Nguema seeks to extend 37-year rule in Sunday's Equatorial Guinea polls
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea, speaks during the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York on September 23, 2009. He will be seeking to extend his 37-year rule during Sunday's Equatorial Guinea polls. PHOTO | AFP
What you need to know:
- Obiang, Africa’s longest-serving leader looks set to win a fresh seven-year mandate in elections on Sunday.
- He ruled by fear, sparing few families in waves of killings and atrocities that provoked an exodus to other countries.
- Obiang had his uncle tried, strung up in a cage and shot by hired Moroccan soldiers, who later formed the backbone of his bodyguards.
- Equatorial Guinea has acquired a reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt.
- The president has built up a personality cult, even allowing rumours of cannibalism.
MALABO, Friday
Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema seized power almost 37 years ago from a ruthless uncle and has ruled the tiny nation with an iron glove.
Already Africa’s longest-serving leader, the 73-year-old looks set to win a fresh seven-year mandate in elections on Sunday.
“Whoever does not vote for me is rejecting peace and opting for disorder,” Obiang told a crowd at Malabo Stadium.
Obiang came to power in the former Spanish colony in a 1979 coup against his uncle Macias Nguema, a fervent nationalist.
Macias was a self-proclaimed sorcerer who collected skulls and had Nazi-style notions of ethnic purity.
He ruled by fear, sparing few families in waves of killings and atrocities that provoked an exodus to other countries.
Obiang had his uncle tried, strung up in a cage and shot by hired Moroccan soldiers, who later formed the backbone of his bodyguards.
OMNIPOTENT SECURITY SERVICES
The former putschist then began building omnipotent security services to monitor all aspects of public life.
Heading a country with few resources, unable at first to even afford a private jet, his fiery character alienated some of his peers who would patronise him at summits — until the discovery of offshore oil in the early 1990s.
With investments by mostly US firms, the country rose from being a Gulf of Guinea backwater to sub-Saharan Africa’s third oil producer after Nigeria and Angola.
The country has acquired a reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt.
The president has built up a personality cult, even allowing rumours of cannibalism.
In 2003, a state radio presenter described him as being “in permanent contact with God”, a leader “who can decide to kill without accounting to anyone and without going to hell”.
