Brazzaville | Monday
CONGO’S outgoing military ruler General Denis Sassou Nguesso is well ahead of his rivals in the country’s presidential election, according to early partial results reported by state television and witnesses on Monday.
Sassou Nguesso has been tipped to win the March 10 poll, the first presidential vote in a decade marred by civil war, since the main opposition candidates withdrew from the race complaining of fraud.
With just under a third of ballot papers counted, the television credited the general with support of at least 80% in several key areas and in some places much more.
Final turnout figures were expected to show around 80% of Congo’s 1,7-million voters had taken part in the ballot, said a representative for the national electoral commission (Conel).
In his fiefdom of Talangai, the capital Brazzaville’s most populous district, Sassou Nguesso was said to have won nearly 100% of the vote.
“In certain polling stations, candidate Sassou Nguesso had achieved impressive scores, reaching 98% of ballots cast,” one witness said.
In the populous plateau region of central and northern Congo, the general obtained 92% support, with voter turnout at between 90 and 95%, the television said.
He was also credited with 92% support in the Makelekele suburb of Brazzaville, stronghold of prominent opposition leader Andre Milongo, who withdrew from the campaign on Saturday and urged his supporters to boycott the polls.
In Mossaka, in the north of the oil-rich West African country, the outgoing president took 80% of the vote, the television said.
Sunday’s vote is the first since 1992, when Pascal Lissouba defeated Sassou Nguesso, the country’s then Marxist president, in Congo’s first ever multi-party elections. Lissouba was ousted by Sassou Nguesso in 1997 after a civil war.
The military government says the ballot is vital to revive democracy in the former French colony but rights groups have blasted it as a sham.
Milongo, a former parliamentary speaker and prime minister under Lissouba, accused the regime of engineering an “electoral hold-up” which could trigger a violent reaction from a population “hungry for change and transparency”.
Two other major opposition candidates pulled out of the presidential contest earlier in the week, complaining of irregularities in the electoral process.
None of the six remaining contenders to Sassou Nguesso has any substantial political influence.
International election observers said during the vote on Sunday said they had not noticed any serious anomalies and praised the atmosphere of calm that prevailed during balloting.
The interior ministry is due to issue preliminary results by Wednesday before the High Court publishes the final tally.
Sassou Nguesso, who has the support of around 50 political parties and 250 associations, focussed his election campaign on the need for peace and national reconciliation after years of war.
Civil war has raged on and off in Congo since 1989. The conflict from 1993 to 1999 which followed the country’s first multi-party elections officially claimed 15 000 lives and caused damage worth over 1 500 billion CFA francs ($1 999-billion, 2 287-billion euros).
Attempts to revive democracy began in January, when 77% of the country’s electorate supported a referendum on renewing the constitution.
Sunday’s presidential ballot is due to be followed by parliamentary and local elections in May and senate elections in June. – AFP