No fewer than 10 defeated presidential candidates in the Central African Republic (CAR) have called for the annulment of the presidential election results citing alleged electoral malpractices.
C.A.R, a country with 1.8 million eligible voters, held its presidential election on December 27 and the country’s electoral commission on Monday declared incumbent President Faustin-Archange Touadera the winner of the race.
Touadera won the election with a voter turnout of over 76 per cent despite of an offensive by rebel groups seeking to derail the vote.
Ten of the 17 candidates have now rejected this result, saying the turnout of registered voters was just 37 per cent and that the insecurity disrupted campaigning and the electoral process.
“We demand an annulment pure and simple and a rerun of the election,” they said in the statement.
There was no immediate comment from the electoral commission or Touadera.
A disputed election could further destabilise the gold and diamond super power, whose population of 4.7 million has endured waves of militia violence since 2013 killing thousands and forcing more than a million from their homes.
A powerful coalition of opposition politicians has also called for the vote to be repeated, including former president, Francois Bozize.
Although the UN has over 12,800 uniformed peacekepers in the C.A.R, it has alongside Touadera, accused Bozize of being behind the rebel offensive, which briefly seized the country’s fourth-largest city ahead of the election.
Bozize has not been reachable for comment.
His party has previously denied the government’s accusations, but some memembers of the party have suggested they are working with the rebels.
Touadera came to office in 2016 after Bozize was overthrown in a rebellion three years earlier.
He struggled to restore peace in his first term while parts of the country remain beyond government control.
