Election of the Weekend II: Central African Republic

Our weekend of elections in troubled African regimes continues in the Central African Republic, where former mathematician Faustin-Archange Touadéra will attempt to secure a third term as President. He was initially elected in 2016, which led to a significant withdrawal of international (primarily French) peace-keeping troops, intensifying the underlying crisis. This conflict-ridden country’s government is quite weak, and owes its precarious hold on power to Moscow, largely via the Wagner Group, which provides his personal security and much more, in exchange for access to a variety of valuable natural resources. Rwandan forces also provide security in exchange for resources in other parts of the country. The regime is widely regarded as among the most fragile in the world.

Touadéra is running under the banner of the “United Hearts Movement”, a coalition of parties and interests assembled earlier this year to support his re-election. He is challenged by Anicet-Georges Dologuélé, who briefly served as prime minister at the turn of the century before working for the Development Bank of Central African States, and eventually founding a political party, the Union for Central African Renewal, in 2013, under whose banner he is presently running. UCRA is a leading party in the formal parliamentary opposition to Touadéra’s coalition. Another former PM, Henri-Marie Dondra, is running under the banner of the Republican Unity Party (UNIR), a new reformist party that is not. Dologuélé has largely attacked Touadéra on economic mismanagement and poor governance grounds, being quiet about Russian influence. There’s plenty of fertile ground here, as his rule has included many dubious schemes involving crypto and bitcoin that did not go particularly well. Dondra has been more directly critical of Russian influence, has run more explicitly on reducing Russian influence and working to repair relations with France.

In a running theme for this weekend, Touadéra’s decision to run for a third term was controversial, enabled only by a referendum eliminating term limits he pushed through recently. Both leading opposition candidates’ being allowed to run were held up by Touadéra-aligned authorities but (unlike in Cote d’Ivoire) were ultimately approved. Dondra’s approval on the ballot was only approved in mid-November (he was accused, evidently falsely, of holding Congolese citizenship which would have rendered him ineligible to run). Dologuélé was briefly stripped of his citizenship in October, but it was recently re-instated for unclear reasons. (His citizenship was stripped on the grounds that he is a French citizen, a citizenship he had claimed to have renounced. Dual citizenship renders one ineligible for the Presidency, a new provision enacted by the same 2023 referendum that ended term limits. Another change from that referendum: whoever wins this election will have a seven year turn, up from five.)

Unsurprisingly, the campaigns have been dominated by security questions, as the tenuous peace secured by Touadéra’s Russian goon squad is geographically limited, and much of the country is still under constant threat from an array of armed groups. Poverty and economic growth are themes, as Touadéra’s wacky crypto nonsense haven’t done much to improve economic growth and development, which is remarkably slow for such an impoverished country. While elections in CAR appear to be genuinely competitive, the logistics of holding an election in much of the country outside of Wagner’s control are quite difficult and will likely effectively disenfranchise a large number of voters. Should Dondra pull off an upset, I suppose it’s theoretically possible he might attempt to stand up to the Russians, but it’s hard to imagine any such effort would be particularly successful.