Congo-Brazzaville : Denis Sassou Nguesso réélu pour un 5e mandat
The outgoing president of Congo-Brazzaville, Denis Sassou Nguesso, was re-elected for a fifth term with 94.82% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election held on Sunday, according to provisional results announced Tuesday evening on national television.
Mr. Sassou Nguesso, 82, has ruled this small, hydrocarbon-rich Central African country with an iron fist for over 40 years. His re-election keeps him in power until 2031.
"Sassou Nguesso Denis has been elected with 2,507,038 votes, or 94.82% of the votes cast," Interior Minister Raymond Zéphyrin Mboulou told national television.
The turnout rate was "84.65%", he added. However, AFP journalists present in Brazzaville on election day observed low voter turnout at polling stations.
These provisional results still need to be validated by the country's Constitutional Court.
The internet has been down across the country since the morning of the vote. Vehicle traffic was banned on Sunday and businesses were closed by order of the authorities.
Army and police vehicles patrolled the empty streets of the city center all day, where a few pedestrians strolled under a leaden sky. A large number of gendarmes and police officers were deployed outside the polling stations.
Most of the voters encountered at the polling stations refused to be filmed or to give their names.
Mr. Sassou Nguesso crisscrossed the country during the election campaign which ended on Friday, supported by the machinery of his movement, the Congolese Labour Party (PCT), worried about a massive abstention rate predicted by observers.
Nearly three million registered voters were called to the polls, according to authorities, but AFP was unable to determine turnout across the country due to the network outage.
On Monday, traffic had resumed in the streets of Brazzaville but the network was still cut off, causing annoyance among the inhabitants of the capital, some of whom sought refuge on the banks of the Congo River to connect to the mobile network of the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
The internet had already been cut off for several days during the 2021 presidential election, which saw the re-election of Mr. Sassou Nguesso with 88.40% of the votes, according to the Constitutional Court.
The opposition systematically contests the elections won by Mr. Sassou Nguesso since 2002. Six candidates, little known or without real political base, were running against the outgoing president on Sunday.
Mr. Sassou Nguesso ruled Congo from 1979 to 1992, during the time of the single party, before regaining power by force in 1997, after four months of civil war in Brazzaville.
The main opposition parties boycotted the vote, believing that the conditions for a free and transparent election were not met.
Two figures from the 2016 presidential election, General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and André Okombi Salissa, are still being held today after being sentenced to 20 years in prison for "undermining internal security" in 2018 and 2019.
The constitution in principle prevents Mr. Sassou Nguesso from running for another term in 2031, raising the inevitable question of his succession.
He told AFP that he would "not remain in power forever" and that the "turn" of the young would "come", while refusing to comment on a possible successor.
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