African Dictators in Trouble

More panel notes to come on WeMedia. (I just got back to NY and have been catching up on sleep.) But in the meantime, check out recent articles on Global Voices about the unraveling of fellow dictators Lansana Conté in Guinea and Denis Sassou Nguesso in Congo-Brazzaville. As these regimes unravel with presumably weak legislative and judicial institutions, hopefully Guineans and Congolese will have the foresight to not focus efforts exclusively on building elections while neglecting institutions, a sentiment shared by Le Pangolin, one of the bloggers I cite, who says the Congolese opposition should shun elections-only change in favor of real in-depth change. (I'm not sure I'd go as far as he does but I do think elections alone don't do it as in the case of Haiti in the last 20 years.)

Links:

Guinea-Conakry: The End of a Dictatorship by Jennifer Brea.
Congo-Brazzaville: How Long for Sassou Nguesso? by yours truly.

Photo: "Chimp Dictators" taken on the streets of Colombia by Invisible Consequential

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