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Pope Francis on Wednesday urged the Central African people to refrain from violence after the deeply troubled country held contested elections.
“I follow closely and with concern the events in the Central African Republic where elections were held recently in which the people showed their will to continue on the path of peace,” the pontiff said on Wednesday after leading prayers for the feast of the Epiphany.
“I call on all parties to join in a fraternal and respectful dialogue, to reject hatred and to avoid all forms of violence,” said Francis, who visited Bangui in November 2015.
Ten opposition candidates called on Tuesday for the cancellation of the December 27 vote which saw the re-election of President Faustin Archange Touadera in this country prone to a coup.
In a joint statement, they said the polls for president and parliament had been “littered with many irregularities” and called for “an outright cancellation”.
They said only 695,000 registered voters out of 1.8 million were able to vote, which equates to a turnout of 37% instead of the 76.31% reported by the electoral commission.
The former enclaved French colony is still grappling with the aftershocks of a civil war in 2013 that followed the ousting of Touadera’s predecessor, François Bozize.
The conflict resumed in the election race when a coalition of three armed groups attempted to advance on the capital Bangui.
They were arrested by the CAR armed forces and UN peacekeepers, as well as by heavily armed Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan special forces by plane as part of bilateral pacts.
But the government accuses Bozize of being behind what it calls an attempted coup.
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