Hasina wins Bangladesh elections as opposition rejects polls

Officials declare massive victory for alliance led by PM Sheikh Hasina's party, while opposition dubs polls 'farcical'.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina cast her vote in the morning during the election in Dhaka [Sangbad Sangstha/Reuters]

by Saif Khalid- 30 December 2018

Dhaka, Bangladesh - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League (AL) party has won Bangladesh's parliamentary vote, the country's election commission has announced, after the main opposition alliance rejected the violence-marred polls.

Three-hundred seats were up for grabs in the 350-member parliament, or Jatiya Sangshad, in Sunday's elections. Another 50 seats are reserved for women.

An AL-led coalition on Sunday won 287 of the 298 seats for which results have been declared for, while the main opposition alliance dominated by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secured just six seats. A party needs 151 seats to form a government.

"My congratulations to the Awami League," Helal Uddin Ahmed, secretary of the Election Commission Secretariat, said in a televised address as he read the results.

Bangladesh's ruling party had surged ahead within hours of the counting of the votes - an outcome the Jatiya Oikya Front, the BNP-led opposition alliance had feared.

In a hurriedly called news conference earlier on Sunday night, the leader of the Jatiya Oikya Front dubbed the election "farcical".

"We reject the farcical election and want the election commission to hold a fresh election under a non-partisan administration," said Kamal Hossain, an 82-year-old jurist who wrote the country's secular constitution.

Fourth term

Hasina, who has headed the AL since 1981, went into the polls on the back of a decade of impressive GDP growth and booming garment exports. Bangladesh is the world's second-largest exporter of garments after China.

The 71-year-old leader is set for a record fourth term in office in the South Asian Muslim-majority nation of 160 million.

The sheer scale of the victory, as of now, reveals the nature and scale of the rigging. It cannot be described as the verdict of the voters.

ALI RIAZ, PROFESSOR AT ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY

She has been applauded for hosting nearly one million Rohingya refugees who took shelter in Bangladesh after fleeing a brutal military offensive in neighbouring Myanmar.

But critics have accused Hasina of authoritarianism and crippling the opposition. Her bitter political rival and leader of the BNP, Khaleda Zia, 73, is serving a 17-year jail term for corruption.

Opposition alliance accused Hasina's party of using stuffed ballot boxes [Mahmud Hossain Opu/Al Jazeera]

Voting in the capital, Dhaka, was largely peaceful as convoys of soldiers and paramilitary forces were on the streets, where most traffic was banned.

At least 17 people were killed across the country in clashes between members of rival parties on Sunday despite the deployment of around 600,000 security personnel to prevent violence.

More than 40 opposition candidates pulled out of the election after polls opened, citing vote-rigging and ballot-stuffing, according to the Daily Star.

The opposition claimed thousands of its activists were arrested in the lead-up to the polls.
"We are getting disturbing reports outside Dhaka that overnight votes have been cast illegally," said Hossain of Jatiya Oikya Front.

'A travesty of an election'

Ali Riaz, professor at the department of politics and government at Illinois State University in the US, said: "It was a travesty of an election".

"What happened throughout the country, polling centre by centre, from driving out the polling agents to ballot stuffing, can't be called an election, let alone a credible election.

"The sheer scale of the victory, as of now, reveals the nature and scale of the rigging. It cannot be described as the verdict of the voters," Riaz told Al Jazeera over the phone.

READ MORE

Bangladesh elections 2018: What you need to know

The elections commission, which has yet to announce the voter turnout rate, said it would investigate allegations of vote rigging.

"Allegations are coming from across the country and those are under investigation," SM

Asaduzzaman, spokesperson for the elections commission told Reuters news agency. 

"If we get any confirmation from our own channels then measures will be taken as per rules."

Later, the election commission suspended voting at 22 centres across the country.

Syed Moazzem Hossain Alal, joint secretary-general of the BNP, the main party in the opposition alliance, called the election a "mockery".

But Mahbubul Alam Hanif, joint secretary-general of the ruling party, said he was satisfied with Sunday's vote.

"We are happy with the way the vote turned out. I believe Awami League will gain an absolute victory," he said.

About 104 million people were registered to vote in the country's 11th general election.

Additional reporting by Saqib Sarker from Dhaka

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

HSBC divests from Israeli arms maker Elbit

Campaigners protest inside an HSBC branch in Brighton. (Brighton BDS)

Ali Abunimah -27 December 2018

Banking giant HSBC is divesting from the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems following a grassroots campaign.

“HSBC has taken a positive first step in divesting from Elbit Systems, the notorious manufacturer of drones, chemical weapons, cluster bomb artillery systems and other technology used in attacks against Palestinian civilians, and to militarize walls and borders around the world,” Ryvka Barnard of War on Want said on Thursday.

View image on Twitter

PSC@PSCupdates

CAMPAIGN VICTORY!

