Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh reelected for sixth term with 98% votes.

The so-called elections in Djibouti have concluded, and as usual, incumbent President Ismail Omar Guelleh has won with an overwhelming majority of 98% of the vote, while his nominal opponent, Mohamed Farah Samatar, received approximately 2% of the total 210,792 ballots cast.

Guelleh, who has ruled Djibouti since 1999, reportedly approved the election outcome a week in advance after being presented with an Excel spreadsheet by the technical team responsible for the preparations. According to Abdourahman T. X., leader of the opposition RADDE party, the document already detailed the candidates’ vote shares in numbers and percentages.

In October 2025, Guelleh, now 83, pushed through a constitutional amendment abolishing the previous age cap of 75 for presidential candidates — tailoring the national charter to his personal ambitions and paving the way for a sixth term.

Djibouti’s opposition parties have boycotted elections since 2016, citing the absence of an independent electoral commission to ensure free and fair polling. This has forced the government to search for a last-minute stooge to fulfill the procedural formalities before declaring the president’s 98% victory.

In the 2021 election, the Interior Ministry likewise announced Guelleh’s victory with 98% of the vote against 2% for a candidate whom the opposition described as a paid agent and hired stooge: Zakaria Ismail Farah. The recurrence of the exact same percentage five years later raises suspicions of a pre-determined, recycled voting table.

Djibouti remains one of the Arab-African nations suffering from dictatorship, an iron-fisted police grip, and pervasive poverty.

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August 31, 2023

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