The new head of the UN Mission who takes command today gives priority to successful October 18 polls.

Despite alleged sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the United Nations Multidimensional Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic, (MINUSCA), the new head of the MINUSCA, Gabonese-born, General Parfait Onanga-Anyanga who will take over command today, August 21, 2015, has clearly defined the successful holding of the October 18, 2015 presidential and legislative elections as his major priority. News agency reports state his interview with RFI in which General Onanga-Anyanga said he sets out to ensure the conduct of credible elections in time and above all to consolidate peace.

He is reported as saying that all must be done to ensure that the elections are credible, transparent and peaceful  in order to lead to the successful end of the transition process. While stating that it were no longer the time to renegotiate the electoral calendar, he reportedly declared that he was aware of the great challenges  to the electoral calendar, citing notably financial difficulties, technical problems and the participation of displaced people and refugees in the polling process.

The head of the UN Mission declared that all citizens of the Central African Republic including those who have been forced by historical circumstances to reside out of the country have to participate in the electoral process and choose their leaders. The country’s constitutional council had earlier ruled in favour of the vote of the citizens who have found refuge in neighbouring countries.

Taking advantage of the extraordinary session of the National Transitional Council, the country’s parliament that held  on Thursday, August 20, 2015, General Onanga-Anyanga called on parliament to take a final decision by passing a law on the vote or not of Central African citizens dispersed as refugees.

On how to handle the scandals of alleged  sexual abuses and other atrocities currently rocking the UN peacekeepers and to which the UN Security Council had ordered investigations, the new MINUSCA head promised to put order within the UN forces. “No woman nor girl is supposed to be afraid of the UN flag”, General Onanga-Anyanga is quoted as saying.