After tireless campaigning by members of PSC alongside @WarOnWant, @CAATuk & other organisations, banking giant @HSBC_UK has announced it has divested in full from Israeli weapons manufacturer @ElbitSystemsLtd!

STATEMENT: https://bit.ly/2SioGnn 

286

4:48 AM - Dec 27, 2018

The campaign group said that HSBC confirmed its decision in an email to War on Want and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign last week.

“Doing business with companies like Elbit means profiting from violence and human rights violation, which is both immoral and a contravention of international law,” Barnard added.

Elbit Systems has already been excluded from pension and investment funds around the world over its involvement in supplying surveillance systems and other technology to Israel’s separation wall and settlements in the occupied West Bank.

A 2017 report by War on Want revealed how HSBC and other UK financial institutions are complicit in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people by financing arms deals and owning shares in arms makers.

For more than a year, UK campaigners have held pickets at HSBC branches, dubbing it “the world’s lethal bank” – a play on an HSBC ad campaign marketing the global behemoth as “the world’s local bank.”

Despite HSBC’s move, Elbit, one of Israel’s biggest arms manufacturers, remains a favorite of governments that purport to champion human rights.

In 2014, the Obama administration awarded Elbit a lucrative contract to provide surveillance equipment as part of US efforts to militarize its border with Mexico.

And the European Union has plowed millions of dollars of “research” funds into Elbit, despite the revelation of how the company manufactures banned cluster weapon systems.

In 2015, Elbit scored a $150-million contract to provide “advanced systems” jointly to the militaries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Last year, Australia’s famous Royal Flying Doctor Service pulled out of a joint venture with Elbit, a move Palestine solidarity campaigners celebrated as a victory.

Now campaigners are seeing HSBC’s move as an important milestone towards holding Israel accountable.

Ben Jamal, director of the UK’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign, called HSBC’s decision “proof positive that collective campaigning works.” He noted that people all over the UK “were involved in pushing HSBC to divest from Elbit through pickets, email campaigns and other actions designed to pressure the company.”

“HSBC’s announcement demonstrates the effectiveness of boycott, divestment and sanctions as a tactic against Israel’s continued flouting of international law and human rights,” Jamal added.

War on Want is demanding that HSBC follow up by divesting from other war industry firms including Caterpillar, which makes militarized bulldozers Israel uses to demolish Palestinian homes, and BAE Systems, “whose weapons are used in war crimes by Israel, Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes.”

Taliban changes as State power comes within grasp

Saturday, 29 December 2018 

Given the global powers’ very determined efforts to bring peace to war-torn Afghanistan by talking to the Taliban, it is likely that the radical Islamic insurgent group will be in the seat of power sooner or later.

The Taliban are no strangers to State power. They ran a government called the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” between 1996 and 2001. Before 1996, they were an insurgent group. And after being ousted from power by US-led forces in 2001, they returned to insurgency and have continued to be rebels, to date.

Nevertheless, while being quintessentially anti-systemic, the Taliban have been exercising full or partial “de facto” control over much of Afghanistan, running a state within a state as it were.

There were glimmerings of change in the outlook of the anti-systemic Taliban in 2003. Since then, they have been seeing themselves not just as an insurgent group destroying everything and every institution that they consider “un-Islamic”, but also as an administrative group, delivering social, economic and other State-like services to people in areas under their control or areas in which they share power in varying degrees with the legitimate government headquartered in Kabul.

Changes in environment 

The reorientation of the Taliban is due to changes in the political and geo-strategic environment. The US has of late been showing an increasing inclination to disengage from Afghanistan militarily and is having talks with the Taliban to bring about an “Afghan-negotiated” peace settlement which will end the war while ensuring that the social and political gains of the democratic interregnum remain.

The US had roped in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the Haqqani Network for preliminary talks with the Taliban in Qatar recently. The Saudis have been funding the Taliban. Pakistan has provided bases and personnel to them. And the Haqqani Network, known for its military prowess, is part of the Taliban.

By talking to the Taliban with a plan to withdraw its military from Afghanistan, the US had met the Taliban’s most important pre-condition for negotiations.

If all goes well, an estimated 22,000 Western troops, including 14,000 from the US, are likely to get back home, though no official commitment to a total withdrawal has been announced yet. The 17-year Afghan misadventure has cost the US $1 trillion to date. Remember, the US and its allies had, at one stage, 130,000 troops in Afghanistan.

The US had had to keep its client regime in Kabul, led by President Ashraf Ghani and CEO Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, out of the talks at the insistence of the Taliban. But the incumbent regime in Kabul is being kept informed about developments.

As for President Ashraf Ghani, he had formed a team to negotiate peace with the Taliban for a settlement which is “Afghan-owned and Afghan-led”. As one commentator put it, launching and owning a peace process seems to be the only achievement that can ensure his political survival and potential re-election sometime in 2019.

