Bangui: Central African Republic voted on Sunday in elections seen as a crucial step towards restoring democratic rule and ending years of violence that have left the impoverished nation split along religious faultlines.
Two former prime ministers, Faustin-Archange Touadera and Anicet-Georges Dologuele, are contesting the presidential run-off while authorities attempt to rerun a first round of legislative polls which were cancelled over irregularities.
“We hope that it all goes well and goes quickly so that we can have a president,” said Parfait Gbokou, 30, among the first to vote after polls opened at 6am (0500 GMT) at a primary school in the centre of the capital, Bangui.
“I hope we’ll finish with these problems once and for all, and we’ll have a good laugh in the end,” he said.
Elsewhere, the vote got off to a slower start with delays as poll workers set up voting booths and ballot boxes. Polls are due to close at 4pm.
Central African Republic, one of the world’s most unstable countries, was plunged into the worst crisis in its history in early 2013, when mainly Muslim Seleka fighters toppled President Francois Bozize.
Christian militias responded to Seleka abuses, attacking the Muslim minority community. Thousands have died in the bloodshed, and one in five Central Africans has fled, either internally or abroad.
“We expect our new president to disarm the fighters so we can go home,” said Emilienne Namsona, 47, who fled in 2013 to the M’poko displacement camp, home to some 23,000 internal refugees next to the airport in the capital Bangui.
“This is important because we are suffering here in Central African Republic. We want peace. We’re going to vote for peace,” she said.
A turnout of nearly 80 per cent for a first round of voting in December was largely viewed as a popular rejection of the violence, which has left the northeast under the control of Muslim rebels while Christian militias roam the southwest.
Both Dologuele, a banker, and trained mathematics professor Touadera have made the restoration of peace and security the centrepiece of their presidential campaigns. Both candidates are Christians.
Touadera has portrayed himself as an anticorruption stalwart, while Dologuele pledges to revive the economy and draw in investors hesitant until now to exploit significant gold, diamond and uranium deposits.
“This election is taking place at a moment when the country is really at a crossroads ... This is an amazing opportunity to start fresh,” said Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, who heads MINUSCA, the country’s 11,000-troop strong UN peacekeeping mission.
However, while the polls should re-establish democracy after three years of unpopular interim administrations, observers warn against setting expectations too high.
Whoever wins the presidency will face the daunting tasks of extending state authority outside the capital, rebuilding the army, breathing life into a moribund economy and restoring a semblance of security in across nation awash with guns.
“[Elections] are not going to solve the deep, systemic problems that put this country into conflict,” said Lewis Mudge, Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It’s cheaper to buy a grenade in Bangui than it is to buy a can of Coke. That’s how bad it is here.”
