The only certainty for elections in Equatorial Guinea is the victory of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Obiang, 80, has been in power for more than 43 years – the longest tenure of any sitting head of state other than monarchs.
Voting is compulsory in the small West African country that is a member of the CPLP, in an exercise that is a simulacrum of democracy and where there is virtually no opposition.
“The voting is going well. Everything is normal,” 53-year-old Norberto Ondo, a refrigerator repairman, told AFP at a polling station in the Semu district of the capital Malabo. “I hope that this election will bring us prosperity,” he said before the polls closed early in the evening and the counting of votes by a constituency of 427,661 voters began.
The first results are not expected until Monday at best.
“We are at peace,” José Serafin Obiang Sima, a nurse in her 30s, told AFP. He said Equatorial Guinea was the only country in the region “where young people thrive”.
The re-election of Obiang, who came to power in a coup in 1979, is all but assured in one of the most authoritarian and closed states in the world. Opposing him were Andres Esono Ondo – of the only tolerated opposition party, Convergence for Social Democracy – and Buenaventura Monsuy Asumu, of the Social Democratic Coalition Party, a historic ally of Obiang’s ruling party.
Asumu, a former minister, is seen as a “false candidate” by the opposition without a chance.
Ondo called the regime a “dictatorship” and predicted “mass fraud” in Sunday’s elections for the presidency, parliament and local authorities. “The government rules only in the interest of the Obiang family,” he recently said.
The discovery of offshore oil in the mid-1990s made Equatorial Guinea the third richest country in Africa in terms of income. per person🇧🇷 But wealth is concentrated in few hands and four-fifths of the population of 1.4 million live below the poverty line, according to the latest figures from the World Bank.
In the run-up to the poll, Malabo hung posters of Obiang and the PDGE, until 1991 the only legal political movement. The other candidates were all but ignored by the state media.
Israeli bodyguards
The capital was under heavy security all day and the streets were deserted except around the polling stations. The authorities banned the sale of alcohol and the movement of all vehicles except official ones.
Obiang voted in downtown Malabo around noon. His vehicle was surrounded by heavily armed soldiers, Israeli bodyguards and a personal guard made up of members of his own clan.
As in every election year, security forces staged arrests. State media justified the crackdown as an attempt to counter a “failed conspiracy” by the opposition to carry out attacks in Malabo and the economic capital of Bata.
In September, security forces raided the home of one of Obiang’s main opponents, Gabriel Nse Obiang Obono. According to the government, four activists and a police officer were killed. Dozens were injured and more than 150 were arrested, including Obono.
Leading human rights activist Joaquin Elo Ayeto told AFP the incident had “discredited” the election process. “The ruling party needs an ‘opposition’ to hold mock elections,” he said. Allegations of fraud have marred previous polls.
Obiang is regularly re-elected with more than 93 percent of the vote. In 2016, the PDGE won 99 of the 100 seats in the House of Representatives and all 70 seats in the Senate.
Opposition members, most of whom are in exile, had urged citizens not to go to polling stations.
Equatorial Guinea has a reputation for being a corrupt country and is ranked 172 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index.
Obiang’s son, Vice President Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue, has been embroiled in scandals abroad. In 2020, a French court sentenced him to a three-year suspended sentence and a fine of 30 million euros for embezzling public funds. His collection of luxury cars was auctioned and most of the money went to social projects.
Source: DN
