About 300 people demonstrated in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, against a constitutional amendment after President Faustin-Archange Touadéra ordered a commission to rewrite it.
The demonstrators carried banners reading “No to manipulation” and “No to dictatorship” as they marched with the Republican Bloc coalition, which includes more than 20 opposition parties in addition to civil society organizations.
“The purpose of this maneuver is to exceed the two-term limit in order to become president for life,” former Prime Minister Martin Ziguli, now an opposition MP, told the crowd.
“We are on our way to learning about a great dictatorship in our country,” said Roland Sylvester Dawa of the Democratic Bloc for Central African Reconstruction.
In recent months, the CAR authorities have staged demonstrations in support of constitutional amendments, with more than a thousand people participating in the August 6 demonstration.
Less than a week later, President Touadéra declared that “more and more votes are being gathered to demand an amendment to the constitution.”
Touadira, 65, was first elected president in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020 in a controversial election, but the current constitution prevents him from running for a third term.
Source: AFP