Features

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Seven Labour politicians quit the U.K.’s main opposition party as Brexit cracked open the structures that have defined British politics for decades, just six weeks before the U.K. is due to leave the European Union. At a snap press conference in London, the members of Parliament stood up to explain why they had resigned in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party. Just five minutes earlier, they’d pressed the button…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, an advocate of Brexit, renewed his hotly debated wager against the British pound as U.K. lawmakers’ failure to agree on the divorce terms heightened concerns the country may crash out of the European Union without a deal. He soured again on the sterling’s prospects last month, betting that the currency will fall further in the event of a no-deal Brexit, Odey said in an interview Monday. The 180-degree…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari said the nation’s election commission had been incompetent after a vote scheduled for last weekend was postponed just hours before polling was meant to start. “The reasons why such incompetence manifests itself have to be explained,” Buhari, who’s seeking a second term, told a press conference Monday in Abuja, the capital. “After the election, we have to know who is responsible,” he said, adding the Independent National…

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zimbabwean central bank Governor John Mangudya threw paper files at Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube in an argument over how to handle the nation’s monetary policy, the Zimbabwe Independent reported, citing people it didn’t identify. The altercation took place at a meeting at the Treasury’s offices last week, the Harare-based newspaper said. After tossing the files at Ncube, Mangudya stormed out of the meeting and slammed the door behind him, leaving top government officials…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa)  – As U.S. forces prepare to oust Islamic State militants from their last foothold in Syria, the head of the U.K.’s foreign intelligence agency warned of the lasting threat from the group’s ideology. “We are not triumphant because I think from triumphant you get to hubris,” MI6 Chief Alex Younger told reporters in Munich on Friday. “This is a societal, generational problem that we face in the West and it can only…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Whether President Muhammadu Buhari or his main opponent, Atiku Abubakar, will win Nigeria’s election on Saturday has split analysts down the middle. Polls in Nigeria tend to be unreliable, given the difficulty of sampling a nation of 200 million people and factoring in rigging, which has marred almost every vote since Africa’s biggest oil producer got independence from the U.K. in 1960. Here are the forecasts of eight analysts, with four expecting that Buhari, a…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – When Nigerians go to the polls on Saturday, there’ll be much more at stake than the presidency and seats in the parliament of Africa’s most populous nation. Democracy is on the back foot in Africa, and a credible and widely accepted outcome will go some way toward offsetting negative perceptions of the world’s poorest continent. While most Nigerian elections since military rule ended in 1999 concluded acrimoniously, the last…