Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso looks set to extend his decades-long rule in elections on Sunday, even as his advanced age and a term limit fuel speculation about who will eventually succeed him.
The 82-year-old former paratrooper first took power in the oil-rich Central African nation in a coup in 1979. He lost Congo Republic’s first multi-party elections in 1992 but seized power again in 1997 after a civil war.
He has now ruled for a combined total of almost 42 years, making him Africa’s third longest-serving leader, after Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang and Cameroon’s Paul Biya.
Sassou will face six candidates in an election with an organising commission dominated by figures appointed by the ruling Congolese Labour Party. Two of the main opposition parties are boycotting the vote, saying the process lacks transparency, and several potential challengers are in prison or in exile.
“This election is a mere formality. The real stakes lie in what comes next,” Remadji Hoinathy of the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies think tank said.
A 2015 constitutional reform, adopted despite opposition protests, reset the presidential term limit and allowed Sassou to stay in power. But it also capped presidents at three five-year mandates, meaning that, barring another reform, this is his last election.
