The Government of Equatorial Guinea has presented its resignation en bloc to the President of the country, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, after the last presidential, legislative and municipal elections, in which both the President and his party, the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PGDE), won a landslide victory, amidst allegations of fraud by the opposition.
The spokesman of the Executive and Equatoguinean Minister of Information, Virgilio Seriche Riloha, has confirmed that the decision has been adopted during the first meeting of the Council of Ministers in 2023, which has had as main issue the resignation of the Prime Minister, Francisco Pascual Obama Asué, and the rest of the Government, as reported by the Office of Information and Press of Equatorial Guinea.
The Council of Ministers was headed by Obiang himself and was attended by the vice president, the three deputy prime ministers and all the ministers. The president detailed that the resignation is in line with the legislation in force, while the prime minister praised the electoral process. «We have just concluded a free, democratic and transparent election in which the will of the people was clearly and freely expressed,» he said.
Obama Asué has also expressed his gratitude and appreciation to Obiang for appointing him to the post and stressed that «coordinating the action of the government is an immense and very difficult task, which includes the great responsibility that serving the State demands.» «Yes, serving the State at this level is a singular honor. For this reason, we have given the best of ourselves, without any restriction», said the Prime Minister, who was also congratulated, together with the rest of his government, by the President of Equatorial Guinea.
According to the election results, Obiang won the presidential election with 94.9 percent of the ballots, ahead of Andres Esono, of the Convergence for Social Democracy of Equatorial Guinea (CPDS); and Buenaventura Monsuy, of the Social Democratic Coalition Party (PCSD). Furthermore, the PDGE won all the seats at stake: the 100 in the Chamber of Deputies, the 55 elected in the Senate – which has 70 seats, although 15 are appointed directly by the President – and the 588 in the municipal elections, according to the data of the electoral commission.
Following the announcement, the CPDS announced that it rejected the results of the November 20 elections as «fraudulent, undemocratic and unfair» and demanded that they be «annulled.» «The November 20 elections have been a real electoral coup d’état, given by a head of state who acceded to power through a palace coup and is willing to remain in power against the popular will,» the party said.
Obiang, 80 years old and the world’s longest-serving president, has led Equatorial Guinea since the uprising against his uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, who became the country’s first president after independence from Spain in 1968. Despite the fact that there are 18 legalized parties in the country, in practice there are no opponents with real options to remove Obiang from power, amid speculation about the possibility of a ‘dynastic’ succession resulting in the rise of his son ‘Teodorín’, vice-president since 2016.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)