By Jean Koena, BANGUI
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic went to the polls Sunday in a highly anticipated vote on a new constitution that would remove presidential term limits.
President Faustin Archange
Touadera wants to extend presidential terms from five to seven years and remove
the previous two-term limit, enabling him to run again in 2025.
The new constitution would
replace the one adopted at Touadera’s inauguration in 2016, when the country
was in a civil war and 80% of it was not under state control. If the new
constitution is passed, it could entrench the ruling party’s power
indefinitely, analysts say.
“This referendum basically
confirms the fears of authoritarian drift” in Central African Republic, said
Enrica Picco, Central Africa project director with the International Crisis
Group. The new constitution would weaken checks on the executive by opposition
parties, closing the space for Central Africans to participate in democratic
decision-making, she said.
The proposed changes also would
lift requirements that executive decisions be debated by the legislature and
would permit Central Africans with dual nationality to vote.
The
mineral-rich but impoverished nation has faced intercommunal fighting since
2013, when predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power and forced
then-President Francois Bozize from office. Mostly Christian militias later
fought back, also targeting civilians in the streets. The United Nations, which
has a peacekeeping mission in the country, estimates the fighting has killed
thousands and displaced over a million people, one fifth of the country’s
population.
When Touadera won re-election
in 2020, barely a third of Central Africans made it to the polls, largely due
to threats of violence by rebel groups. Touadera’s government has relied on
support from U.N. peacekeepers, soldiers from neighboring Rwanda and Russian
mercenaries from the Wagner Group to keep rebels out of the capital Bangui.
“Now that there is peace … the
time has come for us to take action,” said Fidel Gouandjika, a presidential
adviser.
Opposition groups accuse the
ruling party of making a draft of the new constitution publicly available too
late for people to make informed decisions, less than three weeks before the
referendum, said Picco.
Together with opposition
parties they are calling on Central Africans to vote against the proposed
constitution, or abstain from the referendum.
“Touadera wants to see himself
as an emperor, and he wants to make our country what he wants, not what Central
Africans want,” said former Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye.
The preliminary results of the
referendum are expected to be announced in just over a week, to be finalized by
the constitutional court in late August.
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