14, December 2016
Gambia: Regional leaders have failed to convince President Jammeh to allow power transition 0
West African regional leaders have failed to convince Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, who has lost and rejected the results of a recent presidential election, to allow power transition. Political upheaval erupted in Gambia after the presidential election on December 1, when opposition leader Adama Barrow was declared the winner. Incumbent Jammeh, who has ruled Gambia for 22 years and was seeking re-election, first conceded defeat but then backtracked, calling for a re-vote.
Gambian military forces, professing loyalty to the president, seized the headquarters of the national elections commission on Tuesday and blocked staffers from entering the office. Leaders from a regional bloc known as the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, traveled to Gambia in a failed attempt to strike a deal with the president to make him leave power. “It is not time for a deal. It is not something that can happen in one day. It is something that we have to work on,” said Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who led the ECOWAS delegation.
The regional leaders will meet again on Saturday, in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, to further seek a solution to the crisis. ECOWAS president Marcel Alain de Souza warned on Tuesday that military intervention could be considered if the Gambian president avoided to step down. Head of the president’s party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction, has filed a petition with Gambia’s Supreme Court demanding a fresh vote with a re-validated voter registry.
The document, which was filed against the election commission and Gambia’s attorney general on Tuesday, said the recent election should be invalidated because, it said, the vote was not conducted fairly. “The petition prays that it be determined that the said Adama Barrow was not duly elected or returned as president and that the said election was void,” read the petition.
But it was not clear what the filing of the petition with the Supreme Court would entail, as some of the institution’s judges have been dismissed by Jammeh himself in a previous row. “The only recourse when you have any problems with the results of the elections… one has to appeal to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has been dormant since May 2015,” said the election commission’s chairman, Alieu Momar Njie, referring to the time when Jammeh dismissed the judges.
Barrow has denounced Jammeh’s rejection of the vote results and said the president lacks the constitutional authority to call for a new vote or to invalidate the election. The United States, the United Nations Security Council, and international organizations have also called for a peaceful transition of power.
Presstv
18, December 2016
Zimbabwe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF endorses President Robert Mugabe for 2018 0
Zimbabwe’s ruling party, ZANU-PF, has endorsed President Robert Mugabe as its candidate for the upcoming presidential election. Mugabe was endorsed at a party conference held on Saturday in Masvingo, located about 300 kilometers southeast of the capital Harare.
Deputy Secretary Eunice Sandi Moyo said the party’s congress had voiced “its support to the president and first secretary comrade Robert Mugabe as the sole candidate for the forthcoming 2018 elections.” The endorsement of the incumbent president was met with resounding applause from supporters attending the annual conference.
Thousands of cheering supporters chanted slogans in Shona language meaning, “Rule, Rule Father.” Mugabe, 92, has ruled the African country for more than 36 years and won the most recent election in 2013. He has been in power since the country’s independence from the British colonial rule in 1980. In April, thousands of supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, attended a demonstration in Harare, calling for the resignation of the president.
Zimbabwe has seen a surge in public discontent with an economic crisis that has left banks short of cash and the government struggling to pay its workers. Many have taken to the streets over the past weeks, protesting against the failure of the Mugabe administration in addressing economic woes. ZANU-PF is also in turmoil over a successor for the ailing president, which has triggered more concerns that the country, known for its rich resources, would slide deeper into chaos.
Presstv