In the Central African Republic, President Faustin Archange Touadéra announced on Tuesday, in a recorded message posted on the presidency’s Facebook page, that he would submit a new Constitution to a referendum, which would allow him to run for a third term. The deadline was set for 30th July by government decree.
Mr. Touadéra pointed out that “the People are above the Constitution” and that it was “at the urgent and legitimate request of the sovereign People to provide the country with a new Constitution”.
Mr. Touadéra was elected in 2016 and then re-elected in 2020, and is accused by the opposition of seeking to remain the country’s “President for life”, by standing for re-election in 2025.
Fidèle Gouandjika, the president’s special minister and adviser, confided to the press that the counters will be reset to zero with this new constitution and everyone will be able to stand for re-election, including President Touadéra.
The elections in this country in the grip of rebellion after years of civil war are taking place in poor conditions. Fewer than one in three voters were able to go to the polls for security reasons.
The West, the UN, and NGOs blame the regime of the Head of State for having put the Central African Republic under the control of Wagner’s Russian mercenaries to fight the rebels.
On 22nd September 2022, the Constitutional Court annulled one of his decrees setting up a committee to draft a new constitution, citing the fact that the Senate provided for in the previous constitution had still not been set up.
In January 2023, the President of the Constitutional Court, Danièle Darlan, the main architect of the annulment, was compulsorily retired by the government.
Since then, Mr. Touadéra’s Mouvement Coeurs Unis (MCU), which has a majority in the National Assembly, has staged a series of demonstrations criticizing the supreme court and calling for a new Constitution to be adopted by referendum.