DAKAR (Reuters) – Equatorial Guinea votes on Sunday in a general election through which President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the world’s longest-standing president, is predicted to increase his 43-year rule on the helm of the tiny oil-producing West African nation.
Over 400,000 people registered to vote within the country of around 1.5 million. Voters will even forged ballots to elect 100 members of parliament for the lower house, 55 of the country’s 70 senators, and native mayors.
Observers expect no surprises. The 80-year-old Obiang has all the time been elected with over 90% of votes in polls whose fairness international observers have questioned given longstanding complaints by rights groups over a scarcity of political freedom.
He’s vying for a sixth term against two opposition candidates – Buenaventura Monsuy Asumu, who’s running for the sixth time against Obiang, and Andrés Esono Ondo, who’s running for the primary time.
“The presidential election is totally devoid of suspense,” said Maja Bovcon, a senior Africa analyst in danger intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
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“The closure of the borders and the harassment and arrests of opposition supporters have been paving the way in which for the extension of Obiang’s 43-year rule,” she said.
America and the European Union called for a free and fair election in separate statements, and raised concerns over reports of harassments and intimidation of the opposition and civil society groups.
The federal government rejected the reports, calling them interference in its electoral process.
Equatorial Guinea has had only two presidents since independence from Spain in 1968. Obiang ousted his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema in a coup in 1979.
Closing his campaign on Friday, Obiang said he decided to bring the presidential election forward by several months, and hold it along with the legislative and municipal elections, to lower your expenses as a consequence of the economic crisis.
Oil and gas production accounts for around three quarters of revenues within the OPEC member state. But output has dwindled in recent times to around 93,000 barrels per day (bpd), from around 160,000 bpd in 2015 as a consequence of maturing fields.
(Reporting by Bate Felix; Editing by Cooper Inveen and Frances Kerry)
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