BRAZZAVILLE – Voters were scarce as polling stations opened in Congo-Brazzaville yesterday 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 Friday, backed by the ruling Congolese Workers’ Party (PCT), urging voters to come to the ballot box.

Yet at one polling station in the Ouenze district of the capital Brazzaville visited by AFP, only a handful of ballots lay in the box at 9:00 am local time (0800 GMT).

Several other stations, meanwhile, had not received all their election materials by 7:00 am, when the polls were due to open.

The few voters who did arrive mostly refused to be filmed or provide their names.

One elderly woman did speak out, saying “Denis Sassou will win”.

“It’s normal for a citizen to go vote who thinks, ‘I chose President Denis Sassou Nguesso, he’s the one who will bring peace’,” said Georgine, who admitted to working for the ruling party.

Sassou Nguesso stressed the issue of security during his final election meeting in Brazzaville 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, General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and Andre Okombi Salissa, are both behind bars, jailed for 20 years for supposedly being a “threat to internal security”. 

– Nampa/AFP