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IRIN Africa | West Africa | WEST AFRICA | WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly 300 covering 15-21 October 2005 | Children, Democracy, Early Warning, Economy, Education, Environment, Food Security, Gender issues, Health, HIV AIDS, Human Rights, Natural Disasters, Peace Security, Refugees IDPs, Other | Weekly

Tuesday 21 February 2006


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IRIN-WA Weekly 300 covering 15-21 October 2005

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: "King George" squares up for election run-off with "Iron Lady"
SENEGAL: Authorities close radios, detain staff over interview of separatist leader
CHAD: Aid groups reduce staff in east after troop desertions
GUINEA: Pivotal municipal elections set for December
BURKINA FASO: Compaore gets green light to run for third mandate

LIBERIA: "King George" squares up for election run-off with "Iron Lady"

Soccer legend George Weah looks set to go head-to-head with former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in a run-off to decide who will be the next president of war-battered Liberia, according to preliminary results.

With returns in from 95 percent of polling stations across the heavily forested country, Weah was in the lead with 28.8 percent of the votes and Sirleaf was in second with 20.0 percent.

A candidate must get 50 percent plus one vote to be declared the winner of Liberia's first presidential elections since the end of a 14-year civil war.

"Looking at the numbers above... the NEC sees it prudent to begin preparations for a presidential election run-off," Frances Johnson-Morris, the head of the National Elections Commission, told reporters.

"The run-off election will be held on November 8," she added.

Full report

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SENEGAL: Authorities close radios, detain staff over interview of separatist leader

Senegal’s leading private radio was closed down for nearly an entire day under special instructions from the Interior Ministry after the station interviewed a leader of a two-decade separatist rebellion in the southern Casamance region of the country.

Employees from the main station in the capital, Dakar, and five other relay stations across the country were brought in for questioning after authorities stopped all Sud FM transmissions for 10 hours and seized the media’s daily “Sud Quotidien.”

Police arrived at Sud FM stations across the nation within minutes of the morning airing of an interview with Salif Sadio, leader of the armed wing of the secessionist Democratic Forces Movement of Casamance (MFDC).

“The police arrived at around 9 o’clock and demanded we stop all transmissions,” said Seydou Nourou Gaye, head of Sud FM’s relay station in Ziguinchor, Casamance’s main city.

Gaye said the head of Sud FM’s Ziguinchor bureau, Ibrahima Gassama, who carried out the interview, had been detained for questioning.

In Dakar, Oumar Diouf Fall, who heads the Sud FM station in the capital, said he had had no official notification, written or verbal, to explain the government’s response. “The chief commissioner of police here in Dakar will not answer my questions,” he told IRIN.
“Even the drivers and the cleaners were arrested,” he said.

Full report

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CHAD: Aid groups reduce staff in east after troop desertions

Humanitarian organisations have decided to pull some non-essential staff from parts of eastern Chad, where the government says it has “surrounded” dissident soldiers and the situation is calm and under control.

The government has said that at least 40 Chadian soldiers have deserted their posts in the capital, N’djamena, and fled to the volatile east of the country, where the United Nations and aid organisations are assisting some 200,000 refugees from Sudan.

In a statement, the Chadian government insisted that the stability of the region was not in jeopardy. “The Chadian government thanks [its friends and neighbours] who have expressed concern about the situation in the east," it said. "However the government would like to reassure them that the situation is under control and moreover represents no threat whatsoever to peace and stability in Chad, much less the sub-region.”

Eastern Chad abuts Sudan’s war-wracked Darfur region, where conflict has repeatedly spilled into Chadian towns, and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of neighbouring Libya recently expressed worry about the defections and a potential threat to regional stability.

Full report

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GUINEA: Pivotal municipal elections set for December

Guinea’s government has announced that municipal elections, widely seen as a barometer of the country’s democratic future, will be held on 18 December but the opposition has yet to announce whether it will be on board.

"We’ll make a decision at the end of the week as to whether or not we’ll take part in December’s municipal elections," Jean-Marie Dore, one of the leaders of the opposition coalition Republican Front for Democratic Change (FRAD), told IRIN following a presidential decree on the matter.

Facing pressure from the international community, Guinea has undertaken a program of political reforms needed to restart the flow of foreign aid, much of which has been frozen due to concerns over governance and human rights.

Analysts view the upcoming vote as a practical test of these reforms and a dry run for a peaceful transition should ailing President Lansana Conte, who took power in a 1984 coup, be unable to serve to the end of his term in 2010.

A report released in June by the international think-tank Crisis Group highlighted the importance of the municipal elections for a country it said was on the verge of becoming West Africa’s next failed state. “They will largely determine the quality of Guinean democracy,” the report says. “If they fail, the presidential succession will likely be disastrous.”

Full report

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BURKINA FASO: Compaore gets green light to run for third mandate

Burkina Faso’s Constitutional Court has thrown out a bid by opposition leaders to stop President Blaise Compaore running for a third term in elections scheduled for next month.

Five opposition candidates in the 13 November poll had appealed to the court to declare Compaore’s bid for re-election null and void on the basis of Article 37 of the constitution, which sets a two-term ceiling on the office of president.

In 1997, the clause was amended by a stacked parliament, which lifted the ceiling to enable heads of state to remain in office for life. But in 2000 parliament re-introduced the two-term limit and reduced the presidential term from seven to five years in office.

The constitutional court has ruled, as Compaore was already in office in 2000, the two-term limit can only apply to the outgoing president from the end of his present mandate in November.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Children

Other recent WEST AFRICA reports:

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 317 covering 11-17 February 2006, 17/Feb/06

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 316 covering 4-10 February 2006, 10/Feb/06

Africa’s poorest nations fight to ward off deadly bird flu, 9/Feb/06

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 315 covering 28 January – 3 February 2006, 3/Feb/06

IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 314 covering 21-27 January 2006, 27/Jan/06

Other recent Children reports:

IRAQ: Thousands of families still displaced after flooding, 21/Feb/06

SOUTH AFRICA: Govt adopts more focused approach to help orphans, 21/Feb/06

YEMEN: Two killed in flash floods, 21/Feb/06

YEMEN: Measles vaccination campaign launched to prevent children’s deaths, 21/Feb/06

TAJIKISTAN: UN appeal for 2006 launched, 16/Feb/06

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