DJIBOUTI: Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh garnered 80.58 percent of votes cast in the country's elections on Friday, provisional results showed on Saturday, giving him a third term in power.
Interior Minister Yacin Elmi Bouh said Guelleh's rival, Mohamed Warsama, got 19.42 percent of votes cast in the election, which had a 69.68 percent turnout.
Just over 152,000 people are registered to vote in the small Red Sea state which has the only U.S. military base in Africa, and the largest French army camp on the continent, and is used by anti-piracy naval patrols.
Guelleh called on television for all Djiboutians to unite and start work so they could overcome the challenges ahead together.
He said that whatever people voted there were more things that united Djiboutians than divided them, adding that it was not a victory on one side, but for the nation as a whole.
The opposition in the former French colony initially boycotted the ballot and tried to start Egyptian-style protests in February, but thereafter supported independent candidate Warsama, a former president of the country's Constitutional Court.
Guelleh, 63, has been in power since 1999 and a change in the constitution in 2010 allowed him to run for a third term, a move that angered opposition leaders.
Djibouti serves as a port for its landlocked neighbour Ethiopia, which accounts for about 70 percent of traffic, and is also bordered by Eritrea and Somalia.
Its economy is chiefly based on the port, which is run by Dubai's DP World.
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