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Since the Central African Republic (CAR) gained independence from France in 1960 it has faced deep social, economic and political crises. The country has witnessed 10 military coup attempts between 2005 and 2015, which have aggravated political and economic development of the CAR. The most recent by leader of the Seleka coalition group, Michel Djotodia, against the government of Bozize in March 2013 that saw hundreds of thousands displaced and thousands killed. Although the violence in the CAR partially polarized Muslims and Christians, we argue in this paper that the driver of the conflict in the CAR is more a struggle for power among political elite. The aim is to explain the main motivations behind the political crisis and the changing dynamics of the violent conflict in the CAR.

The Central African Republic is an extremely impoverished country that has seen little development since its independence from France in 1960. It is ranked 180 out of 186 countries on the U.N. Human Development Index (report 2016) and is in the Fund for Peace's top 10 failed states, next to Haiti and Afghanistan. The latest surge of violence in the country began when the Séléka rebels captured power in March 2013. They were responsible for mass killings, sexual violence, and looting. This paper critically analyses the factors that led to the outbreak of that conflict one of which the role that played by the foreign actors in this conflict. The research found that there are four main elements that caused the conflict in the CAR including exclusion, repression, and competition over resources and foreign involvement. One of the important reasons behind that conflict is an economic factor which is the struggle for power and resources among political elites. The paper also found the repression combined with exclusion policies adopted by the Bozize and the precedent regimes also contributed to the outbreak of violence in CAR finally, the empirical evidence showed that there was a deep economic crisis behind the conflict, with the withdrawal of foreign investors the Commercial crops such as cotton, coffee, also have deteriorated as well as the exploitation of forest income has declined.