Incumbent president Jean-Luc Mugaba was ineligible for re-election, having served been elected to the maximum allowable two terms. Mugaba had also served as interim president for three months following the assassination of Benjamin Boma in October 2010, making him the longest-serving democratic leader in CAF history.
Following the end of the Central African Civil War in 2001, the PUF dominated Central African politics as the country reconstructed itself following the decade-long conflict. The end of the conflict brought about a surge of foreign investment into extracting and processing the country's natural resources. The post-war spending policies of the PUF government, which carefully spread funds out to various tribal and linguistic groups, has been partially credited with preventing a re-ignition of fighting.
It was widely speculated that Mugaba had been grooming his ally Étienne Ngomo to be his successor, but Ngomo's death from kidney failure in September 2019 left no clear successor to take control of PUF after Muguba's term ended. PUF party leaders eventually selected the little-known Biluti as the party's presidential candidate, but the backroom nature of his selection greatly damaged the reputation for incorruptibility that the PUF had accumulated since Boma's term.
Ndima, a former militia leader during the civil war, successfully earned the endorsement of NFP councils in every state to become the party's nominee. He campaigned on enforcing rigid anti-corruption measures, an increase in military funds to restore order in border regions that had been affected by unrest in Zaire and the Central African Republic, and of attracting even more sources of international investment.
Ndima won with 53.5% of the vote in the second round. Both he and Biluti both won five states, with Ndima picking up the five easternmost states and Biluti the five westernmost. While opinion polling in the CAF is considered unreliable, analysts say that the regional divide was partially explained by the ongoing military situation and recent outbreak of the Ebola virus in that portion of the country that resulted in that part of the country voting more heavily for Ndima, who anecdotally was considered better-equipped to handle such crises.
The election marked the first time in CAF history that power was transferred peacefully from one elected leader to another.
Per the Constitution of the Central African Federation, the next presidential election is tentatively scheduled for 1 December 2025. Per the Constitution of the Central African Federation, new elections must be held within 90 days of the start of an intra-term vacancy.
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- Got reminded that Jake Sisko is no longer president of the CAF when looking through my old wikiboxes, so I decided to replace him with Captain Panaka.
- Some of the CAF's backstory (and its borders) was established in the old thread, and the rest I'm improvising.
- New Louisville was previously established as the capital. I'm going with that it is OTL Kisangi (formerly Stanleyville), which is the RL most populous city in the region that makes up the CAF IOTL.
- I retconned the starting date of independence for the CAF from 1960 to 1966 in the box for the presidency itself.
- I'd established the PUF in Boma's infobox (that I somehow failed to include dates for when he served as president 🤦♂️) under the English translation of its name.
- The states are all OTL provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the exception of New Louisville (OTL Kisangi), which gets to be its own state ITTL as the national capital.
Cast (new)
Hugh Quarshie as Grégoire Ndima
Rick Famuyiwa as Jean-Charles Biluti
