Men sit blindfolded after being rounded up by the Somali Police Force, to be screened during an operation aimed at improving security in Mogadishu, May 21, 2013. The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali Police Force conducted an overnight operation in the Wardhiigley district of Mogadishu, in an attempt to weed out members of the Al-Shabaab extremist group. Tobin Jones/AU-UN IST/Reuters
Djibouti soldiers serving in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) display weapons and parade suspected al-shabaab members during a patrol in the south central town of Beledweyne in Somalia, May 9, 2013. Somalia's armed forces have not received 'a single bullet' despite the partial lifting of a UN arms embargo because the East African country lacks funds, its defense minister said. Feisal Omar/Reuters
Forensic scientists and doctors prepare for the exhumation of a mass grave site on the grounds of a mosque, in the Yopougon district of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, April 4, 2013. Officials began exhuming dozens of mass graves dating back to the country's 2011 postelection violence. Emanuel Ekra/AP
Adama Fofana (r.) who says two of his brothers were killed in post-election violence and their bodies dumped in a mass grave, watches the televised trial of former President Laurent Gbagbo, in his family home in the Yopougon neighborhood of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Feb. 19, 2013. Emanuel Ekra/AP
Newspapers with headlines like 'We've killed 7 foreign hostages' are for sale on a street in Kano, Nigeria, March 10, 2013. The UK military says its warplanes, recently spotted in Nigeria's capital, were there to move soldiers aiding the French in Mali, not to rescue kidnapped foreign hostages. A radical Islamic group called Ansaru used the planes, in part, as an excuse for claiming it killed seven foreign hostages. Sunday Alamba/AP
A woman tries to get reception on her mobile phone in Maiduguri, after the military declared a 24-hour curfew over large parts of the city in Borno State, May 19, 2013. Nigeria's military said it had killed 10 insurgents and arrested 65 more as part of an offensive meant to wrest back control of parts of its remote northeast from an Islamist group seen as the main security threat to Africa's top oil producer. Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
Soldiers stand during a parade in Baga village on the outskirts of Maiduguri, in the north-eastern state of Borno May 13, 2013. Tim Cocks/Reuters
A soldier from the Seleka rebel coalition stands guard during Friday prayers at a mosque in Bangui March 29, 2013. Central African Republic's new President Michel Djotodia, who seized power last week, said he would review resource deals signed by the previous government and promised to step down at elections in 2016. Ange Aboa /Reuters
A woman sits amongst the ruins of the burnt Bama Market, which was destroyed by gunmen in an attack in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, April 29, 2013. Gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades attacked a police station and a bank in northern Nigeria, killing three policemen and two civilians, authorities said, in a region struggling to control an Islamist insurgency. Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
People wait in line to cast their ballots in front of a polling station in Kenya's town of Gatundu on March 4, 2013. Polling stations opened up to Kenyans for a tense presidential election that will test whether the east African nation can repair its damaged reputation after the tribal blood-letting that followed a 2007 poll. Marko Djurica/Reuters
Leader of the Lord's Resistance Army Joseph Kony (l.) speaks to journalists after a meeting with UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland (unseen) at Ri-Kwamba in southern Sudan in this November 12, 2006 file photograph. Stuart Price/Reuters
Kenyans wait in line to cast their vote in the Kibera slum in the capital Nairobi on March 4, 2013. Steve Crisp/Reuters
An elderly lady walks with a cane to cast her vote in the Mutumo primary school near Gatundu, north of Nairobi, in Kenya, March 4, 2013. Multiple attacks against security forces killed at least 12 people as Kenyans waited in long lines to cast ballots. Ben Curtis/AP
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe looks on during the annual conference of his ZANU-PF party in Gweru, west of the capital Harare, December 7, 2012. Africa's oldest leader denied accusations by the rival Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that ZANU-PF was playing dirty ahead of the presidential and parliamentary polls. Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
A Zimbabwean policeman struggles to confiscate a banner from protesters March 22, 2013, as they demonstrate against the continued detention of Zimbabwe's top rights lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa. Her jailing and the detention of members of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's office she was defending have been described by rivals of longtime President Robert Mugabe as a campaign of intimidation ahead of elections scheduled around July. AP
A woman shows her ink stained index finger after casting her vote during a referendum in Harare, Zimbabwe, March 16, 2013. The country is holding the referendum on a new constitution which will pave way for the adoption of the draft constitution as the country prepares to hold elections later in the year. Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP
Congolese M23 rebel president Jean Marie Runiga walks with his security guards near the Congo-Uganda border town of Bunagana Dec. 5 2012. M23 rebels completed their withdrawal from the strategic eastern city of Goma but they could still be seen in positions three kilometers from Goma airport. Jerome Delay/AP
A Congolese woman hugs an FARDC government soldier as they arrive in Goma, eastern Congo, Dec. 3, 2012. Eleven African countries signed a United Nations-drafted peace deal, Feb. 24, 2013, to stabilize the troubled Central African country of Congo, where rebels allegedly backed by neighboring countries last year threatened to oust the government. Congo's neighbors collectively promised not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congo or to tolerate or support armed groups. Jerome Delay/AP
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir waves to the crowd during his arrival from Saudi Arabia at Khartoum Airport after returning from vocal cord surgery in the kingdom on Nov. 14, 2012. Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters
Political prisoners walk out after their release from Kober Prison in Khartoum, Sudan, April 2, 2013. Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on April1 ordered the release of all political prisoners, a move cautiously welcomed by the opposition in the tightly-controlled African country. Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters
Opposition politicians say President Robert Mugabe is using a constitutional court's call for an early date to achieve an unconstitutional outcome.
For most of this year no one knew if or when the most important election in Zimbabwe’s history would actually take place. There's been an on-again, off-again cat-and-mouse game led by President Robert Mugabe.
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