With no outright winner in Seychelles’ presidential election, the country will hold a rerun vote between the two main contenders, the electoral authority said on Sunday.
Opposition figure Patrick Herminie received 48.8 per cent of the vote, while the incumbent, Wavel Ram-kalawan, garnered 46.4 per cent of the vote, according to official results.
A candidate needs to win more than 50 per cent of the vote to be declared the winner. The date for the rerun election is yet to be announced.
Herminie represents the United Seychelles party, which dominated politics for decades in the country before losing power five years go. It was the governing party from 1977 to 2020.
Trying to prevent United Seychelles from returning to power, Ramkalawan seeks a second term as the leader of Africa’s smallest country.
His governing Linyon Demokratik Seselwa party campaigned on economic recovery, social development and environmental sustainability.
Early voting began on Thursday, but most people voted on Saturday.
The 115-island archipelago of 120,000 people in the Indian Ocean has become synonymous with luxury and environmental travel, which has bumped Seychelles to the top of the list of Africa’s richest countries by gross domestic product per capita, according to the World Bank.
With its territory spread across about 390,000 sq km, Seychelles is especially vulnerable to climate change, including rising sea levels, according to the World Bank and the UN Sustainable Development Group.
Another concern for voters was a growing drug crisis fuelled by addiction to heroin.
A 2017 UN report described the country as a major drug transit route.
The 2023 Global Organised Crime Index said that the island nation has one of the world’s highest rates of heroin addiction.