The EconomistFebruary 22nd 2020 Middle East & Africa 472
1Turnout among the young is strikingly
low, no matter where they live. In its most
recent election survey, Afrobarometer, a
pollster, found that only 59% of 18- to 25-
year-olds voted, compared with 80% of
people who were 35 or older. Youngsters
everywhere tend to vote less frequently
than their grandparents. This matters far
more in Africa, because 60% of the popula-
tion is under 25, whereas in Europe just
25% are of a similar age. One reason why
young Africans vote less is that registering
for the first time can be confusing. Another
may be that many of them (42% of 18- to 25-year-olds, according to Afrobarometer)
plan to emigrate, so they give up on seeking
to improve things at home.
Still, some politicians do try to shake
things up by targeting youngsters in the
cities. Bobi Wine, a singer turned opposi-
tion politician in Uganda, is doing so
through music. “We are the youngest pop-
ulation in the world, we stand a chance,” he
sings in “Zukuka” (Wake Up), a recent hit.
“If we only come together we can change
our destiny.” For that to happen, voter reg-
istration, gerrymandering and even tax
collection may need to change first. 7A
historian remarked, of the an-
cient Persian postal system, that
“neither snow nor rain nor heat nor
gloom of night stays these couriers from
the swift completion of their appointed
rounds.” Snow is not much of a problem
in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but
dozens of rebel groups make delivering
the mail rather difficult. So do bad roads
and a dysfunctional government.
The main post office in Goma, a city of
2m in eastern Congo, is a vast rectangle
with turret and colonnade, built by the
Belgian colonial government in 1955.
Inside it a worker tips a sack of letters
from Kinshasa, the capital, onto a table.
He sorts them into wooden lockers ac-
cording to their destined village, town or
region. Most will never get there.
The post office’s director, Dominique
Molisho, reckons that only 40% of letters
reach their recipients. Many houses in
Goma do not have addresses, he ex-
plains. Moreover, people move often.
Matters are even trickier outside the city
in the rest of North Kivu province, an
area larger than Switzerland where more
than 40 rebel groups lurk in the bush.
Just nine out of the province’s 19 post
offices are still open. The rest have been
looted or abandoned. Some were used as
headquarters by rebel groups. In 2013 the
m23, a Rwandan-backed militia, occu-
pied one in Rutshuru. Troops from an-
other militia, the fdlr, often slept on the
floors of the Masisi branch. Back in 1996
Laurent Kabila, a Rwandan-backed war-
lord who marched on Kinshasa and
declared himself president, used the
Goma post office as his recruitment
centre. Gunmen tend to leave little in-
tact, says Mr Molisho. They rip out doors
and shutters and use them for firewood.
Rural Catholic missionaries some-
times help, picking up bundles of postevery week and pinning letters to the
windows of parish buildings, where
villagers come to collect them. The mis-
sionaries also sell stamps, and take
letters to Goma on their return trip.
In its heyday, 100 years ago, the postal
service was one of the most desirable
employers in Congo. “Back then, every-
one wanted to work here,” says Mr Mol-
isho. Today its glory is as faded as the red
paint on the walls of the Goma branch,
where staff have not been paid for a year.
They make ends meet by leasing adjacent
land to small businesses.
Still, they are proud. “A letter is a
letter, nothing can replace the post,” says
Martin Wema, the immaculately dressed
finance director. Before leaving, your
correspondent is asked to leaf through a
dusty pile of letters addressed to aid
workers in Goma, in case she happens to
know any of them. After spotting two
familiar names on envelopes dating back
a year she is sent away with a handful.The postman never rings at all
Delivering letters in CongoGOMA
Obstacles include unnumbered houses and innumerable rebelsDeliver the letter, the sooner the betterO
nce fetedas liberation heroes, South
Sudan’s ageing leaders are now better
known for fighting each other and failing
to make up. The country won indepen-
dence from Sudan in 2011, after a referen-
dum, and plunged into civil war two years
later. Since then, President Salva Kiir and
his former deputy turned nemesis, Riek
Machar, have struck no fewer than 12 agree-
ments, none of which brought lasting
peace. On February 22nd the two sides are
supposed to form an interim government
of national unity—nine months and two
missed deadlines behind schedule. Many
observers worry it will be Groundhog Day
for South Sudan. But as the deadline ap-
proaches there are tentative signs that this
time it might not.
Mr Kiir and Mr Machar (pictured on
next page; Mr Kiir in a hat) both belonged to
the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement,
the political arm of the rebel army that
fought for independence. Rivalries be-
tween the two men and their respective
tribes—Dinkas and Nuers—have roiled the
country for years. A peace deal signed in
2015 saw the return of Mr Machar to the
capital, Juba, to take up his post as vice-
president in a coalition government. But in
2016 fighting erupted again and Mr Machar
fled. It has led to hundreds of thousands of
deaths and the flight of more than a third of
the population.
Since September 2018, when the latest
peace agreement was signed, violence has
subsided. Rebel generals visit government-
held towns, aid reaches most of the coun-
try and civilians can move about more or
less unhindered. The hope is that this will
allow Mr Machar to return to Juba again as
vice-president. Rebels and government
forces are to be integrated into a national
army of 83,000 men and elections are to be
held in three years.
Prospects brightened following dip-
lomatic pressure from neighbouring coun-
tries and threats of more sanctions from
America. On February 15th Mr Kiir an-
nounced that he had cut the number of
states from 32 to ten. This is seen as a big
concession. The opposition has long de-
cried the Dinka-dominated government’s
unilateral division of South Sudan into 28
states (later 32) as ethnic gerrymandering.
“Everyone is hopeful now,” says Jale Rich-
ard of Eye Radio, a broadcaster in Juba. It
also helps that some rebel groups that were
not part of the current peace agreementADDIS ABABA
But the path is a fraught oneSouth SudanInching towards
peace