Africa, Elections | featured news

With robberies, kidnappings and other crimes rising, and the police appearing unwilling to go after criminals, some areas are seeing a rise in vigilante justice, with mobs sometimes killing suspects.

Egypt's election commission has released a final list of 13 candidates eligible to run in next month's presidential elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s disbarred presidential candidate, Khairat el Shater, said Wednesday that Egypt’s military rulers have no intention of truly handing power over to civilian rule, but instead are trying to rig the election outcome in their favor.

Egypt’s presidential commission announced Saturday that 10 of the 23 presidential hopefuls would be disqualified from the race. Those barred from running include the popular ultra-conservative Salafist preacher Hazem Abu Ismail; the Muslim Brotherhood’s top candidate and strategist, Khairat el Shater; and Omar Suleiman, spy chief under former president Hosni Mubarak.

Many residents in the sprawling dilapidated capital of Kinshasa feared the outcome would stoke new spasms of political violence.

Egyptian voters are awaiting results of the first stage of landmark parliamentary elections to be released Thursday, a day later than originally planned. The Freedom and Justice Party, a front for Egypt's powerful Muslim Brotherhood, said the bloc was in the lead following largely peaceful voting on Monday and Tuesday. But the party faces new competition from the al-Nur Party, an ultra-conservative group whose members follow the strict Salafi brand of Islam, as well as from a host of smaller parties.

Barely hours after polls opened in Tunisia's landmark elections, the line of voters waiting to enter a polling station in the capital's upscale Menzah neighborhood stretched around the block and out of sight.

Libya's new rulers plan to declare their embattled nation "liberated" Sunday, a move that will trigger a timetable for elections and the writing of a constitution for the North African nation, according to reports from Tripoli.

Nigerians headed to the polls Saturday to vote for president, a week after parliamentary elections were marred by violence and accusations of fraud in Africa's most populous nation.

Egyptians flocked to the polls on Saturday for the first time since President Hosni Mubarak was toppled, eager to vote in a referendum on constitutional reform which will determine how quickly the country can hold elections.