Djibouti presidential election gets underway

Djibouti will vote on Friday in the country's presidential election as Ismail Omar Guelleh runs for a sixth term.

Ballot papers and boxes were dispatched across Djibouti on Thursday, on the eve of the country’s presidential election.

Incumbent Ismail Omar Guelleh, 78, is expected to win the vote, facing one low-profile opponent whose party has no seats in parliament.

Guelleh has ruled the country with an iron fist since taking office in 1999 and has cast himself as a guarantor of stability in the tiny Horn Of Africa nation.

Strategically located on the Bab al-Mandab strait, Guelleh has turned Djibouti into an international military and maritime hub, home to the only permanent US military base in Africa and France's largest base on the continent. China, Japan and Italy also have troops in the country.

But rights groups say Guelleh has repressed dissenting voices and press freedom. Critics have called Friday’s vote a “masquerade” with a "foregone conclusion."