About: http://data.cimple.eu/news-article/c7470e0a32bb6c2ec241f11c64f9fc895e526b82e9cb18ddcbca3da3     Goto   Sponge   NotDistinct   Permalink

An Entity of Type : schema:NewsArticle, within Data Space : data.cimple.eu associated with source document(s)

AttributesValues
rdf:type
schema:articleBody
  • Security forces in the Republic of Congo were casting their ballots on Wednesday ahead of presidential elections in which veteran leader Denis Sassou Nguesso is frontrunner. A polling station opened in the city of Dolisie in the south of the country, AFP journalists saw, where 1,203 soldiers, police and gendarmes were scheduled to vote -- a civic duty in this country. Also called Congo-Brazzaville, the republic is an oil-rich but also poverty-stricken neighbour of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sassou Nguesso, bidding for a fourth term, is a 77-year-old retired general who first ruled from 1979 to 1992 before returning at the end of a civil war in 1997. "This early voting by the security forces is a test that we are trying out. Other African countries do it already," Henri Bouka, president of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) overseeing the ballot, told AFP. Opposition groups have criticised the move to separate voting by the security forces from the general public, seeing in it a further risk of ballot fraud. In 2015, the country staged a referendum on removing a 70-year age limit and a ban on presidents serving more than two terms. The move paved the way for Sassou Nguesso to secure a third term in elections in March 2016 that were marred by bloodshed. His rivals, former general Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and former minister Andre Okombi Salissa, disputed the results. They were arrested, put on trial and each handed 20 years in jail on charges of undermining state security. Sassou Nguesso faces seven challengers on Sunday, most notably Mathias Dzon, a 73-year-old former finance minister who was the runner-up in 2016. The largest opposition group, the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS), has already said it will boycott. Another major figure, Frederic Bintsamou, a former rebel chief who took up arms against Sassou Nguesso after the 2016 vote, has called for a peaceful ballot. Bintsamou, also called Pastor Ntumi, told journalists that his party, the National Council of Republicans (CNR), would not field or support any candidate. The elections "must not be the occasion for stirring the old demons of division," Bintsamou told journalists last Saturday. Just over 2.5 million people are registered to vote in an estimated population of five million. lmm/mbb/ri/pma
schema:headline
  • Congo security forces vote in upcoming presidential poll
schema:mentions
schema:author
schema:datePublished
http://data.cimple...sPoliticalLeaning
http://data.cimple...logy#hasSentiment
http://data.cimple...readability_score
http://data.cimple...tology#hasEmotion
Faceted Search & Find service v1.16.115 as of Oct 09 2023


Alternative Linked Data Documents: ODE     Content Formats:   [cxml] [csv]     RDF   [text] [turtle] [ld+json] [rdf+json] [rdf+xml]     ODATA   [atom+xml] [odata+json]     Microdata   [microdata+json] [html]    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3238 as of Jul 16 2024, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-musl), Single-Server Edition (126 GB total memory, 5 GB memory in use)
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2025 OpenLink Software