50% of the vote, the electoral commission said. Voter turnout was almost 80%.
Political tensions in the West African nation turned violent in recent days after Diallo claimed victory ahead of the official results. Celebrations by his supporters were suppressed when security forces fired tear gas to disperse them.
They accuse the electoral authorities of rigging the vote for incumbent president Alpha Conde.
At least nine people have been killed since the election, according to the government. The violence sparked international condemnation by the U.S. and others.
``Today is a sad day for African democracy,'' said Sally Bilaly Sow, a Guinean blogger and activist living abroad. The government should take into account the will of the people who have a desire for change, he said.
ICC warning
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor warned on Friday that warring factions in Guinea could be prosecuted after fighting erupted.
“I wish to repeat this important reminder: anyone who commits, orders, incites, encourages and contributes in any other way to crimes … is liable to prosecution either by the Guinean courts or the ICC,” she said.
#ICC Prosecutor #FatouBensouda: "I wish to repeat this important reminder: anyone who commits, orders, incites, encourages or contributes, in any other way, to the commission of #RomeStatute crimes, is liable to prosecution either by #Guinean courts or by the #ICC."
— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) October 23, 2020
On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
The Catholic church in the Democratic Republic of Congo has waded into the political crisis that has gripped the country calling for a divorce between the two coalitions running the affairs of the state.
On Tuesday (June 30) Archbishop of Kinshasa, Frindolin Ambongo has called for the dissolution of the political alliance between President Tshisekedi and his predecessor Kabila.
The cleric cited mistrust among members of Kabila’s Common Front of Congo, FCC and the president’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress, UPDS.
He noted the current political tension has been stoked by MPs of former president Joseph Kabila’s Common Front for Congo which has a parliamentary majority.
Monsignor Ambongo also accused the president of the Congolese national assembly of ‘contempt’ by renewing the mandate of the head of the country’s electoral commission.
The electoral commission last week told the nation to prepare for an unusual election where campaigning will be done digitally, as the destabilizing effects of the coronavirus continue.
Justifying scientific elections
\tUganda which currently has over 700 confirmed cases of the coronavirus has been slowly easing restrictions and emphasizing measures of social distancing for all activities in the country.
The commission says it is bound by Article 61 (2) of Uganda’s constitution which tasks it to organize elections within 120 days before the expiry of the term of president, parliament or local government.
In conducting a scientific election, the commission hopes to exercise its duty to facilitate Ugandans’ right to choose their leaders in a healthy and safe environment.
The opposition politicians accuse the electoral commission of not consulting them as it drafted the revised election roadmap.
Raila Odinga , in full Raila Amolo Odinga (born January 7, 1945, Maseno, Kenya), Kenyan businessman and politician who served as prime minister of Kenya (2008–13) following the contentious presidential election of December 2007.
Of Luo descent, Odinga was the son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the first vice president of independent Kenya. After earning a master’s degree in mechanical engineering in East Germany in 1970, Odinga returned to Kenya to become a lecturer at the University of Nairobi. During his time at the university, Odinga also engaged in engineering-related business ventures, including one that would later become East African Spectre, Ltd. He left the university in 1974 and was soon employed by the Kenya Bureau of Standards, where he attained the position of deputy director in 1978.
In the 1970s and ’80s Odinga was politically active and supported government reforms in Kenya. In 1982 he was accused of plotting against Pres. Daniel arap Moi and was imprisoned without trial for six years. After Odinga’s release, he was twice arrested for campaigning against one-party rule, and in 1991 he sought refuge in Norway. He returned to Kenya in 1992, however, and was elected a member of the National Assembly that year under the banner of the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy–Kenya (FORD–K), the party led by his father. After his father’s death in 1994, Odinga became embroiled in a leadership struggle within the party and in 1996 left FORD–K and joined the National Development Party (NDP).
In 1997 Odinga stood unsuccessfully as the NDP’s candidate for election as president of Kenya but was able to retain his seat in the National Assembly. He and the NDP thereafter gave their support to Moi and the ruling Kikuyu-dominated Kenya African National Union (KANU). Odinga joined Moi’s cabinet as energy minister in 2001, and the NDP was absorbed into the ruling party the following year, with Odinga becoming secretary-general of KANU.
Odinga’s hope of succeeding Moi as KANU’s candidate for the presidency in the
All planned Election Commission (EC) activities between March and May 2020, including elections for Special Interest Groups (SIG), have been suspended until further notice.
