Equatorial Guinea: Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and the signs of a perfect dictatorship
Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo delivers a speech during a farewell ceremony for late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, held for family and heads of state at the National Sports Stadium in Harare on September 14, 2019. - Mugabe, who died in Singapore on September 6, 2019 at the age of 95, left Zimbabwe deeply divided over his legacy with his country still struggling with high inflation and shortages of goods after decades of crisis. (Photo by Zinyange Auntony / AFP)
Malabo ticks all the boxes of a “perfect” dictatorship, at the expense of an impoverished and muzzled population. Teodoro Obiang’s regime is even a textbook case of sorts.
To be honest, we rarely have the opportunity to have in a single regime a real refinement of dictatorship. In fact, there is only one in the world that is a textbook case and studied as tell: Equatorial Guinea.
As in all dictatorships, for the coup was organized a sham election obviously won by the President
As in all dictatorships, for the coup was organized a sham election obviously won by the President
As in all dictatorships, for the coup was organized a sham election obviously won by the President
Teodoro Obiang and his party with 99.7% of the vote.
In 43 years in power, Teodoro Obiang has never won less than 90% of the vote. At 80, as long as you are a dictator, you might as well be a dictator entirely, absolutely. He even has the supreme mark of the satrap: to have overthrown and executed his predecessor.
Bingo! The Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea has been in power since its creation in 1986, controlling 99 of the 100 seats and the entire Senate in the last elections.
In a dictatorship, you also need opponents in prison! Not this problem: before coming to power, Teodoro Obiang refined his cruelty by running the sinister Black Beach prison that still mistreats and tortures just as fervently.
Inheritance
Here again, the Obiang regime ticks all the boxes. Dad’s favorite is a kind of playboy who spent his youth spending money that didn’t belong to him: Teodoro Obiang Junior, known as Teodorín.
He was finally sentenced last year in France to 3 years in prison and 30 million euros in fines for corruption. All his ill-gotten gains were confiscated. At the same time, he was also banned from entering Britain.
Until 1996, Equatorial Guinea exported only coffee and cocoa. In short, not much. Then, a miracle happened: oil was found off its coast! The reign of corruption could really begin.
With 200,000 barrels a day, billions of dollars rain down on the plan’s coffers every year.
The population precisely, it benefits from this financial manna?
The vast majority of Equatorial Guineans live on less than 2 dollars a day, even though the country is one of the richest in Africa! The regime spends, it is true, but in “white elephants”, prestigious projects that serve no purpose.
Stadiums always empty, huge and idle hotels, a new capital without inhabitants, roads that lead nowhere. Finally, there is even the detail that signs the crass dictatorships, the noises about fragile health of the octogenarian President.
Miss OLY
