The making of a market: politicising gangs in Sierra Leone, by Kars de Bruijne
The back of a clique member By January 2019, politicians were recruiting gang members once again, nearly a year after the Sierra Leone elections. They were asked to…
Tag: Election violence
Congosa politics: Rumours and elections in Sierra Leone, by Diana Szanto
The red party. APC political rally in Freetown Congosa in Krio means gossiping and spreading rumour, but its connotations are much darker than in English. It equals with name…
Generation Terrorists: The Politics of Youth and the Gangs of Freetown, by Kieran Mitton
Youth at Risk – Youth as Risk On the evening of the 15th February, six leading presidential candidates for the Sierra Leone presidential elections took to the stage.…
One year after the elections: a deceptive calm in Burundi? by Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs
Burundian soldiers patrolling the streets of Bujumbura. Photo by the author The car stops and the driver turns off the ignition and leans back in the seat. Before…
The Inner Beast released after Ugandan Elections 2016, Marianne Bach Mosebo
The Ugandan Presidential Election in 2016 left many Ugandans frustrated and angry at the election process and the announcement of the incumbent, President Yoweri Museveni, as the winner…
Elections in Uganda 2016: Rumours and the Terror of the Unknown, by Henni Alava and Cecilie Lanken Verma
Two parallel realities appear to exist in pre-election Uganda, especially when seen from the northern region of Acholiland ten years after it was declared ‘post-conflict’. In one, everything…
The power of language: discourses and efficacious fussiness in the Ugandan elections, by Anna Baral
On February 15, 2016, three days before Ugandan general elections, the four-times presidential candidate (and never a winner) Kizza Besigye was stopped by anti-riot and military police with…
Burundi, I, and the year of 2015, by Gudrun Sif Fridriksdottir
“I miss dancing” a friend of mine says sometime in late June. “What?” I reply, thinking I must have misheard him. “I miss dancing”, he hesitates a bit…
A Burkina Faso where “nothing should be as before”: presidential and legislative elections in perspective By Sten Hagberg
On Sunday 29 November, Burkina Faso organized successful presidential and legislative elections. They marked the end of a one-year-political transition and a step in consolidating the country’s democr…
Bujumbura Burning, Part II: Misrepresentations of the Burundian Crisis and their Consequences, by Jesper Bjarnesen
Since April, Burundi’s capital of Bujumbura has been the scene of violent confrontations between security forces and civilian protesters who deplore president Pierre Nkurunziza’s candidacy in July‘s p…
Zanzibar in trouble?
I took the family for a holiday on the paradise island Zanzibar. White sand, turquoise water and colorful marine life. Easy living. The last two days we left…
Popular resistance stopped the coup, by Sten Hagberg
Last week, Burkina Faso was breaking international news. In the midst of a government meeting, soldiers of the president’s security forces – the notorious Régiment de Sécurité Présidentielle…
Burkina Faso: “The return of the Phantoms of the past”, By Sten Hagberg
In the afternoon on Wednesday 16 September 2015, soldiers of the infamous Regiment of the president’s security forces – Regiment de Sécurité Présidentielle (RSP) – entered the Presidential…
Can you win a war on Facebook? By Simon Turner
Recently, I have been trying to keep up with the situation in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi in light of the protests and the violence. And while…
Things are never going to be the same again? Burkina Faso after the brush-up, by Cristiano Lanzano
Plus rien ne sera comme avant (things are never going to be the same again)! The slogan cried by protesters in the streets of Ouagadougou and other cities…