According to his son, the country’s vice president, Equatorial Guinea’s president, Teodoro Obiang, has been re-elected with 95% of the vote, and his party has won all seats in parliament.
Teodoro Nguema wrote on Twitter that Teodoro Obiang Nguema had won the elections on November 20 and extended his 43-year rule. A win would give Obiang, 80, a sixth term in office in the West African nation, cementing his place as the world’s longest-standing ruler.
Obiang’s ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) and alliance won all 55 Senate seats and 100 Chamber of Deputies seats. According to his son, the president can now appoint the remaining 15 senators.
Since its independence from Spain in 1968, the country of around 1.5 million people has had only two presidents. Obiang deposed his uncle Francisco Macias Nguema in a coup in 1979.
In polls that international observers have questioned, he has always been elected with more than 90% of the vote. Despite his personal fortune, critics claim Obiang has rigged elections and done little to lift the country out of poverty. Rights groups accuse him of silencing dissent and cracking down on opponents.
Protests are generally prohibited, the media is tightly controlled, and political opponents are frequently detained and tortured, they claim.
His son, whom analysts consider a potential successor, was convicted of embezzlement by a French court in 2020. A crystal-covered glove worn by Michael Jackson, an armoured Rolls-Royce vehicle, and a yacht are among the assets that foreign nations claim he purchased with ill-gotten profits.