Equatorial Guinea advanced its five-month presidential election on Tuesday, September 20, to November 20, at the same time as the legislative elections, in this small central African state ruled with an iron fist for 43 years by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. “The presidential, Chamber of Deputies, Senate and municipal elections are called for November 20, 2022”according to a decree of the head of state read on the evening news of state television.
Obiang holds the world record for longevity in power of living heads of state, excluding monarchies. The only issue will lie in the designation before the ballot of the candidate of the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), who occupies 99 of the 100 seats in the outgoing lower house and all of the 70 seats in the Senate: Obiang, 80, will run- Will he for a new mandate or will he let his son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, nicknamed Teodorin, succeed him?
The latter, all-powerful and feared Vice-President in charge of Defense, publicly assumed jet-setter and sentenced in 2021 to three years in prison suspended in France in the context of the so-called “ill-gotten gains”has long been considered his father’s heir apparent and has been ubiquitous on the political scene for the past two years.
Evil eye
But the PDGE congress, which was to induct him as a candidate in November 2021, ultimately did not do so, to everyone’s surprise. Two months before the election, Equatoguineans – but also observers and diplomats – are wondering today who will win, Teodorin or the caciques of the regime who take a dim view of the son at the head of this small country rich in its hydrocarbons and push the father to re-enlist.
The outcome of the legislative elections is hardly in doubt, as in every election: the PDGE – single party until 1991 – should leave only a few crumbs to opposition movements “tolerated” among the few who are not the target of relentless repression regularly denounced by international NGOs.
Ten months ago, the party congress gave rise to unprecedented quarrels between supporters of Teodorin and Teodoro, president since 1979 when he overthrew his uncle Francisco Macías Nguema in a coup. The anticipation of the presidential election was justified in Tuesday’s decree by the need to consolidate costly ballots in the midst of an economic crisis due in particular to “the war in Ukraine” and at the “covid pandemic”but observers see it rather as the desire of one of the two camps to push what it believes to be its advantage.