Seychellois President James Michel has been returned to office with an outright election victory, the Seychellois Electoral Commission said yesterday, in polls the opposition said were marred by bribery.
By winning 55 percent of the vote, Michel avoided a second round run-off against his closest rival, Wavel Ramkalawan, who polled 41 percent of the ballots cast.
In the run-up to the vote, Ramkalawan accused ruling party agents of bribing opposition voters not to vote.
Michel, who oversaw a raft of painful economic reforms to liberalize the once state-controlled economy during his first term in office, said he would serve all Seychellois and continue with reforms.
“We will put our differences aside and continue building Seychelles. The people have spoken today,” Michel told supporters moments after the result was announced.
Voting on the Indian Ocean archipelago spanned three days to allow for ballot papers to be shipped or airlifted to the handful of voters living on the remotest islands and back in time for counting.
Some who voted for Michel cited better job opportunities in spite of the tough austerity measures imposed in 2008 because of an acute balance of payments crisis.
“With all the hotel investments in the country, we have more jobs to chose from, thanks to the government’s efforts to lure in more foreign investors,” security guard Barney Francois said after giving Michel his vote on the main island of Mahe.
Voting was peaceful and orderly on the islands best known as a luxury tropical retreat for royals and tycoons.
There was no immediate reaction to the vote from the opposition, which before the vote accused the ruling party of fraud.
“There are many incidents of corruption in which Parti Lepep supporters are giving my supporters cash and asking them not to vote at all,” Ramkalawan told reporters on Saturday.
“Allegations will always be there, but I have made sure as far as my party is concerned that we are doing nothing that is against the rules,” Michel responded.
Michel opened the country’s doors to foreign investors, notably from the Gulf states and China, in the tourism, construction and real-estate sectors. Critics accuse him of selling off Seychelles’ prime land.
Michel joined government in 1977 when Albert Rene grabbed power in a bloodless coup, rising to be the socialist leader’s vice-president until Rene resigned mid-term, citing ill health in 2004 and handing over power to Michel.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS