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Seychelles President Danny Faure will face two rivals in next month’s election, the election commission said on Wednesday, including a veteran opposition leader who lost the last election in the Indian Ocean archipelago by just 193 votes.
The election comes at a crucial time for the nation of 115 islands off East Africa, with its vital high-end tourism industry on its knees after the border closes due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It also comes as the ruling Parti Lepep, known locally as the Popular Party and has been in power since 1977, faces an unprecedented challenge.
The opposition party Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (Creole for the Democratic Union of Seychelles) won a parliamentary majority in the 2016 legislative elections, the first time an opposition party did so since the country’s return to multi-party politics in 1993.
The consequences of the crushing defeat led then-President James Michel, narrowly re-elected the previous year, to hand over the presidency to Faure, who will participate in his first election in the October 22-24 vote.
The electoral commission of the former British colony confirmed on Wednesday three candidates, including Faure and Wavel Ramkalawan of Linyon Demokratik Seselwa, who will run for the sixth time for the presidency.
Ramkalawan is expected to be the main rival after losing to Michel in 2015 by just 193 votes.
However, the country’s opposition did not rally to a single candidate.
The third person approved to appear is former Tourism Minister Alain Saint-Ange of the new One Seychelles party, which has vowed to liberalize cannabis use and install a government of technocrats.
President Faure told the media that if he wins, he will establish a government of national unity to overcome the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.
“These are the most important elections in the history of our country, because they are held at a time when the country is facing economic and social difficulties caused by Covid-19,” he said.
Seychelles closed its borders in March to prevent the spread of the virus.
The islands are a haven for luxury tourism, welcoming more than 360,000 visitors in 2018, double the number a decade earlier and nearly four times the population of 95,000.
Hundreds of people working in the tourism sector lost their jobs and the Seychelles rupee lost more than 40 percent of its value against major foreign currencies.
Normally, the country holds separate legislative and presidential elections, but they met this year to save public money.
