Denis Sassou Nguesso has been re-elected president of the Republic of the Congo with 88.57 percent of the vote, according to provisional results.
The 77-year-old has been in power for an accumulated 36 years, first taking the helm in 1979 and then again in 1997 after losing the country’s first multiparty elections in 1992.
His victory, announced on Tuesday by the interior minister citing figures from the electoral commission was widely expected after a March 20 ballot boycotted by the main opposition.
The Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS) said in January it would not to field a candidate in Sunday’s vote, arguing the conditions were not conducive for holding elections and that it would only lead to more divisions in the central African nation.
The election was also overshadowed by the death from COVID-19 of his only main rival, Guy-Brice Parfait Kolelas, who secured 7.84 percent of the vote.
One of the losing candidates, Mathias Dzon, has said he plans to appeal to the Constitutional Court to cancel the official results, citing an article of the constitution “which provides for the cancellation of the ballot when a candidate dies or is unable to vote.”
However, the head of the national independent electoral commission said that the article in question does not apply this time.
“Kolelas died after the vote in Paris so Article 70 cannot be evoked in these conditions,” said Henri Bouka, who is also president of the Supreme Court in Congo.
Sassou changed the constitution in 2015 to extend term limits that would have barred him from standing for re-election the following year.
Congo’s economy has been in crisis since 2014 when oil prices collapsed.
That caused the country’s external debt, much of it owed to private oil traders like Glencore, to soar to over 100 percent of gross domestic product.
The coronavirus pandemic and resulting drop in oil prices last year has made matters worse. The economy contracted by more than 8 percent last year and is expected to grow by less than 1 percent this year.
source: Aljazeera