Pakistan is in the talks because its new Prime Minister Imran Khan is for peace and economic development and not war. China has teamed up with Pakistan to play a constructive role in Afghanistan as it needs peace to make a success of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Central Asian region. And Russia is interested in expanding its influence in Afghanistan to fill the gap when America withdraws. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, met a Taliban delegation recently.

Filling a gap

The other change in the situation is the poor record of the democratic governments led, in succession, by Presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani. To their credit, both had opened up and liberated Afghans from the thralldom of Taliban’s harsh version of Islamic orthodoxy. But their administrations have become a byword for inefficiency and corruption. They have also not been effective in countering the Taliban militarily. In a country wracked by war, and saddled with weak institutions, the Taliban’s moralism and brute power to enforce edits appear to have an appeal.

The Taliban have been exploiting the developing situation to portray themselves as a more desirable alternative. In fact, the Taliban have shed some of their rigidity and have been co-opting some of the State and non-State institutions to administer the areas which they control or have partial power over.

Shadow State

In their paper in ‘Afghan Analysts Network’ entitled ‘One Land, Two Rules: Service delivery in insurgent-affected areas,’ Jelena Bjelica and Kate Clark say that the Taliban consider themselves as a “government in absentia”.

Since 2003, the Taliban have been, with varying degrees of commitment and effectiveness, trying to deliver services normally associated with a State and to develop ‘civilian’ structures of governance.

Right from the beginning of the insurgency in the 1980s, the Taliban have been having courts of their own to deliver justice. After 2001, whenever Taliban insurgents moved into an area, they prioritised the setting up alternatives to the state’s judicial system. Because of the corruption and inefficiency in the government’s judicial system, the Taliban’s courts were popular and became one of the insurgency’s main strengths, Bjelica and Clark say.

However, the Taliban have found it virtually impossible to accept the modern secular educational system. In 2006, they issued their first Layha or Code of Conduct. While the Code allowed education, it could be given only in a mosque or similar Islamic institution with the course content being highly Islamic. Schools which did not follow this diktat would be closed or burned. Any contract of an educational institution with an NGO, in exchange for money or educational material, had to be authorised by the Taliban at the highest level.

In 2008-2009, provision of State-like services with accountability were introduced. “The Taliban set up a more responsive complaints system, whereby, inhabitants of rural areas could request investigations even into corrupt Taliban commanders or members. Two new committees, one to handle complaints from commanders and fighters, and another to deal with villagers’ grievances, were set up in 2008,” Bjelica and Clark point out.

The Codes introduced in 2009 and 2010 set up policy and administrative commissions for various subjects such as Health, Education, Companies and NGOs.

By 2010, the Taliban changed their attitude to education. In 2009, the order to attack schools and teachers was removed from the Code of Conduct. The Taliban started engaging with the Ministry of Education, which had also decided to re-start negotiations with the Taliban. But the Taliban force changes in the school curriculum and are involved in hiring and firing teachers.

Bjelica and Clark point out say that the Taliban are more likely to support education if they get control over the curriculum, distribution of government funds, teacher hiring and placement, monitoring of attendance and performance and health and security arrangements at and around maktabs (ornon-religious schools). Varying arrangements are possible through negotiations, they say.

The Taliban never objected to the delivery of health services because they saw health delivery as less “political” than education. To show that they can do development work too, the Taliban have been posting videos showing their cadres involved in constructing roads and other infrastructure.

Co-option of Government structures 

Bjelica and Clark observe that the Taliban’s sectoral commissions do not themselves provide services, but co-opt services rendered by the legitimate Government. They also co-opts NGOs and private companies and control them.

The Taliban indulge in taxation as well as extortion. Media outlets, businessmen, truckers, and even Provincial Council members and other officials, are taxed. They had begun to tax mobile networks after Government boasted that it had earned $ 1.4 million by increasing tax on them by 10%. But the Taliban boast that by maintaining tight security they allow businesses to operate safely.

The Taliban are exploiting Governmental corruption to present themselves as a contrasting outfit. Stinging reports of the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee’s (MEC) add grist to the Taliban’s mill.

Trump’s Lies are, ever so slowly, Making Way for the Truth!

AS THE MUELLER PROBE HEATS UP . . .

by Selvam Canagaratna-December 29, 2018, 6:19 pm 

"No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it."
– Theodore Roosevelt, Address, January 1904.

With one shoe after another dropping in Special Counsel Robert Muellerʼs Trump-Russia probe, James Risen, writing in The Intercept, was of the view that the increasing pressure was inevitably prompting the President to inadvertently blurt out the truth – "or at least as close to the truth as a serial liar like Trump can get."

In late November, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty in federal court to lying to Congress about a deal to build a Trump-branded skyscraper in Moscow. Most notably, he admitted that he had misled lawmakers when he told them that discussions about the project had ended by January 2016 when, in fact, the project was still under active consideration by Trump and his business organization just as the Republican Party was about to nominate Trump as its presidential candidate in the summer of 2016.

