In his book, Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism, Kwame Nkrumah, one of the brightest minds and most outstanding leaders to come out of Africa, wrote that the neo-colonialism of today represents imperialism in perhaps its most dangerous stage. The great mind wrote, “the essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. Its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.” Last week’s death of strongman Idriss Deby and France’s role in butchering Chad’s constitution and choosing the country’s new leadership revealed the ugly head of neo-colonialism in Africa again.

Idris Deby seized power in a coup in 1990 and was a prolific murderer of his political opponents and appointed himself Field Marshall of Chad in a lavish but primitive ceremony in August 2020.  Despite Chad being blessed with enormous uranium, petroleum, and gold deposits, like many of its neighbours, many of its over 12 million inhabitants live in dismal poverty. The country suffers from inadequate infrastructure, first-rate corruption, and internal conflict. It is inundated with human rights abuses, and according to Fund for Peace, in 2020, Chad was ranked 7th in its Fragile State Index. In simple terms, Chad is a failed state. Along with its neighbour, The Central African Republic, Chad has the lowest life expectancy in the world.

Chad is awash with weapons thanks France’s involvement in starting the war in Libya.  The arsonist now claims to be the firefighter.  The politics of destabilising regions to facilitate the theft of raw materials is a well-known tactic of imperialists and neo-colonialists. FACT rebels in Chad are delivering a master class in guerrilla warfare, and this war is far from over. If the past is anything to go by, military superiority is no guarantee of winning a war of occupation.

Despite a 30-years-catalogue of criminal accomplishments by the slain Idriss Deby, President Macron of France last Friday, on a visit to N’djamena to install its new French-selected-dummy, said, “France will not let anybody put into question or threaten today or tomorrow Chad’s stability and integrity.”The photo of Macron smiling with his new dummy in Chad at the funeral of Idriss Deby is provocative to Pan-Africanists the world over. Many nations are crafty with their imperialistic activities in Africa, but France hides not its shameless and shameful ambitions and actions. This arrogance of white superiority and dominion over Africa assumed by France and facilitated by many African donkeys passing for leaders is the most significant political challenge of our generation. Africa must confront and defeat this evil.

The suggestion that France is in Chad and the Sahel to fight Islamic terrorists is for the birds. According to www.worldstopexports.com, France exports electricity worth$3 billion annually.  France is the second-largest exporter of electricity on the planet, and the primary source of this electricity is uranium. Uranium is key to the French economy, but the country is not blessed with its deposits. Mali and Chad happen to have vast deposits of uranium. Elementary!

It is sickening that while the people of Chad live in constant blackouts and unending poverty, the State of France is blatantly making billions of US dollars from the uranium stolen from Chad. Nothing can be more insulting. At the funeral of Idriss Deby, President Macron said “You lived as a soldier; you died as a soldier with weapons in hand. You gave your life for Chad in defense of its citizens.” Idriss Deby made a life of helping and abetting French multinationals and the French Treasury in their clandestine pursuit of Chad’s resources while his people died in poverty.

Long before Macron was born, his country had participated unsuccessfully in many neo-colonial and imperialist wars against indigenous people in Africa, and Algeria always comes to mind. France’s current illegal presence in Mali for uranium and gold and its continuous political romance with corrupt misleaders in France-Afrique is the greatest danger to Africa since the slave trade. France has stubbornly refused to learn any lessons from history, and Macron has proven that neo-colonialism is deeply rooted in the French political psyche.

Let us make no mistake; the aim of neo-colonialism, as Kwame Nkrumah wrote, is abuse, exploitation, and theft. France’s dogged determination not to decolonise is evident, and the time has come for Africans to stop the silence and participate in forcing neo-colonialists out of the continent. The notion that the Chadian constitution can be butchered and the parliament dissolved because France said so is unacceptable political vandalism. France has failed to recognise that Africans are tired of its gimmicks and arrogant neo-colonial pursuits. In neighbouring Cameroun, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo Brazzaville, political instability and poverty are rife as French policies have produced failed states.

