Central African Republic goes to the polls on Sunday with the president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, seeking a third term.
As many as 2.3 million registered voters will cast ballots for what observers are calling a quadruple election: votes for the presidency and parliament as well as local and municipal offices.
Seven candidates are on the ballot for president, including the former prime ministers Anicet Georges Dologuélé and Henri-Marie Dondra, who were given clearance to stand by the constitutional court after initially being banned. Dologuélé was the runner-up in the last two elections – 2015 and 2020 – while Dondra briefly served under the president.
The opposition hopes to tap into the frustrations of people living in a country where conflict is a daily reality. More than half a million people remain internally displaced within CAR, with a similar number living as refugees in neighbouring countries.
However, Touadéra, a former mathematics professor who has been in power since 2016, is widely expected to extend his run in office.
He went from an academic to a statesman after the then-president, François Bozizé, appointed him prime minister in 2008. Touadéra stayed in that role until 2013, when the administration was toppled by a rebel coalition, as sectarian violence triggered a civil war.
After a chaotic three-year transition, Touadéra ran for office, and the perception that he was neutral, independent of the ex-Séléka and anti-Balaka militias, powered his second-round victory.
A peace accord was signed in April with the two main rebel groups, and there is hope the country might be slowly stabilising. There had been “tangible progress to establish peace”, said Lewis Mudge, the central Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
Abdou Abarry, the head of the UN regional 0ffice for central Africa (Unoca) agreed, although added there were still challenges. “This is an opportunity to commend the remarkable recovery of the country, which is laying the foundations for peace consolidation among domestic actors and has undertaken measures to secure its borders, notably with Chad and Cameroon,” he told the UN security council this month.
Still, there are concerns that supply-chain issues and violence could disrupt the vote, especially in some rural areas. The UN peacekeeping mission Minusca, whose mandate was recently renewed until next year, is providing the security and logistical support the state’s crumbling infrastructure cannot manage.
There are claims the voter list was only published online, and not physically, even though most people have no internet access or electricity. The electoral issues have led to a band of opposition politicians announcing a boycott.
According to Mudge, the irregularities could “disenfranchise large segments of the population” and undercut the integrity of the process.
Many people worry that another Touadéra term – a 2023 constitutional referendum not only scrapped term limits but extended presidential mandates from five to seven years – would mean more free roaming for outside interests.
After taking office, Touadéra put faith in the Russian mercenary firm Wagner, which provides part of his private security, while Minusca and Rwandan troops helped secure the countryside. Since its arrival in 2018, Wagner’s influence within CAR has grown such that despite the founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death, Touadéra has resisted Moscow’s calls to integrate the military contractors within Africa Corps, its successor entity.
Rwanda, where the government often mentions the need for “African solutions to African problems”, has taken a different approach from Russia, focusing on smaller business interests in CAR.
In August, a pro-opposition media outlet claimed the government had evicted its own soldiers from a World Bank-funded youth training centre in Nzila, a village on the outskirts of the capital, Bangui, to clear the way for Rwandan troops to engage in a large livestock farming operation.
“Touadéra is determined to sell off the country piece by piece and sacrifice the youth of the Central African Republic,” the editorial read.