Cohen said that he lied in order to help Trump avoid the likely political fallout from the disclosure that the candidate was still trying to cut a business deal with people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin just as he clinched the Republican nomination.

Cohen’s latest admissions, including the disclosure that he talked to Trump about the proposed deal more frequently than he had previously acknowledged and discussed it with others in Trump’s family, are very significant because they shed new light on the relationship between Trump and Russia during the height of the presidential campaign.

Cohen now admits that ʽTrump Moscowʼ was still being considered as late as June 2016, the same month that the infamous Trump Tower meeting occurred in New York. During that meeting, Trump’s oldest son Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, then his campaign chairman, met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and others, including Rob Goldstone, a publicist for Emin Agalarov, a Russian singer and son of Aras Agalarov, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Putin.

Aras Agalarov had hosted Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow at a concert hall he owned; he had also been involved in discussions with Trump about building the skyscraper in Moscow. It was during the Trump Tower meeting that Veselnitskaya first mentioned she had derogatory material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Faced with Cohen’s late-November admissions in court, Trump at first tried to talk his way out of the corner by saying that Cohen was a "weak person and not a very smart person." But he quickly switched gears and effectively confirmed what Cohen had said. "There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gotten back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?"

Risenʼs apt observation on Trumpʼs admission in the face of the Cohen disclosure in court: "They show the coarse, cynical approach Trump takes toward public service. But more ominously for him, they also reveal that he had much deeper connections to Russia in the midst of the campaign than he has ever previously acknowledged. It suggests that Trump will lie about his Russian connections until he realizes he can no longer get away with it, and then will quite casually admit that he has been lying all along."

Added Risen: "Of course, Cohen isnʼt Trumpʼs only problem. In fact, in the weeks since the midterm elections, a series of new disclosures has suggested that the Trump-Russia investigation is intensifying. And one sure sign that the President is worried about Mueller’s probe is the increased frequency with which Trump is now publicly attacking Mueller."

In fact, it seems that Trump’s biggest post-election nightmare has been Paul Manafort, especially after Mueller’s team said that Manafort has been lying to them in violation of a plea agreement he had reached with the prosecutors. Mueller’s team now wants a federal judge overseeing the case to set a sentencing date for Manafort, at which prosecutors say they will detail "the nature of the defendantʼs crimes and lies."

Mueller’s get-tough approach suggests that he thinks Manafort is still withholding critical information on the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia. Meanwhile, Manafort’s previous life as a longtime consultant to the pro-Russian leader of the Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, and his financial ties to a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, have raised questions about whether he had, in fact, acted as an intermediary between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

In addition to Cohen and Manafort, argues James Risen, the role of the incendiary Roger Stone has come under further scrutiny. Apparently, there is new evidence – including in a draft court document – that Mueller is continuing to probe whether Stone served as an intermediary in 2016 between WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign.

Russian intelligence operatives hacked into the servers of the Democratic National Committee and stole emails that were later released by WikiLeaks and proved highly damaging to Clinton. The Mueller investigation has also raised questions about whether conservative author Jerome Corsi had warned Stone ahead of time that WikiLeaks planned to release materials that would hurt Clinton’s campaign. Corsi has said that he has rejected a plea agreement with Mueller.

To top it off, George Papadopoulos, the onetime Trump campaign foreign policy aide, finally reported to prison recently. He had pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with Mueller in exchange for a very light sentence of just two weeks in prison. He had lied to investigators about his contacts with Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious professor who had told Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of emails with derogatory information about Clinton well before their existence was publicly known.

"Given all this," concluded Risen, "it’s fair to say that the thrashing the Republicans suffered in the midterm elections wasn’t the worst thing that has happened to Donald Trump."

Meanwhile, in an Op-Ed in Truthout magazine, Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, noted that as evidence of law breaking by Donald Trump continues to emerge, commentators were speculating whether a sitting President could be indicted, even though the Department of Justice had twice before opined in the negative – during the Nixon and Clinton administrations.

Her view, however, was that nothing in the Constitution would prevent Trump from being criminally indicted while he occupies the Oval Office. Trump is apparently implicated in at least three federal criminal investigations: Mueller is examining violations of campaign finance laws in connection with Trump Tower Moscow; Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have documented campaign finance violations stemming from hush money paid to Trump’s alleged paramours in order to influence the presidential election; and the New York US attorney’s office is analyzing whether Trump’s inaugural committee received illegal payments for presidential access and policy influence.

Marjorie Cohn noted that Richard Painter, chief ethics attorney in the George W. Bush administration, had recently said that Trump’s only chance to protect himself and his family from legal jeopardy was to strike a plea bargain with prosecutors. "Donald Trump is in serious trouble," Painter stated. "His lawyers ought to be telling him to negotiate a plea deal. Get him out of the White House. Have him resign, plead guilty to lower charges and let’s move on as a country."

