Cadernos de Estudos Africanos

Introdução

Nuno de Fragoso Vidal — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

O número da revista Cadernos de Estudos Africanos que aqui se apresenta insere-se no contexto do projeto de investigação científica Pluralism – Democratization and Electoral Integrity in Angola and Mozambique - P-DEIAM (www.deiam.com), que articulou três instituições académicas principais – ISCTE-IUL, Universidade Católica de Angola e Universidade Eduardo Mondlane —, tendo decorrido entre 2018 e 2023, financiado pela Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia do Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (FCT-MCTES) e pela Aga Khan Development Network, no âmbito do programa Knowledge for Development Initiative [...]

“Illiberal democracies” in Africa or evolution of postmodern patrimonialism? The cases of Angola and Mozambique

Nuno de Fragoso Vidal — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Sub-Saharan African post-independence political systems were never handicap replicas of main and dominant international political models. Even in extreme cases of international conditioning, as the ones here analysed – Angola and Mozambique –, under the influence of socialist models during the Cold War (and only “liberal” afterwards), their post-independence neo-patrimonial matrix proved their capacity to self-restructure in their own terms, in different historical periods, capable to reinvent and accommodate the
external influences through domestic agency. Their currently active interaction with the new international illiberal currents of thought is merely the most recent example of a long path of selective use of international tendencies in favour of dominant domestic dynamics and logics of governance. Such inner dynamics have been settling and progressing towards a post-modern patrimonialism, as here argued.

Populism and authoritarianism – A brief theoretical reflection

Bruno Ferreira da Costa — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The 21st century is characterized by the re-emergence of populist solutions in various geographical areas of the world. This phenomenon does not adopt a single model but is based on a diversity of measures, rules, intensities, and ways of implementing populist governance models. The current context of measuring the quality of democracies leads us to further study political systems and the various elements used to assess democratic regimes. In the academic approach, we can find significative contributions on the evolution of political regimes and on the analysis of the exercise of political power, and this theoretical contribution focuses on three topics: discussion of the concept of “populism” within the framework of contemporary democracies; the framing of populism within the plural dimension of the functioning of democracies, and the progressive space that populism has conquered within the framework of more unstable political regimes.

Mozambique: The role of elections in the “reverse transition” (2009-2019)

Luca Bussotti — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Through a documentary and bibliographical analysis, the text seeks to demonstrate how much the most recent electoral processes – particularly since the 2009 general elections – have influenced the so-called “reverse transition”, i.e. the democratic regression of a country like Mozambique. Thus, the electoral processes show the deterioration of the Mozambican democratic system, constituting the most obvious mirror of the institutional weakness of a country that, moreover, has emphasised authoritarian elements and its repressive apparatus.

From the “Youths” of the old liberation movements to the “Revús”: Identity diversity of Angolan political and civic activism, from the anti-colonial armed struggle to the case of the “15 +2”, 1960-2015

Jean-Michel Mabeko-Tali — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

This text presents a historical-analytical framework of the different dynamics of youth politics in Angola, starting with youth supporters of the liberation movements, going through their political impact in the post-independence period and repression around the 27th of May, ending with their re-emergence in the most recent manifestations of the so-called Revús.

Elements of electoral manipulation and fraud detected in the 2022 Angolan elections

David Boio — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

During the 2022 Angolan elections, the incumbent engaged in practices that undermined electoral rules, causing multiple attacks on electoral integrity. The fraudulent practices occur well in advance of elections and consist of three stages, as identified in the relevant literature. Firstly, the pre-election period is marked by modifications to the regulations. Secondly, during the electoral campaign, the key features are electoral violence, voter bribery, and heightened media control. Finally, the post-election period illustrates bias within the bodies responsible for electoral litigation. Elections conducted in authoritarian regimes, like that of Angola, result in no more than a democratic simulacrum, as they violate the minimum requirements of a democratic election.

The Angolan elections: The impact of war and the electoral system

Sérgio Dundão — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The Angolan electoral processes, in all their institutional structuring and electoral practice, are designed to sustain the hegemony of the party in power. In this sense, in addition to the mechanisms and practices commonly referred to, I present here some of the characteristics of the Angolan electoral system that objectively reduce the political capacity of the citizens of the large electoral constituencies by means of the double constituency, which in practice has been meant, since the 1992 elections, an electoral bonus for the MPLA and a deficit for the opposition. This effectively undermines citizens’ electoral political capacity to change the status quo.

The United Patriotic Front: Political attrition or strategic failure by 2027?

Paula Roque — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The next five years will be difÏcult ones for the Angolan opposition. The coalition, the United Patriotic Front, led by UNITA, will have to devise a strategy to survive until the next elections in 2027. Among the different options available to them two strategies stand out. They can continue the route of appeased criticism within parliamentary debates, some political rallies, and public statements about the injustices faced and the illegalities committed by the ruling party. Alternatively, they can begin a political battle of attrition that will expose, exhaust and wear down the regime that has become increasingly authoritarian and corrupt. This article will explore the second option as the only one to guarantee a level of success for the opposition.

The place of gender in the government program of the largest political parties: The 2022 elections in Angola

Florita Cuhanga A. Telo — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

The article aims to understand the extent to which gender issues are (dis)considered in the exercise of active politics in Angola, analysing the government program of the two largest political parties (UNITA and MPLA), presented in the 2022 elections. In this way, we do intend to understand the nature of the categories and concepts operationalized by the two political parties, and their implications for the change or maintenance of gender relations. This is an exploratory qualitative study, of a bibliographic and documentary spectrum. This article concludes that, although gender issues do have a place in the proposal of the two political parties, both suffer from structural conceptual deficiencies, which compromise the reality of dignity and human rights for all people, as well as the consolidation of the state, which constitutionally, is democratic and ruled by law.

Constitutional transition versus constitutional transformation: Angola and the need for a new founding paradigm

Maria da Imaculada Melo — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0100

This text argues that the constitutional transition envisaged for Angola from the First to the Second Republic (1991/92) and for the Third Republic, did not produce the rupture underlying this institute. The essential assumption of the constitutional transition, in the sense of causing a total rupture with the existing regime and installing other factors of power and a different regime, did not occur. Furthermore, there was a process of “constitutional transformation”, which maintained several fundamental features of the previous regime. Face with this reality, there is an urgent need for structural State reforms in line with the needs for current Angolan social and political affairs, which are outlined herein, focused essentially on the importance of an eventual bicameral Parliament and the departisanship of the State through the reform of the Law and Justice.