The Elections in DRC
Derek Catsam
It is always worth remembering the elections are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the emergence of democratic states. The same can be said about the connection between elections and the twin pillars of freedom and stability that most of us desire for struggling nation states.
I’ve been thinking of these linkages as the election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been playing out in recent days. The DRC, deeply troubled, ravaged with violence and instability, has nonetheless seen incremental progress in recent years. And so in the run-up to the presidential elections this past week observers wondered if a presidential vote would help to fuel stability or reveal the continuing fissures that exacerbate instability. We may not yet have our answer, but I’m leaning in the direction of the latter. Read more . . .
Year in Review 2011: When Human Rights “Went Viral”
by Kimberly Curtis | on December 31st, 2011 |
Many things could be said about the past year, but at the very least it could not be considered boring. Within two weeks of the new year, protests over government corruption in Tunisia ousted its long standing dictator, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. That event, which took many observers by surprise, triggered a wave of protests throughout the region. As the year went on, protests in Egypt overthrew Hosni Mubarak and brought on a NATO intervention in Libya while the Yemeni, Syrian and Bahraini governments responded to discontent in their countries with increasing violence and Morocco introduced a new constitution. Of course such protests were not limited to North Africa and the Middle East; as early as January similar protests against corruption and authoritarianism were seen in Gabon before spreading to Mauritania, Djibouti, Uganda, Malawi, Swaziland and Senegal. Further north, protest movements emerged in Spain and Greece against government austerity measures and high unemployment, while Israelis took to the streets over the summer in record numbers in the name of social justice and protests grew in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. By the end of the year, the Occupy movement broke out in the US and Canada against the large involvement of money in politics and the lack of economic opportunity for the average citizen while large student protests over educational reform broke out in Colombia and Chile. And finally, in December protests against government corruption reached all the way to the doors of the Kremlin in Russia. So numerous and active has the protest calendar been over the past 12 months, it is quite possible to narrate the entire year only in major protest movements and events.
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