Presidential votes: CAR president seeks third term as Doumbouya eyes victory in Guinea

Voters in the Central African Republic (CAR) and Guinea cast their ballots for a new president on Sunday.

In CAR, incumbent Faustin-Archange Touadera is widely expected to win a third term after touting his success in steadying a nation long plagued by conflict.

Also, Mamady Doumbouya, a general who led the junta that seized power in Guinea four years ago, is projected to win the country’s presidential election.

Around 2.3 million people are eligible to vote in CAR, with parliamentary, municipal and regional polls taking place at the same time.

Escorted by members of the presidential guard and Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, Touadera arrived at a high school to cast his own ballot.

He urged people to vote “to allow our country to develop, to allow our country to regain peace and security”.

“It’s a very important issue,” Touadera, 68, told reporters.

Since Touadera was first elected in 2016, in the middle of a civil war, the CAR has seen unrest ease despite feuds between armed groups and the government in some regions.

Touadera is in pole position to win in a seven-strong field, after a new constitution was adopted in 2023, allowing him to seek a third term.

Part of the opposition has called for a boycott of the poll, condemning it as a sham and the lack of political dialogue.

Provisional results from the presidential election are expected on January 5.

The main challenger to Touadera for the presidency, Anicet-Georges Dologuele, voted at the town hall in Bangui earlier Sunday. He came in second place in the last two elections.

Afterwards, he expressed “confidence and humility”, calling on voters “to make the right choice so as not to regret it tomorrow and over the next seven years”.

Touadera was re-elected in 2020, in a vote marred by allegations of fraud and an uprising by six rebel groups.

Doumbouya set for victory in Guinea

Meanwhile, victory is all but assured for Doumbouya in Guinea. By running, the strongman is reneging on a pledge not to stand for office and to hand the country back to civilian rule by the end of 2024.

Instead, he has sought to silence dissent. All the main opposition leaders have been barred from standing in Sunday’s election.

Some 6.8 million people are eligible to choose between the nine approved candidates, including 41-year-old Doumbouya, who is running as an independent.

“I am here to fulfil a civic duty,” Colle Camara, a 45-year-old teacher, told AFP, as he cast his ballot in what he hoped would be a “peaceful” election. A steady stream of voters arrived as soon as polling stations opened in the capital.

A large security presence, including armoured vehicles, patrolled the streets, AFP journalists observed. Security forces said they “neutralised” members of an armed group with “subversive intentions threatening national security” early Saturday in the Conakry suburbs.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said Friday the campaign had been “marked by intimidation of opposition actors, apparently politically-motivated enforced disappearances, and constraints on media freedom”.

Guinea’s opposition called for a boycott of the vote, in a country rich in minerals but where 52 per cent of the population lives in poverty, according to World Bank figures.

Guinea experienced a rare democratic transition with the 2010 election of Alpha Condé, the country’s first freely elected president. Doumbouya overthrew him in September 2021.

Under Doumbouya, Guinea effectively “reverted to what it has essentially known since independence in 1958: authoritarian regimes, whether civilian or military”, Gilles Yabi, founder of the West African think tank, Wathi, told AFP.

Doumbouya looks set to win in the first round of voting, against eight relatively unknown remaining rivals. Provisional results could be announced within two days, according to election chief Djenabou Toure.

Guinea approved a new constitution in a September referendum, which the opposition called on voters to boycott. The new document allowed junta members, including Doumbouya, to stand for election and lengthened presidential terms from five to seven years, renewable once.

Opposition leader and former Guinean prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo has condemned the vote as “an electoral charade” aimed at giving legitimacy to “the planned confiscation of power”.

Diallo is one of three opposition leaders barred from standing in the vote by the new constitution.

Diallo is excluded because he lives in exile and his primary residence is not in Guinea. Former president Conde and ex-prime minister Sidya Toure, who also live in exile, are over the maximum age limit of 80.

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