Entrepreneur Alix Didier Fils-Aimé replaces Garry Conille as country rocked by worsening gang violence
Haiti’s transitional presidential council has appointed the entrepreneur and former senate candidate Alix Didier Fils-Aimé as the new prime minister, according to the official gazette in the country.
The businessman replaces Garry Conille, who was named prime minister in May. The shake-up is the latest blow to political stability amid soaring levels of gang violence.
Continue reading...‘Moral threshold coming down,’ warns Mo Ibrahim, as his index of governance reveals widespread decline in 10 years
The global rise of populism and “strongmen” has led to an increase in authoritarianism in Africa that is holding back progress in governance, the businessman and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim has said.
According to the latest edition of the Ibrahim index of African governance, 78% of Africa’s citizens live in a country where security and democracy deteriorated between 2014 and 2023.
Continue reading...Critics of incumbent Kais Saied say he has increasingly bent the country’s institutions to his will
Tunisia will hold a presidential election on Sunday against the backdrop of a crackdown on dissent and human rights violations committed against undocumented migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
The incumbent, Kais Saied, whose most prominent critics are behind bars, is expected to sail to an easy win after a campaign with few rallies and public debates, marking a significant step back for a country that long prided itself as the birthplace of the Arab spring uprisings of 2011.
Continue reading...Ruling party secures votes for overhaul, which has led to protests amid fears it could undermine rule of law
Mexico’s senate has given final approval to a sweeping overhaul of the judiciary, clearing the biggest hurdle for a controversial constitutional revision that will make all judges stand for election, a change that critics fear will politicise the judicial branch and threaten the democracy.
In a marathon session that ran for more than 12 hours, and had to be paused and relocated after protesters broke into the senate building, the ruling Morena party and allies clinched the final two-thirds vote needed to approve the changes, which have prompted protests, a strike by judicial workers and market volatility.
Continue reading...Leaders of progressive group Move Forward, which won most votes in last year’s election, also barred from politics for 10 years
Thailand’s constitutional court has ordered the dissolution of the country’s most popular party, and banned its leaders from politics for 10 years, over its election promise to reform the country’s strict lese-majesty law.
Move Forward, a youthful pro-reform party, won the most votes in the 2023 election after pledging major changes to the country’s political system, including a promise to amend a law that punishes criticism of the monarchy with up to 15 years in prison for a single charge. However, the party and its leader were blocked from taking power by military royalist opponents, and have since faced legal cases.
Continue reading...Decision came during meeting of military chiefs and organisers of the student protests that helped drive longtime prime minister Sheikh Hasina from power
The Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will be the head of Bangladesh’s interim government after the longtime prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled the country amid a mass uprising that left hundreds of people dead and pushed the south Asian country to the brink of chaos.
The decision, announced early on Wednesday by Joynal Abedin, the press secretary of the country’s figurehead president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, came during a meeting that included military chiefs, organisers of the student protests that helped drive Hasina from power, prominent business leaders and civil society members.
Continue reading...Move comes after longtime leader Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled country after weeks of deadly unrest
The president of Bangladesh has dissolved the country’s parliament after an ultimatum issued by the coordinators of student protests that forced the resignation on Monday of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.
The office of the president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, also announced that the former prime minister and opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia had been officially released from prison and given a full presidential pardon.
Continue reading...María Corina Machado says president should understand he lost vote, amid international doubts over victory claim
The opposition leader battling to bring the curtain down on Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime has urged the Venezuelan strongman to accept that his exit from power is inevitable. The call came as thousands of protesters hit the streets to repudiate Maduro’s disputed claim to have won a third term in power.
Venezuela’s incumbent president was officially proclaimed the victor of Sunday’s election by the government-controlled electoral authority on Monday morning.
Continue reading...President wins 99.15% of the vote, allowing him to extend authoritarian rule by further five years
Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has swept to another overwhelming election victory, winning more than 99% of votes in a provisional count in the east African country’s elections that will extend his near quarter of a century in power.
The poll on Monday was seen as a formality, with just two other candidates allowed to compete in a country that is kept under tight control by its longtime leader.
Continue reading...Two died in detention facility and one in hospital, officials say, after protests over Mohamed Ould Ghazouani’s win
Three protesters have died in detention in Mauritania, the interior ministry has said, after mass arrests during protests in the opposition stronghold of Kaédi after the north-west African country’s presidential election outcome.
Officials said protests had turned violent in the southern town near the border with Senegal late on Monday, prompting security forces to confront demonstrators.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Johnston Busingye formally appointed days after UK agreed Rwanda asylum deal with Paul Kagame in 2022
Rwanda’s top diplomat in the UK oversaw the use of the international justice system to target opponents of the country’s rulers around the world, the Guardian can reveal.
