Paris – Equatorial Guinea, where the world’s longest-serving president Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is seeking another seven-year term on November 20, is a small oil-rich West African nation with a history of brutal dictatorship.
Here are some key facts about the former Spanish colony:
Same leader for 43 years
Obiang, 80, has ruled the nation of 1.4 million people with an iron grip for more than 43 years.
He took power in a bloody coup in August 1979 by ousting his own uncle, the country’s first post-independence president Francisco Macias Nguema, who was shot by firing squad.
In September 2022, Obiang abolished the death penalty, but his regime regularly comes under fire from rights groups for violent suppression of the opposition, civil society groups and the media.
Since coming to power he says he has foiled at least 10 attempted coups or assassination attempts.
In August 2022, Amnesty International accused the country’s authorities of torture, arbitrary detentions and forced disappearances during a crackdown on gang violence.
Dependent on oil
Equatorial Guinea is one of Africa’s most recent oil exporters, beginning to harness its oil and gas deposits only in the early 1990s when several mainly US oil companies moved in.
Most of its wealth is concentrated in the hands of a small elite, with little improvement in the living standards of ordinary citizens.
Generally lower oil prices since 2014 have taken a big toll on state finances, placing strain on public services.
Life expectancy is stagnant at below 60.
Thatcher son in coup plot
In 2004, Zimbabwe helped foil a sensational coup plot against Obiang involving British and South African mercenaries that was partly funded by Mark Thatcher, the son of late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Zimbabwean police arrested the main coup plotter, British former special forces officer Simon Mann, and 69 others when they landed a plane at Harare airport to collect weapons.
Zimbabwe extradited Mann to Equatorial Guinea where he was sentenced to 34 years in jail but was pardoned by Obiang and released in 2009.
Mark Thatcher was given a four-year suspended prison sentence for helping finance the coup bid.
French, US assets seized
Anti-corruption investigators in France, Britain and the US have gone after Obiang’s son Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mangue, nicknamed Teodorin, for allegedly looting his country’s coffers to fund a jet-set lifestyle abroad.
In 2011, French authorities seized his six-storey Paris mansion and 11 luxury cars, including two Bugatti Veyrons – one of the world’s fastest and most expensive supercars – and a Rolls Royce Phantom.
Nine years later he was given a three-year suspended term and a 30 million euro ($35 million) fine for embezzlement.
He has also been forced to forfeit millions of dollars of assets in the US and slapped with sanctions by Britain.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Unsplash
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