ANGOLA: VOTERS CHOOSE STATUS QUO OVER NEW DAWN

Angola’s President Eduardo Dos Santos appears not be giving up easily in what seemingly has become a 2-man race or contest between himself and Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to be crowned Africa’s longest serving leader.


Election Results

Last week Dos Santos was elected by way of a landslide victory to serve a further five-year term as President. Currently aged 70 and having already led the country for 33 years, Dos Santos will be 75 by the end of his tenure. Early reports indicate that Dos Santos’s MPLA party won about 70 per cent of the votes while the rest was split between opposing parties UNITA and CASA-CE. Although MPLA’s victory was overwhelming this time, it was not as decisive as the 2008 elections where it amassed about 81 per cent of the votes.


Questions and Protests

As we are all too aware, no elections held in Africa passes without controversy and problems. It therefore comes as no surprise that the validity of the elections have been challenged by the government’s opponents. Concerns have been raised over alleged rigged ballots and the transparency of the election process. In an interview with the Reuters news agency following the announcement of the provisional results, a candidate seeking election on the platform of the opposing CASA-CE party William Tonet denounced the elections as “cheating”. Tonet added that the election results amounted to a “declaration of war” by MPLA.

The leaders of the country’s second largest party UNITA have also voiced their intention to challenge the election results. Pre-election, observers will recall that the party’s leader Isaias Samakuva called for the postponement of the elections for another month as a result of what he termed interference in the election process by the ruling MPLA as well as questions raised over the credibility of the country’s national election commission (CNE).


Giant Leaps

The disquiet which has stemmed from the elections should however not detract from the progress, in gargantuan proportions, which the country has made since the end of its 27-year long civil war which devastated the nation. Now Africa’s second largest oil producing country, its oil wealth has served as the fulcrum of its economic transformation. It is reported that the country experienced an average of 15 percent growth in the period between 2002 and 2008. Further and even more impressive is the fact that Angola reported the world’s highest annual average GDP growth at 11 percent between 2001 and 2010.


Sound-off

Unsurprisingly and much like its oil producing African counterparts Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea the oil wealth has failed to trickle down to those who occupy the bottom strata of its 18 million strong population and as a result endemic corruption, patronage, nepotism and poverty thrive below the glamorous face of the country which is most encapsulated by its skyscraper thronged capital, Luanda.

Perhaps in a bid to address these concerns, Dos Santos ran a re-election campaign which had at its centre the promise to reduce poverty and inequality backed by a declaration to invest $17 billion in the country’s energy sector. At the risk of being labelled a cynic or a pessimist, critics of the Dos Santos government have good basis upon which to base their damning indictments of the administration, after all Dos Santos has already had three decades to lead the country to the promised land but all he has delivered, in spite of the considerable resources which the country is blessed, is a nation with enormous social and economic disparities which may only be checked by a change of administration.

UNITED KINGDOM: CPS DECIDE AGAINST CHARGING PERSONS INVOLVED IN MIGRANT’S DEATH

Last week’s decision reached by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) against prosecuting three security guards over the death of Angolan refugee, Jimmy Mubenga was met with howls of derision. The men who work for the much maligned private security firm G4S – currently embroiled in the Olympic Games security fiasco and also contracted with the Home Office to shepherd deportees to their home countries – will not now face charges of manslaughter.

Mubenga resided with his family in the United Kingdom for 16 years after being granted leave to remain in the country. After a conviction in 2006 for actual bodily harm (ABH), he was sentenced to two years in jail and then detained at an immigration centre before the fateful attempted deportation.

Confusion surrounds the series of events which led to the death. G4S and the Home Office insist that Mubenga had taken ill on the day of the aborted deportation, 12th October 2010 which in turn led to the airline carrier’s return to London. His wife, Makenda Kambana on the other hand points to the fact that some on the flight had borne witness to the fact that “he was crying for help before he was killed”.

The CPS for their part insist that there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges of gross negligence manslaughter. Its Senior Crown Advocate, Gaon Hart highlighted that experts unanimously concluded that Mr Mubenga’s physiological condition and agitated state prior to his death may have contributed to his demise. Hart continued that a combination of additional factors including “adrenaline, muscle exhaustion or isometric exercise” could not be ruled out as a cause of the death.

Needless to say more than a couple of eyebrows were raised following Hart’s pronouncements. Frances Webber, former Barrister & Vice-Chair of the Institute of Race Relations wrote in the Guardian that Hart’s line of reasoning would mean that no murderer whose victim struggled could be charged if they exhibited the same characteristics highlighted by Hart as potential causes of death. More importantly, he raises the long abiding principle of the “eggshell skull” doctrine, which ensures that one still bears legal responsibility for the death of another, even if the latter had a pre-existing medical condition, whether diagnosed or not.

In addition to these, the CPS appear to have neglected to consider public interest matters in deciding against prosecution, not least because of the government’s rapidly expanding privatisation programme. Even more questionable is Hart’s assertion that there were shortcomings in the standard of training received by the men and that there was a “breach of duty”. Surely even one with only the most basic legal knowledge would appreciate that this finding may not have been arrived at without the acquisition of sufficient supporting evidence.

It is not unfair to assert that the CPS appear to have assumed both judicial and prosecution roles in this sad debacle. The decision also comes against the background of the acquittal of PC Simon Harwood over the death of Ian Tomlinson. Statistics also suggest that over 1,440 individuals have lost their lives whilst in the hands of the Police since 1990. Staggeringly only one individual has been successfully prosecuted following a charge of manslaughter in that time.

Perhaps the CPS should have left it to the Court to decide the issue of “beyond reasonable doubt” the men’s innocence or guilt. The greater damage however has been done to the reputation of the much vaunted British legal system as the decision not only sends the message that the life of a migrant is not worth as much as the country’s own citizens, but also that the country’s security personnel are no different to those of authoritarian states in being above the law.