How Democracy Declined in Africa in 2005

Looking back over the developments on the continent during 2005, BBC News reports that the democratic advances made during the 1990s (including the ending of apartheid) seem to have stopped and that "The winds of change blowing through Africa's palm trees have changed direction". BBC Africa Editor Patrick Smith says there's been "a reversion to political relativism in Africa which tolerated the worst tyrants and kleptocrats on the principle that every regime has something to hide ... Many opposition movements are weak and divided." Read more...

With Chad declaring war on Sundan, Ethiopia and Eritrea bickering at each other again, and fighting continuing in the DRC, you have to wonder what horrors 2006 might bring.

See also:
• BBC News: 2005 in Africa in Photos
• BBC News: 2005 in Africa in Cartoons