The ‘Turn the Page’ collective, whose members include Emmaus Africa and Emmaus International, is calling for democratic handover of power in Africa and has just published its first report. The report will be used as part of a campaign to “turn the page on authoritarian regimes in Africa”.
At the end of last year, Emmaus Africa and Emmaus International joined the ‘Turn the Page’ collective, which launched the campaign of the same name. The aim is to support African grassroots movements with their calls for a democratic handover of power in their countries.
Earlier this month, the collective published a report to evaluate the current situation in Africa. It reveals, for example, that “88% of Togolese and 87% of Gabonese people have only ever known one family in power”. The report brings together a significant amount of information, which will be used to lobby African and European institutions for a democratic handover of power in Africa.
The report makes several recommendations and calls for:
- African leaders “to ensure free, fair and transparent elections are held within the timeframes established by the Constitution”
- the African Union, the European Union and their member states “to clearly state their opposition to any constitutional amendments and to encourage and protect civil society stakeholders and human rights activists”
- candidates who wish to embody this change “to ensure transparency of the state's budget, contracts with multinationals and profits made by exploiting natural resources and the participation of populations in developing and implementing public policy”.
The report will also enable African citizens to make their voices heard and make known their initiatives in the media – particularly media in the western world. The world needs to hear that “African citizens want to turn the page on authoritarian regimes. And control their own destiny”.
Read the collective’s report (in French):
In Africa, like elsewhere, if there is no handover of power, there is no democracy
