* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Africa's first presidential election of the year, due in the Central African Republic on Sunday, is garnering little international attention
Overshadowed by the popular uprising that toppled Tunisia’s president and post-election unrest in Ivory Coast, Africa’s first presidential election of the year, due in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Sunday, is garnering little international attention.
Incumbent Francois Bozize is up against Ange Felix Patasse, the man he overthrew in a coup d’état in 2003, Martin Ziguele, who was Patasse’s prime minister, Jean Jacques Demafouth, a former rebel leader and Emile Raymond Nakombo, a parliamentarian. Analysts say Bozize looks likely, but not certain, to retain power with Patasse and Ziguele his strongest challengers.
The winner will preside over a country of 4.5 million people where rebels still control large portions of the north, highway bandits prey on travellers in much of the west and Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels roam in the east, causing havoc for civilians.
Analysts say the Jan. 23 parliamentary and presidential elections could be a step towards improving governance and the rule of law in a country with very weak central government, but that any post-election violence in the Ivorian mould - an outcome seen as possible rather than likely - would further cut the government’s ability to control the country, the size of the U.S. state of Texas.
MAYBE UNSTABLE
“It would be in the interest of humanitarian work that once the elections are over there should be no political contestation, and if there is, it should be peaceful,” says Ned Dalby, a Central Africa analyst at the international think-tank Crisis Group in Nairobi.
Although there have been no specific threats of violence, the U.S. State Department has warned Americans (http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_940.html) not to travel to the country throughout the electoral period which may drag on until April if there is a second round in the presidential poll.
About a million people in the north live in constant fear of fighting between numerous armed groups, including government forces, rebels and criminal gangs, and some 200,000 have been forced to flee and seek safety elsewhere in the country, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR.
Aid groups say a continued weak CAR is also a concern for the region as it provides a no man’s land which groups like the LRA can use as a base to stage attacks in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda.
The UNHCR says there have been human rights violations including killings, abductions, arbitrary arrests and sexual violence - half of them committed against young children – in parts of the east where the LRA operates.
“The humanitarian situation is still critical … and there are still insufficient funds, resources and organisations paying attention to the populations affected by the LRA both in the south-east and north-east,” Dalby told AlertNet.
Experts hope a fresh, democratically elected government would be credible enough to seek funding and international help to tackle these administrative, security and humanitarian challenges.
Can these elections bring about such leadership? If they do, it will just be the start of a long uphill struggle to restore stability in and central control over a fractured country.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
