{Presidential candidates in Congo are campaigning ahead of the March 20 poll date.}<\/p>\n
The campaigning kicked off in earnest on Friday.<\/p>\n
The take-off comes after the country\u2019s opposition spoke against the election date.<\/p>\n
Sitting president Denis Sassou Nguesso is vying for a third term in office after a controversial modification to the country\u2019s constitution to allow him run. He has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
The opposition have raised doubts about how free or fair the elections would be, insisting very little or no assurances have been given.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor our candidate, Tsaty Pascal Mabiala, the campaign will begin in earnest in a few days and in the North of the country,\u201d said Honore Sayi, spokesman of Pan-African Union for Social Democracy, UPADS.<\/p>\n
Some potential candidates have boycotted the polls, citing unsuitable conditions.<\/p>\n
8 candidates are contesting the sitting president Denis Sassou Nguesso who rose to power in 1979, but lost in the popular uprising of 1992, only to return five years later after a civil war.
\nHe has since ruled the Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
A constitutional amendment backed by a referendum in October 2015 paved way for President Nguesso to stand for a third term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Presidential candidates in Congo are campaigning ahead of the March 20 poll date.} The campaigning kicked off in earnest on Friday. The take-off comes after the country\u2019s opposition spoke against the election date. Sitting president Denis Sassou Nguesso is vying for a third term in office after a controversial modification to the country\u2019s constitution to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[99],"byline":[2539],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-africa-news"],"bylines":[{"id":2539,"name":"Africa News","slug":"africa-news","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":2539,"name":"Africa News","slug":"africa-news","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":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23709","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=23709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23709"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23709"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}