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Violence rocked Guinea's capital Conakry on Friday as supporters of opposition leader Cellou Diallo clashed with security forces who tried to disperse them.
They threw stones and blocked roads. Police responded with teargas and bullets. The clashes erupted as soon as provisional results released by the electoral commission showed president Alpha Conde winning with a big margin.
Conde, 82, won twice as many votes as his nearest rival, opposition candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo, with 37 of 38 districts counted, according to preliminary results from the commission.
Opposition supporters accuse the electoral authorities of rigging the vote for incumbent president Alpha Conde.
Sekou Koundouno, head of mobilisation for the opposition coalition FNDC said Conde had committed 'high treason'.
"He is an illegal and illegitimate candidate who is stubbornly pursuing his obsession to turn Guin ea into a monarchy in which, by the way, he will dictate orders to his subjects," said Kounduno.
Diallo maintains that he won with a landslide despite irregularities, according to his own tally. He remains barricaded in his home which security forces have besieged since Monday.
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
Many people have been killed since clashes began on Monday. Scores too had been killed in the run up to the vote as protestors marched against Conde's bid for a third term.
\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.
Uganda’s Electoral Commission announced on Tuesday that it will push ahead with organising the scheduled February 2021 General Election.
Amidst uncertainty over the coronavirus pandemic, the Commission banned mass gatherings and directed parties and candidates to use various media platforms to reach out to voters.
He said the new roadmap was problematic because of a history of partiality by the Electoral Commission in favour of the incumbent, and the failure to appreciate internal processes the party has to undertake to arrive at flag bearers.
While Uganda has a number of privately-owned FM radio and TV stations, the majority are owned by politicians who are members of the ruling National Resistance Movement party or people friendly to the party, who will not grant opposition members access to campaign on their platforms.
The Electoral Commission was faulted in a Supreme Court ruling on the 2016 elections for its failure to ensure state media gave candidates equal access.
Trump-loving Democrat Vernon Jones also did not wear a mask for the stunt.
With popular frustrations running high, and opposition leader Agathon Rwasa warning that he will not accept a \"stolen\" election, fears are mounting that a contested poll could lead to violence along the lines of what the country saw in 2015, when Nkurunziza's controversial bid for a third term prompted street protests, a failed coup, a crackdown and the exodus of over 400,000 people.
It now also appears that the EAC will be unable to send an observation team in time for the elections; Burundi's authorities have cited the COVID-19 outbreak as a reason to quarantine the observers for fourteen days upon arrival, though it is unclear whether the decision was genuinely made for legitimate public health reasons, given that the government has otherwise played down the outbreak.
Ruling-party nominee Ndayishimiye and long-time opposition leader Rwasa, who both fought as rebels in Burundi's 1993-2005 civil war, are the clear front runners, and emblematic of the former fighters' continued influence in national politics.
They say Nkurunziza, who pushed for the selection of his ally Pascal Nyabenda, the president of the National Assembly (the lower chamber of Burundi's parliament), only agreed to Ndayishimiye's candidacy after intense lobbying by generals.
While Rwasa has announced that he will not allow the election to be \"stolen\", CNDD-FDD officials believe that their party structures and ability to register and mobilise voters across the country cannot but deliver victory.
Analysis - Nine months into the pandemic, Europe remains one of the regions worst affected by COVID-19. Ten of the 20 countries with the highest death count per million people are European. The other ten are in the Americas. This includes the US, which has the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths in the world.
[DW] On October 31, Ivorians will elect a new leader. President Alassane Ouattara is running for a third controversial term. The opposition is urging supporters to shun the poll -- a political crisis appears imminent.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitian police on Saturday fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters who blocked roads and set fires in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Several people were injured.\tIt was the latest unrest...
The Government has commenced training for health workers in the administration of the antigen test, which is to be utilised to detect novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infections.\tMinister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton, advised that...
… are provided in states where Black Americans make up the largest proportion … state is $235 a week.
Black Americans are much more likely to …
In its 142-page decision the seven judges in Malawi's Supreme Court of Appeal, among them the Chief Justice, Andrew Nyirenda, are unanimous in upholding the finding of the Constitutional Court: the May 2019 elections failed in their aim of 'duly electing' a new President.
That's because the country's electoral commission, commenting on the Appeal Court decision, has suggested that it might not be possible to have the new President sworn in by the court's deadline if the original re-run schedule prevails.
