标签： Africa

In a dramatic escalation of political tensions in Uganda, a Kampala court has formally charged prominent opposition attorney Erias Lukwago with misprision of treason, a charge that comes just days after he was seized from his home in a heavily criticized military operation ordered by the country’s powerful army chief Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

Lukwago, who leads the opposition bloc People’s Front for Freedom and serves as legal counsel to jailed four-time presidential candidate Kizza Besigye, has entered a formal denial of the charges. The presiding magistrate confirmed the charge stems from allegations that Lukwago failed to report purported treasonous acts by other individuals. A well-known critic of long-serving President Yoweri Museveni and his son Kainerugaba, Lukwago previously held the position of Kampala mayor.

The circumstances of Lukwago’s arrest have sent shockwaves through Uganda’s political and legal communities: armed soldiers scaled the perimeter wall of his private residence to detain him, a show of force that has amplified growing concerns over the rapidly expanding influence of Kainerugaba, who has openly positioned himself to succeed his father as president. The army chief, who was appointed as Uganda’s top military commander in 2024, has a well-documented history of aggressive public attacks on perceived political opponents via the social platform X. Ahead of Lukwago’s arrest, he publicly warned the lawyer would face “hurt and pain” and could spend up to a decade behind bars.

The charges against Lukwago are widely understood as a direct retaliation for his efforts to hold Kainerugaba legally accountable for alleged human rights violations connected to Besigye’s case. Besigye is currently imprisoned on treason charges that his supporters dismiss as politically motivated. In November 2024, Besigye was abducted from Nairobi, Kenya, and subsequently jailed without bail in Uganda, and Lukwago had moved to name Kainerugaba as a responsible party in the alleged violations of Besigye’s legal rights. Kainerugaba, who has publicly threatened to hang Besigye over unproven claims of a plot to kill Museveni, made his anger over Lukwago’s legal action clear in a post on X Monday, writing, “This fool will learn the lesson he has been begging for.” After Lukwago’s arrest, Kainerugaba further escalated the confrontation by posting photos of a blindfolded Lukwago appearing to beg for mercy.

The political context of this confrontation underscores a major shift in Uganda’s power dynamics. President Museveni, 81, was recently sworn in for his seventh consecutive term in office, but Kainerugaba has already emerged as the country’s de facto center of power, with his succession to the presidency viewed as an increasingly likely outcome as Museveni relies heavily on his son’s military authority. Museveni, who has held uninterrupted power in Uganda since 1986, has not publicly announced a timeline for his retirement, and with no viable rivals within his ruling party, political analysts broadly agree the military will play a decisive role in selecting the next national leader.

Kainerugaba’s background includes military training at elite institutions in the United States and United Kingdom. He rose through the ranks to command the presidential guard unit, which he later expanded into a powerful elite special forces group, before being appointed army chief last year. Beyond his military role, he founded the Patriotic League of Uganda, a political activist group that draws support from a wide network including sitting government ministers and prominent business figures. Just this week, Kainerugaba made public that even Uganda’s parliamentary speaker and her deputy serve as his group’s envoys to the legislature, a statement that lays bare his sweeping influence over state institutions.

Uganda’s leading legal body, the Uganda Law Society, has called for Lukwago’s immediate release, condemning his arrest as a direct contempt of the country’s judicial processes. The charges against one of the country’s most visible opposition figures have deepened fears of accelerating authoritarian consolidation under the Kainerugaba-Museveni dynasty, as political dissent faces increasingly harsh crackdowns across the nation.

South Africa’s ruling governing coalition is facing an internal shake-up, as the new head of its second-largest partner party has formally requested President Cyril Ramaphosa remove a high-profile former party leader from his cabinet post. Geordin Hill-Lewis, who took over leadership of the Democratic Alliance (DA) from John Steenhuisen this past April, has proposed a sweeping set of changes to the party’s representation within the national unity government, led by the African National Congress (ANC). His top demand is the dismissal of Steenhuisen, one of South Africa’s most recognizable political figures, from his current role as Minister of Agriculture.

