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Provisional results Friday showed Mohamed Bazoum as having garnered 1.4 million votes, only trailed by former president Mahamane Ousmane with 675,000
\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.
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
Malawi’s President Peter Mutharika has appointed a new electoral commission chairperson ahead of a presidential re-run.
The country’s Constitutional Court in February ordered a fresh presidential election be held within 150 days after annulling last year’s re-election of President Mutharika – a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court.
The former commission chairperson Jane Ansah resigned amid criticism by the opposition on how she managed the disputed election.
President Mutharika on Sunday appointed Justice Chifundo Kachale to head the electoral commission.
The new chairperson is expected by voters to deliver a credible presidential election devoid of irregularities as ordered by the courts.
Malawi's parliament has endorsed June 23 as the date for the presidential election re-run after a court annulled last year's vote over irregularities, a lawmaker said.
The election had handed President Peter Mutharika a second term, but with just 38.5% of the vote.
Legally parliament had to validate the new polling date.
He said the court ruling \"clearly states that parliament must set a date for the elections\".
Meantime, a new electoral commission was sworn-in on Tuesday to organise the new vote, after the top court also ordered an investigation into the conduct of the previous one.
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.
Dennis McKinley of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” opens up about how The Original Hot Dog Factory franchise is thriving amid the pandemic.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Jane Frances Abodo has said her office was reluctant to sanction charges of being a nuisance against former Makerere University Research Fellow, Dr Stella Nyanzi last recently.
Counsel Walubiri had argued that it was high time the office of the DPP withdrew cases that have over stayed in the justice system like the treason case against Dr Kizza Besigye.
\"Perhaps, this is the time for the office of the DPP to weed out some files that have been pending in the criminal justice system for long as the same are clogging the system for no good reason,\" Mr Walubiri said.
DPP Abodo said she is determined to weed out undeserving cases from the justice system starting with those arrested during the ongoing lockdown.
Ms Winfred Adukule, the executive director of Freechild Uganda, urged the office of the DPP and the Judiciary not to forget about the juvenile justice in this Covid-19 lockdown.
By DYLAN LOVAN Associated Press/BNC Contributor LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Louisville police called off a warrant search of Breonna Taylors apartment after a drug suspect was located elsewhere, but then went ahead with the deadly raid to look for other suspects with no connection to Taylor, her family says in a new court filing. Taylor, a emergency medical technician who had settled down for the night at her Louisville apartment, was fatally shot when officers burst into her apartment in the early morning hours of March 13. The shooting set off weeks of protests, policy changes and a call for []
The post Breonna Taylors family argues police had no cause for raid appeared first on Black News Channel.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The Dutch Government is taking Russia to the European Court of Human Rights for its alleged role in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over eastern Ukraine six years ago, the foreign minister announced yesterday.
Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, Gedu Andargachew has rejected Egypt’s call to refer the dispute over Addis Ababa’s construction of the giant Nile dam to the United Nations Security Council.
The $4.6 billion project, on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, would create the most powerful hydroelectric dam in Africa.
“The issue with the dam can be solved right here instead of taking it to the UN Security Council.
Truth be told, if they are thinking like that their issue is not with Blue Nile (dam), it is with a country called Ethiopia.
Unless this is a longing for war, the dam in fact encourages development, brotherhood, and creating ties”, the Ethiopian foreign minister added.
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.
The Electoral Commission (EC) yesterday announced the 2021 revised electoral roadmap and told all those interested in elective offices in the next election to use the media for campaigns.
Mr Henry Muguzi, the national coordinator for Alliance for Campaign Financing Monitoring (ACFIM), a loose coalition of civil society activists advocating for transparency in financing political parties and election campaigns, said the decision to do virtual campaigns may double the cost of campaigns.
Media houses will also aim to make a killing out of the campaigns with high costs of talk-shows,\" Mr Muguzi said.
Also to suffer the blunt of high costs to get media space will be the new comers, women and youth who may not have the financial muscle to manage such expensive campaigns.
Mr Muguzi also warned that Opposition politicians are likely not to have equal access to the radios and TVs because most media houses are either owned by the NRM party members or its sympathisers.
The National Identification Authority (NIA) has asked the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to report the state agency to the police if the party has any evidence to back its election rigging allegations made against the Authority on Thursday, 14 May 2020.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), at a press conference, raised fears that the decision of the Electoral Commission to compile a new register of voters using passports and the NIA's Ghana card as proof of eligibility may give undue advantage to the governing New Patriotic Party and President Nana Akufo-Addo and also help the incumbent to rig the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2020.
According to the biggest opposition party, over 10 million Ghanaians are unable to retrieve their Ghana cards from the NIA several months after they were registered, a situation which the Chairman of the party, Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, said will make it impossible for them to be captured on the new electoral roll.
At a counter-press conference on Friday, 15 May 2020, the Executive Director of the NIA, Prof Ken Attafuah, said it was a \"disturbing allegation that the NIA, in consent with the Electoral Commission, embarked on an election-rigging agenda in order to benefit the New Patriotic Party, and most disturbingly, to disenfranchise a significant portion of the Ghanaian populace from their rights to exercise their franchise\".
