In Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been re-elected to a sixth term as president with 94.9 percent of the votes cast, election officials announced on Saturday, putting turnout at 98 percent. Eighty-year-old Obiang, who seized power in a 1979 coup, is the longest-ruling head of state in the world excluding monarchs. He has never officially been re-elected with less than 93 percent of the vote.
Electoral commission head Faustino Ndong Esono Eyang confirmed that Obiang would serve another seven years in the top job. The commission said the turnout rate for the election was 98 percent.
The result was widely expected in the oil-rich and authoritarian central African nation, where the political opposition is extremely weak.
Obiang had the backing of a coalition of 15 parties, including his all-powerful ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE). The PDGE, which was the country’s only legal political movement until 1991, also swept all seats in the National Assembly and the Senate.
Credit: rfi
