Eduardo González
The representatives of the Progress Party (PP) of Equatorial Guinea exiled in Spain have called for a “total boycott” of the next legislative and municipal elections, to be held simultaneously in November of this year. On the other hand, the legal opposition party CPDS, while admitting that the elections in Guinea “are systematically fraudulent”, has offered to lead a joint candidacy of the entire opposition, “both inside the country and in exile”, so that the people can show their rejection of the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
“The dictatorship is preparing to perpetrate its umpteenth deception of the Guinean people as a whole, with the opening and implementation of an irregular census that has no place even in its own electoral law”, declared the Progress Party, founded by the historic opposition leader Severo Moto and currently presided over from Madrid by Armengol Engonga. Registration in the electoral roll is mandatory to participate in the elections. This year’s registration process took place between July 11 and 23.
“With this flagrant irregularity, Obiang Nguema intends to carry out another election, with the objective of minimally shoring up his regime, trying to get some international legitimacy to continue extending his dictatorship,” the PP continued in a statement. “If on other occasions his deceptions have been enough to attract some unwary people, on this occasion he has encountered a frontal opposition, both from the opposition political parties (unanimously those in exile), as well as from activists, non-affiliated opponents and all the people as a whole”, it added.
For this reason, Engonga’s party expressed its “refusal to continue legitimizing the dictatorship, participating in its electoral farces that only serve to prolong the suffering of our people” and warned, therefore, that “the most coherent, the most responsible and the most honest thing to do is to make a vacuum to the dictatorship and a total boycott to its electoral games”. “Here there is no room for half-hearted positions, electoral calculations, nor personal interests. It is the hour of generosity, of greatness of vision and of solidarity with our people in their suffering. We must not forget that our actions, in these transcendental moments, will be judged by history,” it concluded.
CPDS
For his part, the secretary general of the legal opposition party Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), Andres Esono Ondo Okogo, has denounced that, “to stay in power and continue plundering the country to the detriment of the majority of the people, the Government of the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea calls and holds systematically fraudulent elections, such as the next legislative and municipal elections, to be held this year 2022”. “The elections are systematically fraudulent, without sufficient guarantees for citizens to freely cast their vote. In short, we are facing a regime in which democratic political alternation is impossible,” he added in a communiqué released in mid-July.
Nevertheless, the CPDS proposes, “once again, to all political groups opposed to the regime, both inside the country and in exile, to forget for a moment our logical discrepancies and form a single bloc to participate in the elections under the CPDS acronym and lists as a legalized party”. “If all the indignant, mistreated, unemployed, impoverished and discontented of the dictatorship, who are the vast majority of the population, I insist, if all of them register and vote decisively against the PDGE and in favor of the opposition bloc and stay at the polling stations to follow live the counting of the votes, the PDGE will certainly lose the elections,” it continues.
“We already know that the PDGE will never recognize that it has lost the elections, but this electoral defeat will demonstrate to the world that the people of Equatorial Guinea do not want Obiang and his regime, and will be the beginning of a real citizen mobilization that will lead to the democratic change we all long for”, assures Esono. “We are aware that many citizens may be disappointed by the CPDS decision that we go to the elections”, but “with the elections to be held, we have a new opportunity to say loud and clear that we no longer want this regime, by voting for the opposition”, he continues.
“That is why we ask that all outraged citizens, dissatisfied and harmed by the dictatorship, act by participating in the solution of the problem and we can all be free. Staying at home does not solve anything. Dear compatriots, go and register all, absolutely all, and vote all against the PDGE and its regime. It is the only solution and this solution must start now”, concludes the communiqué.