France learned nothing in Algeria and Libya and are about to make the same mistakes in Chad. The action of France over the last week does not just hurt Chad; it hurts the whole sub-Saharan region. For Africa to change, we must change the paradigm. We must accept that our continent’s economic poverty and political backwardness are because of policies hatched in western capitals and executed by handpicked dummies passing for leaders. Our silence is criminal and tantamount to complicity. We must be radical in dealing with neo-colonialists and their collaborators. The time for Africans to stand up for themselves is now.

At 68, Idris Deby was recently elected for a sixth term in office. Sad! Everyone with a modicum of honesty would accept that the pseudo-election was a charade. Some have erroneously stated that he was an ally of France in the fight against jihadist groups across West Africa. Like many of his fellow misleaders in France-Afrique, he was a French lackey who made available his country’s resources to giant French multinationals and the State of France. Like France, Idris Deby was an enemy of Africa.

Frantz Fanon urged the under-developed nations not to be content with the definitions and policies ascribed by the colonisers, for these policies are designed to exploit and oppress. Africans must find creative ways to manage their political affairs and resources without interference from France and other imperialists. Africans can no longer allow men of different races and nations to define their experiences. We must call neo-colonialism out and attack it wherever it raises its ugly head.

For 30 years, Idris Deby misruled and murdered his people with the backing of France. At 37, Mahamat Idriss Deby takes over after France chose him to succeed his father. His brief is to continue policies designed in Paris to impoverish Chad’s people whilst enriching the State of France: neo-colonialism. Francois Verschave was right about France-Afrique when he wrote that it was the most prolonged scandal of the Fifth Republic. Unfortunately, France is not about to end this scandal voluntarily. France is, therefore, a clear and obvious danger to the political stability and economic prosperity of Africa. Africans must stand up to this evil.

By IsongAsu

London Bureau Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

The youthful general Mahamat Idriss Deby, who stood watch over his late father as head of the presidential guard, is set to take over as Chad’s new head of state, according to a charter released Wednesday by the presidency.

The presidency moved swiftly to put the reins of power in the hands of the 37-year-old general and tear up Chad’s constitution, establishing a “Transition Charter” that lays out a new basic law for the desert country of 16 million people.

The new charter issued Wednesday proclaimed that Mahamat, a career soldier like his father, will “occupy the functions of the president of the republic” and also serve as head of the armed forces.

Mahamat had already been named the head of a military council on Tuesday soon after the announcement of Deby’s death in combat, a move that sidelined other political institutions in Chad and has been branded a coup d’etat by opposition groups.

The four-star general was not on any list of heirs to the throne drawn up by experts, who said they believed the veteran warlord and president had not chosen a successor and seemed to worry little about it.

But Mahamat immediately took charge of a transitional military council and appointed 14 of the most trusted generals to a junta to run Chad until “free and democratic” elections in 18-months time.

Commander in chief of the all-powerful red-bereted presidential guard or DGSSIE security service for state institutions, he carries the nickname Mahamat “Kaka” or grandmother in Chadian Arabic, after his father’s mother who raised him.

“The man in black glasses”, as he is known in military circles, is said to be a discreet, quiet officer who looks after his men.

A career soldier, just like his father, he is from the Zaghawa ethnic group which can boast of numerous top officers in an army seen as one of the finest in the region.

“He has always been at his father’s side. He also led the DGSSIE. The army has gone for continuity in the system,” Kelma Manatouma, a Chadian political science researcher at Paris-Nanterre university, told AFP.

However over recent months the unity of the Zaghawas has fractured and the president has removed several suspect officers, sources close to the palace said.

Born to a mother from the Sharan Goran ethnic group, he also married a Goran, Dahabaye Oumar Souny, a journalist at the presidential press service. She is the daughter of a senior official who was close to former president Hissene Habre, ousted by Idriss Deby in 1990.

The Zaghawa community thus look with some suspicion on Mahamat, some regional experts say.

Challenges ahead

“He is far too young and not especially liked by other officers,” said Roland Marchal, from the International Research Centre at Sciences Po university in Paris.

“There is bound to be a night of the long knives,” Marchal predicted in an interview with AFP.

The rebel forces who have been blamed for Deby’s death have also vowed to press on with their offensive, categorically rejecting the transition of power.