\"I want to assure the good people of this country that the NIA is not involved in any such criminal design or enterprise with the EC, with the government of Ghana or any with any person or entity whatsoever described.
Malawian voters defied the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday to return to the polls for the second time in just over a year after President Peter Mutharika's re-election was annulled in a dramatic court ruling.
Tuesday's election was practically a two-horse race between the president and Lazarus Chakwera, who lost the election by 159 000 votes.
First, this election is born out of a court ruling and second, they will follow the 50-percent-plus-one system,\" the group said.
\"This is our date with destiny and this is (the) time for the beginning of a new Malawi,\" he said, expressing \"confidence\" the electoral commission will do what is right.
In a statement, the UN called on Malawi's \"political actors and stakeholders to renew their commitment to credible and peaceful elections, while observing all preventive measures against the spread of Covid-19\".
[Monitor] The newly revised roadmap for 2021 General Election that authorised virtual campaigning has been challenged in the High Court for violating various fundamental constitutional rights and freedom.
Malawi’s electoral commission appealed for “peace and calm” on Wednesday as it counted ballots following a historic poll to re-elect a president after Peter Mutharika’s victory was overturned.
Voters in Malawi went to the polls on Tuesday for the second time in just over a year after the Constitutional Court dramatically ruled that last year’s polls were fraught with “grave and widespread” irregularities.
Results from the May 2019 election sparked countrywide protest that lasted months, a rare occurrence in the impoverished southern African country.
It took the top court six months to sift through the evidence before concluding that Mutharika was not duly elected and ordered fresh elections.
The chairman of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Chifundo Kachale, said tallying of the votes from 5,002 polling stations was underway.
“We appeal to Malawians to maintain peace and calm as the vote-counting continues,” Kachale told a news conference in Blantyre.
Mutharika has accused the opposition of inciting violence following isolated incidents which the police and electoral commission said had not affected the election.
“It’s obvious that the opposition is doing this,” he told reporters after voting in Blantyre, claiming some of his party monitors were “chased away, some were beaten”.
“It’s obviously people that are afraid of the will of the people that are engaging in these barbaric acts,” he alleged.
Mutharika, 79, did not take the decision of the constitutional court lightly when it overturned last year’s poll.
He accused judges of working with the opposition to steal the election through what he dubbed a “judicial coup d’etat”.
He had narrowly won the now-discredited election with 38.5 percent of the ballots, beating his closest rival Lazarus Chakwera, 65, by just 159,000 votes .
Victory in the rerun will be determined by whoever garners more than 50 percent of the votes — a new threshold set by the top court.
Some 6.8 million people were asked to vote between Mutharika, Chakwera and an underdog candidate, Peter Dominico Kuwani.
The electoral commission has until July 3 to unveil the results, although the announcement is widely thought likely to come this week.
Kachale says the commission will only announce results after dealing with all the complaints.
AFP
Sudan on Tuesday refused to sign agreements that will enable Ethiopia to start filling the waters of its $4.6 billion Renaissance Dam from July.
Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said he refused to sign the agreement with Ethiopia due to \"technical and legal issues\" bordering on the dam's environmental and social impacts.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi told the United Nations, UN, in 2019: \"While we acknowledge Ethiopia's right to development, the water of the Nile is a question of life, a matter of existence for Egypt.\"
In spite of calls in Egypt for war if Ethiopia does not stop the construction, it is uncertain what a military reaction by Egypt will be, especially when both countries have no shared borders.
First, all sides need to accept that Ethiopia has a right to use the Nile waters for its development just as Egypt did in building its Aswan High Dam whose ten-year construction was completed in 1970.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday rebuked Dr. Anthony Faucis blunt assessment of the US coronavirus response, claiming that the country is in a good place even as new cases surge. Well, I think we are in a good place. I disagree with him, Trump said to Gray Televisions Greta Van Susteren, according to a transcript of the interview released Tuesday. []
ARTICLE 19: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 4 November 2020: ARTICLE 19 strongly condemns excessive use of force by security forces and the riots by supporters of political parties in the aftermath of the presidential election in Guinea. At least 21 people were killed, including three children, hundreds of people wounded and [Read More]
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has been providing free-of-charge quality healthcare, water and basic relief items to people in eastern Burkina Faso since May 2019.
In the past two months, a new wave of attacks against remote villages in Burkina Faso's eastern region has uprooted thousands of families, who have fled to the towns of Gayeri and Fada.
A health system on the edge due to conflict and shortages
After four years of violence, the healthcare system in eastern Burkina Faso is very fragile.
The insecurity in eastern Burkina Faso is hampering aid efforts and poses enormous challenges in reaching some communities, especially people living in remote villages.
In Burkina Faso's eastern region, COVID-19 is not necessarily people's main concern: for thousands of displaced people and host communities, simply surviving is already hard enough.
