Party threatens to boycott poll

Meanwhile, one of Equatorial Guinea’s leading legal opposition parties, the Convergencia para la Democracia Social (CPDS), has threatened to boycott legislative elections due on 7 March because many of its members are imprisoned, party Secretary-General Placido Minko said, according to AFP. In a statement, made on Thursday over Spain’s Radio Exterior, Minko said the national electoral commission had rejected the dossiers of CPDS candidates “without reason”. Other opposition parties had also been stopped from conducting pre-campaign activities and some activists had been arrested, he said. “If the campaign begins under these conditions we will simply pull out and we reject any responsibility for the consequences,” he said. Members in the 80-member legislature, the Camara de Representantes del Pueblo, serve a five-year term.