By Nosmot Gbadamosi
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: Egypt denies allegations that it aided an arms shipment to Israel, Chad launches a cross-border attack in Nigeria, and Uganda’s ability to host refugees is getting stretched.
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A Smooth Transition in Botswana
Across much of Africa, young people have campaigned to expel old-guard governments that fail to provide jobs for them. Botswana’s shocking election result last week has given many of those young Africans hope.
Botswana’s new president, 54-year-old lawyer Duma Boko, assumed office on Monday—ending more than half a century of one-party rule.
Boko’s coalition, the Umbrella for Democratic Change, secured a parliamentary landslide—winning 36 of 61 possible seats in the Botswanan Parliament against just four seats secured by former President Mokgweetsi Masisi and his Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which has ruled since the country gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1966.
Masisi has been praised for swiftly conceding defeat. “Although I wanted to stay on as your president, I respect the will of the people, and I congratulate the president-elect. I will step aside, and I will support the new administration,” Masisi said at a press briefing on Friday, before the full announcement of results.
By contrast, in nearby Mozambique, at least 11 people have been killed during ongoing protests after the ruling Frelimo party’s presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo, secured more than 70 percent of the vote in October. The party has ruled Mozambique since the nation gained independence in 1975.
Chapo’s opponent in last month’s election was Venâncio Mondlane, a former forestry engineer and banker favored by young voters, who have alleged that election rigging occurred. Independent observers from the European Union and the United States reported voting irregularities. The government restricted social media access while protesters gathered on Monday to blockade the main highway linking the country to neighboring South Africa.
Young Africans who never lived under colonial rule want their politicians to respect the rule of law, fight corruption, and provide jobs and basic services. They tend to care less about which parties led the struggle for independence.
Botswana operates a similar parliamentary system to Britain, in which the leader of the party with the most seats in Parliament becomes the head of state. The BDP won two-thirds of the seats in Parliament in the last election, held five years ago, but last Wednesday, it came last out of the four parties competing.
Botswana’s GDP per capita ($7,250 in 2023) is higher than those of its neighbors, according to World Bank figures.
Yet backlash against the BDP grew this year over mass youth unemployment. Botswana is the world’s second-largest diamond producer, but a global slump in diamond sales—which comprise about 90 percent of total exports and around 40 percent of Botswana’s GDP—has led to a sharp economic decline and hardship. Officials managed revenues well investing in education and health but did not diversify the economy away from diamonds.
Boko has quickly announced economist Ndaba Gaolathe as his pick for deputy after pledging to create up to 500,000 jobs in the next five years and increase the country’s minimum wage to 4,000 pula, or about $300—up from $100 per month.
Neighboring Namibia will hold elections later this month, and the landslide defeat of the ruling party in Botswana has rattled Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party, which has governed since 1990.
“The elections in Botswana went the way it went. Some are dreaming that what happened in Botswana could happen in Namibia. But it is a dream,” SWAPO said in a statement.
Friday, Nov. 8: Nigeria’s Federal High Court in Abuja resumes a trial of 10 people charged with treason in connection with anti-government protests in August. About 114 people arrested during the protests were charged with treason.
Sunday, Nov. 10: Mauritius holds a general election.
Egyptian arms shipment? The Egyptian Army has denied allegations that it provided military assistance to Israel’s war in Gaza following claims last week that a German ship carrying explosives headed to Israel was allowed to dock at Alexandria’s port. The cargo ship MV Kathrin was carrying a 150-metric-ton shipment of military-grade explosives for Elbit Systems, one of Israel’s largest defense contractors.
About six Egyptian lawyers have filed a petition to Egypt’s prosecutions body, calling for an investigation into the claim. A video purportedly showing the ship passing through the Suez Canal has sparked a protest in Cairo.
Chad stages attack in Nigeria. The Chadian army launched an airstrike on the Nigerian side of Lake Chad last Wednesday that killed several Nigerian fishermen. “The jet mistook the fishermen for Boko Haram terrorists who attacked a military base inside Chad on Sunday,” said Babakura Kolo, an anti-jihadi militia leader.
Chadian President Mahamat Déby had vowed a counterstrike against insurgents who killed at least 40 soldiers on Oct. 27 at an army base in Barkaram, an island in Chad’s Lake region, bordering Niger and Nigeria. Local residents told news agency AFP that they believe Boko Haram fighters based in Nigeria were to blame for the attack and subsequent looting of weapons. Insurgents from Boko Haram’s Bakura faction operate in the border regions.
Uganda’s refugee policy. Uganda is struggling to cope with an influx of refugees, most recently from South Sudan, Sudan, and Congo. Uganda already hosts 1.7 million refugees and takes in around 10,000 new arrivals each month, according to figures from the United Nations refugee agency.
Yet international support has dwindled—Kampala received just 13 percent of the $858 million that it is seeking this year for the Uganda Country Refugee Response Plan. The international community “should not take Uganda’s generosity and the global public good it provides for granted,” said Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, in a statement last week after visiting the country, adding, “Services here are overstretched. Natural resources are limited, and financial support is not keeping pace with the needs.”
Ghana is considering importing its refined oil needs from Nigeria’s new Dangote refinery. Accra spends $400 million a month importing fuel from Europe and imports from Lagos would be cheaper. “If the refinery reaches 650,000 bpd [barrels per day] capacity, all that volume cannot be consumed by Nigeria alone, so instead of us importing as we do right now from Rotterdam, it will be much easier for us to import from Nigeria and I believe that will bring down our prices,” said Mustapha Abdul Hamid, the head of Ghana’s National Petroleum Authority.
FP’s Most Read This Week
The real Rwanda. In Africa Is a Country, Denise Zaneza writes that U.S. foreign policy on Rwanda remains unchanged even as U.S. and U.N. experts report that Rwanda is backing Congolese rebel group M23. “Western governments must confront the truth and shift their policies, no longer turning a blind eye to Kagame’s violations in the name of stability,” Zaneza writes.
East Africa’s modernist revolution. In ArchDaily, Mohieldin Gamal writes on modernist hotels across East Africa. After gaining independence, many African nations adopted modernism as an architectural style to assert their progressive vision and carve out an identity in opposition to colonialism. “Although a marginal building type, several hotels across Africa stand as physical records of important parts of their respective country’s history,” Gamal writes.
Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis. In the Republic, Achille Tenkiang, writes that “France’s enduring post-colonial influence, and the US’s counterterrorism agenda sustains President Paul Biya’s regime and enables it to suppress dissent with impunity.”
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