Protests erupted on Tuesday in the Central African Republic’s capital Bangui, following the announcement that former president Francois Bozize won’t be allowed to run in the Presidential elections slated for December 27.
A text message from the French embassy sent to French citizens said that there were “barricades and gunfire” in several districts and advised French citizens “to avoid these areas”.
Calm however returned to the capital after nightfall, security sources said.
The Constitutional Court rejected the exiled Bozize’s bid to vie for the presidency in the upcoming elections.
Hopes are high that the presidential and parliamentary polls will signal CAR’s return to normalcy after two years of sectarian violence between Christian and Muslim fighters that began after Bozize was overthrown in March 2013 by a mainly Muslim rebel alliance.
A total of 3 candidates were cleared to run in the first round of voting by the transitional regime’s Constitutional Court, which rejected Bozize’s bid alongside 15 other applications.
A leader of the mainly Christian militia known as the “anti-balaka”, Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, was also barred from running for the country’s top job.
Bozize, aged 69, who is now living in exile in an undisclosed African location, is the target of UN sanctions for supporting the Christian militias who have attacked members of the Muslim minority in tit-for-tat fighting that has devastated one of Africa’s poorest and most unstable nations.
