Seychellois President, Mr France Albert Rene, is celebrating his return to office this week after winning the majority vote for his party, the Seychelles People's Progressive Front (SPPF) in last weekend's presidential election.
The Seychellois media has reported that this year's election results were the closest yet since the multiparty system was reintroduced on the island in the early 1990s. Mr Rene gained 54.19 per cent of the votes followed closely by Wavel Ramkalawan representing the Seychelles National Party (SNP) with 44.95 per cent. There was a third contestant, independent candidate Philippe Boullé who received 0.86 per cent of the votes - ouch!
According to the Seychelles Nation online news service, a total of 51,145 votes were cast but 3,907 votes were rejected as invalid. Of the 25 constituencies the SPPF won 16 and the SNP won the remainder.
In his first speech as the President Elect of what will be his final 5 year term in administration, Mr Rene urged politicians and the general public to put their country before 'personal gains and ambitions'. He declared: 'Seychelles as a whole must continue to move forward and we have a lot of work to do ... what is left to be done now is for us to work harder, take stock of whatever errors we have made in the past, correct them so that we can continue to move forward. I think that if we have this frame of mind we will succeed.'
The President added: 'The people of Seychelles have elected me a President for all Seychellois and I believe we must work together, in unity and in the interest of Seychelles.'
As Mr Rene and his party were celebrating, opposition leader Wavel Ramkalawan told the media that although his party had fared better than ever before with a 25 per cent increase in votes since the last election, he found the results unacceptable because he felt that the conditions agreed between both political parties were not observed by the SPPF. 'What we have seen during these last three days before the election is an abuse by the SPPF of these conditions,' claimed Mr Ramkalawan.
He said that he had evidence that some people under 18 years of age had been allowed to vote and he complained that some elderly people had been chaperoned to the polling stations to vote without the knowledge of their relatives. 'If that election was truly free and if all actors participating in it had respected all the regulations that had been agreed upon, the results would have been different,' lamented Mr Ramkalawan.
In response Mr Rene told the Seychelles Nation that there are bad as well as good losers in all contests but he would welcome the strong opposition, 'I believe that we can do a lot of work together, on the condition that they are positive and are interested to work for the country's benefit,' he said.
Despite Mr Ramkalawan's complaints, the Election Commissioner and the international observers who monitored the process to ensure transparency have so far said that they were satisfied that the election process was transparent and fair.
Mr Rene pledged that he would strive to strengthen and expand the Seychellois economy over the next five years. 'I intend to keep that promise. We must continue to live in peace, tranquillity and harmony,' he said.
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