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 a first democratic contest. He ousted the latter in 1997 after a civil war and has ruled since. The Congolese Labour Party (PCT) used a three-day congress to say it had endorsed Sassou Nguesso as its candidate, congress rapporteur Antoinette Kebi said.”The president is being elevated to the rank of the ‘very great comrade’ of the party,” Kebi said.Over 3,000 people attended the PCT conference but the leader himself was not present.The election is due to take place on March 22, 2026. The military will vote five days beforehand so that soldiers can maintain public order on the day of voting — a measure taken in previous elections.After successive elections in 2002 and 2009, Sassou Nguesso held the presidential reins in 2016 and 2021 by making a constitutional change in 2015, which bypassed 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”, with the stated aim of trying to overhaul the country’s electoral supervisors.Its members are the Rally for Democracy and Development (RDD) set up by former Marxist-Leninist president Jacques Joachim Yhombi-Opango, the Republicans’ Movement (MR) and the People’s Party (PAPE).
