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FILE PHOTO: Former President, Goodluck Jonathan The Peoples Democratic Party remains Nigeria’s strongest and biggest party despite losing the 2015 presidential election, and will win the next general election, former President Goodluck Jonathan has said. Mr. Jonathan said current efforts at reforming the party are “a clear sign” the PDP will win in 2019. The former president said this on Monday in Abuja while receiving a report from the Strategy Review and Inter-Party Affairs Committee of the PDP. “Yes we lost the presidential election but that doesn’t diminish us. Every other party still knows that PDP is a leading party,” said Mr. Jonathan who received the team in his House in Abuja. “Losing the presidency is something temporary. We should be able to get that position back as long as we are able to get our acts together. I am happy that you people are working towards that,” he said. Mr. Jonathan was the party’s candidate in the 2015 election, but lost to the then opposition ca

Votes cast by Somali parliamentarians are counted in the first round of the presidential election on Wednesday in the capital, Mogadishu. Farah Abdi Warsameh/ AP A surprise winner has been declared in Somalia's presidential election — Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, a former prime minister and the popular favorite who was running against the incumbent president. Somali lawmakers cast their votes in a heavily fortified airport in a country plagued by regular militant attacks. Twenty candidates were  whittled down to three  after the first round — including the incumbent, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who had been accused of vote-buying. According to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Somalia, Mohamud won the most votes in the first round, followed by Farmajo, a former prime minister and the eventual winner. "And even though the process was rife with corruption from all sides, a vote for Farmajo is seen as a vote against corruption," as NPR's Eyder Peralta reports from Nairobi, Ke

Vladimir Putin wants to extend his influence beyond the ballot box and into the very fabric of our public life. We must take action before it’s too late  Illustration by Sébastien Thibault The Russian  hacking of the Democratic National Committee  (DNC) and members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign is being treated too much like a novelty and not enough as a serious and persistent security threat. The problem becomes more urgent as we see it spread to other countries. WikiLeaks, which disseminated stolen DNC documents, announced last week that it would turn its attention to France, and has released material relating to presidential candidates  François Fillon  and Emmanuel Macron, opponents of Marine Le Pen. US intelligence agencies found  clear linkge between Wikileaks and the Russian state; we have to assume Russia will use these to undermine Vladimir Putin’s arch-nemesis, Angela Merkel, when she faces the far-right Alternative für Deutschland at the polls in September. But there’s

France's far-right party leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday told thousands of flag-waving supporters chanting "This is our country!" that she alone could protect them against Islamic fundamentalism and globalization if elected president in May. Buoyed by the election of President Donald Trump in the United States and by Britons' vote to leave the European Union, Le Pen's anti-immigration, anti-EU National Front (FN) hopes for similar populist momentum in France. With hitherto favorite Francois Fillon, a conservative, embroiled in scandal over his wife's job, and rising centrist star Emmanuel Macron as yet untested, Le Pen's FN says it can thwart polls that see her losing in a second round run-off. "What is at stake in this election ... is whether France can still be a free nation," Le Pen told supporters at her campaign launch rally. "The divide is not between the left and right any more but between patriots and globalists." In 144 "