Equatorial Guinean presidential election, 2016

Equatorial Guinean presidential election, 2016
Equatorial Guinea
24 April 2016

Registered 332,576
Turnout 93.0%
 
Nominee Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
Party PDGE
Popular vote 278,362
Percentage 93.7%

Presidential election results map. Green denotes districts won by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

President before election

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
PDGE

Elected President

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
PDGE

This article is part of a series on the
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Presidential elections were held in Equatorial Guinea on 24 April 2016.[1] In a vote initially scheduled for November but brought forward by seven months, incumbent President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo retained his office with 93.7 percent of the vote.

Electoral system

The president is elected using the first-past-the-post system.[2] After the 2011 constitutional referendum, presidents were limited to two terms of seven years and the age limit for candidates was removed. In addition, the post of Vice President was established, allowing the vice president to automatically assume power if the president died in office.[3]

Candidates

The leading candidate was incumbent president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, running for his first term after the 2011 constitutional referendum. He ran as the candidate of the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea, a coalition of ten parties, and was expected to win. At the time of the election, Obiang was the longest serving African president, having been in power since 1979.[4] He was widely expected to win the vote.[5]

The opposition were all mainly new faces with little political recognition and none of their parties were represented in Parliament. There were also three independent candidates, which critics claimed were dummy candidates to provide legitimacy for the elections.[5] The Democratic Opposition Front, which is a coalition of dissident parties, boycotted the election citing that the election would be "anti-constitutional" and that Obiang would win "with a big score as a result of fraud".[2] Opposition candidate, Gabriel Nse Obiang Obono, was prevented from running for not meeting residency requirements.[6]

Conduct

Three days after the election date was announced, Human Rights Watch said that the Center for the Study and Initiatives for Development had been ordered to shut down. According to EG Justice, a member of opposition party Centre-Right Union was detained and beaten by authorities during the campaign. Reporters from Africa24 were also detained for five hours on entry into the country before being released.[7]

The African Union sent an observer mission, led by former Beninese President Thomas Boni Yayi, on 13 April to oversee the conduct of the election.[8]

Results

The government announced on 28 April 2016 that Obiang had won the election by a overwhelming margin, as expected. Provisional results showed him with 93.7% of the vote on a turnout of 92.9%.[9]

Candidate Party Votes %
Teodoro Obiang Nguema MbasogoDemocratic Party of Equatorial Guinea278,36093.7
Avelino Mocache MehengaCentre-Right Union4,5981.5
Buenaventura Monsuy AsumuParty of the Social Democratic Coalition4,4361.5
Benedicto Obian MangueIndependent2,8120.9
Carmelo Mba BacalePopular Action 2,4340.8
Agustin Masoko AbegueIndependent2,4340.8
Tomás Mba MonabangIndependent2,1620.7
Invalid/blank votes11,920
Total309,156100
Registered voters/turnout332,57693.0
Source: Official Release

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, May 03, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.