adminVictoria – The Seychelles will go to an unprecedented presidential election runoff after all six candidates in the first round failed to secure a 50 percent share of the vote, the electoral commission said yesterday. “We’ll have to go into a second round,” said Hendrick Gappy, chairperson of the Seychelles Electoral Commission. The next vote begins on December 16.
The Indian Ocean archipelago nation of 115 islands and 93,000 people went to the polls to pick a new president on December 3 in the three-day vote.
The incumbent President James Michel, 71, won 47.76 percent of the 62,004 votes that were cast, while his closest challenger, Wavel Ramkalawan, a 54-year old Anglican priest, scored 33.93 percent.
Michel, who touted his economic credentials during the campaign, said the result showed his Parti Lepep, or People’s Party in Creole, was still dominant.
“We got more votes than any other party. We missed by only two percent. We’re ready for the second round,” he said.
The economy, which relies on tourism but also has expanding fisheries and financial services industries, is forecast to expand by more than four percent in 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund. – AFP
derick.khumalo