Voting day concludes with low turnout in Djibouti as Guelleh set to win sixth term

Djiboutians voted on Friday in a presidential election expected to hand a sixth term to 78-year-old Ismail Omar Guelleh, who faces just one little-known opponent in the small but highly strategic Horn of Africa nation.

Turnout remained low throughout the day at multiple polling stations visited by AFP journalists, with none recording more than 25 percent of registered voters having cast ballots.

"I'm not going to vote, it's pointless. He's been in power for 27 years and the city is dirty," a taxi driver told AFP.

Just over 256,000 people are eligible to choose between Guelleh and Mohamed Farah Samatar, leader of the Unified Democratic Centre (CDU), a party with no seats in parliament.

Amid heavy security, Guelleh voted at City Hall alongside his wife, while Samatar cast his ballot earlier.

"By the grace of God, we have arrived here, and we hope that this will end in victory," Guelleh told reporters.

Polling stations are due to close at 6:00 pm local time (1500 GMT), with results expected shortly afterwards.

Guelleh has plastered the capital Djibouti with campaign posters and drawn thousands to his rallies, while Samatar has struggled to gain support.

The national broadcaster aired one of Samatar's rallies, with only a few dozen people present.

"I'm going to vote for Ismail Omar Guelleh because he has a good programme for young people. I don’t even know what his opponent looks like," Deka Aden Mohamed, 38, told AFP.

Guelleh has ruled the east African country of about one million people for 27 years with an iron grip, leveraging its key location to turn it into an international military and maritime hub.

Its mere 23,000 square kilometres host military bases and contingents from France, the United States, China, Japan and Italy, generating substantial financial, security and political benefits.

Guelleh had announced he would step down this year but a constitutional amendment in November removed the upper age limit of 75 for presidential candidates, clearing the way for him to run again.

Unemployment and debt

In the last presidential election in 2021, which the opposition largely boycotted, Guelleh won more than 97% of the vote.

He has faced little opposition since succeeding the country's first president, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, in 1999. He had been Aptidon's chief of staff.

In 2005, he was re-elected unopposed.

His candidacy is seen by some as offering "stability" in the troubled Horn of Africa region, but analysts say it is driven by the absence of a unanimously accepted successor. The health of the president has also come under scrutiny.

Despite claims by the Djibouti League of Human Rights that the vote is a "masquerade", people told AFP they were eager to vote.

"It's a duty to go vote," said Yussuf Mohamed Hussein. "I'm going to vote for the president; Samatar, I don't even know him."

Around 70% of young Djiboutians are unemployed and the country's development has come at the cost of substantial debt, particularly to China.

Djibouti is situated on the key Bab al-Mandeb strait, which divides the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and is one of the world's busiest shipping routes.

Without agriculture to rely on, the country depends on ports for 70% of its gross domestic product, with Ethiopia its main maritime outlet.

The nation is accused by human rights organisations of repressing dissent, while Guelleh faces claims of favouring his own majority Issa ethnic group at the expense of the Afar minority.