Congo’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso will stand for re-election in March next year, his party said on Tuesday after choosing the 82-year-old for the contest, an AFP journalist reported.
Sassou Nguesso led the small, oil-rich country under a one-party system from 1979 to 1992, before Pascal Lissouba defeated him in the country’s first democratic election. He returned to power in 1997 after a civil war that ousted Lissouba and has ruled ever since.
The Congolese Labour Party (PCT) said it had endorsed Sassou Nguesso as its candidate following a three-day congress, according to congress rapporteur Antoinette Kebi.
“The president is being elevated to the rank of the ‘very great comrade’ of the party,” Kebi said.
More than 3,000 people attended the PCT conference, although the president himself was not present.
The election is due to take place on March 22, 2026. Members of the military will vote five days earlier so that soldiers can maintain public order on polling day – a measure used in previous elections.
After winning elections in 2002 and 2009, Sassou Nguesso secured further terms in 2016 and 2021 following a constitutional change in 2015 that removed the original age limit of 70 and increased the number of five-year terms to three.
In April 2023, three opposition parties joined forces to form the “Alliance for Democratic Change in 2026”, aiming to overhaul the country’s electoral oversight bodies.
The alliance brings together the Rally for Democracy and Development (RDD), founded by former Marxist-Leninist president Jacques Joachim Yhombi-Opango, the Republicans’ Movement (MR) and the People’s Party (PAPE).
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
