🔮 EXCLUSIVE: Decision Desk Seychelles 2025
Accusations of witchcraft, Qatari influence, and abuse of power as island paradise heads to the polls
The 115 island nation of the Seychelles has a population of 121,354.
If this is accurate, then the entire country’s population are members of a single Facebook group (although sources tell The Oracle that the smaller SEYCHELLES DAILY is where most of the action is).
The most recent political poll in the country was in 2024.
There is scant foreign media coverage, and some of the island nation’s print papers require a PDF reader.
In other words, when it comes to forecasting the winner of the 2025 Seychelles presidential election, whose first round starts tomorrow, Polymarket is pretty much the only game in town.
In an hour of cold calling this morning, The Oracle obtained cell numbers of the top candidates, including the sitting president.
While president Ramkalawan did not respond to multiple calls, we managed to connect with three Seychellois presidential candidates, including Dr. Patrick Herminie who is currently the 66% favorite to be the next president.
What follows is The Oracle’s definitive guide to the 2025 Seychelles presidential race.
Will Ramkalawan Go If He Loses?
The Seychelles election has a two-round system, with the first round of voting beginning on Thursday, September 25 and the result likely known by the early morning of Sunday
If there is no winner (50% +1) in the first round, a runoff will be held in mid-October.
From a trading point of view the most salient questions are
1) who will get more votes; and
2) will the election be fair?
Since adopting multiparty democracy in 1993, the Seychelles has received decent marks for political fairness (score of 34/40 from Freedom House) but there are a number of non-democratic episodes in recent history:
1977-1993: Socialist Coup and Authoritarian Rule. After independence from Great Britain, France-Albert René seized power with a handful of Tanzanian mercenaries and governed as a single-party authoritarian ruler.
1993-2020: René Dominance. Following international pressure, multiparty democracy was established but René’s United Seychelles party maintained control, with René winning three more elections before being succeeded by proteges James Michel and Danny Faure. During this time, Seychelles had a veneer of democracy but was still controlled by a single party.
2020: Opposition Victory. Sitting president Wavel Ramkalawan became the first opposition candidate to win the presidency.
But after five years in office, Ramkalawan (🔮 33% odds to win) is bleeding support, with up to 69% of the population dissatisfied with the country’s direction. Sources point to escalating poverty, tourism losses to rival destinations like the Maldives and Mauritius, and a heroin crisis as key factors driving his decline.
The incumbent’s campaign strategy has raised eyebrows: Ramkalawan refused to participate in public debates with challengers, and recently pushed through a constitutional amendment extending the post-election transition period to 30 days rather than immediate transfer of power, which some fear could create a window for political instability.
“I’m scared about the aftermath of the election knowing him, how he can be insecure and petty and volatile and erratic,” one source told The Oracle.
Despite these concerns, all Seychellois sources we spoke with were confident that the actual voting process will remain free and fair. They cite two factors: international observer presence and the country’s small size: in a nation of just 121,000 people spread across a handful of inhabited islands, electoral fraud would be nearly impossible to conceal.
Patrick Herminie: Confirmed Non-Witch
Sources The Oracle spoke with agree that 62-year-old medical doctor and former Speaker of the National Assembly Dr. Patrick Herminie is the most popular figure in the country and the likely next president.
His rise was fuelled by an arrest for attempting a “coup d’état by means of witchcraft” in 2023. The charges were quickly dismissed by courts and seem to have backfired, and are now widely seen as an attempt to discredit him by the current administration.
“They should have learned from our country’s history. There was another candidate, Patrick Pillay, whose popularity went up something like 15% after they circulated a fake story in the media that he was gay,” Herminie told The Oracle.
Asked if he agrees with his current Polymarket odds of 66%, Herminie said: “It is difficult to poll the country because if you were to conduct a poll people will never tell you the truth due to our history of one-party rule. However, we conduct our own internal research, and it shows us at 53%, so we think it is very unlikely to go to a second round.”
Dark Horses
On an election night where the bottom has completely fallen out of President Ramkalawan’s popularity, several candidates are hoping to get into a second round with Herminie.
Here are the two long shots that may be worth a look:
Maarco Francis (🔮 1-3% odds): “Open to Presidency”
Maarco Francis, the 45-year-old former chairman of the Seychelles Chamber of Commerce and Industry is positioning himself as a generational change candidate, promising to transform Seychelles into a global tech hub.
Francis’ biggest claim is the fact that he held a 44.8% lead in a 2024 survey conducted by the Seychelles Times.
However, none of our sources put any stock in this poll, and none was particularly optimistic about his chances given his lack of political experience.
When The Oracle spoke with Francis, he expressed confidence in reaching the runoff: “I’m anticipating it’s me and Patrick” in the second round, claiming he would “guarantee a win” in that scenario.
Alain St Ange (🔮 < 1% odds): Longshot Flyer
Although trading at sub 1% odds, several sources told The Oracle that this former tourism minister deserved to be mentioned as an upper-tier candidate.
Speaking to The Oracle, St. Ange identified a growing sense of dissatisfaction with Ramkalawan’s alignment with Gulf states, particularly Qatar. St Ange warns that Seychelles has become “subservient to another country,” allowing Qatar to “build what they want and do what they want,” including constructing airport facilities that let Qatari officials “land directly without passing customs.”
His campaign manifesto reads like an anti-corruption treatise, promising to “abolish Travizory” (the government travel agency), require politicians to declare assets publicly, and pledging to serve only a single five-year term.
The 71-year-old veteran politician acknowledges the uphill battle, telling The Oracle he’s “fighting for #2” position behind Herminie, but was encouraged by the levels of support his team is seeing in door-to-door canvassing.
Disclaimer
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