Poverty and dependence on foreign powers, main challenges for the future Central African president
By Issa Ben Rodri, from Bangui (RCA)
In power since 2016, Central African President Faustine-Archange Touadéra expects few surprises in the December 28 elections. Analysts stop just long enough to establish possible scenarios, except to venture the difference it will make with their followers. The latest constitutional reform no longer establishes term limits for presidents in Bangui.
Central Africans are called to vote on December 28 in three ways. That day, presidential, parliamentary and – for the first time in 40 years – local elections will be held, the latter divided into regional and municipal elections. These are the third elections after the political transition that ended at the end of 2015. During this decade, the country has suffered frequent ups and downs of violence, although during the last three years there have been fewer shocks and more stability.
In the 2020 elections, the president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, was elected in the first round with 53% of the votes, although due to the insecurity caused by rebel groups, only 35% of the population could vote. If in 2013 the Central African Republic (CAR) suffered violence from the Muslim-majority Seleka insurgents, at the beginning of 2021 the threat came from the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), a new rebellion, then led by former president François Bozizé, which absorbed former Seleka militiamen and other armed groups. As soon as Touadéra’s second term began, in 2021, the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner group launched a strong offensive – together with the then recently remodeled Central African Army – that managed, in many cases with methods that were not respectful of human rights, to expel the rebels from the cities they controlled and in which they had imposed their law.
The authority of the State is now visible in the country. In all its administrative centers there are prefects, sub-prefects, officials, judges, police, gendarmes and army, although one of the big problems continues to be the poor state of the roads, which makes communications and trade between different areas of the country difficult.
The peace agreements reached in April of this year with the three most important factions that made up the CPC have also contributed to improving security. With the help of Chad, the CAR managed to have some of its leaders relocated to other countries, such as Bozizé, exiled in Guinea-Bissau. In the peace negotiations, the Community of Sant’Egidio played a very important, although discreet, role. Since then, with the help of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the CAR (MINUSCA), thousands of former combatants have been disarmed and demobilized, although Russian mercenaries have absorbed some of their former combatants into their ranks. Many observers see these parallel recruitments as a risk factor for the future, because no one knows for sure how many chains of command there are in the Armed Forces today.
Peace, rights and poverty
One of the problems of the CAR is that, in its immense territory, several conflicts have always developed simultaneously and when things calm down in some areas of the country, they get worse in others. Currently, the two sources of violence are located in the southeast, where for two years a guerrilla formed by Zande ethnic fighters has been sowing insecurity, and in the northeast, in the prefecture of Vakaga, bordering Sudan, from where there are frequent incursions by armed men who set up ambushes, loot towns and sometimes attack positions of the Central African Army and MINUSCA.
In both areas, Wagner’s Russians and government soldiers try to contain these threats, although, as Yao Agbetse, a UN human rights expert, reported in October, both have carried out numerous arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial executions. His report is one of the rare documents on human rights published today in the CAR, where hardly any journalists or researchers come who risk entering remote areas. Just a year ago, a bill to control the influence of foreign agents, practically copied from a Russian law, sent a very worrying signal to international NGOs and human rights activists. The text was not adopted by the National Assembly, but it served as a warning to those who wish to investigate sensitive topics.
CAR’s problems are not limited to the field of security. According to updated UN data, it is the fifth poorest country in the world and its development indicators are dizzying: 37% of its population needs humanitarian aid, 65% live below the poverty line – less than two dollars a day –, 67% do not have access to drinking water, one in ten children will die before reaching the fifth year of life and 37% of them suffer from chronic malnutrition. Only 65% of children go to primary school, but only a quarter of them complete it. All this does not cease to surprise in a country very rich in natural resources: gold, diamonds or wood that today is exploited, above all, by Russian and Chinese companies. Last year, the Kimberley Process lifted the embargo on the sale of diamonds, without this having contributed to lifting the country’s economy significantly.
Despite these terrible indicators, the Government does not want to hear about a humanitarian emergency and is trying to sell its National Development Plan (2024-2028), which it presented in September at a donor conference in Casablanca (Morocco). Western countries distrust a government that has placed itself in the hands of Russia, but they do not want to tighten the rope too much and offer aid for development. For now, the only donor that has committed has been the European Union (EU), with 300 million dollars, far from the 12,000 requested by the Executive, while France maintains a military mission in the country, the EUTM, dedicated to the training of officers of the Armed Forces, and another to support the Police and Gendarmerie.
Unlimited
The most significant political event in recent years has been the replacement of the 2016 Constitution with a new one, approved in a referendum in 2023, whose main modification is the elimination of the limits on presidential terms, which were in two. Touadéra now has a free field to present himself as many times as he wishes. The CAR has adopted the same political model as the rest of the countries of central Africa, where three of its presidents – Obiang in Equatorial Guinea, Sassou-Nguesso in Congo and Paul Biya in Cameroon – are among the oldest in the world.
No one doubts that Touadéra is the great favorite among the ten candidates running for president, nor that his party, the United Hearts Movement, will obtain a large majority in Parliament. The unknown is whether he will win in the first round or if there will be a runoff. On November 14, the Constitutional Court validated seven candidacies, including that of Anicet-George Dologuélé, who was his great rival in the two previous calls.
The new Magna Carta prevents those with dual nationality from presenting their candidacy for presidential elections. Dologuélé, who had held French nationality since 1994, renounced it in August to be able to run, but when he registered with the Electoral Board, the state attorney general invoked a 1961 law that proclaims that Central African citizenship “is unique and is not compatible with another nationality” and that “it is automatically lost when another is acquired.” Many have pointed out that this law has never been applied and that numerous ministers and other high-ranking officials of the State have dual nationality, without anyone having ever declared them stateless.
Although the Constitutional resolution calmed the mood in the country, Dologuélé’s decision to run has caused strong tensions within the bloc of opposition political forces, which have accused him of being a traitor. After insistently requesting dialogue with the authorities since last year, the other opposition leaders have refused to participate in an election that they consider a farce. Now no one doubts that the candidacy will attract the votes of many dissatisfied Central Africans.
If the two previous elections were held, in general, in an environment free of violence linked to partisan rivalries, this time there are more risks and tensions, some of them within power itself. It is an open secret that Touadéra suffers from a serious illness that forces him to go to a clinic in Brussels every few months for medical treatment. Although it is a taboo subject, many fear that, if his condition worsens, the country could enter a phase of internal struggles for power.
Another source of tension has to do with the replacement of Wagner’s mercenaries present in the CAR with the Africa Corps forces, more controlled by the Russian Ministry of Defense. This is a condition that Putin has imposed on the Central African authorities and is scheduled to be carried out at the end of this year. If Bangui, until now, paid Wagner with gold and diamond mining concessions, Africa Corps would earn the State 10 million dollars a month, an amount that the CAR cannot afford. Many observers doubt that Wagner’s men will agree to meekly leave the country, leaving behind the substantial businesses that their network of mining and logging companies brings them. A conflict between Russian forces would be the worst possible scenario, and many are beginning to fear that it is not unlikely.
