Africa News Tonight - VOA Africa Voice of America (VOA)

Former U.S. President Donald Trump says the jury verdict convicting him of falsifying financial records to influence the 2016 election was rigged. Despite being a disgraced former president who was sent to jail, Jacob Zuma is turning out to be the political wildcard in South Africa's election following elections this week. Major relief agencies warn time is running out for millions of people in Sudan, who they say are at imminent risk of famine because the country’s warring parties are preventing aid from reaching them.

Results are trickling in from yesterday's South Africa election after a robust voter turnout. Africa has what it takes to transform its economies but faces rigid barriers including a unfriendly global financial architecture, say leaders who gathered this week for the Africa Development Bank’s annual summit. U.S. officials and cyber experts say Russia is already spreading disinformation ahead of the US election, using fake online accounts and bots to hurt candidates, and one expert says not enough is being done to fight the threat.

A record 27.79 million people are registered to vote in South Africa – the highest number to date – and the mood is upbeat at polling stations today. Francophone lawmakers from about 30 African states are meeting in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, to find a solution to the political instability in French-speaking African nations. Investigators using satellite imagery to document the war in western Sudan's Darfur region say 72 villages were burned down in April, the most they have seen since the conflict began a year ago.

In South Africa, polls forecast the governing African National Congress could win less than 50 percent of the vote for the first time in 30 years, forcing it into a coalition government. In Western Cape province the opposition Democratic Alliance accused rival parties of trying to intimidate South African voters in February by chanting violent slogans and brandishing weapons at voter registration locations. New numbers show life expectancy has increased in most parts of the world, with eastern sub-Saharan Africa showing the biggest gains over the past three decades.

As South African voters get ready to go to the polls on May 29th, the party known for its fight against apartheid faces dissatisfaction from some citizens who think the African National Congress has not delivered on its promises. Former South African President Jacob Zuma now is vowing to destroy the ANC, the party he went to prison for in the 1960s and 1970s. Kenyan President William Ruto tells VOA that his decision to send 1,000 police officers to help maintain peace in Haiti will not affect Kenya's security missions elsewhere.

Kenyan President William Ruto has been attending a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event today celebrating the economic ties between the United States and his nation. The Democratic Alliance, or DA, got almost 21 percent of the vote in South Africa’s last election in 2019, and surveys indicate it is unlikely to gain much more in next week’s vote. For decades, Nigeria’s large youth population has had low representation in politics, due, in part, to the high cost of running for office, but some youth-led organizations are trying to change that.