Africa

The Gambia’s ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) won a landslide victory in mid-January parliamentary elections, capturing 52 of 55 seats in the National Assembly and cementing President Yahya Jammeh’s rule. The main opposition parties boycotted the poll, alleging electoral fraud. Jammeh and the APRC used their renewed power to silence opposition voices…

One year after President John Agyekum Kufuor’s media-friendly government repealed Ghana’s criminal defamation law, the state imposed controls on reporting about interclan clashes in March, after a local tribal king and several of his supporters were killed during a feud between rival clans in the northern Dagbon region. Kufuor declared a state of emergency, which…

On June 30, almost three-quarters of voters cast ballots in parliamentary elections, which landed the ruling Unity and Progress Party 85 out of the National Assembly’s 114 seats and further strengthened President Lassana Conté’s long-standing hold on power. The country’s usually feisty opposition leaders refrained from blaming their losses on voter manipulation, but some journalists…

Following an alleged coup attempt in late 2001, President Kumba Yala and his minority Social Renewal Party (PRS) government struggled to demonstrate to the international community their willingness to implement democratic reforms and restore stability to this impoverished West African country. But Guinea-Bissau plunged further into crisis, with Yala continuing to interfere with the judiciary…

Hopes were high in July that Ivory Coast’s political crisis would end after a judge in the capital, Abidjan, confirmed that former prime minister Alassane Dramane Ouattara, the leader of the opposition Rally for Republicans (RDR), is an Ivory Coast citizen.

On December 30, opposition National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) leader Emilio Mwai Kibaki won Kenya’s landmark presidential election with an enormous majority, replacing Daniel arap Moi, who, after 24 years in power, was barred by a new constitution from seeking another term. Because the elections were the toughest challenge ever to Kenya’s ruling African National Union…

On January 25, the High Constitutional Court of Madagascar ruled that a runoff vote “within 30 days” would resolve the disputed December 2001 presidential election between longtime leader Didier Ratsiraka and Marc Ravalomanana, mayor of the capital, Antananarivo. Despite the ruling, however, both men declared themselves president and introduced their Cabinets to an impoverished populace,…

During 2002, the beleaguered Malawian press endured threats and verbal attacks from President Bakili Muluzi and his ruling United Democratic Front (UDF), as well as physical abuse from party supporters, while local media outlets struggled to maintain editorial independence in the face of mounting financial difficulties.

In a surprise Cabinet shuffle in late August, President Sam Nujoma appointed himself information and broadcasting minister in an effort, he said, to “tackle problems” at the state-owned Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), the country’s largest news outlet.

In early August, a military uprising in the eastern Diffa Region by soldiers demanding salary arrears jeopardized Niger’s fragile democracy. The mutiny was the first serious challenge to civilian rule since the election of President Mamadou Tandja in December 1999. Before that election, the country had experienced two coups in three years. Anxious to restore…