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Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (born 5 June 1942) is the Equatoguinean politician who has been President of Equatorial Guinea since 1979. Born into the Esanguii clan in Acoacan, Obiang joined the military during Equatorial Guinea's colonial period and attended the Military Academy in Zaragoza, Spain. He achieved the rank of lieutenant after his uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, was elected the country's first president. Under Macias, Obiang held various jobs, including governor of Bioko and leader of the National Guard. He was also head of Black Beach Prison, notorious for the severe torture of its inmates.

He ousted his uncle, Francisco Macias Nguema, in an August 1979 military coup and has overseen Equatorial Guinea's emergence as an important oil producer, beginning in the 1990s. Equatorial Guinea is nominally a multiparty constitutional republic. In practice, however, all branches of government are dominated by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who has ruled since 1979. In November 2009, he was declared the winner of the presidential election with over 95 percent of the vote.

After President Francisco Macias Nguema ordered the murders of several members of his own family – including Obiang's brother – Obiang and others in Macias' inner circle feared the president had gone insane. Obiang overthrew his uncle on 3 August 1979 in a bloody coup d'etat and placed him on trial for his activities, including the genocide of the Bubi people, over the previous decade. He was sentenced to death and, on 29 September 1979, executed by firing squad. Obiang declared that the new government would make a fresh start from Macias' brutal and repressive regime. He granted amnesty to political prisoners, re-opened all closed places of worship, and ended the previous regime's system of forced labor. However, virtually no mention was made of his own role in the atrocities committed under his uncle's rule.

Since 1979, President Obiang has been constrained only by a need to maintain a consensus among his advisers and political supporters, most of whom are drawn from the Nguema family in Mongomo, in the eastern part of Rio Muni. The Nguema family is part of the Esangui subclan of the Fang. Alleged coup attempts in 1981 and 1983 raised little sympathy among the populace.

Obiang assumed the presidency in October 1979. Obiang initially ruled Equatorial Guinea with the assistance of a Supreme Military Council. The country nominally returned to civilian rule in 1982, with the enactment of a slightly less authoritarian constitution. The new constitution, drafted in 1982 with the help of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, came into effect after a popular vote on August 15, 1982; the Council was abolished, and Obiang was elected to the presidency for a 7-year term; he was the only candidate.

Obiang was reelected in 1989, again as the only candidate. A new constitution was approved in 1991 and amended in 1995. Opposition parties rejected as invalid the December 2002 presidential election, which they boycotted. President Obiang was re-elected with 97% of the vote. Reportedly, 95% of eligible voters voted in this election, although many observers noted numerous irregularities. At least one precinct was recorded as giving Obiang 103 percent of the vote. Following his re-election Obiang formed a government based on national unity encompassing all opposition parties, except for the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), which declined to join after Obiang refused to release one of their jailed leaders. In the April 2004 parliamentary and municipal elections President Obiang's Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea and allied parties won 98 of 100 seats in parliament and all but seven of 244 municipal posts. International observers criticized both the election and its results.

The May 4, 2008 legislative elections resulted in an overwhelming victory for the PDGE. Ninety-nine of the 100 seats in the assembly went to the PDGE while the Convergence for Social Democracy only received one. Results were similar in the municipal elections held the same day, granting PDGE 319 councilor seats while CPDS only gained 13. Some international election observers reported that the elections were generally conducted in a free and fair manner. Nevertheless, irregularities were reported, which included the barring of certain members of the international press.

In November 2009, President Obiang won a new 7-year mandate with 95.4% of the vote, again amid accusations of voter fraud and intimidation, beating opposition leader Placido Mico Abogo. The election was not boycotted by the opposition, and the main opposition leader won 3.6% of the vote. He stated that he viewed the elections as neither fair nor free, but with the approval of the executive committee of his party, did not formally object to the election results.

Despite his reputation of omnipresence, much goes on under the nose of "el Jefe," and the players energetically vie for influence and position. The art of governance is being practiced. Nevertheless, democracy, as we know it, will only arrive in EG once the patriarch is gone and the party comes apart along its various fault lines.