Guelleh Re-elected Djibouti President For Fifth Term

Umer Jamshaid Published April 11, 2021 | 12:20 AM

Djibouti's veteran ruler Ismail Omar Guelleh was overwhelmingly re-elected for a fifth term as president, according to final results announced Saturday, after the vote in the tiny but strategically important country was boycotted by the main opposition

Djibouti, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Apr, 2021 ) :Djibouti's veteran ruler Ismail Omar Guelleh was overwhelmingly re-elected for a fifth term as president, according to final results announced Saturday, after the vote in the tiny but strategically important country was boycotted by the main opposition.

Around 215,000 citizens were registered to vote in the ballot pitting Guelleh, 73, against a little-known businessman widely seen as posing scant threat to the strongman, who has been in power since 1999.

Alexis Mohamed, special adviser to the president, said Guelleh received 167,536 votes compared to 4,408 for his challenger in the Horn of Africa nation, which overlooks one of the world's busiest trade routes at the crossroads between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

The interior ministry confirmed those figures.

Officials said the incumbent tallied 97.44 percent of the vote, with turnout at around 82 percent, up from 68 percent in 2016.

Mohamed said the constitutional court has three days to confirm the results, if there is no challenge.

Benedikt Kamski, an analyst based in Addis Ababa for Germany's Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, said "it was not a real election, it was more like a confirmation and the opposition candidate who was running was not very known."Friday night, after voting in the capital where most of Djibouti's one million people reside, Guelleh praised the trouble-free conduct of the election.