Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has been in power for 43 years, is seeking for re-election as the country goes to the polls in the presidential election on Sunday.
Mbasogo is seeking a sixth term in office with the assurance of being re-elected after he forced the parliament to amend the constitution to enable him go for another term.
At 80, Obiang holds the world record for longevity in power for a head of state still alive, outside the monarchy.
During his fifth tenure bid in 2016, Obiang who has made himself as one of the world longest presidents ranking with the likes of Paul Biya of Cameroon, won with a whopping 93.7%, and political analysts believe Sunday’s election will play out in the same pattern.
He became Equitorial Guinea’s head of state in 1979 when he took over from the first president, Francisco Macias Nguema, who was his uncle and bloodthirsty dictator, whom he had shot two months later.
He has been in charge of the central African country since then, meaning that the country has had only two leaders since gaining independence from Spain in 1968.
For the presidential election, Teodoro Obiang will face two candidates: Andrès Esono Ondo, for the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), the only opposition party that is not banned, and Buenaventura Monsuy Asumu of the Social Democratic Coalition Party (PCSD), a micro-movement previously allied with the PDGE in the legislative elections
