Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso has won a new five-year term with 60.39 percent of the vote, the interior minister has recently said.
Interior Minister Raymond Zephyrin Mboulou announced the result on state television and said opposition leader Guy-Brice Parfait Kolelas, who is popular in the south of the capital Brazzaville, won 15 percent in Sunday’s vote, while retired general Jean-Marie Mokoko won 14 percent.
The government has imposed a blackout on internet and mobile phone communications since Sunday, and it also banned the use of motor vehicles nationwide during the vote itself.
Sassou Nguesso came to power in 1979 and governed until 1992, when he lost an election. In 1997, he regained power after a civil war and then won elections in 2002 and 2009.
He campaigned this time on a promise to develop the country’s infrastructure and commit a quarter of the state budget to education to tackle high youth unemployment in the nation of 4.5 million.
Oil and timber-rich Congo has been on edge since an October constitutional referendum that ended a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing the 72-year-old former paratrooper colonel to run for office again.
The 72-year-old pushed through changes to the constitution in a referendum last October that ended a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing the 72-year-old former paratrooper colonel to run for office again for another five-year mandate.
