There are several significant elections coming up across the African continent. Some of the races to watch:
Nigeria’s January elections promise to be intensely fought. Which means that the specter of upheaval, interparty violence, and voter coercion looms. The process will start in October when the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) holds primaries for the presidential race in zones around the country on three consecutive days from October 18-20. The party will ratify a single candidate on October 23. President Goodluck Jonathan plans to run, but his campaign will be controversial since by agreement within the PDP (though not by any mandate) presidential power is supposed to rotate between the mostly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south every two terms. Jonathan is a Southerner from the Niger Delta. This is the sternest test of Nigeria’s democracy since the end of military rule more than a decade ago.
Zimbabwe is also considering holding a new election. The standard dynamic will hold. Robert Mugabe does not want to give up power (and his backers in ZANU-PF certainly do not want to find themselves on the outs. Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) feel that they long ago earned the right to lead and hold at least a plurality of public support. But that may not matter, since the party that controls the men with guns continues to be ZANU-PF. The ruling coalition that was forged after the chaos of the last election in 2008 will not hold forever, though it is a status quo that grants Mugabe de facto control. Memories of the 2008 chaos are strong and tension will run high if and when the next election is held.
After the chaos of the last few weeks Guinea has decided to postpone its election, which was supposed to be held on Sunday. Right now the word is that the delay will be two weeks. So read that as “indefinitely.” Officials were supposed to announce a new date today but for now they are holding off on making a final decision.
The United Nations Security Council has called rival sides in Sudan to take “urgent action” to make sure two key votes in January, the referenda in southern Sudan and in the Abyei, are held peacefully and on time. Since the votes are likely to lead to the breakup of Sudan, delays in preparations for the votes seem to many to be a sign that the government in Khartoum is not going to hold to the 2005 peace agreements calling for the referenda, and that violence might ensue. This is all happening even as the United States might be taking a softer approach to Khartoum.
All four of these cases bear watching and I fear that most if not all are not likely to go well.