 “Chad is not a monarchy,” said a statement from the group known as the Front for Change and Concord in Chad. “There can be no dynastic devolution of power in our country.”

Brought up by his paternal grandmother in N’Djamena, Mahamat was sent to a military lycee in Aix-en-Provence, southern France, but stayed only a few months.

Back home in Chad, he returned to training at the military group school in the capital and joined the presidential guard.

He rose quickly through the command structure from an armoured group to head of security at the presidential palace before taking over the whole DGSSIE structure.

Mahamat was acclaimed for his efforts at the final victory in 2009 at Am-Dam against the forces of nephew Timan Erdimi’s forces. Those forces had launched a rebellion in the east and had reached the gates of the presidential palace a year earlier, before being pushed back after French intervention.

He finally moved out of the shadow of his brother Abdelkerim Idriss Deby, deputy director of the presidential office, when he was appointed deputy chief of the Chadian armed force deployed to Mali in 2013.

That brought Mahamat to work closely with French troops in operation Serval against the jihadists in 2013-14.

“It is hard to imagine France allowing the country to slip into chaos and not supporting Deby’s successor,” regional specialist Vincent Hugueux told FRANCE 24, stressing Chad’s crucial role as France’s main ally in the fight against jihadist insurgents in the wider region.

The French presidency has announced that President Emmanuel Macron will attend Deby’s state funeral on Friday.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Benin’s President Patrice Talon was easily re-elected to a second term, provisional results showed Tuesday, after a weekend election critics said was already stacked in his favour following a crackdown on his opponents.

Talon, a cotton tycoon first elected to lead the West African state in 2016, faced two little-known rivals in Sunday’s vote with most of his key opponents in exile or disqualified from running.

Talon won 86.3 percent of the vote, the electoral commission said as it announced preliminary results, while his opponents Alassane Soumanou and Corentin Kohoue got 11.29 and 2.25 percent respectively.

Benin’s constitutional court must verify the final results.

Once praised as a vibrant multi-party democracy, critics say the former French colony has veered onto an authoritarian path under Talon with a steady campaign against his political foes.

Three international observer missions had already noted low turnout in the election, though they said the vote generally went ahead peacefully despite tensions and protests in the lead-up.

With the 62-year-old incumbent almost guaranteed victory, analysts had said voter turnout would be a key measure of his election success.

Turnout was 50.17 percent, the commission said.

Even before the announcement, for some Beninese the election results meant little.

“This election was just folklore,” said restaurant owner George Kpatchavi. “We are not waiting for the results because they were already known in advance. After the elections, everything will return to order.”

An association of civil society groups, which deployed more than 1,400 election observers, said in its preliminary statement Sunday that “attempts to pressurise, intimidate, threaten, corrupt or harass voters were observed across the entire country”.

Protests in north

Protests had blocked some routes in opposition strongholds in the centre and north of the country in the run-up to the election, leading to delays in the dispatch of electoral materials.

Two people were killed last week when troops fired live rounds into the air to break up an opposition protest blockading a major route in the central city of Save.

Benin has seen some economic successes under Talon, who promised a “KO” first-round win in Sunday’s election. Supporters have praised his projects to expand electricity and basic services.

But since Talon first came to power, critics say he has used a special economic crimes and terrorism court and electoral reforms as tools to disqualify the opposition.

Reckya Madougou, one opposition leader who was barred from running, was detained last month on accusations of plotting to disrupt the vote, a charge her lawyer said was politically motivated.

Earlier this month, a judge from the special court that ordered her detention said he had fled the country, denouncing political pressure to make rulings against Talon’s opponents.

Government officials dismissed claims the election was rigged to favour Talon and said exiled opposition leaders were trying to have the vote cancelled with a smear campaign.

Source: AFP

Chad headed into presidential elections Sunday with Idriss Deby Itno, ruler for the last three decades, set to win a sixth term.

A key ally in the West’s anti-jihadist campaign in the Sahel, Deby, 68, is the frontrunner in a six-candidate race without major rivals after a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed.

