Former Central African Republic Prime minister Anicet-Georges Dologuélé has announced on Monday, 1 September 2025, that he has relinquished his French citizenship to contest December’s presidential election against incumbent President Faustin-Archange Touadéra.
The opposition leader, who heads the URCA party, said the decision was made with a “heavy heart” but was necessary after a 2023 Constitutional amendment barred candidates with dual nationality from running.
Dologuélé, an economist who finished second to Touadéra in the disputed 2020 polls, accused the national Electoral Authority of “incompetence and avowed bias” and raised doubts over whether authorities could organise the December 28 vote on time.
Touadéra, who critics say is seeking to entrench himself in power after securing the right to a third term, faces mounting opposition amid continued instability in the Russia-aligned nation. While the government has promised credible elections, long-standing issues with the electoral roll, funding shortages, and insecurity still cast uncertainty over the process. With 2.3 million voters expected, including nearly 750,000 first-timers, Dologuélé has not ruled out a boycott, warning that free and fair conditions must be guaranteed. The stakes are high in a country scarred by decades of coups, civil wars, and unrest, where UN peacekeepers, Rwandan troops, and Russian mercenaries have been deployed to stabilise the fragile state.