The Zambian people turned out in robust numbers to elect veteran opposition politician Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND) their next president, enabling him to comfortably clear the threshold required to avert a run-off.

To boost the Bretton Woods institutions, and parry challenges from Beijing, Washington should give up the World Bank presidency.

The stage being set for next month’s Zambian elections looks worryingly like a case study in ongoing democratic decline. Polls slated for August 12 will elect the country’s next president and members of its National Assembly. They will feature a tight contest between incumbent Edgar Lungu and his ruling Patriotic Front versus opposition stalwart Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development.

Last week, when U.S. Ambassador to Zambia Daniel Foote expressed his dismay about a Zambian court ruling sentencing two men to fifteen years in prison for the crime of conducting a same-sex relationship, Zambian President Edgar Lungu was quick to take offense.

A new study released this week by the Pew Center for the States is further proof of the folly of state tax incentives as a way to attract job-creating business – though in its usual even-handed fashi…