The head of State of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, who has been leading the country for 43 years, won the presidential elections on November 20 with 94.9% of the "validly cast" votes, according to the total results published this Saturday by the National Electoral Board.
Obiang, 80 years old and the president with the longest time in power in the world, received 405,910 of the 411,081 valid votes as a candidate for the government Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), which participated in the elections in coalition with 14 political formations.
With these data, the National Electoral Board proclaimed Obiang "solemnly elected president of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea for a new seven-year term," said the Minister of the Interior and president of the electoral body, Faustino Ndong Esono Ayang, at the headquarters of his department in the capital, Malabo.
The country has known only two presidents since its independence from Spain in 1968: Obiang and his uncle Francisco Macías, whom he overthrew in a 1979 coup.
In second place was the general secretary of the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS, the only truly authorized opposition party), Andrés Esono, who won 9,684 votes. In third and last position was the leader of the Social Democratic Coalition Party (PCSD, traditionally related to the PDGE), Buenaventura Monsuy Asumu, with 2,855 votes.
Esono, leader of the only truly authorized opposition party and the president's main rival, rejected Obiang's victory on Saturday. "We already knew that Obiang was going to do it. He himself does not believe that one hundred percent of Guineans love him. For this reason, he has to openly steal the votes, because he does not believe in the popular will, but in the force of arms with which he came to power," the opposition leader told EFE by telephone.
Equatorial Guineans also elected the 100 parliamentarians of the Chamber of Deputies (Lower House) and 55 of the 70 members of the Senate (Upper House), as well as the country's municipal representatives. The PDGE obtained 100 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 55 in the Senate, as well as 588 councilors without the CPDS and PCSD getting any representation in those votes.
The definitive results must be validated by the Constitutional Court, indicated the Minister of the Interior, who estimated the participation of the voters at 98%.
The small Central African country, with about 1.5 million inhabitants and the only one that speaks Spanish in sub-Saharan Africa, last Sunday held presidential elections scheduled for 2023, but which were brought forward to save costs -according to the Government- and make them coincide with the legislative and municipal
The day passed calmly, but the two rivals of the president were overshadowed by the denunciations of irregularities. Esono, 61, complained during election day of "massive fraud, even worse than on previous occasions." Likewise, Monsuy Asumu, 69, assured that "there are very marked irregularities."
These denunciations contrast with the preliminary report of the electoral observation mission of the African Union (AU), which this week affirmed that the elections complied with "international standards" and did not detect "tangible irregularities".
In past elections, Obiang has always won with more than 90% of the votes, although these results have been questioned in the past by the international community.
With Obiang at the helm, Equatorial Guinea has made large investments in infrastructure thanks to the country's oil wealth (one of the oil producers in sub-Saharan Africa), which is the main source of income for the State.
However, his detractors accuse him of having benefited himself and his relatives from the benefits of crude oil, while a majority of the Equatoguinean population lives in poverty. Human rights organizations also accuse the regime of being one of the most repressive.
The elections took place after the outlawed opposition party Ciudadanos por la Innovación (CI) suffered an assault on its headquarters in Malabo by security forces on September 29, after five days of siege. CI leader Gabriel Nsé Obiang was detained along with some 275 supporters in an operation that killed at least four civilians, according to authorities.
Likewise, Equatorial Guinea is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world, according to the NGO Transparency International (TI). "Obiang and his criminal mafia are not interested in the free and fair elections in Equatorial Guinea. We are talking about one of the most kleptomaniac governments in the universe. Staying in power to continue stealing is the main objective of that government." , the director of the human rights NGO EG Justice, the Equatoguinean Tutu Alicante, told EFE.
The country's vice president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang, known as "Teodorín" and famous for his life of luxury, has been implicated in legal proceedings in countries such as France, the United States and Switzerland for corruption cases. These judicial problems do not seem to prevent Nguema Obiang, also in charge of the defense and security of the State, from appearing as a possible successor to his father in the future.