Queueing to vote in the capital N’Djamena, a 25-year-old saleswoman named Bernadette told AFP she was voting for Deby because “thanks to him I am free to walk wherever I want, day or night, in total security”.

Polling booths and ballot boxes were arriving progressively in the city, with numerous polling stations visited by AFP failing to open on time.

Police and soldiers were out in force across N’Djamena, with elite troops from the Republican Guard deployed to the central polling station where Deby himself was due to vote, an AFP journalist said.

Chad has struggled with poverty and instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

A former rebel and career soldier who seized power in a coup in 1990, Deby has twice, with French help, thwarted attempts to oust him.

Other candidates include Albert Pahimi Padacke, a former prime minister under Deby, and Felix Nialbe Romadoumngar — officially “leader of the opposition” as his URD party has eight seats in the National Assembly.

Lydie Beassemda, a former agriculture minister, is the first woman to run for president in Chad’s history.

She is pitching her campaign on federalism, in a country where ethnic rivalry is common, and on women’s rights, in a culture where patriarchal domination is entrenched.

But seven other candidates were rejected by the Supreme Court and three withdrew, including longtime opposition politician Saleh Kebzabo, who quit in protest over violence by the security forces.

Soldiers killed in Lake Chad ambush

Deby has campaigned on a promise of peace and security in a region that has been rocked by jihadist insurgencies.

Two Chadian soldiers were killed Thursday in an ambush in the Lake Chad region, where Islamist extremists have been increasingly attacking civilians and security forces, Communications Minister Cherif Mahamat Zene told AFP on Sunday.

Provisional results from the elections are scheduled for April 25, with the final results due on May 15.

With Deby set for victory, the major question mark is over turnout.

Deby urged voters at his final rally on Friday to “turn out massively”, but many residents have voiced disinterest in an election whose outcome already appears certain.

Some 7.3 million people are eligible to vote out of a population of 15 million, but the most critical opposition parties have urged voters to boycott the election.

Weekly protest marches urging a peaceful transfer of power have been banned or forcefully dispersed.

On February 28, police and soldiers carried out a commando-style raid on the home of a prominent would-be candidate, Yaya Dillo Djerou. His mother was among at least three people killed, and he is now on the run.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres are among those who have voiced criticism.

US watching

The United States on Thursday urged Chad’s election supervisors and courts “to ensure these elections are conducted freely, fairly, and transparently”.

“We’ll be watching in the days ahead,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price warned.

Deby has also benefited, as previously, from divisions and weaknesses within opposition ranks.

Francois Djekombe, president of the opposition Sacred Union for the Republic, said efforts to mobilise the public had been weakened by internal squabbles, poor leadership and inadequate communications.

“Let us humbly acknowledge that we have failed,” he said ahead of polling day. “It’s clear that people don’t want the popular revolt that we tried to impose.”

Kelma Manatouma, a Chad expert at the University of Paris-Nanterre, said that “with the considerable means Deby has mobilised, it is certain he will win.”

Chad has been an oil producer since 2003, but it remains deeply poor.

In 2018, 42 percent of the population lived below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. In 2020, Chad ranked 187th out of 189 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index.

(AFP)

The Horn of African country of Djibouti is going to the polls on Friday as President Ismail Omar Guelleh seeks a fifth term in the small but strategically important nation home to military bases for the United States, China and others.

The 73-year-old Guelleh faces just one challenger, the independent candidate Zakaria Ismail Farah, who halted campaigning early while asserting that he could not do so in safety. In protest, he appeared with his mouth taped shut.

Critics call the president a heavy-handed dictator, but others in Djibouti see him as a driving force in the country’s development and relative stability. The country is located on the Red Sea along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Guelleh has been in power since 1999 after the death of his predecessor, Hassan Guled Aptidon, the country’s first president. Djibouti won independence from France in 1977.

Guelleh told reporters days ago that he was no longer interested in power but was merely responding to the will of the people.

“It is my people, the Djiboutians, who asked me to run again and not leave them for the sake of the prosperity of the nation,” he said.

More than 205,000 people are registered to vote in Djibouti, which has a population of over 600,000. The country is a mix of ethnic Somali, Afar and Arab.

