The President of the Central African Republic, Faustin Archange Touadéra, announced on Tuesday May 30 that he would submit to referendum a new Constitution which would allow him to run for a third term, which the current fundamental law prohibits in this country still in the grip of a rebellion after years of civil war. The date was set for July 30 by government decree.
Mr. Touadéra was elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020 when less than one in three voters had the opportunity to go to the polls for security reasons. He is accused by the opposition and the rebellion of wanting, by being re-elected in 2025, to remain “president for life” of the second least developed country in the world, according to the UN. The international organization also criticizes the regime of the head of state, in tune with Western capitals and NGOs, for having put the Central African Republic under the control of Wagner’s Russian mercenaries to fight the rebels.
“I have decided (…) to submit the draft of a new Constitution to a referendum,” said the head of state in a message to the nation recorded and posted on the Facebook page of the presidency. It does not specify anything about its content. “There will be no third term, but the counters will be reset” with a new Constitution “and there will be a new term that anyone can run for, including President Touadéra if he wishes”, however, immediately told AFP Fidèle Gouandjika, minister special adviser to the president.
The Constitutional Court castigated
On September 22, 2022, Mr. Touadéra suffered a legal setback when the Constitutional Court overturned one of his decrees setting up a committee to draft a new constitution. The Court invoked in particular the fact that the Senate, the upper house of Parliament and provided for in the previous Constitution, had still not been set up.
The government automatically retired in January 2023 the President of the Constitutional Court Danièle Darlan, the main architect of the invalidation. And the United Hearts Movement (MCU) of Mr. Touadéra, the majority in the National Assembly with the support of satellite parties, has multiplied the demonstrations to castigate the supreme court and demand a new Constitution by referendum. “The people are above the Constitution” and it was “on the pressing and legitimate demands of the sovereign people to endow our country with a new Constitution” that Mr. Touadéra announced this referendum in his speech on Tuesday.
“This new constitution will be written so that Mr. Touadéra remains president for life”, commented for AFP Nicolas Tiangaye, former prime minister and member of the Republican Bloc for the Defense of the Constitution (BRDC), a platform of the ‘opposition. “What is more, the Constitutional Court has been illegitimate since the ousting of Mrs. Darlan and no referendum can take place without a President of the Senate. This referendum will therefore be illegal,” added the lawyer.
Moscow to the rescue
A deadly civil war erupted in 2013 when a Muslim-dominated rebel alliance, the Séléka, overthrew President François Bozizé. The latter mobilized mainly Christian and animist self-defense militias, the anti-balaka, to try to regain power. Thousands of civilians were massacred until the height of the war in 2016 and the UN charged Seleka and anti-balaka with crimes against humanity, despite the presence of a large peacekeeping force of peacekeepers .
In 2020, the most powerful of the rebel groups, which then occupied more than two-thirds of the territory, came together to launch a major offensive on Bangui. Mr. Touadéra called on Moscow to help his destitute army and hundreds of mercenaries from the private security company Wagner came to reinforce hundreds already present since 2018. They helped save the regime and push back the rebels of the major part of the territories they occupied and which now carry out guerrilla operations.
