If we're including northern Africa, Tunisia would probably be a contender, although its people suffer from many of the same issues as Egypt's.

Anyway, on Zimbabwe, it looks like it's business as usual. Great depressing leads of our time:

QUOTE:
A crisis meeting of Robert Mugabe's security cabinet decided to block the opposition from taking power after what appears to have been a comprehensive victory in Zimbabwe's elections but was divided between using a military takeover to annul the vote and falsifying the results.

But HIV rates weren't the question. Stable democracy/respect for civil rights and economy was. And on democracy and civil rights, Egypt is not a good example.

And I don't think SA's government can be described as auhoritarian. And, for all my moaning above, the levels of corruption are not extraordinary; probably at the level with the US.

A pretty well known Zimbabwean cricket player I spoke to last year told me that Morgan Tsvangirai is a raging alcoholic. However he was very firmly of the opinion that the MDC were the lesser of two evils, if for no other reason that it would facilitate the massive international aid package that Zimbabwe is going to need to get by. He reckoned it was going to take 25 years to get back to the levels of prosperity they once knew.

There have been so many false dawns in democratic government in Africa, it's hard to know where to start. There are, to my knowledge, only two sub-Saharan African countries where power has *ever* changed hands via the ballot box: South Africa and Senegal.

Eritrea is one of the saddest examples. When the EPLF came to power, they looked really, really promising as an egalitarian democratic movement. But of course, they've turned into a very nasty one-party state (Michela Wrong's I Didn't Do It For You is a truly excellent account of this).

Uganda looked OK for awhile, but the likelihood that Museveni will ever leave power by democratic means seems pretty slim. Ditto Paul Kagame in Rwanda, though that one is perhaps a bit more understandable.

Of the rest, you're really just comparing how sick and brutal and venal the various ruling classes are. As PT said, Botswana does best in this respect, and a handful of others do OK (Tanzania, for instance, as well as - I think - Mozambique and Namibia).

Ah, I only saw the "stable, uncorrupt, prosperous" bit and missed the democracy part. Tunisia doesn't fare well on that front, although it does nominally have elections.

Namibia's SWAPO is showing signs of intolerance for the opposition. Sam Nujoma sounds increasingly like Mugabe, though to his credit he vacated the presidency when constitutionally required to do so. He's still pulling the strings though.

Yeah, I wasn't totally sure about Namibia. I guess this is par for the course from guys who were military commanders at one point. They didn't have a lot of opposition when they were in the field and they don't expect any when they come to power (Museveni, Kagame, Zalawi, Mugabe, Njoma).

Yeah, what's dispiriting is how singling out African countries as stable and relatively prosperous/well governed can often be a kiss of death- you could have held Zimbabwe up not that long ago, Ivory Coast as well.

Oh yeah, and echo that Michaela Wrong recommendation- her book about the Congo and the fall of Mobutu is great as well, though I forget the title just now.

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. I preferred the Eritrean book, though - I found she skirted the colonial period a little too much in Kurtz. It's a much better read if you've already got some grounding in the Congo, like King Leopold's Ghost, which is a very good book also.

What about Zambia? I never hear negative things about it in the news, and I did once read about a former President who resigned about 3 or 4 years ago for failing to control the AIDS crises, which he had promised to do prior to getting elected.

Good shout, perhaps, on Zambia. I think Zambia is another African country to have peacefully transferred power via elections, when Kenneth Kaunda was voted out about 15 years ago. I don't know much about it since then though- I think they were quite heavily involved in the Congo war, but who wasn't?

Yes, good call on Zambia. I had forgotten about them. And, upon a little research, I see that Benin has also had a democrativ transition.

Isn't Zambia (and Namibia and Botswana, actually) screwed by the SA power crisis?

Lots of South African friends seem very concerned for the future at the moment, but every time I go down there it feels like a fairly succesful and prosperous place, and one with increasing racial diversity, too. Even over the last two years it feels like I've seen substantially more black people eating in what had been almost all-white restaurants.

Apart from the power problems, and the Zuma/Mbeki corruption, it feels like it's somewhere still on the up.

It's interesting to wonder whether there's something of a democratic domino effect - the countries talked up recently have all been neighbouring, in Southern Africa. And I've heard vaguely good things (by African standards) about Malawi and Mozambique, too. An optimistic me would see Zimbabwe being part of an organic push of democracy and stability from the south of the continent (which, a cynical me would say, will come thoroughly unstuck when it reaches the DRC and Great Lakes region).

Yeah, I think you're right on all counts, Cyclist (what's with the self-deprecation though? You're monikers don't correspond with reality).

My moaning about SA is based in large parts on a feeling of betrayal because principles that were held in high regard in the struggle now are being corrupted.

Zambia is a good shout as well, though the quality of its democracy would not pass the quality control of those who demand highest standards, as far as I can tell.

oh so on a par with the UK then?

I don't think domino effects are actually proven to exist, are they? Wasn't it a concept created by McCarthyites in America to make people fear Communism?

Pan Tau - you're actually one of the most optimistic I know about SA's future. You're one of the few who's not thinking about finding potential exit routes.

As for the self-deprecation, why not? It's more tasteful than posturing willy-waving, I find.