Bulletin d´Île de Romanhe 43

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(June 2018) Guimarc Bonamy wins presidential elections

The day after the second round in the presidential elections and after almost all votes have been counted, it is clear that Guimarc Bonamy has been chosen as the next president of Île de Romanhe. 59 % of all Ilya Romans who were entitled to vote voted for Bonamy and 41 % for François Thémarel-Kernès, who also in the first round got the second most votes, after Bonamy. Also in the first round, on June 8, Guimarc Bonamy got most votes, but less than 50% of the total and so a week later a second round was held between him and François Thémarel-Kernès, who on Saturday, when the results were announced, congratulated his opponent with the victory. President Aristide Faroz-Zaran also admitted his defeat in a televised speech on Saturday night and he wished his successor succes and said he would resign immediately and now withdraw from politics. After his speech a large and happy crowd filled the streets of Port de Boiguehenneuc and some other cities in the country to celebrate the resignation of Faroz-Zaran and the victory of Guimarc Bonamy.

Guimarc Bonamy is sixty years old and son of the former president Jean Bonamy (president from 1985 to 1997), and his victory in the presidential elections doesn´t come as a surprise to many, he was seen as one of the most popular candidates, despite the fact that he served under Aristide Faroz-Zaran for many years. He is actually known as one of the most honest politicians of Île de Romanhe and also abroad, at least in Africa, he has built up a good reputation as a mediator (among others during the civil war in Tarmoria) and as an honest politician. For resigning president Faroz-Zaran the result of the elections was a huge disappointment though. Despite the fact that already in 2015 he was confronted with massive protests against his authoritarian government and that, since that same year, also an investigation for suspected corruption by the public prosecutor has been going on, only very few expected him to win the presidential elections this time. Many people also thought that he would do everything, including fraud, in order to remain in power and it came as a surprise that he was already eliminated in the first round with less than ten percent of the votes and thus had no chance for a possible second round.

The elections seem, in contrast to those of 2011, to have gone better, and although some observers from the African Union indicated that there were some uncertainties about the electoral process in some places in the country and also noticed a number of incidents with missing ballot boxes. the African Union declared that the elections were fair and that Guimarc Bonamy was the legitimately elected new president of Île de Romanhe.

Not only for president Faroz-Zaran the outcome of the elections was quite disappointing, this was also the case for Guillaume Keztil-Surt, the candidate of the republican party URIR, and who (unsuccessfully) participated for the third time in presidential elections. In the first round, he received no more than fourteen percent of the total amount of votes, and in a speech to his party members, the former Prime Minister said that he now gave up his aspirations for the presidency, and from now on he would entirely work in the interests of the party. But according to unconfirmed reports, Guimarc Bonamy would have indicated that he would like to see the current government coalition between URIR and FKR to continue, but with Keztil-Surt as prime minister and that François Thémarel-Kernès would stay on as Minister of Foreign Affairs. In this government, Jean Orange Forestier, the leader of the PPP, could also get a post, possibly as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the same function he had between 2011 and 2014. The candidacy of Orange Forestier, who has only been living in Île de Romanhe since 2007 and says to represent the white minority mainly, was seen as rather unpredictable, but in the first round of the election he received 19 percent of the votes and came up with a surprising third place in the elections.

Results of presidential elections 2018

candidate 1th round 2nd round
Guimarc Bonamy 36 % 59 %
François Thémarel-Kernès 23 % 41 %
Jean Orange Forestier 19 % -
Guillaume Keztil-Surt 14 % -
Aristide Faroz-Zaran 8 % -