DAKAR: Equatorial Guinea votes on Sunday in a general election in which President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the world’s longest-standing chairman, is anticipated to extend his 43-time rule at the helm of the bitsy oil painting-producing West African nation.
Over 40,000 people registered to bounce in the country of around 1.5 million. Choosers will also cast ballots to handpick 100 members of congress for the lower house, 55 of the country’s 70 legislators, and original mayors.
Spectators anticipate no surprises. The 80- time-old Obiang has always been tagged with over 90pc of votes in pates whose fairness transnational spectators have questioned given longstanding complaints by rights groups over a lack of political freedom.
He’s fighting for a sixth term against two opposition campaigners Buenaventura Monsuy Asumu, who’s running for the sixth time against Obiang, and Andrs Esono Ondo, who’s running for the first time.
“The presidential election is fully devoid of suspension,” said Maja Bovcon, a elderly Africa critic at threat intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
“The check of the borders and the importunity and apprehensions of opposition sympathizers have been paving the way for the extension of Obiang’s 43-time rule,” she said.
The United States and the European Union called for a free and fair election in separate statements, and raised enterprises over reports of bedevilments and intimidation of the opposition and civil society groups.
The government rejected the reports, calling them hindrance in its electoral process.
