TheCable

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea completed his 36th year in the top job on Monday, having seized power from President Francisco Macias Nguema on August 3, 1979.

In terms of longevity on the job, he is closely followed by Angolan president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who became head of state a month after him.

After seizing power from Nguema, who was the leader at independence and whose rule prompted a mass exodus and thousands of deaths, the current leader tried and executed his predecessor.

He moved on to relax some of the restrictions of his predecessor – such as a ban on the Catholic Church – but kept the absolute control he inherited.

Officials said Obiang won more than 97% of the vote in presidential election in December 2002. Opposition candidates had withdrawn from the poll, citing fraud and irregularities.

Officials reported similar results following the November 2009 presidential election.

A French judge announced in May 2009 that he would launch a landmark investigation into whether Obiang and two other African leaders plundered state coffers to buy luxury homes and cars in France. It became known as the case of “ill-gotten gains”.

A complaint filed by Transparency International, France, accused the leaders, who denied any wrongdoing, of acquiring millions of dollars of real estate in Paris and on the French Riviera, and buying luxury cars with embezzled public money.

However, a French appeal court threw out the case, saying the activists couldn’t act against foreign heads of state. A subsequent ruling in November 2010 authorised an investigation into the charges.

Proposed changes to the constitution were put to a referendum in November 2011, and according to the government, accepted by voters.

Critics allege that while the changes were presented as democratic reforms, they were aimed at entrenching the president’s position even further.

WEALTHY AND POWERFUL SON

The president’s son, Teodoro ‘Teodorin’ Nguema Obiang, has been resisting attempts by the US administration to seize some $71 million worth of his assets, denying charges that they were obtained with funds corruptly taken from his country.

Teodorin is the country’s vice-president and has a reputation for expensive taste.

In 2011, US authorities filed to seize a $30 million Malibu, California, oceanfront home, a $38.5 million Gulfstream jet, a Ferrari worth more than $500,000 and dozens of pieces of pop singer Michael Jackson memorabilia worth almost $2 million.

They argued that Obiang obtained the items with money corruptly taken from his country through a variety of schemes, including requiring companies to pay so-called taxes and fees to him as well as to make donations to his pet projects and then take those funds for his own use.

In November 2014, he was ordered by the US justice department to forfeit his US-based property and belongings.