This Friday, March 19, was the last day of the campaign before the Congolese-Brazzaville presidential election. This Sunday, 2.5 million voters will be called to the polls. The defense and security forces have already voted early on Wednesday. The outgoing president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, 77 years old and already 36 years cumulative at the head of the country, is fighting for a new mandate. In front of him, 6 opponents. While part of the opposition and civil society are calling for a boycott. A choice marked by a climate of mistrust in the wake of a political, economic and social crisis.
In recent weeks Franck Nzila, human rights activist and activist within of the Progress movement traveled through the metropolitan areas to encourage young people to exercise their citizenship rights this Sunday. Like other observers, he stresses the lack of enthusiasm with which the campaign ends on Friday night, in a country where the majority of the population is under the age of 25 and therefore has only known about power.
“Congolese young people are tired of growing old with President Denis Sassou-Nguesso without any other perspective for the future. The vast majority of people we see in the field say to us, “Sunday I stay home. Why should I vote?” They say to themselves that the choice is decided in advance. That’s what worries us. However, this does not mean that they support the call for a boycott by part of the opposition. They believe the boycott is playing into Sassou’s game. But this is the result of a global fatigue towards the whole political class. There are many people who no longer believe in anything. They are clearly desperate. “
Last February, the bishops of Congo in a critical message of power, had drawn attention to this climate of distrust of the people towards their electoral system. The Bishops’ Conference itself has expressed “serious reservations” about “transparency in the vote”, condemning “the evil that undermines electoral control” by pointing out in particular the shortcomings of the electoral register when others express doubts about the independence of the electoral commission led by a personality who also is the first president of the Supreme Court.
To this criticism, Roch Euloge Nzobo, coordinator of the Circle of Human Rights and Development (CDHD), adds another explanation behind the disillusionment of part of the Congolese population: the “weakening”, according to him, of the opposition since the last presidential election. “In 2016, we had challengers who had some independence, some leeway. General Mokoko had aroused some enthusiasm among the people because we still had the impression of having a democratic debate where everyone could express themselves and we could dream of change. But today, most challengers either commit self-censorship ”. While the Congolese are again invited to the vote this Sunday, two of the biggest candidates for the 2016 election are still in jail, General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and opponent André Okombi Salissa.
In this context, Roch Euloge emphasizes, the arrest last week is added by doctor Alexandre Ibacka Dzabana, one of the coordinators of the Congolese platform for human rights and democracy NGOs. Authorities claim to have “elements indicating” that this figure in civil society is “the core of a network and a process of destabilizing institutions during the current electoral process”. FIDH condemns an “arbitrary and illegal” arrest. “We are in a terrorist regime to prevent people from expressing themselves freely,” Roch Euloge said.
On the side of power, we brush these accusations aside with the back of the hand. “I do not know if we live in the same Congo,” said Juste Désiré Mondele, political adviser to President Sassou-Nguesso and his political spokesman for this campaign. “What is certain is that there is no political crisis. The institutions function normally. There are all the layers that intervene today in the political debate. There is a statute for the opposition leader. We also have a parliament that normally works with an opposition parliamentary group. So there is no political crisis in Congo. “
In addition to the political divisions, the fatigue expressed during this campaign by part of Congolese opinion is also the result of the deep economic and social crisis that the country is going through. “Pensioners’ pensions are no longer being paid, scholarships are no longer being paid, hospitals are dying and the education system is becoming increasingly corrupt,” laments Roch Euloge Nzobo.
For almost ten years, Congo-Brazzaville has been suffocated by the scale of the debt. In July 2019, an agreement with the IMF raised hopes of improvement. The IMF then accepted the principle of support of $ 448 million and released a first tranche. But since December 2019, there is nothing. The IMF has frozen its disbursements on the grounds that Congo-Brazzaville has not complied with the commitments entered into, in particular the obligation to renegotiate its debt with a number of oil traders. “The discussions are ongoing, the dialogue with the IMF is not broken and we are working on it,” reassures Juste Désiré Mondele.
To explain the extent of their debt, the Congolese authorities regularly accuse the sudden drop in the prices of oil products registered after 2014. But here again, the bishops have a different interpretation of the situation. “The economic crisis is also the result of bad governance, corruption. And that is what has aggravated the social difficulties and suffering of the people, ”estimates Brice Mackosso, chair of the Justice and Peace Commission during the bishops’ conference. “The bishops said it very well in their open letter of February,” he continues.
In response to this message, the Congolese government was surprised at the “brutality of certain statements by the bishops”, urging them to remain in their “apostolic and bourgeois role”. This week the bishops’ conference met deny the right to abstain from voting Sunday. And therefore they insert approx. 4,000 observers trained by the Church for this purpose.
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