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The Electoral Commission (EC) has published the ballot statistics for the upcoming 2024 presidential and parliamentary Elections. In a statement dated Monday (14 October 2024), the EC stated that the ballot statistics will guide the printing of ballots ahead of the general elections. The Commission highlighted that it considered the total number of voters on […]
The post EC releases ballot statistics for 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections first appeared on Gajreport.
The post EC releases ballot statistics for 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections appeared first on Gajreport.
Critics have called it a stunt to invite sympathy. Yet Amuriat says campaigning without shoes is a protest and that those who do not get its symbolism are missing a point.
Uganda is due to hold a general election on January 14. Amuriat and another opposition candidate, Bobi Wine have had their rallies violently dispersed by security forces or been arrested.
In mid-November, scores of people were killed as security forces attempted to quell protests against the arrest and detention of Bobi Wine.
Police has accused the candidates of addressing huge gatherings in contravention of regulations on COVID-19 prevention.
Swollen feet
In an interview with one of the dailies in Uganda, Amuriat said his feet hurt a lot and has to pour cold water on them in between campaign stops for some relief.
Doctors have cautioned him on the potential danger of contracting tetanus from cuts to his feet.
Yet Amuriat remains adamant. He says by refusing to wear shoes, he’s standing in solidarity with people whose wealth and opportunities have been stolen by the country’s longtime ruler Yoweri Museveni.
JUST IN: FDC presidential candidate Patrick Amuriat has been arrested at the border of Rubirizi and Bushenyi districts. The reason for his arrest is yet to be known📹 @MukhayeD#MonitorUpdates#UGDecides2021 pic.twitter.com/xopK4FMoD0
— Daily Monitor (@DailyMonitor) December 4, 2020
Museveni, in power since 1986 is seeking a new term. In 2017, he changed the constitution to remove age limits that would have stopped him from seeking re-election.
FDC is Uganda’s largest opposition party. In 3 previous elections, the party fronted veteran activist and retired army colonel Kizza Besigye for president.
Ugandan opposition candidate Bobi Wine has rejected the results declared so far and calls himself the president-elect, despite the electoral body saying not all votes have yet been counted. Bobi Wine alleges Thursday's polls saw the worst vote-rigging in Uganda's history, but did not provide any evidence to back up his claims. He declared the struggle is just beginning. Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, says he'll address the press again in a few hours on the way forward. Early results from the electoral commission give the incumbent, President Yoweri Museveni, a commanding lead of almost two-thirds of the votes so far counted. The military have surrounded Bobi Wine’s house. - BBC
[Monitor] Ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party presidential candidate, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is poised to extend his reign in power to 40 years after Electoral Commission (EC) chairman Simon Byabakama credited him 5,562,141 votes, representing 58.89% of the 9,445,184 valid votes.
By the end of the 1980s, Benins economy was near collapse. As its oil boom ended, Nigeria expelled 100,000 Beninese migrant workers and closed the border with Benin. Kérékous socialist collectivization of Benins agriculture and the ballooning bureaucracy further damaged the economy. By 1988, international financial institutions feared Benin would default on its loans and pressured Kérékou to make financial reforms.
Kérékou subsequently embarked on a major privatization campaign, cut the government payroll, and reduced social services, prompting student and labor union unrest. Fearing a revolution, Kérékou agreed to a new constitution and free elections. In 1991, Nicéphore Soglo, an economist and former director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was elected president. Although he enjoyed widespread support at first, Soglo gradually became unpopular as austerity measures reduced living standards and a 50% currency devaluation in 1994 caused inflation. Kérékou defeated Soglo in the 1996 elections and was easily reelected in March 2001. Term limits prevented him from running again. In April 2006, Yayi Boni assumed the presidency. The World Bank and IMF agreed to cancel much of Benins foreign debt after the country demonstrated significant economic reforms.
In 2010, floods destroyed 55,000 homes, killed tens of thousands of livestock, and displaced 680,000 people. There were 46 fatalities.