The EC secretary, Mr Sam Rwakoojo, on Tuesday said the Covid-19 lockdown affected many programmes on the elections roadmap and that discussions with different stakeholders are on-going to see how to readjust.
At the time government issued the directives, the EC was completing the public display of the national voters' register for the elections scheduled for April 2020.
The activities which have been affected according to the roadmap include display of tribunal recommendations for deletion or inclusion on the National Voters Register (NVR), gazetting and publishing of candidates' nomination dates and venues, Elections of Special Interest Groups (SIGs), including older persons, Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) and youth at village and parish levels and internal political party candidates identification processes.
Former coordinator of Citizen Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda, Mr Crispy Kaheru, said the way out is to suspend the planned 2021 electoral programmes to fit between the months of July and October or have the elections of SIG after the General Election.
\tTrinidad (CMC): Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has written to CARICOM Secretary General Irwin La Rocque and Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland inviting them to send election observers to the upcoming general election on ...
With the authorities barring international observers at the last minute by invoking Covid-19 and a run-up to the polls marred by intensified violence and opposition repression, a serious question mark hangs over the credibility of Burundi's Wednesday elections.
The elections saw Évariste Ndayishimiye standing for the ruling Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie - Forces pour la défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD) and Agathon Rwasa for the main opposition party Congrès national pour la liberté (CNL).
The East African Community was set to deploy a team to Burundi to monitor the presidential, legislative and municipal elections that would in particular determine a successor to the 15-year incumbent, Pierre Nkurunziza, and replace the National Assembly.
Some polling stations opened late in various localities, and authorities expelled or arrested several accredited opposition election observers.
Rwasa has declared he will not allow the ruling party to \"steal his election\" and Nkurunziza that he will not tolerate a call for violence.
… , by contrast, pundits often portray Black Americans as an undifferentiated mass – loyal … of Black Americans as Democratic loyalists.
Our new survey of 1,215 African Americans … fewer than half of young Black Americans surveyed in battleground states say …
In April 2010, Bashir easily won Sudans first multi-party elections since 1986, with 68% of the vote. Several opposition parties boycotted the election, and international observers questioned the fairness of it, citing ballot-box stuffing and other allegations of fraud. Bashirs supporters cite the marked improvement in infrastructure completed during his presidency—new schools, hospitals, and roads. All are products of the oil boom.
Salva Kiir, head of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement, was reelected president of the semi-autonomous South, taking 93% of the vote. A referendum on Southern independence is scheduled for January 2011. President Bashir has vowed to honor the results of the vote. Many fear renewed violence if the referendum passes, as the South is home to about 90% of the countrys oil.
As polls suggest the opposition alliance will win on 23 June, President Mutharika has been trying to forcibly remove the country's chief justice.
When Peter Mutharika was declared the official winner of Malawi's hard-fought presidential elections in May 2019, he would not have expected - or wanted - to be doing it all again just one year later.
Moreover, in his 5 June State of National Address, Mutharika asked parliament to reverse the court ruling that demanded Malawi switch from its first-past-the-post system to one that requires the victor to garner a 50+1 majority.
In the annulled 2019 elections, President Mutharika of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was declared the winner with 38.6% of the vote.
Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) garnered 35.4%; Saulos Chilima of UTM came third with 20.2%; and Atupele Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) received 4.7%.
The by-elections for Kahawa Wendani ward in Kiambu county, Dabaso ward in Kilifi county, Kisumu North ward in Kisumu county, Wundanyi Mbale ward in Taita Taveta county and Msambweni constituency in Kilifi county were postponed after the government imposed restrictions on gatherings in measures to combat the spread of COVID-19.
Chebukati noted the electoral commission was working on a program which will see the elections conducted once the current COVID-19 containment measures including the dusk-to-dawn curfew and cessation of movement in five counties are scaled down.
Chebukati said IEBC will liaise with the Ministry of Health to identify best ways to conduct the elections in a COVID-19 environment which minimizes human to human contact.
\"When curfew and other activities are scaled down, we shall embark on this program and set new dates for this by-elections,\" Chebukati added.
Dabaso Ward MCA Emmanuel Changawa's lost his seat after the Court of Appeal nullified his election in November 2019 while in Kisumu, Elisha Araro resigned his seat as Kisumu North MCA to vie for County Assembly Speaker.
