Despite the official fanfare surrounding the Central African Republic’s general election on Sunday, the mood in the capital, Bangui, appeared to be more of jaded resignation.Several residents of Bangui told AFP they thought the country was a mess, that little had improved since outgoing president Faustin-Archange Touadera came to power a decade ago — and that the outcome of the elections was a foregone conclusion.Around half the population of 5.5 million are entitled to vote in Sunday’s polls to select new local and regional officials, the national parliament and a new head of state.But several opposition parties have called for a boycott, complaining the elections are a sham, and a number of people AFP spoke to in Bangui said they were not impressed by the seven candidates vying for president.”No matter who we vote for, nothing will change,” said “Joshua”, a 38-year-old technician working at an NGO who declined to give his real name.He did not see the point of voting, he said, as the opposition had not been given the same opportunities to rally supporters as the president, whose MCU party has urged the electorate to give it “a knock-out vote in the first round”.”They’ll steal the election no matter how we vote,” he said.”Esther”, a 39-year-old cook, cast her first — and last — ballot in the election that brought Touadera to power in 2016. Since then, she said, she had lost her voting card — but had not bothered re-registering.She acknowledged that security had improved since the unrest and ethnic-religious violence that traumatised the country in 2012 and 2013. “Now Christians and Muslims can walk together in the street,” she said.But she was too busy working to feed her children to be interested in politics.”My vote won’t change anything anyway,” she said dismissively.- Grievances -“Garcon 5 Etoiles” — a pseudonym — agreed the country was safer now but saw little else in the way of progress since he voted for Touadera in 2016.The 44-year-old security manager said he was generally disappointed with the outgoing president’s 10 years in office in what is still one of the poorest countries on Earth.”The issue of hospitals remains a tragedy — and I choose my words carefully,” he said, pointing to the advanced state of disrepair of the capital’s three main health facilities.He reeled off a string of other grievances. More than 70 percent of the population were living below the poverty line; the cost of living was excessive; basic education and health services were conspicuous by their absence; and so were baseline regulations, particularly on road safety.He complained of the “cronyism” that ensured people with family ties rather than competence got the best jobs in the administration and the army.So would he vote for Touadera again? No.But not would he vote for the opposition, he said, because their default position of simply disagreeing with everything was just unconstructive.So, like the others, he planned to stay at home on election day.Provisional results are due on January 5, but Garcon 5 Etoiles said he was not holding his breath.”There’s no counterweight to President Touadera,” he concluded, “so we already know pretty much what the outcome will be.”
