(Bangui) The President of the Central African Republic Faustin Archange Touadéra announced on Tuesday that he would submit to referendum a new Constitution which would allow him to run for a third term, which the current fundamental law prohibits in this country still in the grip of a rebellion. after years of civil war.
The date was set for July 30 by government decree.
Mr. Touadéra was elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020 when less than one in three voters had the opportunity to go to the polls for security reasons. He is accused by the opposition and the rebellion of wanting, by being re-elected in 2025, to remain “president for life” of the second least developed country in the world, according to the UN.
The international organization also criticizes the regime of the Head of State, in tune with Western capitals and NGOs, for having put the Central African Republic under the control of Wagner’s Russian mercenaries to fight the rebels.
” I’ve decided […] to submit the draft of a new Constitution to a referendum”, declared the Head of State in a message to the Nation recorded and published on the Facebook page of the presidency. It does not specify anything about its content.
“There will be no third term, but the counters will be reset” with a new Constitution, “and there will be a new term that everyone can run for, including President Touadéra if he wishes” , however, immediately told AFP Fidèle Gouandjika, minister special adviser to the president.
“President for Life”
On September 22, 2022, Mr. Touadéra suffered a legal setback when the Constitutional Court annulled one of his decrees setting up a Committee to draft a new constitution.
The Court invoked in particular the fact that the Senate, the upper house of Parliament and provided for in the previous Constitution, had still not been set up.
The power automatically retired in January 2023 the President of the Constitutional Court Danièle Darlan, the main architect of the invalidation.
And the United Hearts Movement (MCU) of Mr. Touadéra, the majority in the National Assembly with the support of satellite parties, has multiplied demonstrations to castigate the supreme court and demand a new Constitution by referendum.
“The People are above the Constitution” and it is “on the pressing and legitimate demands of the sovereign People to provide our country with a new Constitution” that Mr. Touadéra announced this referendum in his speech on Tuesday.
“This new constitution will be drafted so that Mr. Touadéra remains president for life”, commented for AFP Nicolas Tiangaye, former prime minister and member of the Republican Bloc for the Defense of the Constitution (BRDC), an opposition platform. .
“What’s more, the Constitutional Court has been illegitimate since the ousting of Madame Darlan and no referendum can take place without a President of the Senate, this referendum will therefore be illegal,” added the lawyer.
A deadly civil war erupted in 2013 when a Muslim-dominated rebel alliance, the Séléka, overthrew President François Bozizé. The latter mobilized mainly Christian and animist self-defense militias, the anti-balakas, to try to regain power.
Wagner
Thousands of civilians were massacred until the height of the war in 2016 and the UN accused Seleka and anti-balaka of crimes against humanity, despite the presence of a large peacekeeping force of peacekeepers .
In 2020, the most powerful of the rebel groups, which then occupied more than two-thirds of the territory, came together to launch a vast offensive on Bangui.
Mr. Touadéra called on Moscow to the rescue of his destitute army and hundreds of mercenaries from the private security company Wagner came to reinforce hundreds already present since 2018.
They helped save the regime and repel the rebels from most of the territories they occupied and which now carry out guerrilla operations.