Determined to run for a third term, Central African President Faustin-Archange Touadéra wants to modify the Constitution. He proposes a referendum in the coming months.
“I will do nothing without the will of the people who hold national sovereignty”. When discussing a potential third term, Faustin-Archange Touadéra seems to rule out any breach of the Central African Constitution. To do this, if he wants to re-enlist, the President of the Central African Republic will have to hope for constitutional reform. And, on August 12, on the eve of celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the independence of the CAR, the Central African president advanced his first pawns.
On his Facebook page, Faustin-Archange Touadéra has indeed indicated that “more and more voices are rising to demand a modification of the Constitution”. The Head of State assures that "petitions and marches in support of constitutional reform" have multiplied and that he has therefore decided to "take note" of the "urgent requests" from the people "demanding a new Constitution ".
Enough to raise the tension a notch, three years from the next presidential election. The opposition, certain that Touadera is trying to keep power at all costs, will launch a major mobilization on August 27 in the streets of Bangui, the Central African capital.
Opposition headwind
On the government side, we have already started the reform. On August 15, the Minister in charge of the General Secretariat of the Government, Maxime Balalou, moreover declared at the end of an extraordinary Council of Ministers that the government had obtained, from the National Assembly, the authorization to set up a Constituent Assembly.
The Republican Bloc for the Defense of the Constitution (BRDC) seized the Constitutional Court on Monday. The movement, which brings together around thirty political parties and civil society associations, believes that Touadéra has "violated" the Constitution.
Touadéra “cannot deceive the Central African people by saying that this Constitution is unsuitable and that a new Constitution is needed to change the economic, political and security situation of the country. For us, it's trickery, it's political imposture. We have decided to oppose President Touadéra's attempt to modify or have adopted a new Constitution in order to allow him to lift the lock on the limitation of the presidential term, which would effectively allow him to run for a third term and if possible , to remain at the head of the country as president for life”, indicates to RFI Nicolas Tiangaye, president of the Republican Convention for Social Progress (CRPS) and member of the BRDC.
Questioned by Jeune Afrique, the boss of the BRDC, Crépin Mboli-Goumba, believes that Touadéra "wants to revise the existing Constitution, which dates from March 2016, or even have another adopted, because he wishes to establish power for life".
These are therefore two blocks that oppose each other. The opposition to Touadéra must face the supporters of the Central African president who, on August 6, mobilized in the streets to demand the holding of a referendum to modify the Constitution.
The BRDC has decided to launch legal remedies, but also to mobilize its supporters. The standoff that begins already looks tense.