Equatorial Guinea Ruler Seeks Re-Election Against Weakened Opposition
Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo faces two opponents as he runs for a sixth term on Sunday, but critics see little hope for change in a country with next to no opposition.
Obiang has been in power for more than 43 years — the longest tenure of any living head of state today except for monarchs.
His re-election seems certain in one of the most authoritarian and enclosed states in the world.
In the run-up to today’s vote, pictures of Obiang and his Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), the country’s only legal political movement until 1991, have been splashed all over the capital Malabo.
Running against him is Andres Esono Ondo, 61, from the country’s only tolerated opposition party.
The secretary general of the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) is a candidate for the first time and the sole representative of the muzzled opposition.
Ondo has said he fears “fraud” during the ballot, during which voters are to elect a president as well as members of parliament.
Malabo has leveled its own accusations against the politician, in 2019 accusing him of planning “a coup in Equatorial Guinea with foreign funding”.
He was detained for 13 days in Chad that year as he hoped to attend a congress of the Chadian opposition.
The third candidate is Buenaventura Monsuy Asumu of the Social Democratic Coalition Party (PCSD), a historic ally of Obiang’s ruling party.
The former minister is running for the fourth time but has never done well in previous elections.
The opposition accuses him of being a “dummy candidate” without a chance.