(AP)

In a familiar pattern than continues to be repeated, President Idriss Déby looks set to be elected for yet another term in Chad following this Sunday’s presidential elections. In power since 1990, this will be the 68-year-old incumbent’s sixth term.

President Déby’s victory at the ballot box may be all but assured, but that’s not to say he doesn’t face significant opposition. When he was nominated to be the ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement’s flagbearer this February, the announcement sparked widespread demonstrations. In the capital N’Djamena and other major cities, protesters took to the streets chanting “no to a sixth term!” and “Leave, Déby!”.

The government has responded with force. Authorities arrested hundreds of protesters. They charged several with assault and disturbing the public order. In anticipation of more street action, authorities also imposed a blanket ban on protests. Internet restrictions are expected to follow.

This is all characteristic of Déby’s repressive rule and management of the upcoming elections. For years, his government has overseen sustained attacks against human rights defenders, opposition politicians and journalists. One of Chad’s most prominent human rights defender, Baradine Berdeï Targuio, has been detained since January 2020 charged with “subversive activities on social media”. In November 2020, security forces surrounded the premises of several opposition parties and civil society groups, and raided private radio stations including Radio FM Liberté.

Amid this increasingly unequal playing filed, Chad’s main opposition leader, Saleh Kebzabo, quit the presidential race in early-March. His decision came shortly after two people were killed as security forces tried to arrest his fellow opposition leader Yaya Dillo.

A regional problem

Since he came to power via a coup in 1990, President Déby has won every election and amended the constitution twice to facilitate his stay in power. His 2005 constitutional revision removed the two-term limit. The 2018 amendments re-imposed it, but ensured it would not apply retroactively while also extending presidential mandates from five years to six. This means Déby could now stay in power until 2033.

This determination to cling onto power, along with the brutal treatment of opponents, is consistent with the broader picture in Central Africa. Throughout this region, politics has been militarised and electoral periods are characterised by violence and instability. Authorities target anyone who speaks out – from human rights organisations and the political opposition to trade unions – and presidents maintain a tight grip on power.

Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang and Cameroon’s Paul Biya are two of the world’s longest serving presidents, having been in office for 42 and 39 years respectively. The Republic of Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo is referred to by some as an “Emperor”, having ruled for 36 years over two periods. Gabon’s Ali Bongo has been president for a comparatively brief 12 years but was preceded by his father who ruled for the 42 years before that.

Along with undemocratic and repressive domestic policies, several Central African leaders’ stays in power have been made possible by international complicity. Chad is a strategic US ally in the campaign against Islamist insurgencies in the Chad Basin. Cameroon, Congo and Gabon are among the last bastions of French influence in Francophone Africa. The Central African Republic has presented a useful opportunity for Russia to expand its international standing.

These alliances of convenience have often provided authoritarian governments with crucial support and funding – some of which has financed security forces that then commit the same kinds of abuses as the groups they are meant to be targeting – while also shielding undemocratic leaders from international censure.

Pushing back

As seen in Chad, people across Central Africa are not staying silent. Civil society groups in the Congo and Cameroon, for example, are increasingly speaking out against state excesses and calling for political reforms, starting with free and fair elections and adherence to term limits. Despite the risks, protests against rising costs of living, increasing inequality and the monopolisation of power by ruling elites are growing. Repeats of Sudan’s 2019 uprising, which ended Omar al-Bashir’s three-decade reign, cannot be ruled out.

To support these movements and help reverse Central Africa’s authoritarian trend, regional and international civil society organisations should start building networks across the region. They should bolster groups that work on the ground to encourage people and governments to move towards democracy. At the same time, they should demand that foreign governments look beyond their own narrow strategic interests and recognise the impact of the militarisation of politics and the use of violence against civil society, the media and opposition.

Without this support, local civil society will struggle to push back against authoritarian leaders. They need broader support as they attempt to prevent leaders like President Déby extending his undemocratic rule and, in the longer-term, resist the plans of ageing presidents to follow in Gabon’s footsteps by converting their individual reign into dynastic rule, further extending the cycle of human rights violations and repression.