In fact, it would be hard to read the Appeal Court's decision as anything other than a sharp rebuke to the commission about the way it handled matters, particularly as the votes were being collected and tallied, and then again when the validity of the polls was tested in court.
The position of Malawi's courts had been that if the results were not affected by irregularities, the elections should stand.
Stating its revised position on the matter, the judges said that it would be hard for a court in Malawi to uphold an election where its conduct was 'largely compromised', especially since voting numbers in such a case could be the result of flouting electoral law.
Other ministers, however, rejected Mr Kutesa's suggestion and asked Mr Matia Kasaija of Finance to look for funds in the 2020/21 budget for buying radios and TV sets for the 15 million learners.
While the planned distribution of free radios and TV sets was never intended to assist virtual political campaigns but ease access to distance learning and teaching across Uganda, sources in Cabinet talked of \"killing two birds with one stone\".
She, however, said the distribution of radio sets and TV had nothing to do with the anticipated virtual political campaigns.
Dr Arthur Bainomugisha, the executive director of Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Acode), and other analysts have questioned the rationale of buying radios and TV sets for households without access to electricity, money for buying batteries and struggling to feed themselves in the face of the pandemic.
According to another Cabinet source, the President also told Cabinet that since Education requires only two senses - listening and seeing, the planned distribution of free government TV sets and radios will boost distance learning infrastructure, a teaching strategy needed to combat the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
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.
A huge crowd gathered in Conakry on Thursday to show their support to Guinea's main opposition leader and presidential candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo during his final rally ahead of the Sunday's election.
A sea of people, mostly without masks, took the streets of the capital of the country to see Diallo, who greeted them from the top of a truck.
The 68-year old-candidate has denounced President Alpha Conde's decision to run for a third term in office, calling it unconstitutional.
This will be the third face-off between Conde and Diallo, who first ran against each other in the country's historic 2010 election that came after more than a half-century of dictatorship.
For months, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Guinea, and dozens have died in demonstrations opposing another term for Conde.
The current president insists he is following the will of the people by running in October 18 vote, after a public referendum approved it in March.
Diallo, of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea party, warned last month that Guinea has an unreliable voter registry, where more than three million people are not correctly registered and that the electoral commission has said it is unable to correct the shortcomings.
While the incumbent president previously defeated Diallo in both the 2010 and 2015 elections, many in Guinea say that Conde's popularity has sharply fallen as a result of his decision to seek a third term.
After surviving colonialism and dictatorship, many Guineans are fearful of the president's intentions.
Opponents now believe that Conde, 82, will use the new constitution to restart the clock on his term limits, potentially giving him another decade in power.
- 'Hate speech' -
Kabinet Fofana, a Guinean political scientist, warned there was a danger one of the candidates would not accept the outcome of the election.
\"A major difficulty is the question of recognition, acceptance of the results of the ballot boxes,\" he said.
The outcome of Guinea's poll is likely to resonate further afield too, kicking off a string of elections this year across West Africa.
Activists are concerned that a win for Conde would bode ill for democratic norms in the region.
Aside from the third presidential term, Guinea's election campaign has been marked by fears of increased ethnic tensions in the diverse country.
For example, Conde -- who normally speaks French when addressing the nation -- last month told voters in the Malinke language that backing an opposition Malinke candidate amounted to voting for Diallo.
Politics in Guinea are mostly drawn along ethnic lines. President Conde's party is largely backed by Malinke people, and Diallo's UFDG by Fulani people, although both insist that they are pluralist.
Against a backdrop of concerns about ethnicity, representatives from the United Nations and African Union warned against \"ethnic hate speech\" in Guinea this month.
- 'To the cemetery' -
Diallo has accused Conde on the campaign trail of exploiting ethnic divisions --
The yearly influenza season threatens to make the COVID-19 pandemic doubly deadly, but this may not be inevitable.
Source
Barefoot Wine has teamed with the New Voices Foundation to give business grants to various Black-owned beauty businesses.
[Monitor] Kampala -- The Electoral Commission (EC) has rolled out nominations for the local government councils.
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%.
Konaté kept his word in the June 2010 race. The first round of the election was inconclusive, and former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo faced opposition leader Alpha Condé in the run-off vote. Condé, a professor and opposition leader who has spent much of his life in exile in France, prevailed in the November run-off, taking 52.5% of the vote.
