{Early results from the Central African Republic’s presidential election show ex-Prime Minister Faustin Archange Touadera taking a surprise lead.}<\/p>\n
Thirty candidates contested the poll, which is likely to go to a run-off between the top two on 31 January. Mr Touadera was not seen as a favourite.<\/p>\n
He was prime minister in the government of ex-President Francois Bozize, ousted in 2013 by mainly Muslim Seleka rebels.<\/p>\n
Voting took place on 30 December, with UN troops guarding polling stations.
\nThirty candidates vied to replace interim leader Catherine Samba-Panza in the former French colony.<\/p>\n
CAR has been torn by sectarian violence since the Seleka rebels seized power in March 2013.<\/p>\n
A band of mostly Christian militias, called the anti-Balaka, then took up arms against the Seleka.
\n{{
\nStrong lead
\n}}<\/p>\n
Mr Touadera, 58, was a university maths lecturer before entering politics. He ran as an independent in the election.<\/p>\n
With most votes counted in the capital Bangui, he is well ahead of his nearest rival, Anicet Georges Dologuele, another former prime minister.<\/p>\n
Besides Bangui, many votes remain to be counted in CAR’s provinces, as well as those of refugees and other CAR citizens abroad.<\/p>\n
Mr Touadera has more than 120,000 votes, while Mr Dologuele has just over 68,500.
\nIn third place is Desire Kolingba, son of a former president, the national electoral authority says.<\/p>\n
Source:BBC:[Central African Republic ex-PM Touadera ahead after election->http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-35218728]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Early results from the Central African Republic’s presidential election show ex-Prime Minister Faustin Archange Touadera taking a surprise lead.} Thirty candidates contested the poll, which is likely to go to a run-off between the top two on 31 January. Mr Touadera was not seen as a favourite. He was prime minister in the government of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071271,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071271,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22290.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22290.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22290.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22290.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22290.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22290.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22290"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22290"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}