The current political arrangement in South Africa stems from the 2024 national general election, where no single political party secured an absolute parliamentary majority. This forced the formation of a multi-party coalition government, and as part of the power-sharing agreement, the DA now holds six full cabinet positions, in addition to multiple deputy minister posts across government departments. To date, President Ramaphosa has not issued a public response to Hill-Lewis’s request, but political analysts widely expect the president will not reject the proposed reshuffle, as coalition custom requires the president to accept a partner party’s proposed changes to its own cabinet representatives.

While Hill-Lewis has not publicly stated an explicit reason for pushing for Steenhuisen’s removal, political and agricultural observers widely link the move to Steenhuisen’s widely criticized handling of South Africa’s recent foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. The viral epidemic has caused catastrophic damage to South Africa’s $80 billion livestock industry, and Steenhuisen has faced sustained backlash from farming communities across the country for what they call his slow and inadequate action to contain the spread of the disease.

Under Hill-Lewis’s reshuffle plan, current Agriculture Deputy Minister Willie Aucamp would be promoted to replace Steenhuisen as full minister, with an immediate mandate to resolve outstanding legal disputes tied to the foot-and-mouth outbreak. For Steenhuisen, the proposed change would represent a significant demotion: the former DA leader has been nominated for the far lower post of Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry. This shift is not entirely unexpected, as Steenhuisen already opted not to run for re-election as DA leader earlier this year, a decision partially driven by an earlier financial scandal that eroded his support within the party.

Hill-Lewis also outlined a full slate of other personnel changes for the DA’s government representation. Under the proposal, David Maynier would move into the role of Minister of Environment, replacing the outgoing Willie Aucamp. Alexandra Abrahams, who previously served in a senior role on Steenhuisen’s leadership team, would be appointed Deputy Minister of Electricity and Energy. Yusuf Cassim would take up the post of Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training, while Jack Bloom would become Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation.

The reshuffle marks a sharp public split between two politicians who were once close political allies, highlighting the internal pressures facing South Africa’s young unity government as it works to address ongoing economic and agricultural challenges across the country.

The entire cabinet of Equatorial Guinea has stepped down after the government was formally accused of failing to meet its policy targets, enabling systemic corruption, and stalling long-planned economic diversification efforts, according to Vice-President Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue.

Vice-President Obiang Mangue — who is the son of long-ruling President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the world’s longest-serving incumbent head of state — confirmed that Prime Minister Manuel Osa Nsue Nsua submitted the collective resignation of all government ministers this week. The outgoing administration, which was only appointed in early 2024, delivered less than 10 percent of its stated policy goals, the vice-president confirmed in a public post on X, the social platform formally known as Twitter.

While the vice-president did not outline specific unmet targets in his announcement, an official statement from the ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) laid out the full scope of presidential dissatisfaction. According to the party’s statement, President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo identified endemic corruption, misappropriation of public funds for personal gain, and widespread stagnation in national development projects as core failures of the outgoing administration. The president also criticized the cabinet for failing to advance policies to diversify the national economy, particularly a lack of progress supporting growth in the domestic agricultural sector, a key step to reduce the country’s reliance on imported goods that can be produced locally.

For decades, Equatorial Guinea’s economy has been almost entirely dependent on oil and gas exports, which generate the vast majority of the country’s total export revenue and government budget. Despite its significant national oil wealth, widespread poverty remains pervasive across the country of 1.8 million people, with most residents seeing little benefit from the nation’s natural resource reserves. In recent years, the economy has also faced growing headwinds driven by declining oil production and shifting global demand for fossil fuels, making economic diversification a higher priority for policymakers.

