{{The rebels who seized the capital of the Central African Republic on Sunday have said that they remained committed to a January power-sharing deal and would hold elections in three years in order to \u201creturn to democracy.}}\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric Massi, Europe spokesman for the Seleka rebel alliance, told FRANCE 24 on Monday that legislative and parliamentary elections would be held in three years. <\/p>\n
\u201cThree years may sound like a long time, but it\u2019s a short time to bring security back to the country and return to normal conditions,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Fighters from Seleka, which means “alliance” in the local Sango language, seized the presidential palace in the capital city of Bangui early on Sunday after their advance from the north of the country.<\/p>\n
Pillaging and raids were reported overnight and gunfire could still be heard on Monday morning, according to witnesses. \u201cThere is no electricity nor public transport,\u201d said Sylvain Groulx, head of the Doctors Without Borders mission in the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n
Seleka spokesman Eric Massi confirmed the pillaging, saying that they had been carried out by rebels as well as armed men from the previous regime. He claimed that the rebels had been \u201coverwhelmed\u201d but that calm was returning and that the shots being heard on Monday morning were \u201cjoyous celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Seleka rebels began seizing towns across the country\u2019s impoverished north in December but stopped their advance and signed a peace accord with the government following negotiations in Libreville, the capital of Gabon. That deal was to allow Boziz\u00e9 to remain in power until 2016.<\/p>\n
Massi repeated that the rebels remained committed to the agreement, and that Nicolas Tiangaye, Prime Minister of the national unity government, would remain in position until the end of the period of transition.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is not to set a strict deadline but to establish a roadmap that respects the spirit of the agreements signed in Libreville [in January between President Fran\u00e7ois Boziz\u00e9 and the Seleka alliance], to return to democracy,\u201d Massi said.<\/p>\n
A declaration by the head of Seleka, Michel Djotodia, is expected later Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{The rebels who seized the capital of the Central African Republic on Sunday have said that they remained committed to a January power-sharing deal and would hold elections in three years in order to \u201creturn to democracy.}}\u201d Eric Massi, Europe spokesman for the Seleka rebel alliance, told FRANCE 24 on Monday that legislative and parliamentary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-6717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6717","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6717"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=6717"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=6717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}