President Allowed To Remain Office As Long As He Likes In CAR Referendum

A referendum allowing the President of the Central African Republic (CAR) to run for office as many times as he likes has been labelled a farce by opponents.

The electoral authority says 95% of voters backed constitutional changes; critics say turnout was as low as 10%.

CAR is still in the throes of a civil war that has uprooted a third of all people from their homes. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra is backed by Russian Wagner mercenaries.

The proposed new law would scrap the current two-term limit and extend the presidential mandate from five to seven years.

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It would also ban politicians with dual citizenship from running for president unless they renounce the other.

Touadera’s rivals say he wants to remain “president for life” – under the increasingly visible protection of private Russian mercenary group Wagner, which first deployed to the CAR in 2018.

In 2020 Touadera won a second five-year term, after a vote interrupted by several incursions by armed rebel groups. He also had to overcome allegations of fraud.

The new constitution would extend the presidential mandate from five to seven years and abolish the two-term limit.

These “provisional” results must be ratified by the constitutional court, which is scheduled to publish the definitive outcome on August 27.