Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, president of Equatorial Guinea, who has been in office for 43 years and is running for a sixth term, announced his candidacy on Thursday.
President Francisco Macias Nguema, who was in charge at the time of independence and whose leadership resulted in a vast exodus and thousands of fatalities, was deposed by Mr. Obiang, 80, in 1979. The general elections will take place on November 20.
According to the AFP news agency, the president claimed during a rally that his party had picked him to run “because I am the symbol of peace that reigns in Equatorial Guinea”
Out of the nation’s 1.4 million residents, 425,000 are registered voters, according to AFP.
