By Ebi Kesiena
Former parliament speaker Patrick Herminie has won Seychelles’ presidential run-off election, defeating incumbent President Wavel Ramkalawan and returning full control of the government to the country’s long-dominant United Seychelles party.
Official results released on Sunday showed Herminie secured 52.7% of the vote. His victory follows United Seychelles’ success in last month’s general election, when the party regained the parliamentary majority it lost in 2015.
Seychelles, Africa’s wealthiest nation per capita, spans 1.2 million square kilometres (463,000 square miles) of the western Indian Ocean. The country is not only a popular tourist destination but also a growing hub for investment and security partnerships with China, Gulf states and India.
Ramkalawan, a former Anglican priest, became president in 2020, marking the first time in more than four decades that someone outside United Seychelles previously known as the Seychelles People’s Progressive Front, had led the country since a coup one year after independence from Britain in 1976.
During his re-election campaign, Ramkalawan highlighted his leadership in steering the nation’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and his government’s expansion of social protection programmes. However, many voters turned to Herminie, who accused the administration of allowing corruption to flourish. He also promised to halt a hotel project approved under Ramkalawan’s government that environmentalists claim endangers a UNESCO-listed coral atoll.
Herminie has also pledged to reduce the retirement age from 65 to 63 and to act on recommendations from the truth and reconciliation commission, which investigated human rights violations linked to the 1977 coup and its aftermath.
Despite its wealth, Seychelles, made up of 115 islands, remains one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations and struggles with one of the highest per-capita rates of heroin use.
Herminie, who served as National Assembly speaker between 2007 and 2016, was arrested in 2023 on witchcraft charges that were later dropped.
United Seychelles has faced corruption scandals during its 43 years in power, but Herminie said in an interview last month that the party had learned from its mistakes and turned the page.
