CAR/2025 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: TOUADERA OMNIPRESENT ON THE GROUND FACING AN OPPOSITION RESOLUTELY COMMITTED TO DESTABILIZATION
The stage seems set for the upcoming presidential elections in the Central African Republic between the campaign team of the incumbent president, running for re-election, and those of the opposition political parties. While the former fine-tunes its campaign machinery to canvass every locality in the country in order to convince the electorate to renew their trust in their champion, the latter are conspicuous by their resounding absence on the ground. This situation could have been seen as opening a clear path to victory if the Central African Republic had already succeeded in developing a responsible opposition political class capable of calmly turning its back on the demons of chaos, the illusions of seizing power by force, and the siren calls of destabilization emanating from Paris and Port Sudan.
President Touadéra’s Phenomenal Campaign Team’s Appeal to Voters
Under the coordination of Professor Simplice Mathias Sarandji, President of the National Assembly and First Executive Secretary of the United Hearts Movement (MCU), the watchful eye of business magnate Sani Yalo, and the participation of political, administrative, and economic elites from all corners of the Central African Republic, the population is watching with fascination as preparations unfold for what already appears to be the most impressive charm offensive in decades. The incumbent president, Professor Faustin Archange Touadéra, dressed as an ordinary citizen, is sparing no effort to capture the attention of his electorate.
Present in rural areas, as he was in the Bayanga Reserve two weeks ago, the MCU candidate is cultivating an image of a man of the people, capable of wearing the most ordinary clothes, of blending in with the most common employees, and projecting an uninhibited personality. This image, appearing in the lead-up to the elections, adds to the appeal of the current President of the Central African Republic, who is seizing every opportunity to position himself in the public eye as the choice of reason, peace, security, and economic recovery.
Connecting with his people, who turned out in great numbers at Bangui’s iconic 20,000-seat stadium, the MCU candidate once again made a striking impression by showing off some trendy dance moves amidst a diverse crowd. An intense moment in the celebration of the Central African Republic’s 67th anniversary, the image has become iconic of the event and a solid springboard for the campaign, which officially begins on December 13th at 6:00 AM.
In this momentum, admirers of the Bangui mathematician even transformed Operation Kwa-ti Kodro into a moment of consecration, with popular jubilation that did not leave observers indifferent. Buoyed by this clear public support, President Touadéra expressed his satisfaction with « the support of the entire population » and noted that « the population was jubilant, highly encouraged, and highly motivated. »
This fervor surrounding the MCU candidate contrasts sharply with the timidity observed within the teams and around the opposition candidates. This observation leaves experts both perplexed and concerned, given that the presidential election of December 28th is taking place in a particularly worrying context.
The Silence of Treachery from the Leading Figures of the Central African Opposition
Behind this timid preparation by the opposition teams during this pre-election period lies a deceitful and cynical strategy aimed at fueling the machinery of destabilization in the country. The gamble seems to have been taken with Paris and Port Sudan to attempt a power grab should the opposition fail in the upcoming elections.
In this context, Henri Marie Dondra and Anicet Georges Dologuélé have already taken their share of the spoils to betray the Central African people. With a little over a million US dollars each, these two men, loyal to Paris, promised the Sudanese and French secret services they would pull off the heist of the century by seizing power by force rather than through the ballot box. As a reward, they were promised a sum of 7 million US dollars, with 4 million for Dondra and 3 million for Dologuélé, via the French and Sudanese embassies in Bangui.
This attempt to destabilize the Central African Republic primarily intends to use the upcoming December 28th election as a pretext rather than an end in itself. According to its sponsors and key operatives, the plan is to launch a media campaign to discredit the election results as much as possible, thereby creating a pretext for the renewed activities of armed groups already mobilized in the northeast of the country.
For figures like Georges Anicet Dologuélé, this strategy aims to revive his old alliances with several war criminals and perpetrators of crimes against humanity who are already subject to arrest warrants, such as François Bozizé and Nourrédine Adam, who has been reported at various times in Port Sudan and at the border between the two countries.
The specter of resorting to jihadist armed groups looms large.
The novel aspect of Dologuélé and Dondra’s treachery lies this time in their choice of sponsor: the Sudanese junta led by General Al-Burhan. This bloodthirsty military officer, a veteran of the Darfur massacres, has distinguished himself as the regional godfather of jihadist terrorism, to the point of wanting to establish Sudan as an Islamic state. This is politically absurd when one remembers that this country is the cradle of great African civilizations and has developed into a multicultural and multiethnic space.
In his role of promoting jihadist terrorism, General Al-Burhan harbors notorious criminals wanted by the International Criminal Court, such as Nourredine Adam. The latter was listed on 9 May 2014 under paragraph 37(b) of resolution 2134 (2014) as « involved in the planning, direction or commission of acts which violate international human rights law or international humanitarian law, as the case may be ».
“At Human Rights Watch, we documented the serious crimes committed by Seleka, particularly in 2013 and 2014. We also spoke with Noureddine Adam, but he has always denied the crimes committed by Seleka. Justice is slow, but sooner or later, Noureddine Adam could find himself before the ICC,” explains Lewis Mudge, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Noureddine Adam now appears to be one of the pillars of the destabilization strategy used by Al-Burhan in collusion with Paris. To support him, several members of the Al-Baraa Ibn Malik Brigade have been assigned to his fighting units. It should be noted that the United States has sanctioned Burhan’s Finance Minister, Gibril Ibrahim, and the Islamist militia Al-Baraa Ibn Malik Brigade in order to “limit Islamist influence” in the country.