After two postponements, presidential elections were held on March 13, 2011. According to Benins constitutional court, incumbent Yayi Boni won 53% of the vote. His main challenger, Adrien Houngbedji, disputed the results, alleging fraud and claiming victory for himself. Parliamentary elections followed in April, 2011, and established a new government, including Pascal Koupaki as prime minister, Nassirou Bako Arifari as foreign minister, Benoît Assouan Degla as interior minister, and Adidjatou Mathys as finance minister; Issifou Kogui NDouro remained as defense minister.
[Nation] Somalia is largely an oral society where word of mouth spreads like fire.
In March 2002, Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations. That month Mugabe was reelected president for another six years in a blatantly rigged election whose results were enforced by the presidents militia. In 2003, inflation hit 300%, the country faced severe food shortages, and the farming system had been destroyed. In 2004, the IMF estimated that the country had grown one-third poorer in the last five years.
Parliamentary elections in March 2005 were judged by international monitors to be egregiously flawed. In April, Zimbabwe was reelected to the UN Commission on Human Rights, outraging numerous countries and human rights groups. In mid-2005, Zimbabwe demolished its urban slums and shantytowns, leaving 700,000 people homeless in an operation called “Drive Out Trash.” In 2006, the government launched “Operation Roundup,” which drove 10,000 homeless people out of the capital.
Since 2000, Zimbabwe has experienced precipitous hyperinflation and economic ruin. By the end of 2008, inflation skyrocketed to a mind-boggling 231,000,000%, up from 7,000% in 2007, unemployment reached 80%, and the Zimbabwean dollar was basically worthless. According to the World Health Organization, Zimbabwe has the worlds lowest life expectancy.
In 1972, Kaunda outlawed all opposition political parties. The world copper market collapsed in 1975. The Zambian economy was devastated—it had been the third-largest miner of copper in the world after the United States and Soviet Union. With a soaring debt and inflation rate in 1991, riots took place in Lusaka, resulting in a number of killings. Mounting domestic pressure forced Kaunda to move Zambia toward multiparty democracy. National elections on Oct. 31, 1991, brought a stunning defeat to Kaunda. The new president, Frederick Chiluba, called for sweeping economic reforms, including privatization and the establishment of a stock market. He was reelected in Nov. 1996. Chiluba declared martial law in 1997 and arrested Kaunda following a failed coup attempt. The 1999 slump in world copper prices again depressed the economy because copper provides 80% of Zambias export earnings.
In 2001, Chiluba contemplated changing the constitution to allow him to run for another presidential term. After protests he relented and selected Levy Mwanawasa, a former vice president with whom he had fallen out, as his successor. Mwanawasa became president in Jan. 2002; opposition parties protested over alleged fraud. In June 2002, Mwanawasa, once seen as a pawn of Chiluba, accused the former president of stealing millions from the government while in office. Chiluba was arrested and charged in Feb. 2003.
Although the country faced the threat of famine in 2002, the president refused to accept any international donations of food that had been genetically modified, which Mwanawasa considered “poison.” In Aug. 2003, impeachment proceedings against the president for corruption were rejected by parliament. In April 2005, the World Bank approved a $3.8 billion debt relief package for the country.
In Sept. 2006 presidential elections, incumbent Levy Mwanawasa was reelected. President Mwanawasa suffered a stroke in June 2008 and died in Paris in September. Vice President Rupiah Banda took over as acting president and was elected president
Benin was the seat of one of the great medieval African kingdoms called Dahomey. Europeans began arriving in the area in the 18th century, as the kingdom of Dahomey was expanding its territory. The Portuguese, the French, and the Dutch established trading posts along the coast (Porto-Novo, Ouidah, Cotonou), and traded weapons for slaves. Slave trade ended in 1848. Then, the French signed treaties with Kings of Abomey (Guézo, Toffa, Glèlè) to establish French protectorates in the main cities and ports.