New details of the Rwandan government’s suppression of opposition beyond its borders add to concerns about the regime at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s asylum policy.
Continue reading...Prime minister, Masra, accuses officials of manipulating results that show he won 18.5% of vote to Itno’s 61%
Chad’s military leader, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, has been declared the winner of this week’s presidential election, according to provisional results that have been contested by his main rival, the prime minister, Succès Masra.
The national agency that manages Chad’s election released results of Monday’s vote weeks earlier than planned. The figures showed Itno won with 61% of the vote, and Masra fell far behind in second, on 18.5%. Gunfire erupted in the capital, N’Djamena, after the announcement, though it was unclear if it was celebratory.
Continue reading...Semi-autonomous state of Puntland refuses to recognise changes to the fragile country’s constitution and has withdrawn from the federal system
An overhaul of Somalia’s constitution, scrapping its power-sharing system and handing the president increased control, is threatening to destabilise the fragile country, as its wealthiest and most stable state refuses to recognise the changes.
The amendments risk worsening violence, the information minister from the semi-autonomous state of Puntland has warned. Mohamud Aidid Dirir told the Guardian that “almost a totally new constitution” had been introduced without input from the state’s leaders. He accused the Somali president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, of using parliament to “gather authority into his hands”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: whistleblowers allege large sums are being lost to corruption in Iraq as donors fail to track spending on postwar reconstruction
Staff working for the UN in Iraq are allegedly demanding bribes in return for helping businessmen win contracts on postwar reconstruction projects in the country, a Guardian investigation has found.
The alleged kickbacks are one of a number of claims of corruption and mismanagement the Guardian has uncovered in the Funding Facility for Stabilization, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) scheme launched in 2015 and backed by $1.5bn (£1.2bn) in support so far from 30 donors, including the UK.
Continue reading...In an exclusive interview, Akinwumi Adesina, head of the African Development Bank, says the outlook is good for a continent with the workers of the future and the best investment opportunities
Africa holds the future workforce for the ageing economies of the west, according to one of the continent’s leading financial figures, who also said it was time to ditch the myths around corruption and risk.
In an exclusive interview before this weekend’s World Bank meetings in Morocco, Akinwumi Adesina said there was a resurgence of belief in Africa’s economic prospects and attacked negative stereotyping, adding that there was “every reason to be optimistic”.
Continue reading...Former Afghan spymaster, convicted millionaire and former Libyan colonel among those who became Dominican citizens
The Caribbean state of Dominica has sold citizenship to thousands of individuals including a former Afghan spymaster, a Turkish millionaire convicted of fraud and a former Libyan colonel under Muammar Gaddafi, the first detailed examination of the country’s controversial “golden passports” scheme has found.
The findings are from Dominica: Passports of the Caribbean, an investigation by the Guardian and 14 other international news organisations, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Continue reading...Emmerson Mnangagwa also criticised for inflating size of cabinet and reappointing underperforming ministers
The Zimbabwean president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, recently returned to power after a disputed election, has been accused by the opposition of attempting to create a family dynasty after appointing his son as deputy finance minister barely a week on from conferring his wife with an honorary doctorate.
Announcing his new cabinet on Monday, Mnangagwa said one of his younger sons, David Kudakwashe Mnangagwa, would be second in charge at the Treasury, while appointing a nephew, Tongai, as deputy minister in the tourism minstry.
Continue reading...International academics join effort to highlight crackdown on freedom after jailing of opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi
European powers must stand by pro-democracy Tunisians resisting a fierce onslaught designed to take the country back to the darkest days of dictatorship, a letter from more than 70 academics has urged.
The letter, designed to shine a light on the Tunisian crackdown, was in part collated by Soumaya Ghannoushi, whose father, the Tunisian opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi, was sentenced to a year in jail on Monday.
Continue reading...Harare high court quashes suspended sentence and fine handed down to Booker-longlisted writer last year
Zimbabwean author and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga has had her conviction for inciting violence by staging a peaceful protest overturned.
The critically acclaimed writer was given a six-month suspended sentence and fined 70,000 Zimbabwean dollars (£170) in September 2022 for staging a protest calling for political reform. During the 2020 protest, alongside fellow activist Julie Barnes, Dangarembga held a placard inscribed: “We want better. Reform our institutions.”
Continue reading...Revelation shows dangers posed by bad actors and paid operatives in democratic systems across Africa
An Israeli disinformation specialist hired to run covert dirty tricks campaigns in African elections hacked political advisers close to Kenya’s president, William Ruto, in the run-up to last year’s election, an investigation can reveal.
The interference did not prevent Ruto winning the poll, nor the peaceful transfer of power in Kenya, but the revelation highlights the growing risks posed by the involvement of bad actors and paid operatives in the relatively new democratic systems and institutions across Africa.
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