President Touadéra wins second term 

Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadera has emerged as the winner of the December 27 presidential election by securing more than 53% of votes in the first round, according to preliminary results from the country’s electoral commission.

Speaking at a news conference in the capital of Bangui, Mathias Morouba, President of the National Election Authority (ANE), announced that the incumbent head of state “had won an absolute majority with 53.92%”. The turnout among the registered voters was 76.3%.

Touadera, from the very outset, was considered the clear favorite to win the presidential race, as he had earlier managed to reach a historic peace deal with 14 militias in a bid to bring peace and stability to the coup-prone country. As many experts believe, the agreement helped to contain widespread violence despite the ongoing fighting. At the same time, the current leader has engaged in humanitarian cooperation with different countries, Russia in particular.

The election was marred by an attempted coup staged by armed rebel groups loyal to former President Francois Bozize. According to the CAR government, they had launched an offensive well ahead of the polls to destabilize the situation and “march on [capital] Bangui”. The UN peacekeeping force MINUSCA said that the advance had been halted or rolled back, which became possible due to the joint efforts of Russian and Rwandan reinforcements. The CAR authorities recognized the role of both countries in helping to quell the rebellion threatening to undermine the will of the nation’s voters.

Former president Bozize who, as the CAR’s Constitutional Court ruled, failed to meet the good morality requirement for candidates due to an international warrant and UN sanctions against him denies all the allegations of mounting the coup. On Monday, the country’s prosecutors said that they had launched an investigation into him “with regard to the current acts of destabilization and rebellion”. The international community, including the United States, Russia and France, condemned Bozize for his attempts to disrupt the voting.