Congo president says he will not 'remain in power forever'

Congo-Brazzaville’s 82-year-old President Denis Sassou Nguesso says he is preparing the ground for a new generation of leaders as he seeks re-election in the March 15 presidential poll.

In an interview in the southern city of Dolisie, Sassou Nguesso said the current leadership is laying the foundations for young people to eventually take over.

“We want young people to understand that all the work we are doing is also to prepare the conditions for their arrival, because we will not remain in power forever and their turn will come,” he said. “We were young as well, like them. They need to train themselves, they need to learn to work hard.”

Sassou Nguesso, who has ruled the oil-rich Central African nation for more than four decades in total, faces six other candidates in a race where the fragmented opposition is seen as having little chance of victory.

Addressing criticism over poverty in a country rich in natural resources, the president rejected claims that wealth has been squandered.

“We cannot say that people are below the poverty line while resources are abundant and have been squandered. No. Or even wasted. No,” he said. “They have been used to bring the country to its current level — one it did not have at all when our country gained independence.”

Nearly half of Congo-Brazzaville’s six million people live below the poverty line, despite significant oil revenues.

The president also responded to questions about two former presidential candidates, General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and André Okombi Salissa, who remain in detention after being convicted of undermining national security.

“They are not going to die in prison. One day we will release them,” Sassou Nguesso said. But he rejected describing them as political opponents. “They are not opponents. They are young men, collaborators who tried to embark on an adventure that did not succeed.”

If re-elected, this would be Sassou Nguesso’s final five-year term under the constitution. He declined to name a possible successor, saying instead that preparations for the country’s future are being handled in a broad and holistic way.