President of Equatorial Guinea, who has led the country for 43 years, is re-elected with nearly 95% of the vote

With almost 95% of the votes, Teodoro Obiangwhich leads the Equatorial Guinea 43 years ago, he won the presidential elections on November 20, according to the total calculation released this Saturday, the 26th, by the National Electoral Justice. At age 80, the longest-serving president in the world, received 405,910 of the 411,081 valid votes as a candidate for the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), which ran in coalition with 14 other political parties. With these figures, the National Electoral Board proclaimed Obiang “solemnly elected president of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea for a new seven-year term”, reported the Minister of the Interior and president of the electoral body, Faustino Ndong Esono Ayang. Since becoming independent from Spain in 1968, the country only had two presidents: Obiang and his uncle Francisco Macias, whom he overthrew in a coup d’état in 1979. In the elections, the population also elected the hundred members of the Chamber of Deputies and 55 of the 70 members of the Senate, in addition to the municipal representatives of the country. The PDGE won all 100 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 55 in the Senate, in addition to 588 councillors, without the two other parties obtaining any representation in those polls. The elections were held after the banned opposition party Citizens for Innovation had its headquarters in Malabo raided by security forces on 29 September after a five-day siege.

With Obiang at the helm, Equatorial Guinea has invested heavily in infrastructure thanks to the country’s oil wealth (one of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest oil producers), the main source of state revenue. However, opponents accuse him of having appropriated oil profits and benefiting close people, while most citizens live in poverty. Human rights organizations also accuse the regime of being one of the most repressive. The final results must be validated by the Constitutional Court, said the interior minister, who estimated a 98% voter turnout. The small country in Central Africa, with a population of about 1.5 million inhabitants and the only Spanish-speaking country in sub-Saharan Africa, held presidential elections last Sunday, scheduled for 2023, but which were brought forward to save costs – according to the government – ​​and to coincide with legislative and municipal elections. Equatorial Guinea is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to the NGO Transparency International.

*With information from EFE