Guelleh re-elected in one-man poll AFP: April 9, 2005
DJIBOUTI- Djibouti's outgoing President Ismail Omar Guelleh won re-election as sole candidate on a turnout of 78.9 percent after the opposition called for a boycott, Interior Minister Abdoulkader Doualeh Wais announced early Saturday.
The minister told Djibouti radio and television (RTD) that the turnout, the only unknown in Friday's election, was "due to the government's very strong awareness-making of the very important issues and to an active electoral campaign."
In an overnight television address, the 57-year-old incumbent, known throughout this former French colony simply by his initials IOG, "thanked voters for renewing their trust" in him.
Guelleh's opponents, who had called for a nationwide boycott of the polls and vowed not to accept the foregone conclusion of his re-election for a second six-year mandate, dismissed the turnout figure as "ridiculous.'
The opposition has been without a strong leader since the death last year of former prime minister Ahmed Dini Ahmed and did not put up a candidate.
But one of its leading figures, Ahmed Youssouf, head of the Republican Alliance for Development, told AFP that at the legislative elections in 2003, which were contested, the turnout was 48 percent.
"Today, when the president is on his own and a boycott is operating, to announce a turnout figure of 79 percent is the height of absurdity," he said.
Ismael Guedi Harad, president of the opposition umbrella group Union for Democratic Change (UAD), said the figures were faked, adding that Guelleh needed a high turnout to legitimise his election.
"There were no crowds at the polling booths," he said, accusing presidential supporters
of shutting themselves inside and stuffing the ballot boxes.
Mohamed Daoud Chefa, head of another opposition group, the Djiboutian Party for Development, said, "The living voted several times, and so did the dead."
The country's human rights league also called the official turnout "highly unlikely."
"It was clear that very few voters came to the polling stations, compared with the last elections," it said.
In 2003 the opposition failed to win a single seat in parliament but insists it received support from 45 percent of voters, while saying this year it had been unfairly kept out of the process.
A sea of posters, placards and flyers all emblazoned with Guelleh's name and face were plastered on walls and windows around the country of just over 700,000 people during the build-up to the election.
Despite having no opponent, Guelleh kept up a hectic campaign pace, vowing to reduce poverty and Djibouti's dependency on imported food and had said he would consider his re-election legimitate if he secured 55 percent of the vote.
Guelleh has also pledged to step down after his second six-year mandate and not try to repeal the presidential term limit enshrined in the constitution.
Since coming to power in 1999, Guelleh has turned Djibouti into a key western ally in the war on terrorism.
Located at the southern end of the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti is a key staging post between the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal as well as the Indian Ocean and is home to the largest overseas French military base and the only US military base in Africa.
DJIBOUTI- Djibouti's outgoing President Ismail Omar Guelleh won re-election as sole candidate on a turnout of 78.9 percent after the opposition called for a boycott, Interior Minister Abdoulkader Doualeh Wais announced early Saturday.
The minister told Djibouti radio and television (RTD) that the turnout, the only unknown in Friday's election, was "due to the government's very strong awareness-making of the very important issues and to an active electoral campaign."
In an overnight television address, the 57-year-old incumbent, known throughout this former French colony simply by his initials IOG, "thanked voters for renewing their trust" in him.
Guelleh's opponents, who had called for a nationwide boycott of the polls and vowed not to accept the foregone conclusion of his re-election for a second six-year mandate, dismissed the turnout figure as "ridiculous.'
The opposition has been without a strong leader since the death last year of former prime minister Ahmed Dini Ahmed and did not put up a candidate.
But one of its leading figures, Ahmed Youssouf, head of the Republican Alliance for Development, told AFP that at the legislative elections in 2003, which were contested, the turnout was 48 percent.
"Today, when the president is on his own and a boycott is operating, to announce a turnout figure of 79 percent is the height of absurdity," he said.
Ismael Guedi Harad, president of the opposition umbrella group Union for Democratic Change (UAD), said the figures were faked, adding that Guelleh needed a high turnout to legitimise his election.
"There were no crowds at the polling booths," he said, accusing presidential supporters of shutting themselves inside and stuffing the ballot boxes.
Mohamed Daoud Chefa, head of another opposition group, the Djiboutian Party for Development, said, "The living voted several times, and so did the dead."
The country's human rights league also called the official turnout "highly unlikely."
"It was clear that very few voters came to the polling stations, compared with the last elections," it said.
In 2003 the opposition failed to win a single seat in parliament but insists it received support from 45 percent of voters, while saying this year it had been unfairly kept out of the process.
A sea of posters, placards and flyers all emblazoned with Guelleh's name and face were plastered on walls and windows around the country of just over 700,000 people during the build-up to the election.
Despite having no opponent, Guelleh kept up a hectic campaign pace, vowing to reduce poverty and Djibouti's dependency on imported food and had said he would consider his re-election legimitate if he secured 55 percent of the vote.
Guelleh has also pledged to step down after his second six-year mandate and not try to repeal the presidential term limit enshrined in the constitution.
Since coming to power in 1999, Guelleh has turned Djibouti into a key western ally in the war on terrorism.
Located at the southern end of the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti is a key staging post between the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal as well as the Indian Ocean and is home to the largest overseas French military base and the only US military base in Africa.