Concluded Cohn: "The Constitution does not prohibit indictment of a sitting President. Will Mueller recognize this reality in his actions going forward?"

Momentous change in Africa’s fifth economy

The new administration of President Lourenço is setting the records straight and opening up a new era

Over the past two decades, Angola has transformed from a poor, war-torn country into sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest economy and its second-largest oil exporter. Since the end of a 27-year civil war in 2002, the country has used its oil wealth to develop, modernize and build its infrastructure, while Luanda morphed from a sleepy provincial town into a thriving, skyscraper-lined modern capital. Indeed, Luanda, which sits on one of Africa’s most spectacular bays, has become a magnet for foreign companies and expats, earning in the process the improbable distinction of most expensive city in the world alongside Hong Kong.

Now a soft revolution is taking place. After 38 years in power, President José Eduardo dos Santos stepped down in 2017, paving the way for João Lourenço to be elected in September that year. A retired general who fought for the independence from Portugal and later in the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the civil war, Lourenço was the chosen candidate of his predecessor.

Up to here, nothing unusual in Africa. But the way Lourenço has framed his presidency as soon as he came to power has stunned Angolans and the international community alike. In his inaugural speech, the president, known as JLo in the country, announced sweeping changes to an economic system that had become over the years tightly controlled by a small group of presidential favorites. Moreover, he declared war on corruption, which has been endemic for years. Indeed, according to the international NGO Transparency International, Angola is ranked 167 out of 180 countries.

President Lourenço is well aware his country is at a crossroads. His most pressing task is to steer the economy away from a model based almost exclusively on oil, which accounts for 95% of exports. Another priority is to reduce its dependence to Chinese investment. Lourenço is determined to step up cooperation with western companies, in particular but not only in the oil sector, and has sought help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In June, the latter commended Angola for having made “strides in setting a reform agenda geared towards macroeconomic stability and growth that benefits all its people.”

In his 2018 State of the Nation address, President Lourenço announced a series of measures to balance the books and offset the drop in oil prices, which has had a huge impact on the economy since 2014. He said the first results of the Macroeconomic Stabilization Program, launched in early January 2018, were “encouraging.” The plan envisages fiscal consolidation, greater exchange rate flexibility, reducing the public debt-to-GDP ratio to 60% over the medium term, improving the profile of debt through liability management, settling domestic payment arrears, and implementing anti-money laundering legislation.

President Lourenço announced that the deficit, which reached 5.6% of the GDP last year, was forecast at “less than 1% of the GDP for 2019, with an estimated increase of 9.8% in tax revenue.”

He also noted that inflation dropped from 42% in 2016 to 23% last year and is forecast to reach 19% this year, while the spread between the official and parallel exchange rates went from 150% to about 20%. And although the relatively sluggish oil prices continue to weigh heavily on Angola’s GDP growth, it is forecast to grow slightly this year and next. But, “while macroeconomic stability is important for the performance of the economy, it is not an end in itself,” said Lourenço in his presidential address. “It is a necessary means to achieve our major goal of increasing domestic production, making the private business sector stronger and more competitive, promoting exports from the non-oil sector of the economy, and reducing imports of essential consumer goods.” In other words, diversification and opening up the economy are top priorities. This opens new opportunities for foreign investors. It is also undoubtedly the beginning of a new era for resource-rich but until now governance-poor Angola.

Facts and figures

Situated in southern Africa on the South Atlantic Ocean, between Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola has an area of 1,246,700 sq km comparable to that of South Africa, or twice the state of Texas. Its population is estimated at just over 30 million (28.4 million according to the national statistics agency’s 2017 data), with 45% being under the age of 15 and about 40% living below the poverty line. Angola has a wealth of resources, the two main ones being oil and diamonds.

The Catoca diamond mine is one of the largest in the world. Oil production and its supporting activities contribute about 50% of GDP, more than 70% of government revenue, and more than 90% of the country’s exports. Angola is an OPEC member and subject to its direction regarding oil production levels. Diamonds contribute an additional 5% to exports. Subsistence agriculture provides the main livelihood for most of the people, but half of the country’s food is still imported.

• GDP purchasing power parity: $193.6 billion (2017 est.)
• GDP real growth rate: — 2.5% (2017 est.)
• GDP per capita (PPP): $6,800 (2017 est.)
• GDP composition (2011 est.): agriculture: 10.2%; industry: 61.4%; services: 28.4%
• Source: CIA World Factbook

DRC election: opposition cries foul over long queues at polling stations

Election passes off mostly peacefully, but many Congolese still queuing at poll-closing time
Supporters of Felix Tshisekedi celebrate after he cast his ballot at a polling station in Kinshasa. Photograph: Olivia Acland/Reuters

Jason Burke-Sun 30 Dec 2018

Opposition leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo have accused electoral authorities of deliberately blocking people from casting their ballots in an election on Sunday marred by widespread logistical problems.

