Equatorial Guinea court confirms ruling party’s landslide election win

Equatorial Guinea’s constitutional court has confirmed the results of this month’s elections in which the ruling party secured a landslide victory with 92 percent of the vote.

In an announcement late Tuesday, the court said it had validated the outcome of the November 12 poll in which the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) and its allies won all 75 senate seats and 99 of the 100 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament.

It also won all of the mayoral seats across the country, in a ballot widely criticised by the opposition as fraudulent.

The opposition Citizens for Innovation (CI) won 5.77 percent of the vote and will have a single MP.

The PDGE has dominated the parliament of the tiny oil-rich country since single-party rule was scrapped in 1991.

It is the party of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa’s longest-serving leader, who has ruled the former Spanish colony for 38 years and been repeatedly accused of abuses by human rights groups.

An opposition coalition of the Union of the Centre-Right (UCD) and Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS) took 2.23 percent of the vote — not enough to gain an elected representative.

Around 273,502 people took part in the election, with turnout around 84 percent, according to the electoral commission.

Equatorial Guinea, which borders Cameroon and Gabon, is one of sub-Sahara’s biggest oil producers but a large proportion of its 1.2 million population still lives in poverty.