Congo president set to extend four-decade rule
Brazzaville, CONGO—Congo-Brazzaville holds elections on Sunday in a vote expected to extend 82-year-old President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s more than four decades in power in the oil-rich central African country.
Six candidates are standing against Sassou Nguesso but the main opposition is divided and largely absent, leaving him set to win another five-year term.
The former paratrooper colonel is already one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, along with Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Cameroonian President Paul Biya.
Observers say voter turnout could reach a record low.
The president has toured the country during the election campaign, which ended on Friday, backed by the ruling Congolese Workers’ Party, urging voters to come to the ballot box.
The second round of voting, if there needs to be one, is in theory three weeks later. The results of the first round will be announced.
Corruption
Sassou Nguesso stressed the issue of security during his final election meeting in Brazzaville on Friday, attended by thousands of enthusiastic supporters.
While he can claim to have brought some stability to the country, rights groups regularly denounce what they say is the persecution of opposition activists.
Two opposition figures who featured in the 2016 election campaign, Gen. Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and Andre Okombi Salissa, are both behind bars, jailed for 20 years for supposedly being a “threat to internal security.”
During his election campaign, the president underlined his economic record, having pushed to modernize the country’s infrastructure and develop the gas and agriculture sectors in a bid to make Congo self-sufficient.
Oil and gas provide most of the state revenue, driving growth that is estimated to be 2.9 percent for 2025.
Presidential succession
Nevertheless, more than half of the country lives below the poverty line.
The government’s critics say the country’s growth has been sapped by massive amounts of state oil revenue siphoned into the bank accounts of senior officials.
The government has already been the target of several criminal complaints and investigations, notably in France.
While Sassou Nguesso’s reelection seems assured, the constitution forbids him from running again in 2031.
Not ‘in power forever’
He told AFP that he would not remain “in power forever” and that the young generation would get their turn. But he would not name anyone in particular as a possible successor.
Sassou Nguesso first led the country under a one-party system from 1979 to 1992 before losing the first multiparty elections.