Originally supposed to take place within six months of the presidential election, Guineas first general election since 2002 finally took place in Oct. 2013—three years late. President Alpha Condes Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) party won 53 out of 114 seats in the national assembly, which is a slim working majority. International observers reported breaches and irregularities in the vote.
The Grammy winning singer is featured in a new ad.
Preparations for next year's general elections got off to a bumpy start yesterday after authorities at the Electoral Commission (EC), rejected Opposition demand for a new 2021 roadmap, born out of a meticulous consultative process.
But the Commission maintained that the elections would go on as planned and asked Opposition parties to either accept the new roadmap announced on Tuesday or push for last-minute constitutional amendments to the current electoral laws.
Under the revised EC roadmap, political parties were given one month to organise their internal elections (primaries).
\"As an electoral management body that is interested in holding free and fair general elections, you ought to have sufficient consultation with all key stakeholder before you roll out this \"scientific\" revised roadmap...\" the letter to EC reads in part.
\"In the most ridiculous fashion, the Commission has released a revised roadmap for the 2021 General Election; which roadmap violates every aspect of a free and fair election, envisaged under Article 1(4) of the Constitution of Uganda,\" Mr Kyagulanyi said in a Facebook post yesterday.
Malawi's opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera won last week's presidential election re-run with 58.57 per cent of the vote, the electoral commission said Saturday.
And on Saturday, electoral commission chairman Chifundo Kachale told journalists: \"The commission declares that Lazarus Chakwera, having attained 58.57 percent of the vote, has been duly elected as the president of Malawi.\"
In February, Malawi's top court found the first election had been marred by widespread irregularities, including the use of correction fluid to tamper with result sheets.
The landmark ruling made Malawi just the second African country south of the Sahara to have presidential poll results set aside, after Kenya in 2017.
The outgoing president's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had on Friday called on Malawi's Electoral Commission (MEC) to annul the results of the second vote and declare a third election.
New research calls attention to this little-remarked-upon resilience as well as significant challenges for older adults as the pandemic stretches on.
It shows that many seniors have changed behaviors — reaching out to family and friends, pursuing hobbies, exercising, participating in faith communities — as they strive to stay safe from the coronavirus.
\"There are some older adults who are doing quite well during the pandemic and have actually expanded their social networks and activities,\" said Brian Carpenter, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. \"But you don't hear about them because the pandemic narrative reinforces stereotypes of older adults as frail, disabled and dependent.\"
Whether those coping strategies will prove effective as the pandemic lingers, however, is an open question.
\"In other circumstances — hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, terrorist attacks — older adults have been shown to have a lot of resilience to trauma,\" said Sarah Lowe, an assistant professor at Yale University School of Public Health, who studies the mental health effects of traumatic events.
\"But Covid-19 is distinctive from other disasters because of its constellation of stressors, geographic spread and protracted duration,\" she continued. \"And older adults are now cut off from many of the social and psychological resources that enable resilience because of their heightened risk.\"
The most salient risk is of severe illness and death: 80% of Covid-19 deaths have occurred in people 65 and older.
Here are notable findings from a new wave of research documenting the early experiences of older adults during the pandemic:
Changing behaviors. Older adults have listened to public health authorities and taken steps to minimize the risk of being infected with Covid-19, according to a new study in The Gerontologist.
Results come from a survey of 1,272 adults age 64 and older administered online between May 4 and May 17. More than 80% of the respondents lived in New Jersey, an early pandemic hot spot. Blacks and Hispanics — as well as seniors with lower incomes and in poor health — were underrepresented.
These seniors reported spending less face-to-face time with family and friends (95%), limiting trips to the grocery store (94%), canceling plans to attend a celebration (88%), saying no to out-of-town trips (88%), not going to funerals (72%), going to public places less often (72%) and canceling doctors' appointments (69%).
Safeguarding well-being. In another new study published in The Gerontologist, Brenda Whitehead, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, addresses how older adults have adjusted to altered routines and physical distancing.
Her data comes from an online survey of 825 adults age 60 and older on March 22 and 23 — another sample weighted toward whites and people with higher incomes.
Instead of inquiring about \"coping\" — a term that can carry negative connotations — Whitehead asked about sources of joy and comfort during the pandemic. Most com
