The party of Francois Bozize, the Central African Republic’s ex-president who was toppled in a 2013 coup, has announced that the former president on Monday filed papers to stand in the country’s imminent presidential elections.
Despite the fact that the landlocked country has remained under the control of the armed group, the Seleka since his ousting, the vote is expected to go ahead on December 27.
They could threaten the security of the myriad candidates as well as voters in the predominantly Christian country. The 2013 coup sparked brutal inter-ethnic violence between the Seleka and so-called “anti-Balaka” self-defense forces, mainly Christian and animist.
Despite Bozize’s ousting in 2013, he has however remained highly influential and his affiliations with the anti-Balaka have given him a large electoral base which could possibly pose a threat to the current president, Faustine Archangel Touadera who was elected in 2016.
Placed under UN sanctions for his presumed role in the 2013-14 crisis, Bozize slipped home after seven years in exile in Uganda, making his first public appearance in December 2019. He announced his intention to run in July.