Culled from African Arguments

The most powerful of the Central African Republic’s armed groups said in a statement Monday it will quit a rebel coalition aiming to unseat President Faustin Archange Touadera.

The Unity for Peace in Central Africa (UPC), mainly active in the country’s east, “commits to withdraw from the Coalition of Patriots for Change” (CPC), the group’s head Ali Darassa wrote.

The coalition is an alliance of some of the war-torn country’s most powerful armed groups, who joined together on December 19 accusing Touadera, the frontrunner in the December 27 elections, of trying to fix the vote.

Its components were drawn from militia groups that, together, controlled two-thirds of the impoverished country.

Touadera was reelected with barely one in three voters able to cast their ballot because rebel groups control most of the country.

Darassa said Monday that since the “electoral crisis, the population has suffered terribly from insecurity, the health situation, famine and the lack of humanitarian assistance.”

The UPC, the statement continued, “reiterates its commitment to the Khartoum Accord process,” a peace agreement signed in February 2019 between the government and 14 armed groups.

Surge in violence

Tensions have been high in the Central African Republic since the December election, although the surge in violence in recent months is just the latest flare-up in a civil war that has lasted eight years since the ouster of president Francois Bozize.

More than 30,000 people have fled the country due to the violence surrounding the elections, the UN says, while tens of thousands more have been internally displaced.

On January 13, rebels launched twin attacks on the outskirts of the capital — the first time they had struck so close to the city since the start of their offensive.

But their offensive foundered faced with government forces backed by 12,000 UN peacekeepers force, Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan troops.

Since January, the government and its allies have recaptured towns once held by fighters from the alliance of militias.

Bangui has accused Bozize, now the head of the CPC, of attempting a coup.

The UPC announcement came just days after another powerful group in the CPC announced that its chief had died from wounds suffered during an attack, in another blow to the rebel alliance.

Sidiki Abass, head of Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation (3R), died on March 25, the rebel group announced Friday.

Abass, whose real name was Bi Sidi Souleymane, died in hospital in the country’s north, 3R said in a statement, adding he had been “seriously wounded” during attacks in the town of Bossembele on November 16.

The 3R group is made up largely of the Fulani ethnic group, whose members are traditionally nomadic herders.

Abass’s group has in the past been accused of war crimes, and judicial sources said he had been the target of an investigation by the country’s Special Criminal Court, set up to probe serious human rights violations committed since 2003.

Mineral-rich but rated the world’s second-poorest country on the Human Development Index, the CAR has been chronically unstable since independence 60 years ago.

Source: AFP

Soldiers were arrested in Niger after an “attempted coup” early Wednesday, a security source said after gunfire broke out in the capital Niamey, adding “the situation is under control”.

Residents reported hearing overnight bursts of gunfire near the presidency, just two days before Mohamed Bazoum is due to take the helm of the coup-prone country.

“There were some arrests among a few members of the army who are behind this attempted coup,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The Presidential Guard retaliated, preventing this group of soldiers from approaching the presidential palace,” said the source.

A resident of Niamey’s Plateau district, which includes the president’s official residence and offices, told AFP: “It was around 3.00 am, we heard shots from heavy and light weapons and it lasted 15 minutes before stopping, followed by shots from light weapons.”

“The gunfire lasted about 20 minutes,” another resident said.

A third resident spoke of “intense shooting, with heavy and light weapons”.

Online newspaper actuniger.com reported that calm had returned by around 4.00 am.

In short video clips posted on social networks, only several seconds in length, sporadic bursts of gunfire could be heard in the pitch dark.

It was not yet possible to independently verify the location and timing of the videos.

The alleged coup comes ahead of Bazoum’s scheduled inauguration on Friday — the first elected transition in Niger’s history since independence from France in 1960.

Bazoum is a former interior minister and right-hand man of outgoing president Mahamadou Issoufou, who is voluntarily stepping down after two five-year terms.

His victory in the second round of the election on February 2 was confirmed by the constitutional court this month.

The results were contested by Bazoum’s rival, former president Mahamane Ousmane, who claimed he was the real winner.