However, King Behanzin fought the French influence, which cost him deportation to Martinique.
From a Colony of France to Independence:
In 1892 Dahomey became a French protectorate and part of French West Africa in 1904. Expansion continued to the North (kingdoms of Parakou, Nikki, Kandi), up to the border with former Upper Volta. On 4 December 1958, it became the République du Dahomey, self-governing within the French community, and on 1 August 1960, the Republic of Dahomey gained full independence from France. T he country was renamed Benin in 1975
Between 1960 and 1972, a succession of military coups brought about many changes of government. The last of these brought to power Major Mathieu Kérékou as the head of a regime professing strict Marxist-Leninist principles. The Parti de la Révolution Populaire Béninoise (Revolutionary Party of the People of Benin, PRPB) remained in complete power until the beginning of the 1990s.
Kérékou, encouraged by France and other democratic powers, convened a national conference that introduced a new democratic constitution and held presidential and legislative elections. Kérékous principal opponent at the presidential poll, and the ultimate victor, was Prime Minister Nicéphore Dieudonné Soglo.
Supporters of Soglo also secured a majority in the National Assembly.
Benin was thus the first African country to effect successfully the transition from dictatorship to a pluralistic political system. In the second round of National Assembly elections held in March 1995, Soglos
[RFI] Faustin-Archange Touadéra, president of the Central African Republic, has dismissed three rebel chiefs from the government following an offensive launched before elections on 27 December, signalling the end of the 2019 Khartoum peace agreement and integration of the rebels into an inclusive government in Bangui.
U.S. Department of State Background Note
Although Haiti averages about 302 people per square kilometer, its population is concentrated most heavily in urban areas, coastal plains, and valleys. About 95% of Haitians are of African descent. The rest of the population is mostly of mixed Caucasian-African ancestry. A few are of European or Levantine heritage. Sixty percent of the population lives in rural areas.
French is one of two official languages, but it is spoken by only about 10% of the people. All Haitians speak Creole, the countrys other official language. English is increasingly used as a second language among the young and in the business sector.
The dominant religion is Roman Catholicism. Increasing numbers of Haitians have converted to Protestantism through the work of missionaries active throughout the country. Much of the population also practices voudou (voodoo), recognized by the government as a religion in April 2003. Haitians tend to see no conflict in these African-rooted beliefs coexisting with Christian faith.
Although public education is free, the cost is still quite high for Haitian families who must pay for uniforms, textbooks, supplies, and other inputs. Due to weak state provision of education services, private and parochial schools account for approximately 90% of primary schools, and only 65% of primary school-aged children are actually enrolled. At the secondary level, the figure drops to around 20%. Less than 35% of those who enter will complete primary school. Though Haitians place a high value on education, few can afford to send their children to secondary school and primary school enrollment is dropping due to economic factors. Remittances sent by Haitians living abroad are important in paying educational costs.
Large-scale emigration, principally to the U.S.--but also to Canada, the Dominican Republic, The Bahamas and other Caribbean neighbors, and France--has created what Haitians refer to as the Tenth Department or the Diaspora. About one of every eight Haitians lives
In April 2007, about 35 people were killed and hundreds wounded when suicide bombers attacked a government building in Algiers and a police station on the outskirts of the capital. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorist group struck again in December, killing as many as 60 people in two suicide attacks near UN offices and government buildings in the capital of Algeria. The bombings occur within minutes of each other. It was the worst attack in Algeria in more than 10 years.
In June 2008, President Bouteflika replaced Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem with Ahmed Ouyahia, who had served twice as premier.
At least 43 people were killed in August 2008, when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into a police academy in Issers, a town in northern Algeria. The next day, two car bombs exploded simultaneously at a military command and a hotel in Bouira, killing a dozen people. No group takes responsibility for the attacks, but Algerian officials said they suspected Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was behind the bombings.