Polling station closed across Burundi on Wednesday in a largely incident free process in keenly watched general elections.
Burundians stood in long lines outside polling stations, which opened shortly after six am, most centers had hand washing points for people arriving to vote and election officials had some protective equipments in some instances.
Meanwhile, main opposition candidate, Agathon Rwasa, has protested what he says is fraud in Wednesday’s general election.
He said his party’s election observers were chased away from some polling stations.
In the presidential vote, 5.1 million registered voters are to choose between Nkurunziza’s handpicked heir and frontrunner, 52-year-old general Evariste Ndayishimiye, main opposition competitor Agathon Rwasa, and five other candidates.
A cloud of anxiety hangs over Burundi as the electoral agency continued counting votes days after Wednesday’s election that is guaranteed to end the 15-year rule of President Pierre Nkurunziza.
The main opposition party, National Congress for Liberty (CNL), in a tweet claimed that vote rigging was ongoing, as the country awaited provisional results expected to be announced by the Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) on May 25 or May 27.
Burundi five years ago descended into violence after President Nkurunziza, who ascended to power in 2005, announced he would vie for a third term in office.
He decided to end his rule in this year’s election and threw his weight behind an ally, Evariste Ndayishimiye, who is a former Minister of Interior and Public Security and currently runs the department of military affairs in the president’s office.
“These elections will go down in history as I am the only president who completed 15 years while in office,” said the president in Bujumbura.
by PublicSource Reporters The Allegheny County Health Department [ACHD] reported 204 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, continuing a triple-digit case streak first reported on June 30. Tuesday’s cases bring the total count to 3,979 since March 14 when officials reported the first cases in the county. Health officials also announced six additional deaths from the state’s Electronic Continued
The post Allegheny County reports 204 new COVID cases, 7 hospitalizations and 6 deaths appeared first on New Pittsburgh Courier.
Malawi's electoral commission appealed for \"peace and calm\" on Wednesday as it tallied ballots following a historic poll to re-elect a president after Peter Mutharika's victory was overturned.
Voters in Malawi went to the polls on Tuesday for the second time in just over a year after the Constitutional Court dramatically ruled that last year's polls were fraught with \"grave and widespread\" irregularities.
The cancellation of Mutharika's victory was historic as it made Malawi just the second country south of the Sahara to have presidential poll results set aside, after Kenya in 2017.
The chairperson of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Chifundo Kachale, said votes from 5 002 polling stations were being tallied on Wednesday.
Painters across East Africa can now raise capital for personal development after forming a savings and credit corporative societies (Sacco).
By MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — Soldiers used boats to rescue residents as floodwaters flowed down streets in southern Japan towns hit by heavy rains expanding across the region Tuesday. At least 55 people have died and a dozen remain missing. Pounding rain since late Friday in the southern region of Kyushu has triggered widespread flooding. More rain was predicted in Kyushu and the western half of Japans main island of Honshu as the rain front moved east. In Fukuoka, on the northern part of Kyushu, soldiers waded through knee-high water pulling a boat carrying a mother, her []
The post Death toll from flooding in Japan reaches 55, dozen missing appeared first on Black News Channel.
After four months Kenya is reopening its airspace for domestic and international travel, giving a reprieve to airlines whose financial have been on a nose dive since their aircraft were grounded in March.
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.
Ugandans are engaged in heated debates over the merits, possibilities and effectiveness of participating in what is being popularly referred to as a ‘scientific election’.
The East African country is scheduled to hold presidential, parliamentary and local government elections next year.
Uganda 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.
How it will be conducted
Aspirants at all levels will only be able to conduct campaigns electronically via television, radio and social media, since open-air public rallies have been banned.
“This is because electoral activities involve public gatherings and hence pose high COVID-19 risk of person-to-person and object-to-person transmissions,” the commission explained in a statement.
The three months of a lockdown imposed since March across the country also means that some activities will have to be accomplished in a much shorter time.
With hardly six months to the elections scheduled to be held between January and February next year, political parties are yet to nominate flag-bearers for the different offices that will be contested.
Voting itself is to be conducted normally, with president Yoweri Museveni telling the nation on Monday that government can effectively ensure social distancing and other precautionary measures at polling stations.
“… the gathering for the elections themselves, can be safely managed with hand-washing, social-distancing or leaving gaps of the necessary metres between voters in line,” Museveni said.
“This would remove the uncertainty that would be created by the postponement of the elections but also ensure that elections are held safely. I call upon Ugandans to support this option.”
Ugandans react
Key stakeholders in the electoral process including leaders of political parties and the voters themselves have shared mixed reactions to the electoral commission’s proposal.
While the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) has welcomed the proposal and says it will adjust its programme accordingly, many in the opposition say the commission is playing into the hands of incumbent Museveni and other powerful NRM politicians.
The opposition politicians accuse the electoral commission of not consulting them as it drafted the revised election roadmap. According to the popular legislator and presidential hopef
