Seychelles holds a runoff in a tight race between president and opposition challenger

VICTORIA, Seychelles (AP) — Seychelles held a runoff Saturday between the country’s president and the opposition challenger whose party seeks a comeback after having previously ruled the Indian Ocean archipelago nation for four decades.

There was no outright winner in elections held two weeks ago, with opposition leader Patrick Herminie receiving 48.8% of the votes and President Wavel Ramkalawan getting 46.4%, according to official results. A candidate needs to win more than 50% of the vote to be declared winner.

Early voting started on Thursday, but most Seychellois were voting on Saturday. Polling stations opened shortly after 7 a.m. local time and results are expected on Sunday.

The contest between Herminie and Ramkalawan is widely seen as a tight race. Both candidates have run spirited campaigns trying to address key issues for voters, including environmental damage and a crisis of drug addiction in a country long seen as a tourist haven.

Herminie represents the United Seychelles party, which dominated the country’s politics for decades before losing power five years go. It was the governing party from 1977 to 2020.

Ramkalawan, of the governing Linyon Demokratik Seselwa party, is seeking a second term.

The country has become synonymous with luxury and environmental travel, which has bumped Seychelles to the top of the list of Africa’s richest countries by gross domestic product per capita, according to the World Bank.

But opposition to the governing party has been growing.

A week before the first round of voting, activists filed a lawsuit against the government challenging a recent decision to issue a long-term lease for a 400,000-square-meter (100-acre) area on Assomption, one of the country’s 115 islands, to a Qatari company to develop a luxury hotel. The largest island in the archipelago is Mahé.

The lease, which includes reconstruction of an airstrip to facilitate access for international flights, has ignited widespread criticism that it favors foreign interests over Seychelles’ welfare and sovereignty.

Seychelles is especially vulnerable to climate change, including rising sea levels, according to the World Bank and the U.N. Sustainable Development Group.

It also faces an addiction crisis fueled by heroin. A 2017 U.N. report described the country as a major drug transit route, and the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index said that the island nation has one of the world’s highest rates of heroin addiction.

___ This story has been corrected to show that Assomption is not Seychelles’ largest island. Mahé is.

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