{Former Prime Minister Faustin Touadera has been elected president of the Central African Republic in a run-off contest seen as an important step towards restoring peace.}<\/p>\n
Provisional results showed Mr Touadera received almost 63% of the votes, defeating his opponent Anicet Dologuele who won just over 37%.<\/p>\n
Mr Touadera’s campaign focused on restoring security.<\/p>\n
The country has been through a period of violent sectarian unrest.<\/p>\n
Prolonged bloodshed began after the seizure of power by mainly Muslim Seleka rebels in 2013.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that about a fifth of the population became either internally displaced or forced to flee abroad, leaving the country poverty stricken and divided along ethnic and religious lines.<\/p>\n
Mr Touadera, throughout the campaign, was portrayed by supporters as a peacemaker who can bridge the Christian-Muslim divide and boost the economy.<\/p>\n
At a press conference on Saturday night Mr Dologuele said he would honour the results and recognise Mr Touadera as president despite reservations about voting irregularities.<\/p>\n
Mr Touadera has vowed to encourage reconciliation and disarmament.
\n“These elections are important but they are not the only step out of this crisis,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We have to create the conditions for dialogue between the two communities. We will do everything we can so that Central Africans can live together in Central African Republic.”<\/p>\n
Mr Touadera is a former maths professor who served as prime minister for Francois Bozize, the president of 10 years who was deposed in 2013.<\/p>\n
The election results have to be certified by the Constitutional Court to become final.<\/p>\n
Source:BBC:[CAR presidential election: Faustin Touadera declared winner->http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-35623491]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Former Prime Minister Faustin Touadera has been elected president of the Central African Republic in a run-off contest seen as an important step towards restoring peace.} Provisional results showed Mr Touadera received almost 63% of the votes, defeating his opponent Anicet Dologuele who won just over 37%. Mr Touadera’s campaign focused on restoring security. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000072343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-48","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":2000072343,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23386.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23386.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23386.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23386.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23386.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23386.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23386","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=23386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000072343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23386"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23386"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}