Presidential elections were held in Djibouti on 9 April 2021.^[1] Incumbent president Ismaïl Omar Guelleh was re-elected for his fifth five-year term, having served in the role since 1999.^[2] Most of the opposition boycotted the election.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (February 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Élection présidentielle djiboutienne de 2021]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Élection présidentielle djiboutienne de 2021}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Nominee, Party ...

2021 Djiboutian presidential election

← 2016 9 April 2021 2026 →

Nominee Ismaïl Omar Guelleh Zakaria Ismael Farah Party RPP MDEND Alliance UMP Popular vote 155,291 4,314 Percentage 97.30% 2.70%

President before election Ismaïl Omar Guelleh UMP Elected President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh UMP

Close

Guelleh has served as President of Djibouti since 1999, and was re-elected in the first round of the last election in 2016, which was boycotted by opposition parties.^[3]

The president is elected through a two-round system for a five year term. A candidate who gets the majority of votes in the first round is duly elected; if this is not achieved, a second round is organised between the two candidates who received the most votes in the first. Whoever receives the most votes in the second round is then elected.^[4] If no candidate had received a majority of the vote, a second round would have been held on 23 April.

In 2010 the Constitution of Djibouti was amended to shorten the length of presidential terms from six years to five; the previously held limit of two terms per president was also abolished.^[4]

Incumbent President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh is eligible for a fifth term. The only opposition candidate is Zakaria Ismael Farah of the Mouvement pour le Dévelopment et l'Équilibre de la Nation Djiboutienne (MDEND), with the major opposition candidates opting not to present candidates.^[5]

The presidential campaign occurred during the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic. Guelleh's campaign highlighted the government's response to the pandemic locally, which had been praised by the World Health Organization.^[6] Guelleh's campaign did face criticism for some social issues, including the country's high unemployment rate and concerns that despite a high growth rate of 7% on average over the preceding five years, that the benefits of such growth was being unevenly redistributed, particularly towards the working class.^[6]

Farah served as the only opposition candidate, with major opposition parties opting not to run candidates, accusing Guelleh of ruling via a dictatorship.^[7]