POLITICS-CAR: Junta Leader Swaps Khaki for Civilian Suit

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jean-Louis Gondamoyen

BANGUI, May 30 2005 (IPS) - A former military ruler is the new president of the Central African Republic (CAR), which has been plagued with political instability since emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa was deposed in 1979.

Francois Bozize was announced winner of the second round of presidential poll in the Central African Republic with 64.6 percent of the votes. Runner-up Martin Ziguele received 35.40 percent.

The final results of the May 8 poll, announced May 24 in the capital, Bangui, showed that 610,903 voters cast ballots for Bozize, while only 333,716 for Ziguele, a former prime minister.

The results were announced by Jean Willyboro Sacko, head of the national electoral commission.

Sacko declared Bozize the ‘’elected president of the Central African Republic for a five-year term as prescribed by the constitution”.

Bozize’s election legitimises his seizure of power in a military coup on March 15, 2003 against elected president Ange Felix Patasse.

After the results were announced, Bozize’s spokesperson, Cyriaque Gonda, told IPS the former military leader’s victory ‘’opens a new democratic era in the Central African Republic”.

But Ziguele, interviewed by IPS, doubted the validity of the vote. ‘’I doubt the newly-announced results. According to copies of data sent to me from all the polling stations by my representatives, I came out the winner,” Ziguele claimed.

Joseph Bendounga, a former mayor of Bangui who also ran in the elections, asked the constitutional court to annul the results.

‘’Threats and interventions by the armed forces into polling stations are palpable proof that the electoral code was violated. The code provides that elections held in such conditions be annulled,” Bendounga told IPS.

The night of the election, a group of pro-Bozize soldiers from the presidential guard took the results and the ballot boxes from some polling stations in Bangui to the electoral commission. Such acts were condemned by Ziguele supporters.

Bozize supporters also accused Ziguele and his followers of campaigning inside Bangui voting centres, well beyond the legal period set for campaigning.

Abel Goumba, a losing candidate in the first round, told IPS that he would not have approved the second round of voting.

‘’As you know, I demanded that the March 13 first round be annulled, pure and simple, because it was marred by multiple irregularities. For me, the second round was totally meaningless and served no purpose,” he said.

In the second round, Bozize enjoyed the support of Jean Paul Ngoupande and Charles Massi, the two candidates who came in fourth and fifth, respectively, in the first round.

Ngoupande told IPS that he threw his support behind Bozize due to the unanimous wishes of his supporters, who were seeking to bar Patasse’s party from returning to power. According to Ngoupande, Patasse’s party, which ruled the CAR from 1993 to 2003, ‘’had left painful memories” in the country.

Ngoupande and Massi had signed an agreement just before the second round campaign to seek a national unity government in case of a Bozize victory.

Ziguele, Bozize’s second-round rival, was unable to receive support from a coalition formed prior to the first round of all candidates opposed to Bozize.

The May 8 poll took place under generally calm and peaceful conditions, as did the entire campaign, according to international observers.

‘’We are in a position to state that the second round of elections is credible. But what we condemn is the behaviour of some members of the defence forces who made unauthorised entries into certain polling stations in Bangui and other cities,” Godfrey Mokanade, coordinator of national observers, told IPS.

In all, 977,730 voters, out of 1.452 million eligible, went to the poll.

Lamine Cise, the UN Secretary General’s envoy to the Central African Republic, told IPS after the final results were announced that it was good that the country ‘’resume democratic institutions”.

Lambert Zokwezo, an official of a human rights group, told IPS ‘’while democratic institutions will be established at the end of this electoral process, the struggle for individual and collective freedoms necessary to institute a true democracy in the Central African Republic will go on.”

The elections were supposed to restore security and stability to the landlocked country, which has been marred by violence and insecurity both under the Patasse and Bozize regimes.

Alleged human rights violations have been recorded, including rapes and massacres, which have gone unpunished.

The Central African Republic, with a population of 3.6 million people, has suffered decades of army revolts and coups. The tiny country, which gained independence from France in 1960, is one of the poorest in the world.