The voters of Djibouti vote, tomorrow, for their deputies. An election which does not really interest and which should consolidate the presidential majority of Omar Guelleh.
Less than two years later a presidential election that had not unleashed passions, Djiboutians return to the polls. This time, the inhabitants of this small country vote to elect their deputies. A formality for the current president, Omar Guelleh, and for his party, the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP). Especially since in front of him stands a totally disorganized opposition. During the last presidential President Guelleh had largely won the vote and began his fifth term, while the opposition had decided to boycott the election. Once again, facing the UMP, the Union for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) should not have the weight.
And for good reason: the opposition party is only presenting candidates in two of the six electoral districts in Djibouti. Currently, of the 65 seats in the National Assembly, the UDJ has 7 seats. The landscape of the Assembly should not be very different after the legislative elections this Friday.
In particular because the other opposition parties - the Movement for Democratic Renewal (MRD) and the Republican Alliance for Development (ARD) - have decided to repeat the presidential coup by boycotting the legislative elections, which they consider to be a "masquerade". The MRD considers the elections in the small country in the Horn of Africa to be “unfree, non-transparent and undemocratic”. Since the end of the 1970s, the Union for the Presidential Majority has been at the head of the country.
If these legislative elections, just as much as the last presidential one, have little repercussion internationally, what about at the national level? On the spot, the interest is almost non-existent. While Guelleh has been in power for nearly a quarter of a century, no one today dares to challenge him for power. A cohabitation with an opposition Prime Minister is therefore totally unimaginable.
Tomorrow, the election will therefore be watched at most by a few observers and by Western chancelleries who know that Djibouti is undoubtedly the last stable country in the region. Stuck between Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia, and opposite Yemen, Djibouti remains a strategic military platform for several countries such as the United States, France and China.