Mary Sheffield wants residents involved
President of the People’s National Party (PNP), Dr Peter Phillips, is demanding assurances that the legal and technical issues involved in staging both the local government and general elections on one ballot be ironed out before concluding on what would be a historic move.
Addressing PNP councillors and councillor caretakers at The Mico University College on Sunday, Phillips said that the Government had formally engaged the Electoral Commission of Jamaica on the cost-saving measure.
“The Electoral Commission has identified a number of technical and legal issues that they are examining, and certainly, we would need as a party to be entirely clear that all the arrangements are in place are legal and constitutional and, in fact, are practical, if we are to agree to do it, and that is being done,” Phillips said.
The PNP president told Comrades that the slate of 63 prospective parliamentary candidates was the “best” ever assembled, adding that a majority of the party’s local government standard-bearers were in place.
He said that the electorate was looking for the PNP “... to provide a set of representatives in local and central government whose only objective is to serve the people of Jamaica and not to serve themselves or to secure personal benefit for themselves.
Basutoland was founded in the 1820s by Moshoeshoe I, uniting various Sotho groups who had fled predation by the Zulu. Having escaped the Zulu, Moshoeshoe brought his people to the stronghold of Butha-Buthe, and then the mountain of Thaba-Bosiu (about 20 miles from what is now the capital of Lesotho, Maseru). But he had not yet found peace. Moshoeshoes territory was being picked off by the trekboers, and he approached the British for aid.
In 1884 Basutholand became a British Crown Colony.
Lesotho gained independence from Britain on 4 October 1966. In January 1970 the ruling Basotho National Party (BNP) appeared set to lose the first post-independence general elections when Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan annulled the election. He refused to cede power to the Basotho Congress Party (BCP) and imprisoned its leadership.
The BNP ruled by decree until January 1986 when a military coup forced them out of office. The Military Council that came into power granted executive powers to King Moshoeshoe II, who was until then a ceremonial monarch. In 1990, however, the King was forced into exile after a falling out with the army. His son was installed as King Letsie III.
The chairman of the military junta, Major General Metsing Lekhanya, was ousted in 1991 and then replaced by Major General Phisoane Ramaema, who handed over power to a democratically elected government of the BCP in 1993.
Moshoeshoe II returned from exile in 1992 as an ordinary citizen. After the return to democratic government, King Letsie III tried unsuccessfully to persuade the BCP government to reinstate his father (Moshoeshoe II) as head of state.
In August 1994, Letsie III staged a coup which was backed by the military and deposed the BCP government.
The new government did not receive full international recognition. Member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) engaged in negotiations aimed at the reinstatement of the BCP government. One of the conditions put forward by the King for the return of the BCP government was that his
On Friday, October 9, 2020, the Milwaukee Health Services, Inc., hosted a voter registration event at their Isaac Coggs Heritage Health Center, 8200 W. Silver Spring Dr. Attendees could safely register to vote for the upcoming presidential election as well as receive a free COVID-19 safety kit containing hand sanitizer, facial tissues, masks and more.... [Read More]
Foot Locker Is Rocking The Vote By Turning All Of Its U.S. Stores Into Voter Registration Sites
Virginia, long seen as a critical state in American politics, has also been a barometer of the nation’s racial climate and is being closely watched to see what direction it takes in the way of social justice.
If she becomes governor, McClelland would be the second Black governor of VIrginia, following Doug Wilder, and the first Black woman ever voted into the job making history in the state as well as in the nation.
She spoke with BET.com about her plans to address social justice and equality, and also focus on answering the racial issues that have come out of the state over the past few years like the deadly protest incident in Charlottesville in 2017 and Black Virginia voters’ influence on electoral politics.
RELATED: Second Black Woman Enters Race For Virginia Governor
BET.com: You wouldn’t be the first Black governor of Virginia, but you would be the first Black woman governor and the first Black woman to hold the position in the country.
McClelland: There's so many aspects of public safety, but the bottom line is just making sure we have healthy thriving communities and a lot of the civil unrest, whether it was then or now, is due to an inability to come to terms with the racial inequity and 400 years of trauma and the inability to address that and heal.
Candidates seeking electoral positions in Uganda's general election due early next year will have to conduct their campaigns without physical contact as dictated by Covid-19 social and physical distancing, the Electoral Commission has announced.
