DJIBOUTI (Halbeeg News) – Hundreds of thousands of Djibouti people have today headed to polls to president with President Ismael Omar Guelleh widely expected to win a fifth term.
The tiny nation which strategically important home to military bases for the United States, China and others, has been under the ruled of 73-year-old Guelleh since 1999.
Guelleh is facing political newcomer Zakaria Ismail Farah, his only rival after traditional opposition parties decided to boycott the election.
A businessman specialized in the importation of cleaning products, Farah, 56, is seen by observers as unlikely to pose a significant challenge to the strongman who has been in power for 22 year.
Guelleh told reporters days ago that he was no longer interested in power but was merely responding to the will of the people.
“It is my people, the Djiboutians, who asked me to run again and not leave them for the sake of the prosperity of the nation,” he said.
Djibouti is a largely desert country strategically situated on one of the world’s busiest trade routes and at the crossroads between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, a short distance from war-torn Yemen.
Djibouti is a key staging ground for both the United States, which uses Camp Lemmonier on the outskirts of Djibouti’s capital as an operating base for 4,000 US and allied personnel, France and China, which chose the country to host its first overseas military installation in 2017.
From a US perspective, Djibouti is ideally located for conducting missions in the Middle East and East Africa; for Beijing, a military presence in Djibouti helps secure its substantial East African investments
Discussion about this post