The opposition party in the Central African Republic has slammed last weekend's constitutional referendum, which would allow President Faustin-Archange Touadera to seek a third term.
The main opposition parties, civil groups and armed rebels had all called on voters to boycott the referendum held on Sunday.
Opposition leader Crepin Mboli-Goumba called the vote a "bitter failure" and said the turnout had been as low as "10 to 13%" of the electorate.
"This vote was only a masquerade... because Bangui looked like a ghost town," Mboli-Goumba told a press conference in the capital on Thursday.
"It was with great satisfaction that we have noted the people are with us" because they did not vote in large numbers, he added.
The Coalition of Patriots for Change, the main rebel alliance emerging from the civil war that started 2013, said polling stations "remained deserted" in almost the whole country.
‘Massive turnout’
It said the turnout "cannot exceed five%" and accused Touadera of attempting to "annihilate democracy and the rule of law" in the CAR, which has endured several coups in its history.
National assembly vice-president and presidential majority spokesman Evariste Ngamana said the day after the ballot that there had been a participation rate of 70%, claiming the country's population had “massively turned out to vote.”
According to him, the "yes" vote had won by 90%. The proposed new constitution would extend the presidential mandate from five to seven years and abolish the two-term limit.
Voters had to choose between a white ballot for "yes" and a red one for "no".
Several voters told AFP journalists that they were encouraged by election officials to choose "yes" when casting their ballots.
Results not yet out
Provisional results, which must be published within eight days of the ballot, had still not been released on Thursday.
The constitutional court is scheduled to publish the definitive outcome on August 27, according to the national electoral authority.
President Touadera's rivals charge that he wants to remain "president for life" – under the increasingly visible protection of private Russian mercenary group Wagner, which first deployed to the CAR in 2018.