Observers hope that the election, which passed off mostly peacefully, will bring about the vast central African country’s first ostensibly democratic transition of power in its troubled history and chart a road to a better future. Others fear renewed instability if the opposition rejects the results and calls for protests.

The presidential election is the DRC’s third since the end of a civil war in 2002 that killed about 5 million people.

The election, already delayed by two years, was postponed from last Sundayto allow further time to overcome logistic challenges in a country of 80 million inhabitants spread over an area the size of western Europe with almost no metalled roads.

'Nothing works': floods and broken voting machines mar Congolese elections – video

After voting at 8am in the wealthy neighbourhood of Gombe, close to the presidential residence, a relaxed Joseph Kabila, the president since 2001, described the election as “free and credible”.
Kabila’s second electoral mandate expired in 2016 and the 47-year-old only reluctantly called new elections under pressure from regional powers. He was barred from standing again himself by the constitution and, critics claim, hopes now to rule through the handpicked government candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.

Shadary, a hardline interior minister under EU sanctions for his role in a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists last year, called for peace after casting his ballot and said he expected to be president “from [Sunday] evening”.

Martin Fayulu, the leading opposition candidate, said: “Today, we are writing the end of Kabila, the end of misery for Congolese people.” Respected for his courage and principles, Fayulu had a limited profile and a small support base before the campaign.

“I will vote for Martin Fayulu,” said Mama Wivine, 40 and unemployed, as she waited for the machine to arrive at her polling place in Kinshasa’s Camp Luka neighbourhood. “We hope he can bring jobs and better conditions for us Congolese. We are fed up with the regime of Kabila.”

Félix Tshisekedi, another opposition candidate, said that some polling stations in Kinshasa had not even opened six hours after voting began. He accused the government of deliberately creating an election day mess to block voters and spark a court challenge that will allow Kabila to extend his time in power. “I deplore all the disorder that we hear about,” said Tshisekedi, who said Kabila’s government is “responsible for this mess”.

Tshisekedi’s supporters went further, claiming the delays were a deliberate attempt to diminish the opposition vote.

The DRC has refused international offers of help to conduct the elections, stating that this would “compromise its sovereignty”. An untold number of Congolese remained in queues at poll-closing time, and by law would be able to vote.

The church, an influential institution in a devout nation, deployed more than 40,000 observers, who found that the vote had not started on time at 830 polling stations, about a fifth of the stations across the country. It also said 846 stations were installed in “prohibited places” such as military camps, police posts or private residences. By noon, observers had reported more than 500 problems with voting machines.

There were widespread reports that controversial electronic voting machines – never used before for an election on this scale – were either breaking down, running low on power, or causing significant delays as voters struggled to follow instructions.

Huge queues formed outside polling stations in Limete, an opposition stronghold in Kinshasa, where voting had not started by mid-afternoon. There were also reports that Fayulu’s name was not on the ballot in some locations.

Activists in the southern city of Mbuji-Mayi told the Guardian the day had been calm apart from an incident of suspected rigging in favour of government candidates.

In Lubumbashi, an opposition stronghold in the southeast, and the eastern border city of Goma, activists said many voters spent the day searching for their names on voter lists without success. Elsewhere, observers were blocked from polling stations.

There were no votes cast at all in three opposition strongholds in the east of the country after the authorities cancelled the vote there, citing health risks from an Ebola outbreak and ethnic violence. The postponement prompted violent protests last week.

Residents in Beni said they should have the right to have their votes counted. “We do not have Ebola. Kabila is worse than Ebola,” Jacob Salamu, 24, said.

The DRC’s fragmented opposition has been unable to field one unified candidate, effectively splitting the vote of those who want to see significant change in the DRC.

Voting was mostly peaceful across the country, but there were a few violent incidents. A police officer and civilian were killed the east in a dispute over alleged voting fraud, a local politician who witnessed the incident told Reuters.

In the central city of Kananga, the head of a polling station was beaten up by voters who suspected him of trying to cheat when he moved a broken-down voting machine from the room, two local activists said. In Masisi territory, militia fighters were also reported around polling sites, pressuring people to vote for their preferred candidates.

It’s not that complicated: Facebook says communication key to business growth

Customers like being able to communicate directly with businesses. Source: Shutterstock

By Soumik Roy | 28th December 2018 | @SoumikRoy

THROUGH a decade or more of change, the one constant is that consumers often adopt new technology before businesses do.

In fact, they have a profound influence on how people discover, evaluate, and converse with businesses and ultimately, how and where they make purchases.

“At Facebook, we saw three significant consumer communications trends this year which we expect will only intensify in 2019: Video, Stories, and Messaging,” Facebook Malaysia Country Head Nicole Tan told Tech Wire Asia.

