BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh has won an election with 97.8% of the vote, keeping him at the helm of the strategically-placed Horn of Africa nation for a sixth term, preliminary official results show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 78-year-old’s sole challenger Mohamed Farah Samatar got 2.19% of the vote, in a poll boycotted by most of the opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In power for 27 years, Guelleh had promised to step down, but ran for re-election after the constitution was amended in November to remove the upper age limit of 75 for presidential candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guelleh’s campaign focused on the fact that he had maintained stability in Djibouti at a time when other regional states, and the Middle East, had been hit by conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lying on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Djibouti serves as a gateway to the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US, China, France, Italy and Japan have military bases in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guelleh is only Djibouti’s second president since it gained its independence from France in 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The leaders of the main opposition parties – including Dahir Ahmed Farah – have boycotted elections since 2016, saying there was no free political activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guelleh celebrated his victory at his home, saying it was a victory for the entire nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials said that more than 80% of registered voters cast their ballots in Friday’s election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Samatar, who was the flag-bearer of a small party with no parliamentary seats, has not yet commented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The results were released by the interior ministry but still need to be validated by judges on the constitutional council before Guelleh can be sworn in for another five-year term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He won the 2021 election by a similar margin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2010, Djibouti’s parliament scrapped term limits, and shortened presidential mandates from six to five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also set 75 as the age limit for candidates, before changing the constitution in November so that Guelleh could run for office again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh has won an election with 97.8% of the vote, keeping him at the helm of the strategically-placed Horn of Africa nation for a sixth term, preliminary official results show. The 78-year-old’s sole challenger Mohamed Farah Samatar got 2.19% of the vote, in a poll boycotted by most of the opposition. In power for 27 years, Guelleh had promised to step down, but ran for re-election after the constitution was amended in November to remove the upper age limit of 75 for presidential candidates. Guelleh’s campaign focused on the fact that he had maintained stability… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56449,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56447\/revisions\/56449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}