Opposition leader wins Seychelles presidential election

By Mark Ogagan

Dr. Patrick Herminie (Pictured), of the United Seychelles party has defeated President Wavel Ramkalawan to win Seychelles’ presidential election.

The former Speaker of Parliament triumphed in a run-off election, restoring full control of the archipelago nation’s government to its longtime ruling party.

Herminie’s victory, with 52.7 per cent of the vote, follows his United Seychelles party’s triumph in the first round of the general election last month, when it reclaimed the majority in parliament that it lost in 2015.

Seychelles is Africa’s wealthiest country per capita, located across 1.2 million square kilometres in the western Indian Ocean and a prime tourist destination as well as a target for investment from, and security co-operation with, China, Gulf nations and India.

Ramkalawan, a former Anglican priest, was elected in 2020, becoming the first president from outside United Seychelles – formerly the Seychelles People’s Progressive Front – since a coup one year after independence from Britain in 1976.

He campaigned for re-election on his management of Seychelles’ economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and expansion of social protections.

But voters opted for Herminie, who accused Ramkalawan of presiding over a proliferation of corruption and vowed to cancel a hotel project permitted by Ramkalawan’s government that environmentalists say threatens a UNESCO-listed coral atoll.

Herminie has pledged to lower the retirement age from 65 to 63 and implement recommendations from a truth and reconciliation commission that examined human rights abuses related to a 1977 coup and its aftermath.

Despite its economic success, the nation of 115 islands is among the world’s most climate vulnerable and has one of the highest per-capita rates of heroin use.

Herminie, who served as Speaker from 2007 to 2016, was arrested in 2023 on charges of witchcraft that were later dropped.

United Seychelles faced its own corruption scandals during its 43 years in power. Herminie attributed this in an interview last month to the party having been in power for too long and said it had since turned the page.