{Brazaville-Congo Republic’s ruling party on Monday officially designated incumbent President Denis Sassou Nguesso as its candidate for a March election, bringing the veteran leader one step closer to extending his decades-long rule.}<\/p>\n
Sassou Nguesso has ruled the oil-rich Congo for 31 of the past 36 years in two separate stretches. He is widely expected to win a comfortable victory in the polls, having secured the right to seek a third consecutive term in a constitutional referendum last year.<\/p>\n
The decision to back his candidacy, generally viewed as little more than a formality, was taken by members of the central committee of Sassou Nguesso’s Congolese Party of Labor (PCT).<\/p>\n
“Dear comrades, by trusting, totally trusting in Comrade President Denis Sassou Nguesso, we have made the right choice, the best choice,” PCT Secretary-General Pierre Ngolo said.<\/p>\n
Opposition parties boycotted October’s constitutional referendum, during which security forces placed some party leaders under house arrest and fired on anti-government protesters, killing at least four people.<\/p>\n
While they have conditionally agreed to participate in the election, many observers expect at least some of them to pull out ahead of the March 20 poll date.<\/p>\n
Sassou Nguesso is one of a number of veteran African leaders whose moves to extend their time in office – including in Burundi, Burkina Faso and Democratic Republic of Congo – have sparked unrest and earned international condemnation.<\/p>\n
Source:Voice of America:[Congo Ruling Party Greenlights Sassou Nguesso Presidential Run->Congo Ruling Party Greenlights Sassou Nguesso Presidential Run]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Brazaville-Congo Republic’s ruling party on Monday officially designated incumbent President Denis Sassou Nguesso as its candidate for a March election, bringing the veteran leader one step closer to extending his decades-long rule.} Sassou Nguesso has ruled the oil-rich Congo for 31 of the past 36 years in two separate stretches. He is widely expected to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[99],"byline":[2475],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-voice-of-america"],"bylines":[{"id":2475,"name":"VOICE OF AMERICA","slug":"voice-of-america","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2475,"name":"VOICE OF AMERICA","slug":"voice-of-america","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071752,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22779.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22779.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22779.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22779.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22779.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22779.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22779"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22779"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}