{"id":29049,"date":"2026-03-18T07:42:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=29049"},"modified":"2026-03-18T07:42:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:42:24","slug":"congo-republic-president-sassou-nguesso-wins-re-election","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/congo-republic-president-sassou-nguesso-wins-re-election\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Congo Republic President Sassou Nguesso wins re-election&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-olk-copy-source=\"MailCompose\">Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso has been re-elected with 94.82% of the vote, state television said on Tuesday, extending his nearly 42 years leading the Central African oil producer.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Diplomats and political analysts had expected an easy victory for Sassou, 82, who was running against six little-known challengers, in an election whose run-up was tightly controlled by the ruling Congolese Labour Party.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The main opposition parties opted not to field candidates, citing a lack of transparency, and two of the best-known opposition figures, General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and Andre Okombi Salissa, have been in jail for nearly a decade.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Human rights activists were arrested, several opposition parties were suspended, and public gatherings were closely monitored in the run-up to the election, said Joe Washington Ebina, a Congolese human rights activist.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Voting on Sunday was marred by late openings at some polling stations and a nationwide internet blackout.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>State television on Tuesday reported turnout of 84.65%, though many polling stations in Brazzaville on Sunday had short lines or no lines at all.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Defeated candidates have five days to file a challenge, and the Constitutional Court has 15 days to examine any challenges before publishing final results.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":28237,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-29049","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Voting on Sunday was marred by late openings at some polling stations.","published_date":"","news_description":"Voting on Sunday was marred by late openings at some polling stations.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29051,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29049\/revisions\/29051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=29049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}