Yearly Archives: 2023
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Presidential term limits and the power of precedent
Incumbents’ appetites for third-term runs may be waning, but they still carry hugely disruptive political legacies. Democracy activists in Senegal and Mozambique are sounding the alarm ... -
Gatsa-Gatsa: Ousmane Sonko and Senegal’s politics of retaliation
Sonko’s legal problems, which appear engineered to frustrate his presidential bid, could well push the country back into the street. On May 8, 2023, a Dakar ... -
Burundi: “The president has crossed the Rubicon – there’s no turning back”
In the wake of the arrest and detention of former PM Alain Guillaume Bunyoni, political observers weigh the consequences. There was some surprise when Alain Guillaume ... -
The return to Cabo Delgado: Gas, war, and the emergence of Total Land
While TotalEnergies remains coy about restarting the $20bn gas project, Mozambicans are coming home in the conspicuous absence of the state. In recent months, tens of ... -
Sudan: Revolutionary reflections, amid a raging war
If the popular revolution of 2019 was badly undermined by its rejection of representative politics, how can it be revived? The current fighting between military factions ... -
How (and why) Nigeria should remove its fuel subsidy
Nigeria spends a quarter of its budget on a regressive fuel subsidy. Removing it and distributing the savings can help the poorest. Nigerians are being hit ... -
“They wish we didn’t exist”: Tanzania school goers speak of transport woes
In the daily sharp-elbowed jostle to board daladalas, school students find themselves at the back of the queue. Every weekday morning, Basilisa Isaka Ishengoma, 15, wakes ... -
Lines through the lake: Why the Congo-Rwanda border can’t be redrawn
Long-standing cultural affinities of Rwandophones in the Great Lakes may appear to bolster Kigali’s historical claims to parts of eastern Congo, but it’s more complicated than ...
