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African press review 6 June 2015

Presidents with problems is a fair summary of this morning's African front pages. The men who currently look after Burundi, Rwanda and South Africa are all in the wars. But at least Nigeria's new man at the helm, Muhammadu Buhari, has something like a window of opportunity.

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A spokesperson for Burundian leader Pierre Nkurunziza has called for "a frank and constructive dialogue" with opponents who have driven weeks of street protests against Nkurunziza's decision to stand for a third term.

Analysts say the comments indicate a more conciliatory stance by the authorities, who have previously said the matter of campaigning for a third mandate was not up for discussion.

Rwanda’s opposition Democratic Green Party has filed a lawsuit demanding the Supreme Court in Kigali block any move by parliament to change the constitution to allow President Paul Kagame to run for a third term.

Kagame, whose second seven-year term ends in 2017, has said he personally opposes the lifting of the two-term limit but is open to staying on if people convince him.

Kagame and his government have been criticised by rights groups for stifling media and political freedoms.

Article 101 of Rwanda’s constitution says the president’s seven-year term can be renewed once and "under no circumstances" should a person hold the office of president for more than two terms.

Jacob Zuma in South Africa has survived a threat to cut his salary.

Opposition parties in the Pretoria parliament are reported in BusinessDay to have reacted with fury when the ruling African National Congress (ANC) proposed a motion to increase President Jacob Zuma’s salary by five per cent to the rand equivalent of 200,000 euros per year.

The opposition argued that spending at the president's private home at Nkandla already represented a 100-year salary advance.

Freedom Front Plus chief whip Corné Mulder proposed a counter motion that the president’s salary be reduced to just one rand (about seven euro centimes) per year. That motion was defeated.

Not even vice-presidents are safe this morning, with the Kenyan Daily Nation reporting that William Ruto is still not off the hook at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Holland.

Ruto is on trial for his alleged part in the violence which followed the 2007 Kenyan presidential election.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wants the court to allow her to use the prior recorded testimonies of witnesses who were declared hostile by the court after they turned around and recanted their earlier statements to investigators.

The Nation says this debate could delay Ruto’s planned filing of a no-case-to-answer motion for several days or months or even see the case spill over to 2017, the next Kenyan election year.

The main story in the Kenyan Standard reports that high-stakes lobbying, secret deal-cutting, and intense politics with a shade of executive pressure engulfed the corridors of the National Assembly yesterday as MPs worked out the details of the annual budget due next week.

The session was held behind closed doors.

Nigeria is the focus of an opinion piece in South African financial paper, BusinessDay.

According to investment risk analyst Ian Betts, criticism of Nigeria as a place to do business is widespread but misplaced. The scaremongers say the country is unstable, with a crumbling economy and threats from terrorist groups. They point to oil shortages, collapsing crude prices, the ferocity of the Boko Haram terrorist group and rampant corruption.

But Betts says this ignores what sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economy offers to foreign corporations and investors.

President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn into office last week in the first peaceful handover of power between elected civilian leaders in the country’s 16-year democratic history. This is a sign of political progress and stability. The improvements are underlined by the commitment of Buhari's party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to raise governance standards by tackling insecurity, economic mismanagement and systemic corruption.

Nigeria, the sixth-fastest growing economy in the world, is among the largest recipients of foreign direct investment in Africa.

Betts ends his article by saying that the challenges the APC and the new president face are daunting. But Buhari’s inauguration should be heard as a starter gun for foreign direct investment, to help Nigeria take up its long-awaited role as an engine for growth and democracy in Africa.

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