Denis Sassou Nguesso re-elected as Congo President

By

Darell Maurice

Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso has won the nation’s presidential elections with 60% of the vote, extending his 32 years in power.

The first trends emerged Wednesday of the presidential election on 20 March, indicating that Denis Sassou Nguesso led with just over 67% of the vote, but following the rejection of this by candidates, the Interior Minister has now confirmed the result.

The aforementioned percentage was however a partial and provisional result released to the press by the president of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), Henri Bouka and covered only 72 constituencies.

The early trends reported by CENI indicated the candidate and incumbent President Denis Sassou Nguesso was in the lead with 542,476 votes or 67.02 %. This is followed by Guy Brice Parfait Kolélas who garnered 136,068 votes, or 16.81%. Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko is third placed with 60,744 votes, or 7.5%.

These results were from 70 of 111 constituencies that made up, with 809,406 of the votes cast at the time of 1,246,065 voters throughout the territory. Given these results, the turnout was 65%.

According to Henri Bouka, CENI was awaiting the results of forty localities before confirmation could be given, because the part he communicated only concerned 72 administrative districts. The provisional results he stated would be released within hours or even days to come.

Following the early trend, confirmation has now finally been provided that Denis Sassou Nguesso won in the first round with 60% of the vote, Guy Brice Parfait Kolélas second with 15% and Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko third with 14%.

Darell Maurice

Darell Maurice is a Journalist based in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city Kinshasa and works for Canal7kintv. He also blogs here.