A referendum held in Congo Republic to decide whether the president can legally stand for a third consecutive term should be canceled due to low turnout, a senior opposition leader said on Monday. An opposition boycott of Sunday’s plebiscite means the country’s veteran ruler, President Denis Sassou Nguesso, is likely to have won voters’ support, paving the way for him to run in an election next year and potentially extend his decades-long rule over the oil-producing central African country. “It (the turnout) totally discredits the referendum. Either they annul it or else he will impose a dictatorship and the Congolese will not accept it,” said opposition leader Pascal Tsaty Mabiala, secretary of the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy party. “The smart thing would be to annul the referendum,” he told Reuters by telephone.
Witnesses said logistical problems had hampered voting in the capital Brazzaville on Sunday morning but that turnout picked up later in the day. There was little information about the rest of the country.
They said vote counting was proceeding smoothly on Monday. Results would be announced on Wednesday at the latest, a government spokesman told journalists. “We are satisfied to see that the poll was conducted in security. That permitted all residents of Brazzaville to have the chance to go to their polling stations and express their choice without worries,” Pierre Cebert Ibocko Onanga, prefect of the city, told reporters.
Sassou Nguesso ruled Congo from 1979 until 1992, when he was defeated in a presidential election. His rule resumed five years later after his forces defeated the then-president in a brief civil war.
Full Article: Congo referendum should be annulled due to low turnout, opposition says | Reuters.