The UN Independent Expert on the human rights situation in the Central African Republic called Thursday for urgent institutional reform of the country’s electoral authority, warning that its persistent internal dysfunction has led to ineffectiveness and a risk of missing important deadlines for holding the 2025 elections.

Yao Agbetse, who reports to the UN Human Rights Council, emphasized that operational, legal, and budgetary failings of the National Elections Authority (ANE) could derail legislative, presidential, and local elections scheduled for later this year.

According to the 2016 Constitution of the Central African Republic, presidential and legislative elections must be held within strict deadlines in 2025. Local elections, which have been postponed many times since 2022, are particularly significant for the transitional justice process.

There is also a serious budget shortfall. On April 24, the ANE raised the budget for local elections from $19 million to $21.8 million. The UN Development Program (UNDP) will provide $12.4 million while the ANE is expected to contribute $9.4 million, leaving a funding gap of $9 million.

The voter registration process in the country is facing hurdles such as omissions of voter names and other technical anomalies. There is a risk that the local elections could be postponed again in August. It is reported that the country’s authorities are negotiating the possibility of combining the local elections with the legislative and presidential elections scheduled for December.

In 2023, the Central African Republic held a referendum in which 95.27 percent of the voters voted to remove the presidential term limit. As a result, President Faustin-Archange Touadéra is legally allowed to seek re-election in December 2025 and, if victorious, could continue to govern beyond the current practice without term restriction.