President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has held uninterrupted control of the West African nation since 1979, and has drawn longstanding international criticism for concentrating political power in the hands of his family, with multiple close relatives holding key senior government positions. The vice-president framed the mass resignation as a commitment to accountability in public governance, noting on X that “the principle that responsibility in public management must be accompanied by results” demanded the cabinet’s exit. He added that the low level of policy delivery achieved by the outgoing cabinet was “clearly insufficient in relation to the expectations and commitments undertaken.”

Local political observers expect President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to announce a new full cabinet appointment in the coming days to replace the outgoing administration, with formal nominations expected to be made public shortly after the resignation is formalized.

MOMBASA, Kenya and TAIPEI, Taiwan — A fresh incident of Taiwan being blocked from a major international conference has underscored what Taiwan’s top diplomat describes as a persistent, growing pattern of Chinese pressure to shut the self-ruled island out of global engagements. On Wednesday, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-Lung publicly condemned the recent detention and exclusion of two Taiwanese delegates from the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, Kenya, an incident Taipei attributes directly to coercive pressure from Beijing on Kenyan organizers.

According to Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, the two delegates were detained for more than 20 hours after Kenyan authorities seized their passports and mobile phones, barring them from entry on the grounds that their Taiwan-issued passports were not legally recognized. In response to the incident, the entire remaining Taiwanese delegation withdrew from the high-stakes conference, which gathers global stakeholders to tackle pressing ocean governance challenges ranging from climate change-driven ocean degradation to biodiversity loss and plastic pollution.

Kenyan officials have defended their decision to block the delegates, aligning with Beijing’s longstanding “One China” policy that claims Taiwan as an inalienable province of China. “Our foreign policy recognizes only one China,” Korir Sing’oei, Principal Secretary of Kenya’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters. “Any person purporting to hold a Taiwanese passport would ordinarily not be allowed through our borders for lacking proper documentation and would not in any event be part of a formal state meeting convened by Kenya government.”

Lin pushed back sharply against Kenya’s justification, arguing that Nairobi had “unilaterally distorted and unwarrantedly expanded” its interpretation of the One China principle to exclude Taiwan’s delegates. “The obstruction of our delegates from attending the meeting is absolutely wrong, and we strongly condemn and protest against it,” Lin stated during an event hosted by the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club Wednesday.

The Mombasa incident is far from an isolated case, Lin emphasized: Beijing’s campaign to pressure third-party countries to restrict Taiwan’s access to international forums has become “the new normal” for cross-strait and global diplomatic engagement. The Chinese government has for decades pushed to limit Taiwan’s participation in multilateral bodies, barring the island from full membership in the World Health Organization and forcing it to compete under the altered name “Chinese Taipei” at the Olympic Games. In recent months, however, Lin said Beijing has ramped up these coercive efforts, particularly targeting developing and emerging economies in the Global South that are increasingly vulnerable to Chinese economic influence.

“Some Global South countries are manipulated by the Chinese government in every way,” Lin said, adding that “some democratic countries are trying to fight against it.”

A high-profile earlier incident this year laid bare the extent of Beijing’s pressure: In April, Taiwan’s president was forced to postpone a planned visit to Eswatini — one of the 13 countries that still officially recognize Taipei — after three neighboring nations reversed earlier approvals for his plane to fly through their airspace, a move widely attributed to Chinese coercion. The president eventually traveled to the African kingdom days later aboard a chartered plane provided by Eswatini’s monarch.

The 2024 Our Ocean Conference, hosted for the first time by an African nation, has been framed by organizers as a landmark moment for African leadership in global ocean stewardship. The event draws hundreds of delegates from across the African continent, the United States, the European Union, and small island developing states that are disproportionately impacted by rising ocean levels and climate change. China has not yet issued any public comment on the accusations of pressure related to the Kenya incident.

Cross-strait relations have been defined by separate governance since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, when defeated Nationalist Party forces retreated to Taiwan after the Communist Party seized control of mainland China. The island has since transitioned from decades of martial law to a full multi-party democracy, but Beijing has never renounced its claim to Taiwan and has repeatedly stated it reserves the right to use military force to annex the island if it formally declares independence.