Earlier this year – in August – Facebook rolled out Watch globally and found strong adoption in the Asia Pacific, especially in India, Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

SEE ALSO: Why 2019 will be a big year for digital marketing in China

The social media giant also found that the Asia Pacific leads the way in people accessing video content on mobile.

This can be credited to the shift to mobile across the region, with smartphone penetration in countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia continuing on its upward trend.

In Malaysia, for example, 97.7 percent of those accessing the internet last year did so on their smartphones. According to Nielsen, Malaysian internet users spent 15.8 hours on average per week accessing the web on their mobile devices.

“While we have beaten the drum about the rate at which people were bypassing desktop for mobile in previous years, 2018 marked the cementing of the multiscreen consumer.”

The simultaneous use of second-screen devices —smartphones, tablets and desktops/laptops alongside TV-viewing has increased year-on-year and is predicted to continue through next year.

Malaysians, like their Asian neighbours, have developed a love affair with their smartphones. Source: Shutterstock

Facebook has found that mobiles are winning the screen battle with PC-only use trending downwards.

This complex ecosystem means that businesses that want to stay ahead of the curve will also need to think about multi-touch, cross-media approaches to engage with customers in 2019.

SEE ALSO: APAC businesses outperform Western peers in digital transformation race

This year, in order to ensure that Malaysian businesses and entrepreneurs stay ahead in this digital age, Facebook Malaysia introduced its “Made by Malaysia, Loved by the World” program to train up to 2,000 local businesses, together with partners MATRADE and AVANA.

Another interesting development is the consumer adoption of the ephemerality of the Stories format.

Official figures reveal that people now share more than 1 billion stories every day across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The Asia Pacific region accounts for the highest number of story producers with over 40 percent of Stories being created in this region.

A recent eMarketer report which examined the popularity of Stories, said it plays into several broad consumer communication trends – a preference for sharing photographs or video over typing out a text update, the comfort of knowing what you post isn’t going to stick around forever and the need to share everyday moments with smaller audiences.

“This preference is also driving the rise of messaging.”

Radha Stirling Statement on Saudi Arabia Cabinet Shuffle

Mohammad bin Salman al Saud, Radha Stirling

Dec 28, 2018

Radha Stirling, Middle Eastern Criminal and Civil Justice Expert, Expert Witness and founder of Detained in Dubai issued the following statement in relation to Saudi Arabia’s cabinet shuffle:

“Saudi Arabia announced a cabinet shuffle today that saw Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir ‘demoted’, though not altogether removed, and replaced by former Finance Minister Ibrahim Al Assaf. Many have commented that this change is little more than a damage-control PR maneuver by Mohammad bin Salman to distance himself from the murder of Jamal Khashoggi; but that may be a superficial analysis of the move.

There is no doubt that the Khashoggi killing, as well as a few other controversies have tarnished the image of MBS and Saudi Arabia recently. There has been greater scrutiny of Saudi’s war in Yemen, for instance, and Al Jubeir took a controversial stance towards Canada over their criticism of Saudi human rights. He has been very visible as a defender of Saudi policy, and his removal will imply a change in policy. It is certainly a move by MBS to consolidate his position and his future by deflecting criticism through Jubeir’s demotion. A successful shifting of blame for the Khashoggi murder, and the other controversies, along with the removal of the proverbial scapegoat, could help inoculate MBS from the continuing fallout connected to these scandals.

But that is a fairly obvious reading of the cabinet shuffle. There are other factors at play here as well. Jubeir has been keen to support a strong US presence in the Middle East and to highlight the regional threat of Iran. This stance has helped to bring Saudi Arabia and Israel closer together in a kind of strategic alliance; and it has served as the rationale for the Kingdom’s vicious military campaign in Yemen.

However, US President Donald Trump has announced that the US will withdraw from Syria, and has signaled that the US will decrease its level of intervention in the region on all fronts; even indicating that he believes Israel is not facing any threats it can’t handle (“they’ve been doing a very good job for themselves,” Trump said).

This is a policy change which will require a different style of foreign policy from Saudi Arabia; possibly less aggressive, less outspoken, and less confrontational. Jubeir’s replacement will be Ibrahim Al Assaf who served as Finance Minister for twenty years, he is from the old guard, and has a deep knowledge of Saudi Arabia’s relationships and economic interests. I would expect his approach to be more low key and pragmatic, reflecting the changes in the strategic landscape in the wake of a diminished American presence.

Russia has expressed concerns that the United States might try to interfere with the decision to remove Jubeir, because his demotion may open a door for the development of a more collaborative relationship between Riyadh and Moscow, particularly with regard to reconstruction in Syria. But, aside from Trump’s announced withdrawal of US troops, there have been indications that the Americans are not comfortable with Saudi Arabia’s recent assertiveness in the region. Reportedly, the US intervened to prevent a Saudi invasion of Qatar, and serious concerns have been raised about the brutality of the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The US had been viewing Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy as an increasingly destabilizing force in the region even before the Khashoggi killing. Seeing the Saudis adopt a more conventional diplomatic relationship with their neighbours is unlikely to upset American interests; even if that means the Kingdom may become more cooperative with Russia.

