FRICA Cambridge Analytica Played Roles in Multiple African Elections

WASHINGTON —
Long before its controversial roles in the 2016 Brexit vote and U.S. presidential election, Cambridge Analytica influenced elections in Africa.

The data mining company, under fire for its alleged use of 50 million Facebook accounts to shape campaign messages for then-candidate Donald Trump, also played a role in elections in Kenya and Nigeria, according to new reports.

The company’s first involvement in Africa dates to the general election in South Africa in 1994. That election marked the end of the apartheid era and the assent of Nelson Mandela to the presidency.

Widespread violence and deep-seated societal fractures had put the elections in jeopardy, Martin Plaut, a journalist and senior research fellow at the University of London’s Institute of Commonwealth Studies, told VOA.

“The 1994 election in South Africa was on an absolute knife’s edge. There was no reason to believe that it would go ahead without severe loss of life,” Plaut said.

The Inkatha Freedom Party, which represented the Zulu population — South Africa’s largest ethnic group — had not reconciled with the African National Congress (ANC). Amid divisions that were stoked, in part, by the old apartheid regime, hundreds died ahead of the election, Plaut said.

A political party — unnamed, but most likely the ANC — hired Cambridge Analytica to mitigate election violence, according to the company’s website. Their exact role in the election hasn’t been independently verified, but the violence subsided during and after the historic vote for Mandela and the ANC.