VICTORIA, Seychelles: The people of Seychelles voted Saturday in an election to choose a new leader and parliament, with President Wavel Ramkalawan seeking a second term in Africa’s smallest country.
Ramkalawan’s chief political rival, Patrick Herminie of the United Seychelles Party, is a veteran lawmaker and parliamentary speaker from 2007 to 2016.
Polls opened at 7 a.m. in a sign of what was expected to be a strong voter turnout in the tourist haven, where the president is elected for a five-year term.
Long lines formed at many polling stations across the country Saturday. Electoral authorities said all stations opened on time and voting was proceeding smoothly.
Ramkalawan, an Anglican priest who later became involved in politics, became the first opposition leader since 1976 to defeat the ruling party when he made his sixth bid for the presidency in 2020.
The ruling Linyon Demokratik Seselwa party campaigned on economic recovery, social development and environmental sustainability.
If no contender receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the two top candidates go into a runoff. Just over 77,000 people are registered to vote in Seychelles.
The 115-island archipelago in the Indian Ocean has become synonymous with luxury and environmental travel, which has bumped Seychelles to the top of the list of Africa’s richest countries by gross domestic product per capita, according to the World Bank.
The economy also has fueled a growing middle class and opposition to the ruling party.
With its territory spread across about 390,000 square kilometers (150,579 square miles), Seychelles is especially vulnerable to climate change including rising sea levels, according to the World Bank and the UN Sustainable Development Group.
Another concern for voters is a growing drug crisis. A 2017 United Nations report described the country as a major drug transit route. The 2023 Global Organized Crime Index said the island nation has one of the world’s highest rates of heroin addiction.
An estimated 6,000 people out of Seychelles’ population of 120,000 use the drug, while independent analysts say addiction rates approach 10 percent. Most of the country’s population lives on the island of Mahé, home to the capital Victoria.
Critics say Ramkalawan has largely failed to rein in the drug crisis. His rival, Herminie, also was criticized for failing to stem the addiction rates while serving as chairman of the national Agency for the Prevention of Drug Abuse and Rehabilitation from 2017 until 2020.
Seychelles president seeks a second term as people vote in African tourist haven
https://arab.news/gskv2
Seychelles president seeks a second term as people vote in African tourist haven
- Ramkalawan’s chief political rival, Patrick Herminie of the United Seychelles Party, is a veteran lawmaker and parliamentary speaker from 2007 to 2016
No sign of progress on first day of Ukraine war talks in Geneva
- Two previous rounds of negotiation between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough
- Trump put pressure on Ukraine to make a deal, saying they “better come to the table, fast”
GENEVA: Ukrainian and Russian negotiators concluded the first of two days of US-mediated peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday, though neither side signalled they were any closer to ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Negotiations will resume on Wednesday.
The United States has been pushing for an end to the nearly four-year war, but has failed to broker a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv on the key issue of territory.
Two previous rounds of negotiation between the two sides in Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough.
The latest talks “were very tense,” said a source close to the Russian delegation.
“They lasted six hours. They have now concluded,” the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address he was ready “to move quickly toward a worthy agreement to end the war,” but questioned whether Russia was serious about peace.
“What do they want?” he added, accusing them of prioritising missile strikes over “real diplomacy.”
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The ensuing conflict has resulted in a tidal wave of destruction that has left entire cities in ruins, tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead and forced millions of people to flee their homes.
- ‘Come to the table, fast’ -
Zelensky has repeatedly said his country is being asked to make disproportionate compromises compared to Russia.
US President Donald Trump on Monday put pressure on Ukraine to make a deal, saying they “better come to the table, fast.”
Russia occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine — including the Crimean peninsula it seized in 2014 — and areas that Moscow-backed separatists had taken prior to the 2022 invasion.
It is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal, and has threatened to take it by force if talks fail.
But Kyiv has rejected this deeply unpopular demand, which would be politically and militarily fraught, and signalled it will not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.
Russia has been slowly capturing territory across the sprawling front line for months.
But its war-time economic worries are mounting, with growth stagnating and a ballooning budget deficit as oil revenues — choked by sanctions — drop to a five-year low.
Ukrainian forces recently made their fastest gains in two-and-a-half years, recapturing 201 square kilometers (78 square miles) last week, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
That total includes areas Kyiv and military analysts say are controlled by Russia (72 square kilometers), as well as those claimed by Moscow’s army (129 square kilometers).
The counterattacks likely leveraged the disruption of Russian forces’ access to Starlink, the ISW said, after the satellite Internet firm’s boss, Elon Musk, announced “measures” to end Russia’s use of the technology.
- Breakthrough hopes low -
For the talks in Geneva, the Kremlin reinstated nationalist hawk and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky as its lead negotiator.
Ukrainian national security secretary Rustem Umerov was leading Kyiv’s side.
Hopes for a breakthrough are low.
Even before the talks were underway, Ukraine accused Russia of undermining peace efforts by launching 29 missiles and 396 drones in a series of attacks overnight that authorities said killed at least four people, wounded others and cut power to tens of thousands in southern Ukraine.
“The extent to which Russia disregards peace efforts: a massive missile and drone strike against Ukraine right before the next round of talks in Geneva,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote on social media.
A Russian drone strike killed three staff of a power plant in the frontline town of Sloviansk in eastern Ukraine, according to energy minister Denys Shmygal.
Another person was killed in the northeastern Sumy region, local officials said.
Russia meanwhile accused Ukraine of launching more than 150 drones overnight, mainly over southern regions and the Crimean peninsula — occupied by the Kremlin in 2014.
An oil depot in southern Russia caught fire, according to officials.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists to expect no major news from the first day of talks.
