Date: 26 June 2009
Time: 09h00 for 09h30 - 13h00 (A light finger lunch is included)
Venue: Jan Smuts House, East Campus, University of Witwatersrand

RSVP: by 23rd June to Ms Nondumiso Nqunqa
Tel: (011) 339 2021 Ext 117
Fax: (011) 339 2154
E-mail: [email protected]

Encouraging signs of democratic consolidation can be seen across the African continent. This is particularly evident in the raft of peaceful, free, fair and legitimate elections that are increasingly the norm. Moreover, a key test of democratic consolidation has been passed in that a number of African governments have been peacefully and legitimately elected out of power, or have been forced to share power via the ballot box.

For example, despite the acutely traumatic events preceding and following the March and June 2008 elections in Zimbabwe , the Movement for Democratic Change opposition emerged with a parliamentary majority and is now core to the unity government. In Ghana , the New Patriotic Party of President John Kufuor was successfully, if narrowly, ejected from power by the opposition National Democratic Congress in December 2008.

In the May 2009 elections in Malawi , both of the historically powerful political parties, the Malawi Congress Party and the formerly ruling United Democratic Front were rejected by the electorate in favour of President Bingu Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party.

South Africa's recent general election was characterised not simply by the victory of a rejuvenated African National Congress with a smaller majority, but also by the emergence of a new opposition party, the Congress of the People, that presented the ruling party with arguably its most credible opposition since 1994.

It may be too early to characterise these events as a trend, less still a sea change in Africa, but they are significant enough to warrant closer research, analytical attention and discussion. This SAIIA seminar is designed to make such a contribution.

Draft programme

09h00-09h30 Registration
09h30-09h45 Opening remarks
09h45-11h00 Session One: Changing parties in government
Moderated by Justice Malala (tbc) Ghana, Dr Emmanuel Debrah, University of Ghana, Legon (tbc)
Malawi, Professor Mustafa Hussein, Chancellor College, Malawi
11h00-11h30 Break
11h30-13h00 Session Two: Challenges and challengers to liberation movements in power
Moderated by Justice Malala (tbc) South Africa, Professor Sipho Seepe, President, SA Institute
of Race Relations Zimbabwe, Dr Brian Raftopoulos, Director of Research and Advocacy, Solidarity Peace Trust, and Research Fellow, University of the Western Cape
13h00 Lunch

This workshop is funded by the Ford Foundation