The Republic of the Congo was to hold a referendum yesterday to determine whether longtime Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso can seek a third term in office following deadly clashes in the oil-producing country.
The opposition called off protests on Friday, the last day of campaigning before the plebiscite, and the archbishop Anatole Nilandou of the capital, Brazzaville, appealed for talks on the crisis sparked by Sassou Nguesso’s bid to extend his rule.
On Tuesday, authorities said four people were killed in clashes between opposition demonstrators and security forces in Brazzaville and the economic capital Pointe-Noire.
Photo: AFP
However Congolese opposition leader Paul-Marie Mpouele claimed on Friday that at least 20 people had died in the unrest and asked opposition supporters “to reject the referendum,” but also to “avoid all violent acts.”
Also on Friday, security forces sealed off access to the home of another Congolese opposition leader, Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, an AFP correspondent said.
Congolese President Sassou Nguesso, 71, wants to amend the constitution in order to change two provisions that disqualify him for running for reelection next year.
Under the current charter, the maximum age of presidential candidates is 70 and the maximum number of mandates a person can serve is two.
Nguesso, who has led the small central African country in different capacities for more than 30 years since the 1970s, has already served two consecutive seven-year terms.
The former Marxist soldier was president from 1979 to 1992, when the Congo was a one-party state. He went into opposition in 1992 after losing multi-party elections, but returned to power at the end of a brief, but bloody, civil war in 1997 in which his rebel forces ousted Congolese president Pascal Lissouba.
He was elected president in 2002, then again in 2009, when he won nearly 79 percent of the votes. Half of his 12 rivals boycotted the most recent election. The EU stressed on Thursday that “freedom of expression and association should be preserved” and that “an inclusive dialogue was the only way to restore a broad consensus” in the country.
French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday urged Nguesso to “calm tensions” while emphasizing his right to “consult his people.” The Congo is a former French colony.
Tens of thousands of the president’s supporters rallied in Brazzaville on Oct. 10 in favor of the constitutional changes.
The turnout dwarfed an anti-government demonstration late last month, when several thousand people poured onto the capital’s streets to protest against the president’s plan to cling to power.
They rallied under the cry “Sassoufit,” a pun on the French expression ca suffit or “that’s enough.”
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