World longest serving president Teodoro Obiang re-elected for sixth term
The world’s longest-serving president Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea has been re-elected for the sixth term with 95 percent of the casted votes and his son to the position of vice president.
The 80-year-old has been in power for 43 years in the oil-rich country since August 1979 and is the longest ruling head of state in the world in exception of monarchs.
The electoral commission head Faustino Ndong Esono Eyang confirmed his re-election saying that the turnout rate for the election was 98 percent.
He had the backing of a coalition of 15 parties, including his all-powerful ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE).
The PDGE, which was the country’s only legal political movement until 1991, also swept all seats in the National Assembly and the Senate.
Obiang’s opponents say that under his iron-fisted, hermetic tenure, the country has become the “North Korea of Africa”.
He exercises near-total political control in a country where there is just a single authorised opposition party.
In 2016, he was re-elected with 93.7 percent of the casted votes.
