Central Africa’s Touadera wins controversial re-election

BANGUI, Central African Republic: Central African Republic President Faustin Archange Touadera has won an outright election victory after a tense first round of voting in the coup-prone country, the electoral commission announced on Monday.

The December 27 presidential election, which coincided with legislative polls, took place as a coalition of armed rebel groups renewed an offensive that left thousands unable to cast their ballots.

Runner-up Anicet Georges Dologuele, who won 21.01 per cent to Touadera’s 53.9 per cent, labelled the vote a “farce”, telling AFP: “There were many irregularities and instances of fraud.”

Touadera’s government controls only about onethird of the former French colony, with militia groups that emerged from a conflict in 2013 controlling the remainder of the territory.

According to official figures, voting did not take place at all in 29 of the country’s 71 subprefectures and was curtailed in six others.

Last Wednesday, the opposition called for the vote to be annulled, calling it badly flawed.

On Monday, National Elections Authority (ANE) chief Mathias Morouba said Touadera, 63, won “an absolute majority” of the vote and had been “declared elected”.

According to the ANE, turnout had reached 76.31 percent.

The rebels, after threatening to disrupt the elections and “march on Bangui”, have been kept away from the capital so far by federal soldiers, UN peacekeepers and reinforcements sent from Russia and Rwanda.