Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: The U.N. security council votes to halt fighting in El Fasher, Sudan, U.S. embassy staffer charged with abuse in Burkina Faso, and Nigeria’s new archeological museum.
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South Africa’s Rival Coalitions
Cyril Ramaphosa will be sworn in today for a second term as South Africa’s president after his party, the African National Congress, clinched a deal with the country’s second-largest party, the Democratic Alliance, which came second with 21.8 percent of the vote.
The deal, referred to on both sides as a government of national unity, also includes the Inkatha Freedom Party, a socially conservative party that draws its support mainly from ethnic Zulus in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, and the right-wing Patriotic Alliance (PA), founded by Gayton McKenzie—who was in the past convicted of armed robbery and has pledged to bring back the death penalty and deport undocumented foreigners.
A smaller group—the GOOD party, led by current South African Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille—was announced as the fifth unity member on Monday. Together, the group holds 273 out of 400 seats in the National Assembly.
But analysts argue that the alliance is a coalition rather than a unity government, since the third- and fourth-largest parties—former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe party (MK) and Julius Malema’s radical populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)—refused to join.
Instead, they have formed a union of opposition parties called the Progressive Caucus, which holds almost a third of the seats. It includes the MK and EFF, the center-left United Democratic Movement, and the African Transformation Movement, whose support comes from churches among other smaller parties. Zuma has denounced the ANC-DA coalition as a “white-led unholy alliance.” He claimed that “it is sponsored by big business, and it’s for the benefit of the markets and not the people.”
Zuma, dogged by state graft allegations, cannot be a member of Parliament because he was given a 15-month prison sentence in 2021 for refusing to testify before an anti-corruption commission.
He is driven by personal animosity against Ramaphosa, who replaced Zuma when he was ousted from the ANC in 2018. Zuma’s party boycotted the first sitting of Parliament, and on Sunday, it alleged that the recent vote was tainted by vote-rigging and called for fresh elections.
As Richard Pithouse wrote recently in Foreign Policy, “the militaristic posture of Zuma’s party escalates fears of violence, and Zuma himself often makes implicit threats of violence via dog whistles.”
Investors were uneasy about a coalition that would include the EFF and MK. Both parties want to nationalize mines, lands, and banks. The EFF has suggested seizing land without compensation from white South Africans, who still hold 72 percent of the country’s private farmland, and expanding social housing in white-owned areas “to promote full integration and social cohesion,” according to its election manifesto.
“We do not agree to this marriage of convenience to consolidate the white monopoly power over the economy and the means of production,” Malema, the EFF leader, said during a speech in Parliament, referring to the white-led Democratic Alliance.
“This marriage is the one that seeks to undermine the changing of property relations in the country. We refuse to sell out,” Malema added.
Having the Inkatha Freedom Party within the coalition allows the ANC to appease members who view the DA as serving the interests of South Africa’s white minority—and to reassure Zulus who may interpret the exclusion of MK from the coalition as anti-Zulu. The GOOD party and the Patriotic Alliance also draw their support from the country’s so-called Coloured—or mixed-race—population. The parties give the coalition a stronghold in the Western Cape, including its capital city, Cape Town, and Gauteng—the most populous province.
The DA’s fierce opposition to the ANC’s affirmative action policies, a minimum wage, and a government-funded national health service—along with its positions on Israel and Russia—could see the two parties at odds. Analysts label the union as fragile. “It will be regularly tested by radical parties outside the GNU [government of national unity], who may increase street mobilization,” wrote Pangea-Risk, an intelligence advisory group based in South Africa and Britain, in an email to subscribers.
Even former President Nelson Mandela’s 1994 unity cabinet, which reached out to smaller partners from a position of strength rather than weakness, lasted just two years.
A failure to make this unity work could further fracture the ANC as a party and set up Zuma’s grand alliance of ANC breakaway parties for further gains in the next election.
Thursday, June 20: U.N. Security Council discusses sanctions on Libya, and a report on its mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is due.
Friday, June 21: Namibian High Court releases a judgement on whether criminalization of sexual acts between men is constitutional.
Monday, June 24: U.N. Security Council discusses Somalia.
Saturday, June 29: Presidential elections are held in Mauritania
U.N. vote on Sudan. The United Nations Security Council has called for “an immediate halt” to the siege in El Fasher, a city in North Darfur where Human Rights Watch has reported that a possible genocide is occurring. The 15-member council on Thursday adopted the British-drafted resolution with 14 votes in favor, while Russia abstained.
More than 130,000 people have fled El Fasher since fighting broke out in the city last month, according to the U.N. And more than 10 million people have been displaced within Sudan since the conflict began in April 2023, said the International Organization for Migration. On Monday, the United Arab Emirates committed $70 million in humanitarian aid to Sudan, although Abu Dhabi is accused of backing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, one of the two main belligerents in the conflict.