In November 2008, Parliament approved constitutional changes that allow President Bouteflika to run for a third term. The opposition criticized the move, calling it an assault on democracy. Bouteflika went on to win reelection in April 2009, taking more than 90% of the vote.
The oppositions hope for gaining influence and a voice in government were dashed in parliamentary elections in May 2012. A coalition of moderate Islamist parties were optimistic that they could ride the wave of change and reform that has swept the region since the Arab Spring of 2011. But the coalition won only 48 out of 463 seats, and accused the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN), which took 220 seats, of fraud.
Krystian Legierski, an LGBT activist, politician, lawyer, and entrepreneur, is the first openly gay person elected to public office in Poland. He was born on April 22, 1978, in the village of Koniakow in southwestern Poland. His mother is Polish and his father is from Mauritania. Legierski, known for his progressive political and social views, frequently discusses being brought up by his religious mother and grandmother in a traditionally conservative community. He notes, however, that both his family and his community have always been supportive of him. He graduated from the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw.
Legierski was an active member of a left-wing political party, the Greens, since its founding in 2004. He ran unsuccessfully, as a member of the Greens, in the 2005 and 2011 Polish parliamentary elections and in the 2004 and 2009 European Parliament elections. In 2010 he won a seat in the Warsaw City Council. After losing a bid to assume leadership of the Greens, Legierski left the party in 2011, citing internal disagreements over the question of potential coalition partners as his primary motivation. He was not reelected to the Warsaw City Council in 2014. In the 2015 parliamentary election, he ran as a candidate of the United Left, but the coalition did not cross the 8 percent threshold required to gain seats in Parliament.
Legierski’s political interests focus on LGBT rights, affordable housing, accessibility and structure of the public space, and civil society. As an activist, Legierski has been one of the most recognizable advocates of LGBT rights in Poland. He led an initiative to oppose the ban on the Warsaw Equality Parade, an annual LGBT rights event that the conservative authorities of Warsaw attempted to block in 2005. He was also actively involved in the unsuccessful effort to enable homosexual couples to form civil unions. Since 2009 he has been a supporter of a campaign to promote civil partnerships in Poland. The proposed law intends to protect the rights of
This West African nation on the Gulf of Guinea, between Togo on the west and Nigeria on the east, is about the size of Tennessee. It is bounded by Burkina Faso and Niger on the north. The land consists of a narrow coastal strip that rises to a swampy, forested plateau and then to highlands in the north. A hot and humid climate blankets the entire country.
Republic under a multiparty democratic rule.
The Abomey kingdom of the Dahomey, or Fon, peoples was established in 1625. A rich cultural life flourished, and Dahomeys wooden masks, bronze statues, tapestries, and pottery are world renowned. One of the smallest and most densely populated regions in Africa, Dahomey was annexed by the French in 1893 and incorporated into French West Africa in 1904. It became an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958, and on Aug. 1, 1960, Dahomey was granted its independence within the Community.
Gen. Christophe Soglo deposed the first president, Hubert Maga, in an army coup in 1963. He dismissed the civilian government in 1965, proclaiming himself chief of state. A group of young army officers seized power in Dec. 1967, deposing Soglo. In Dec. 1969, Benin had its fifth coup of the decade, with the army again taking power. In May 1970, a three-man presidential commission with a six-year term was created to take over the government. In May 1972, yet another army coup ousted the triumvirate and installed Lt. Col. Mathieu Kérékou as president. Between 1974 and 1989 Dahomey embraced socialism, and changed its name to the Peoples Republic of Benin. The name Benin commemorates an African kingdom that flourished from the 15th to the 17th century in what is now southwest Nigeria. In 1990, Benin abandoned Marxist ideology, began moving toward multiparty democracy, and changed its name again, to the Republic of Benin.
By the end of the 1980s, Benins economy was near collapse. As its oil boom ended, Nigeria expelled 100,000 Beninese migrant workers and closed the border with Benin. Kérékous socialist collectivization of
