Sassou-Nguesso "is assured victory" in election

Incumbent Republic of Congo (ROC) President Denis Sassou-Nguesso "is assured of victory in the presidential election" held on Sunday, 10 March, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) reported on Tuesday. A victory would earn Sassou-Nguesso seven years in office and a firm grip on power, thanks to January's constitutional reform which, critics say, makes the ROC a virtual monarchy, Reuters reported on Monday. Although final results are not due to be announced until the evening of Wednesday, 13 March, the ROC's Commission nationale d'organisation des elections (CONEL) said on Tuesday evening that with close to over 60 percent of votes counted, some 92 percent were in favour of Sassou-Nguesso. None of his six opponents, meanwhile, had garnered more than three percent, according to CONEL. Voter turnout among Congo's 1.7 million registered voters was reportedly low, with Sassou-Nguesso's primary opponents out of the race. Some voters blamed the low turnout on disorganisation, claiming that many names had been omitted from voter rosters, the BBC reported. Former Prime Minister Andre Milongo, considered to be Sassou-Nguesso's main challenger, withdrew from the race on Friday, claiming irregularities. He urged his supporters to boycott the elections, but cautioned against resorting to violence. "My withdrawal is not a pretext for disorder. Elections should not be confused with armed struggle," Milongo was quoted as telling Reuters on Saturday. It was not clear if low voter turnout was related to his call for a boycott. Meanwhile, former President Pascal Lissouba, who defeated Sassou-Nguesso in the country's last presidential election, held in 1992, and former Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas, were barred from entering the race by the revised constitution, which requires candidates to have resided continuously in the country for at least two years before the election. Both are living abroad in exile, having been tried and convicted in absentia for crimes allegedly committed during civil war that plagued the nation throughout the 1990s. The six remaining challengers posed little threat, according to regional analysts. "The government's refusal to establish an independent election body to oversee the voting certainly suggests that President Sassou-Nguesso was determined to stay in power by fair means or foul; at the same time, however, much of the population is prepared to accept this as the price of peace, deeming a massaged election result preferable to an internationally unrecognised government or, worse, a re-fragmentation of military power," the EIU stated. Although electoral officials noted minor irregularities, there were no reports of violence, according to AP. Joaquim Miranda, head of a 43-member European Union observer mission, told AP that his team had detected no major problems in the run-up to the vote. "Essentially what we want to see is that the results of the election reflect the desires of the population," Miranda was quoted as saying. The EIU noted a general ambivalence on the part of the international community with regard to the first presidential elections to be held in ROC in a decade. "Foreign donors' main objectives in Congo are to help consolidate peace and to promote post-conflict recovery," it stated. "To some extent, this - and the need to promote stability in a volatile region - offsets continuing concern about the legitimacy of Mr Sassou-Nguesso's government." "The economic and humanitarian consequences of the alternative - isolation - indicate that the balance of risks favours engagement," it continued. "Assuming that the election is deemed minimally clean, the international community is likely to start considering a boost in funding for reconstruction efforts." Sassou-Nguesso, 59, first seized power in a 1979 military coup. Following his defeat to Lissouba in 1992, he again seized power in October 1997, in advance of elections in which he was due to oppose Lissouba. Sassou-Nguesso, in turn, faced a rebellion launched by militias loyal to Lissouba and Kolelas in 1998. Civil war displaced up to one-third of ROC's 3.1 million residents and left some 10,000 dead. Cease-fire agreements were signed by all sides at the end of 1999. The ROC, an oil-rich country bordering the much larger Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a former French colony that gained independence in 1960.