national elections - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

South Africa’s electricity crisis: what political parties say in their election manifestos about solving it

SOUTH Africa is in the middle of a deep electricity crisis. In 2023 the public, many of whom are voters, experienced the worst load-shedding to date, losing power for an average of five hours a day. The power shortages were largely due to excessive breakdowns in the country’s coal power plant fleet, which generates over 80% of South Africa’s electricity, combined with delays in developing new generation capacity. The power crisis is a key election topic with national elections scheduled for 29 May. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) is tipped to lose its absolute majority in parliament. One reason…

Mar

2024

By DIRK KOTZE

South Africa’s election management body has done a good job for 30 years: here’s why

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

MORE than in previous elections, South Africa’s Electoral Commission (IEC) will be tested to the hilt in this year’s national and provincial elections on 29 May. For the first time in 30 years, the electoral majority of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is in jeopardy. This makes the upcoming poll the most consequential one since 1994 when the country commenced with its democratisation. The electoral commission’s tasks are to enforce the rules of the electoral game and the parties’ ethical conduct. It must also be the dispute resolution champion and ensure that the election is free and fair. These…

Feb

2024

By ANAIT MIRIDZHANIAN

South Africa to hold national and provincial elections on May 29

NEWS

SOUTH Africa will hold national and provincial elections on May 29, President Cyril Ramaphosa's office said. The elections are expected to be the most competitive since the end of the apartheid system. Political analysts widely predict that the governing African National Congress (ANC) party will lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994, with record power cuts, poor service delivery and high levels of unemployment among voter complaints. South Africans will elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each of the country's nine provinces before the National Assembly elects the president. Ramaphosa, 71,…

Feb

2024

By GIBRAN NAIYYAR PESHIMAM, ASIF SHAHZAD and ARIBA SHAHID

Pakistan ex-PMs and bitter rivals Sharif and Khan both claim poll win

WORLD

FORMER Pakistani prime ministers and bitter rivals Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan both declared victory in elections marred by delayed results and militant attacks, throwing the country into further political turmoil. Sharif's party won the most seats by a single party in Thursday's election, but supporters of imprisoned Khan, who ran as independents instead of as a single bloc after his party was barred from the polls, won the most seats overall. Sharif said his party would talk to other groups to form a coalition government as it had failed to win a clear majority on its own. Sharif's announcement…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Ramaphosa targets ‘decisive’ ANC win in South African elections

NEWS

SOUTH African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that his African National Congress (ANC) party would be seeking a "decisive victory" in this year's national elections, slated to be the most highly contested in the country's democratic history. Ramaphosa is looking to win a second term as president as Africa's most industrialised country prepares to hold its closest poll for three decades. Analysts say the ruling ANC is at risk of losing its parliamentary majority for the first time since Nelson Mandela's victory in 1994 ushered in a new era of democracy following decades of apartheid rule. "When they look at us and say…

Mar

2022

By The African Mirror

Nigeria rejects diaspora vote, special seats for women

NEWS

NIGERIA'S Senate voted to reject changes to the constitution to allow citizens living abroad to vote in national elections, while a provision to allocate special seats for women to increase their political representation failed to pass. Voters in Africa's most populous nation will go to the polls to elect a new president and parliament in February 2023. Hopes that Nigeria's diaspora would take part were dashed when only 29 senators out of the 92 present supported the provision. For a constitutional bill to pass, it requires the support of at least two-thirds of the 109-member senate. Nigeria's diaspora population was…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Libya’s moment of danger in push for peace

NEWS

ANGUS McDOWALL LYBIA’S best chance of peace in years is at risk of unravelling as factions tussle over looming national elections that were envisaged as a way to end a decade of chaotic division. As a cast of factional leaders position themselves for a presidential run, many Libyans are bracing for a return to violence whether the vote goes ahead as planned on December 24 or not. Already, the eastern commander Khalifa Haftar has paved the way for a campaign by handing his duties to an acolyte, while Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former dictator, has indicated he…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Libya headed back to ‘square one’

NEWS

AYMAN AL-WERFALI LIBYA will return to "square one" and the turmoil of 2011 if national elections planned for December are delayed, the speaker of parliament said, with a new rival government likely to set itself up in the east. The elections are seen in the West as a critical step in efforts to bring stability to Libya, which has been in chaos since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against Muammar Gaddafi. Libya, a major oil and gas producer, was divided in 2014 between an internationally recognised government in the west and a rival administration in the east that established its own…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Ethiopia’s Tigray region to holds poll, defying federal government

NEWS

GIULIA PARAVICINI ETHIOPIA’S northern Tigray region will head to the polls on Wednesday in defiance of the federal government, the latest challenge to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from a slew of regional leaders flexing their muscles ahead of next year's national elections. Abiy has overseen sweeping democratic reforms since taking power in Africa's second most populous nation two years ago. But the federal government - and major opposition parties - agreed to postpone national and regional elections due in August until the COVID-19 pandemic was under control. Tigray, whose leaders dominated the previous administration and have often bitterly denounced Abiy,…