Gabon’s foreign diplomacy. Russia and Iran are increasingly using the flag of Gabon to transport sanctioned oil, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Small African nations with little capacity for oversight have long allowed shippers to register under their flags. Among the 100 ships registered in Gabon, 50 are owned by Russia’s largest shipping company, Sovcomflot, which flew Liberia’s flag before the war in Ukraine.
Despite a coup that overthrew the government on Aug. 30, 2023, former colonial power France has kept close diplomatic relations with Gabon. Coup leader and transitional President Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema made an official five-day state visit last month to Paris, where he was received with military honors by French President Emmanuel Macron. As one French official told Le Monde, “Not all putschists are equal. Since August 30, no French flags have been burned in Gabon.”
Burkina Faso U.S Embassy staff charged. A member of the support staff working at the U.S. Embassy in Burkina Faso has been charged with sexually abusing children at his embassy-assigned residence in the capital city of Ouagadougou. Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland allege that Fode Sitafa Mara forcibly raped two Burkinabe girls aged 13 and 15 for more than a year. Mara’s wife is a U.S. diplomat in Burkina Faso on a two-year assignment for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
A local guard and housekeeper alerted authorities to the alleged abuse in October 2023, stating that Mara would bring the girls to the home when his wife was away and that the girls would leave looking upset. Investigators found sexually explicit WhatsApp messages with one of the girls.
Ghana’s power cuts. Ghanaian authorities announced on Friday that residents should expect three weeks of power cuts due to a supply shortage from Nigeria. A statement from the state power firm said a temporary shutdown—attributed to maintenance work at an unnamed Nigerian gas supplier—was to blame. Ghana’s state power company owes about $1.2 billion to private energy producers, including Nigerian suppliers. The country has been experiencing power shortages since the start of this year.
São Tomé’s first archeological dig. The West African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe is leading its first archeological research in Praia Melão, the first sugar plantation in the region that was operated by Portuguese slavers. São Tomé and Príncipe, Africa’s second-smallest country by area, is geographically located close to the center of the world—its southern tip is just a few miles from the equator, and it lies 7 degrees east of the prime meridian. Its sugar economy was critical to the construction of a modern world built on African bondage, Kiratiana Freelon reports in the Guardian. From about 1495, enslaved Africans—largely from modern-day Benin, Congo, and Angola—were brought to populate the island and work on labor-intensive sugar mills.
“Investigation of the Sao Tome sites may be the most important new development in years for scholarship of the sugar and slave connection,” said one archaeologist at San José State University in California. The excavation—which began in 2020—has uncovered clay roof tiles used in old Portuguese buildings as well as African ceramics, notable because there previously was no record of ceramics made in São Tomé.
Nigeria’s archaeology institute. Nigeria’s new Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) will open its first building—a research and education institute in Benin City—on Nov. 4. The institute aims to increase local expertise in archeology and preserving artifacts in partnership with the British Museum and the University of Cambridge.
“This spring, we celebrated Nigeria on a global stage by serving as the official organiser of the country’s national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Now, as we look ahead to fall, we highlight our achievements in Benin City with the inauguration of the first of the facilities,” Phillip Ihenacho, the executive director of MOWAA, told Art Africa magazine.
When complete, MOWAA will be a 15-acre complex housing a museum, gallery, and guesthouse for tourists and academics. The museum will house stolen Benin Bronzes that have been returned to Nigeria, including those loaned back by the British Museum. The gallery will showcase contemporary West African art, while a digital lab will make artifacts accessible online.
South Africa’s Democratic Alliance is now poised to govern in a coalition with the ANC. The DA received the most declared funding of any party over the past few years, far outstripping the governing African National Congress party. Since 2021, parties in South Africa have been required to declare any donations over 100,000 rand (about $5,500), although some parties can circumvent disclosure by telling supporters to donate under 100,000 rand, according to civic group Corruption Watch.
Former President Jacob Zumba’s uMkhonto weSizwe party was formed just six months prior to the May 29 election and therefore is not reflected in the latest available data. The DA and many other parties have accused MK of being funded by Russia. So far, MK has not lodged declarations of donations with South Africa’s electoral body.
FP’s Most Read This Week
Is Ivory Coast an LGBTQ haven? In Africa Is a Country, Aude Konan argues that Ivory Coast could become a nation where LGBTQI+ communities can thrive in West Africa in contrast to increased discrimination and intolerance faced by the community globally. “Ivorian laws do not criminalize homosexuality and same-sex relationships,” Konan writes, noting that LGBTQI+ people from Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, and Tunisia have migrated to the country as a safe place to live and work.
The sound of Jos. As Nigerian music continues to boom, musicians in Jos—a city in north-central Nigeria—are confronting their region’s history through hip-hop, folk, and rock influences, writes Emmanuel Esomnofu in the Republic. Their songs differ from those coming out of Lagos, the city that has largely defined the international sound of Nigeria. Deadly religious and ethnic clashes in Jos, which local musicians explore in their songs, were often ignored by southerners. “Conflict-ridden northern Nigeria was considered with a sort of otherness. … Because most southerners consider northerners to be lesser-educated, primitive beings without any agency or consideration of nuances.”
