{"id":24479,"date":"2016-04-09T01:53:22","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T01:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/what-will-djibouti-s-election-mean-for-stability\/"},"modified":"2016-04-09T01:57:15","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T01:57:15","slug":"what-will-djibouti-s-election-mean-for-stability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/what-will-djibouti-s-election-mean-for-stability\/","title":{"rendered":"Ismail Guelleh wins fourth term as Djibouti president"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Incumbent to continue to head strategically important country following vote marked by complaints of curbs on freedom.}<\/p>\n

Ismail Omar Guelleh has been re-elected Djibouti president for a fourth term, according to the prime minister of the East African country.<\/p>\n

Guelleh, 68, has been Djibouti’s leader for 17 years and sealed another term in the office after the first round of the presidential election on Friday.<\/p>\n

“According to our projections, we can say that the UMP candidate [Guelleh of the Union for the Presidential Majority] has been elected in the first round,” Abdoulkader Kamil Mohamed, the prime minister, announced on national television.<\/p>\n

“The people of Djibouti have followed the path of wisdom, stability, security and development.”<\/p>\n

Opposition groups had complained of curbs on freedom of assembly in advance of the vote, while rights groups have denounced political repression and crackdowns on basic freedoms.<\/p>\n

As with the previous election in 2011, the announcement was made before all the votes were in.<\/p>\n

However, Guelleh is said to be easily above the 50 percent threshold required to avoid a second-round of voting.<\/p>\n

Guelleh will continue to head the strategically important Horn of Africa country that hosts thousands of foreign troops in military bases.<\/p>\n

He was credited with receiving about three-quarters of the votes cast in the capital Djibouti and in Balbala, a populous and dilapidated suburb.<\/p>\n

The two areas comprise about 60 percent of the country’s population, prompting Mohamed to declare Guelleh’s apparent victory.<\/p>\n

Opposition boycott<\/p>\n

About 187,000 people – about a fifth of the population – were eligible to vote in Friday’s election that was boycotted by some oppposition parties.<\/p>\n

Due to the boycott and with turnout low throughout the day the electoral commission extended polling by an hour. <\/p>\n

Guelleh won the 2011 election with 80 percent of the vote after the country’s parliament altered the constitution to allow him to extend his rule.<\/p>\n

His party UMP also holds the majority of the seats in the parliament.<\/p>\n

Guelleh is Djibouti’s second president since independence from France in 1977.<\/p>\n

He succeeded his uncle, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, in 1999.<\/p>\n

Guelleh’s strong hold on power is largely attributed to divisions within the opposition and to government repression of dissent.<\/p>\n

\"Guelleh's<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Incumbent to continue to head strategically important country following vote marked by complaints of curbs on freedom.} Ismail Omar Guelleh has been re-elected Djibouti president for a fourth term, according to the prime minister of the East African country. Guelleh, 68, has been Djibouti’s leader for 17 years and sealed another term in the office […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","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":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","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":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24479","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=24479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24479"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24479"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}