Central African Republic’s President Faustin-Archange Touadera said on Saturday he will run for a third term later this year, seeking to extend his rule into a second decade after scrapping term limits in 2023.<\/p>\n
“Many of you have asked for me, and my answer is yes. I am your candidate for the presidential election of December 2025,” the 68-year-old said at a meeting of his party, the United Hearts Movement, in the capital Bangui.<\/p>\n
“We will continue the work of rebuilding our country.”<\/p>\n
Since taking office in 2016, Touadera has enlisted outside forces to stay in power amid a persistent civil conflict, including\u00a0mercenaries\u00a0from Russia’s Wagner militia, who intervened in 2018 on the side of the government.<\/p>\n
Landlocked Central African Republic, roughly the size of France and with a population of around 5.5 million, is deeply impoverished despite being rich in resources including gold, diamonds and timber.<\/p>\n
It has witnessed waves of instability, including coups and rebellions, since independence from France in 1960.<\/p>\n
Touadera won a second term in 2020, though militants including the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC) have fought to overturn that result.<\/p>\n
The army, backed by United Nations peacekeepers and Russian and Rwandan troops, has been fighting the group for years.<\/p>\n
Touadera’s current term was supposed to be his last, but in 2023 the country held a\u00a0constitutional referendum\u00a0that abolished the two-term limit and extended the presidential mandate from five to seven years.<\/p>\n
Opposition parties and civil society groups have said the new constitution, which was backed by more than 95% of voters, could allow Touadera to stay in power for life.<\/p>\n
The exact date of the December vote has not been announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Central African Republic’s President Faustin-Archange Touadera said on Saturday he will run for a third term later this year, seeking to extend his rule into a second decade after scrapping term limits in 2023. “Many of you have asked for me, and my answer is yes. I am your candidate for the presidential election of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2362,33],"tags":[1134,1137],"class_list":["post-17105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-central-african-republic","tag-faustin-archange-touadera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}