Ousmane had called for “peaceful marches” across the country, but a planned opposition protest Wednesday in Niamey was banned a day earlier by authorities.

Niger is the poorest country in the world, according to the benchmark of the UN’s 189-nation Human Development Index.

It has suffered four coups in its history, most recently a February 2010 putsch which toppled then president Mamadou Tandja.

The Sahel country has also recently been struck by repeated jihadist attacks as Islamist movements have spilled over from neighbouring Mali and Nigeria.

Source: AFP

The Republic of Congo votes in presidential elections on Sunday with incumbent Denis Sassou Nguesso aiming to extend his decades-long hold on power in the Central African state.

Sassou Nguesso has accumulated 36 years in office — he was most recently re-elected in 2016, after which the opposition was effectively sidelined and his two main rivals sentenced to 20 years’ forced labour.

The 77-year-old retired paratrooper appears favoured to win a fourth term in Sunday’s ballot. The largest opposition group, the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy, is boycotting the vote.

Sassou Nguesso hopes for a first-round victory over six challengers, including former minister Guy-Brice Parfait Kolelas, who was runner-up in 2016, and former finance minister Mathias Dzon.

“One shot, KO,” proclaimed his campaign posters forecasting a win for the candidate.

Sassou Nguesso has placed youth and the development of agriculture at the heart of his campaign, pointing out that the country imports most of what it consumes despite its farming resources.

Several thousand supporters, some waving banners with his initials “DSN”, rallied for his last campaign stop in Brazzaville on Friday, where he promised more programmes for the country’s youth.

“Our policies in favour of young people will continue with force and vigour during the next mandate,” he told his supporters.

But his pitch to the young seems to have met a mixed response in a country where most of the population of five million are people aged under 25 who have never known another president.

“Even if there is some hassle here, there’s no war like in other countries. Better to stay with Sassou who brings us peace, at least that is good,” said Mariela, a 19-year-old high-school student in the coastal city of Pointe-Noire.

“There’s no point voting,” said Francesc, a 25-year-old law student in the capital Brazzaville. “The dice are loaded in advance.”

Congo’s Catholic Church episcopal conference has already expressed “serious reservations” about the transparency of the ballot and fears a possible internet shutdown on Sunday, as in the 2016 election.

Oil-dependent

Sitting between Gabon and its giant neighbour the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo has significant oil reserves and 80 percent of its budget comes from petroleum.

But the former French colony, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, has been hit hard by cycles of falling world crude prices and is also hobbled by debt, corruption and poor infrastructure.

Per-capita GDP in 2012, at the height of an oil boom, peaked at $3,922, but tumbled to $2,279 in 2019, according to World Bank figures.

Last year, the economy contracted by 6.8 percent, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB). In the 2020 UN Human Development Index, a benchmark of poverty, the country ranked 175 out of 189 countries.

Transparency International classed Congo 165th out of 179 countries in its 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Members of the Sassou Nguesso family were placed under investigation in Paris in 2017 in a case involving alleged “ill-gotten gains”.

Last July, the NGO Global Witness said US federal prosecutors were probing his son, Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, over alleged embezzlement of several million dollars from the publicly-owned National Society of Petroleum of Congo (SNPC).

Thirty-six years in power

A former elite paratrooper, Sassou Nguesso first ruled from 1979 under a one-party system, stepping down in 1992 when he placed third in multi-party elections.

He then returned to power in 1997 at the end of one of Congo’s civil wars. He won votes in 2002 and 2009, although both victories were contested by the opposition.

A controversial 2015 referendum removed a 70-year age limit and a ban on presidents serving more than two terms, allowing Sassou Nguesso to run again the following year.

That election sparked protests in Brazzaville and an armed conflict by anti-government rebels in the southern Pool region.

Two Sassou Nguesso rivals, former army general Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and ex-minister Andre Okombi Salissa, who contested the results, were later jailed for breaching state security and illegal detention of weapons.

France, the country’s biggest supporter, has been urged to push hard for fair elections and condemn rights abuse.

A group of French and Congolese activists, in a commentary published by Le Monde in Paris, said “the Republic of Congo, like French diplomacy, should return to democracy.”

(AFP)