Comments by "peabase" (@peabase) on "Africa in focus: Is democracy dying in the Sahel? | DW News" video.

@mihiec It's Russia and China that are cashing in. Western weaponry tends to be on the expensive side for the Africans.
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Are you sure? China is at it now.
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@Polo-rn8ly Sure, China is worming its way into Africa, but Russia? Russia is going Africa on us rather than going to Africa.
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Ah, the old cliché. Go on, the US is a republic, not a democracy... yawn.
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You must be American. Parliamentary democracies are far less likely to experience the infighting and populism that you describe. In a true multi-party democracy, the parties have to keep it civil, or they can kiss a place in the next coalition government goodbye. Coalition agreements weed out the wildest promises. Voters actually read these agreements, so parties that overpromise will face disgruntled voters come next election. A disgruntled voter won't have to suck it up either, or switch allegiance to a party that's diametrically opposed to the previous one, since there's a broad spectrum of political parties and candidates to choose from. Africa's main problem is that political dividing lines closely follow ethnic divides. I know from my years of working there that many African countries simply don't make sense. It's as if their borders were drawn to ensure that they would fail once independent. Enlightened absolutism -- some even suggest the former colonisers should return to set things right -- isn't the solution either, because it would simply be unacceptable to those who're sidelined. There's no alternative to power-sharing, but how, that's the issue.
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@jaybee4577 Check out SIPRI's reports. Russia in particular is making a killing in Africa (pun intended). China comes second (but enjoys the largest customer base). France and the USA clearly lag behind the two.
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