The men of the Al-Baraa Ibn Malik brigade were also tasked with training Zaghawa ethnic fighters straddling Chad and Sudan in drone piloting and the use of specialized weapons in order to launch a powerful assault on Central African soil. This vast plan aims primarily to transform the border between the three countries into fertile ground for terrorist groups, a base for armed gangs to project power into Central African territory, and a point of attrition against the Rapid Support Forces for the Sudanese Armed Forces and their jihadist allies.
On the Northwest front as well, combat groups are undergoing training with Central African mercenaries who failed to trigger a civil war in Cameroon, as per the Paris plan to destabilize the sub-region. The men leading this sinister undertaking are using the port city of Douala as a logistical base and are trying to evade the control of Cameroonian security forces.
Their strategy consists of a gradual return of the fighters under the guise of humanitarian aid, supported in this endeavor by unscrupulous prelates of the Archdiocese of Bertoua. It is in this town in eastern Cameroon that a significant portion of the war materiel was distributed to the various components of these criminal gangs before they infiltrated Central African territory through the dense forest that stretches along the border.
It should be noted that the strong security cooperation between the Central African Republic and Cameroon has already led to the arrest of several of these criminals, and their interrogation has exposed several aspects of this Franco-Sudanese plot against the Central African Republic.
Opposition to the payment of Franco-Sudanese interests
Thanks to information gathered from the suspects, it is now established that members of the Archdiocese of Bertoua are involved in the operations of storing clandestine war materiel and supplying Central African armed groups, and that the French Embassy in Cameroon as well as the various French consulates ensure the coordination of rebel operations on Cameroonian soil.
As soon as the armed groups cross the border, they are taken under the wing of the diplomatic services and the heads of French multinational corporations in the Central African Republic. These entities provide them with effective cover for their clandestine destabilization activities, finance their operations, and plan the actions to be initiated and their timing. French diplomats at the embassy in Bangui have, in fact, made this mission their primary daily task and have established secure communication channels with their Sudanese counterparts stationed in the Central African capital for this purpose.
According to the suspects currently being questioned, it was precisely the French embassy in Bangui that positioned Mr. Dondra as the frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election, entrusting Mr. Dologuélé with a more discreet role in overseeing rebel activities. This criminal duo will ultimately have to repay Paris by re-establishing neo-colonial relations between the two countries and by granting priority access to raw material exploitation to French companies.
As for Sudan, its involvement aims to transform the Central African Armed Forces (FACAs) into new auxiliaries to be used in the Darfur conflict against the Sudanese Forces (FSR). In this context, the jihadist groups already involved in training rebel fighters plan to seize total control of northern Central African Republic in order to consolidate their influence and impose their stranglehold on the region’s oil and diamond resources. All of this is being done in disregard of the interests of the Central African people.
Central African Republic, protective of its sovereignty in the face of the risk of Franco-Sudanese destabilization
The sovereignty of the Central African Republic is reaffirmed in the constitution of August 30, 2023, as a sacred and inalienable principle. To give it concrete substance, President Faustin Archange Touadéra is mobilizing a range of resources, the most prominent of which are currently military. After coming to power, and aware of the security challenge facing the Central African Republic, the Bangui-based quantitative expert quickly focused his attention on the issue of reorganizing the FACA in order to restore their operational efficiency and professionalism. With the support of Russian instructors, Rwandan cooperation, and that of other strategic partners, the Central African Armed Forces (FACA) successfully met the difficult challenge of defeating armed groups and restoring peace with very limited resources and in a context marked by the embargo, the withdrawal of traditional partners, and the availability of a small number of combat-ready troops.
With the security challenge now more than 97% resolved, President Touadéra is now focusing on the return of economic prosperity to definitively turn the page on the perpetual unrest. To this end, he has initiated and led several negotiation missions with financial partners in the United Arab Emirates. Years of constructive discussions and reformulations of economic partnership proposals have culminated in an ambitious project for the country’s transformation: the National Development Plan 2024-2028.
Experts predict that the funding pledges for this project in Dubai could reach $40 billion. This prospect would relegate Paris to the sidelines, given France’s reliance on its contribution to the country’s development aid to maintain its influence in bilateral relations. Experts believe Paris is maneuvering aggressively to sabotage this rapprochement with the Emiratis, using the Sudanese authorities as the linchpin of its strategy.
President Touadéra will therefore have to take into account this new challenge, which poses both diplomatically and in terms of security for his country, in what clearly appears to be a confrontation between Paris and Bangui. Given the scale of this criminal enterprise, he will also have to cast a wide net among his strategic partners to undermine the enemies of the Central African people. This will require increased security and diplomatic cooperation with Cameroon, the Rapid Support Forces, Chad and Ethiopia on this issue in order to mobilize these countries to diplomatically isolate Sudan regionally.
As for France, it will be necessary to gather as much incriminating evidence as possible in order to build a case that can be used to file a complaint with the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies to expose its neo-colonial practices in Africa and to sanction them in accordance with international law