The commission, which released a new roadmap of electoral activities, has set November 2 and 3, 2020 as nomination dates for Presidential candidates.
NO POSTPONING ELECTION
Article 61(2) of the Constitution provides that the \"Electoral Commission shall hold general presidential, parliamentary and local government council elections within the first thirty days of the last ninety days before the expiration of the term of the President.\"
Responding to questions about calls for postponing the election to give all candidates a fair chance in light of the Covid-19 disruption, Mr Byabakama said, \"The option of postponing the election has not even occurred to us as a commission because it is not in our mandate.
Mr Byabakama added that the commission's mandate is limited only to state (public) media which is required to give equal space to all presidential candidates.
Agathon Rwasa, Burundi's opposition leader and deputy speaker of Parliament has filed a petition at the country's constitutional court disputing the win of the ruling CNDD-FDD party's Evariste Ndayishimiye.
Mr Ndayishimiye won the May 20 presidential election with 68 per cent of the vote against Mr Rwasa's 24 per cent.
\"If the constitutional court rules in their favour I will move to the African Court because all the results that were announced by the electoral commission were wrong,\" said Mr Rwasa.
The country's Catholic Church deployed 2,716 observers countrywide, and has also expressed misgivings on the election process and its outcome.
However the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Pierre Claver Kazihise, said that members of the Catholic church observer mission weren't well educated and informed about the electoral process.
NNPA NEWSWIRE — It comes to this: Americans are being cut out of the process by other Americans. A great victory, fought for on bloody streets and across bloody bridges, a score settled and signed [...]
Bamako — As cotton price tumbles during pandemic, farmers worry the state support they rely on to grow food in a warming climate will dry up
For years, Mali's government has helped Yacouba Kone pay for the fertiliser he uses on his cotton crop - as long as he also devotes some of his land in the south to growing cereals.
In Mali, cotton and food are closely linked: To hold the country's spot as one of Africa's top cotton producers and keep its people fed, cotton farmers get state subsidies on the condition that they also cultivate crops like corn and millet.
But now Mali's food production is under threat as the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has sent the price of cotton plummeting, farmers warn, leaving them unable to afford key climate-smart inputs, even with government help.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the price of cotton - traditionally a high earner for farmers - has dropped from 275 West African francs (about $0.50) per kilo to 200 francs.
Ibrahima Coulibaly, president of the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations (CNOP), a non-profit advocacy group, warned that without government support, the pandemic could undo much of the progress Mali's farmers have made in adapting to climate change.
Bharrat Jagdeo
The PPP/C has emerged the winner of March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections following the national recount of the final ballot box (#4877) from Region 4 (Demerara-Mahaica).
The recount was witnessed by representatives of all the nine (9) political parties that contested the elections, including observers from Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Organisation of American States (OAS), and local observers including the Private Section Commission and American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM).
Following a High Court’s decision, Mingo was ordered to revert to the prescribed procedure but he submitted totals that varied substantially from those of other parties and had the APNU/AFC ahead rather than the PPPC.
Retired Justice Claudette Singh, Chairwoman of GECOM, agreed to a recount of the all votes, which had been proposed by caretaker President David Granger and agreed to by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo after an intervention by several Caricom leaders.
As the recount process wound down, voices from the domestic and international community – local Church leaders, the Private Sector Commission, the US State Department, Ambassadors of the US, EU, UK, Caricom, OAS have been calling for an acceptance of the recount by all the parties leading to a peaceful transition for the new government that has been chosen by the people of Guyana.
The growing disdain for Biden among young Democratic voters has been predicted to dwindle with the promise of a Black woman as vice president, but for many, this is not the case.
This sentiment is shared amongst many young Black voters who are weary of the Democratic Party’s unfulfilled promises as a whole.
Still, other young Black voters aren’t impressed with the pool of choices, and the disdain for Biden is so much that they would risk another four years of Trump.
“I hate to say it, but between Biden and Trump, I’d still vote Trump,” says one young Black woman.
There seems to be no guarantee that the Democratic party will achieve its intended end if Biden chooses a Black woman to run alongside him.
By Cash Michaels and Peter Grear, Greater Diversity News If preliminary data estimates on the recent 2020 primaries in North Carolina are accurate, student voters on HBCU campuses must raise their turnout game come the general election this November. So says Dr. William Busa, founder of EQV Analytics, a ‘North Carolina-focused campaign consulting firm serving
