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2014 Tutu Fellow Linda Kasonde's non-profit, Chapter One Foundation, has partnered with Diamond TV to broadcast a series of election debates ahead of the national elections that will take place in August this year in Zambia.  The series began in January and ended in March 2021. 

It featured leading officials from the most prominent political parties in Zambia to discuss various issues. The TV series form part of Chapter One's civic education and human rights mission and set out to provide a space in which political candidates could share their public policy proposals and political opinions with potential voters. Additionally, the debate series provided a platform for potential voters to engage with candidates, comparing and contrasting their policies, and allowing for informative discourse that will hopefully result in voters making informed decisions during the August 2021 national elections.

On 6 February 2021, 2016 Tutu Fellow Succès Masra PhD, sought shelter within the US Embassy security perimeter in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena. The President of the National Human Rights Commission negotiated his exit and the US Embassy received assurances from the government of Chad that Succès would not be arrested if he left the embassy grounds and would be allowed to return home unhindered.  Succès refused this negotiated settlement for only himself and instead demanded the release of his fellow companions who were arrested and charged during protests. The United States issued a statement emphasizing their commitment to defending democratic values, but asked Succès to leave, none the less.

The US has also called on the government of Chad to respect the rule of law, to respect the right of the people to demonstrate, and to ensure a transparent and fair judicial process for those persons detained following protests demanding social justice and political change.

2019 Tutu Fellow Samson Itodo was appointed by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), for a three-year tenure beginning in 2021. International IDEA is an intergovernmental organization that supports sustainable democracy worldwide. The board of advisers of IDEA play the major role of advising the council of member states and the secretariat on matters of strategic importance.

Samson is the Executive Director of YIAGA Africa, a community of change-makers focused on building sustainable democracies in Africa. YIAGA promotes the principles of inclusion, justice, accountability and constitutionalism, which successfully lead the #NotTooYoungToRun movement.

2014 Fellow Zeinab Camara has run for office for her first time in the Guinean elections and won her seat in the National Assembly.  She stood for election in Boffa as a candidate for the governing party, Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen or RPG, and won her seat with 62.4% of the vote. She ran against Abdoul Aziz Keita, the UDG candidate. 

The elections took place on March 22nd - along with a constitutional referendum - after being postponed four times from the original date in January 2019. As of March 26th, the country was waiting for judicial validation of the results. 

The phenomenon of Donald Trump winning the United States presidential elections is tackled by Liberian academic and activist Robtel Neajai Pailey in an article for New African magazine - the cover of which is shown above - in her column Random Acts of Activism.  The 2010 Tutu Fellow examines the contentious US elections and its outcome in her piece Africa's lessons for Trump's America.  It begins by arguing that Trump's victory has exposed the emperor's nakedness and that Africa has much to teach Americans dismayed by the outcome of their election.

In the United States, she says that the least-qualified candidate of all time beat the most qualified through a deeply flawed electoral college system after an election marked by hate speech and mysogynistic vitriol.  By comparison, in her country, Liberia, a highly qualified septuagenarian, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, beat the hugely popular football star-turned-politican George Weah in a high-stakes runoff. With a 70% voter turnout in Liberia versus 56% in the US, Pailey says that the witty observation by Ghanaian scholar Dr. Takyiwaa Manuh was accurate when she encouraged Americans to consult Africa on 'how to trump your Trump.'

The full article can be read on page 28 of the January edition of New African.