It seems wise for Saudi Arabia at this stage to draw down their enmity towards Iran, as they take on a role in the reconstruction of Syria. The UAE is opening an embassy again in Damascus, and the Saudis are going to have to normalize relations with the Syrian government to some degree for purely economic reasons, and this inevitably means decreasing the tension between Riyadh and Tehran, as Iran is a major player in Syria.

It remains to be seen how this potential policy shift will impact Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Israel, particularly given the recent airstrikes by the IDF against targets in Damascus. But overall, the removal of Adel Al Jubeir seems to be a welcome return to form for Saudi foreign policy and will hopefully see their provocative role in regional volatility subside.”

Radha@radhastirling.com

Copyright © Radha Stirling Limited 2014-2018 . Radha Stirling Limited, is registered in England and Wales under company number 11247852 with its registered office at 180 City Road, London EC1 2NX United Kingdom

Finally,elections in the Congo?

 2018-12-29

The general election has been postponed yet again. Will this country, the largest and potentially the richest in Africa, ever escape from its continuous dictatorship, and its propensity to civil war? It’s not so long ago that Susan Rice, the then US Ambassador to the United Nations, was talking about the Congo as the site of “Africa’s First World War”. Has the UN at long last really pacified this country that has been continuously in a state of unrest since the Belgian colonisers, after effectively looting the country, fled in 1960, turning the country over to a hastily improvised African government?   

Today we can say that the fighting that has consumed the Congo is within sight of being over, apart from some localized violence in Kivus and Kasai provinces. But, given the history of the most turbulent of all African countries, we should say, let’s wait and see. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to know that the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation ever has met with this degree of success. 

The results of this UN activism are impressive. Most of the country is quiet. The mining and agricultural sectors are recovering well. Hyperinflation has been tamed and the exchange rate  remains stable. Mobile phone masts have been installed even where the roads have all but disappeared. Foreign investment is returning

This second UN intervention in the Congo appeared to be more successful than the first, back in 1960 when, fearful of the US and the Soviet Union competing to gain a foothold in Africa, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, pushed for UN intervention, as the country’s post-independence civil war appeared to spin out of control. The UN did pacify the country to some degree -- at the cost of claiming Hammarskjold’s life in a supposed accident of his plane- but it left with its tail between its legs, handing the country over to 32 years of decadent and cruel rule by the masterful dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.   

For once in recent times the UN presence has been funded reasonably well, with the US the major contributor. Not least, unlike the first time, it had a unanimous Security Council mandate behind it, involving Chapter 7 of the Charter, which bestows the right to use military force.   

The results of this UN activism are impressive. Most of the country is quiet. The mining and agricultural sectors are recovering well. Hyperinflation has been tamed and the exchange rate remains stable. Mobile phone masts have been installed even where the roads have all but disappeared. Foreign investment is returning.   

All in all this has not been an easy nor an inexpensive UN operation nor one that has always run smoothly, as the serious allegations of rape made against some UN contingents attest. The UN operation has cost $1 billion a year to run. The general election in 2006 cost the international community half a billion dollars. Seeing the good work of past years coming undone, the Security Council authorized a peacekeeping brigade consisting of Malawians, South Africans and Tanzanians and were given an aggressive mandate to defeat M23 in Kivu.   

Today we can say that the fighting that has consumed the Congo is within sight of being over, apart from some localized violence in Kivus and Kasai provinces. But, given the history of the most turbulent of all African countries, we should say, let’s wait and see. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to know that the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation ever has met with this degree of success

Yes, the financial cost is high but it is much less than what has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and the results more favourable. Indeed, one can plausibly argue that before the Western intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congo was the country of the three in the greater mess, with the most violence. Now it is the one with the least.   

After the 2006 election it looked as if peace had finally arrived. But it didn’t. One of the main belligerents, the Congolese Rally for Democracy, Rwanda’s ally, did badly in the election and went from controlling one third of the country to securing only 3% representation in parliament. Not surprisingly, a number of its leaders went back to war. Fighting in the eastern Kivu province flared up. Now it is rather less.   

Unfortunately, in the ensuing years the UN’s most active backers, the US and EU, took their eyes off the ball. Once the 2006 election was over interest in the Congo among top Western leaders dissipated.   

Now they are being forced by events to focus again. Congo’s young ruler, Joseph Kabila, while stabilizing most of the country, has allowed massive corruption and manoeuvered to stay in power indefinitely. The constitution doesn’t allow it. There has been serious unrest especially in the capital. The Catholic bishops intervened as arbitrators, and that helped. At last there is going to be an election. 

 
Of course, as the saying goes, “It is never over until the fat lady sings”. That’s for sure in the Congo.