Denis Sassou Nguesso: Congo-Brazzaville's strongman

Denis Sassou Nguesso, one of Africa's longest serving leaders, has ruled oil-rich Congo-Brazzaville with a tight grip for more than 40 years, earning him a nickname associated with tough invincibility.

The former paratrooper colonel, who is now aged 82, used the army as a springboard to power and has allegedly amassed a fortune over the decades as a strongman who detractors accuse of corruption and rights abuses.

Sassou Nguesso's first stint as president began in 1979, at the helm of a single-party system run by the Soviet-aligned Congolese Labour Party (PCT).

He was voted out of office 13 years later, after the fall of the Berlin Wall resulted in the collapse of many Marxist-Leninist governments around the world and a switch to a multiparty system.

Replaced as head of state in the 1992 election by Pascal Lissouba, Sassou Nguesso went into exile in former colonial power France.

But when the democratic experiment soured and Congo descended into civil war, he returned in 1997 to seize power in an armed uprising.

He has been president ever since, re-elected in 2002, 2009, 2016 and 2021 in votes which the opposition said were neither transparent nor democratic.

On Sunday, he stands again in the last five-year term he is allowed under the current constitution.

Infrastructure

Because he controls both the army and the public purse strings, Sassou Nguesso can essentially set the rules, complained political opponent Clement Mierassa.

Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International once said he embodied "a caricature of kleptocracy, of a rich head of state that leads a poor country."

Sassou Nguesso rebuffs the accusations that he has mismanaged resources, especially those of the state-run oil sector upon which Congo-Brazzaville depends heavily.

Investigations, especially in France, into allegations that his family has embezzled public funds are, his government says, attempts to destabilise the country.

"When we gained independence in 1960, Congo didn't have a single kilometre of tarmacked road outside its cities," he told AFP in an interview early this month.

The country of six million now has roads, railways, ports and universities, he said, and the PCT, which adopted social democracy in the 1990s, has sought to expand agricultural production and access to electricity.

Around half the population continue, nonetheless, to live below the poverty line, according to World Bank figures, and around half can neither read nor write, the president said.

'Invincible'

Sassou Nguesso, an ethnic Mboshi, was born in 1943 in Edou, a town 400 kilometres north of the capital Brazzaville.

At age 13, he started training to become a schoolteacher, before enrolling at an Algerian military academy in 1961 and two years later, at the prestigious Saint-Maixent military school in France.

His political longevity has earned him the nickname "Otchouembe," which means "palm nut" in the Mboshi language and customarily describes an invincible wrestler with muscles as hard as ebony.

Extending his influence beyond Congo-Brazzaville, he has established a reputation as a mediator in several African regional crises.

Sassou Nguesso faces six other candidates in Sunday's presidential vote, in which the opposition is fragmented and muzzled, and the incumbent has the backing of the powerful PCT.

Two candidates who ran in the 2016 elections -- General Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko and Andre Okombi Salissa -- are still in jail after being convicted of "undermining national security" in 2018 and 2019.

Sassou Nguesso declined, in his interview with AFP, to speak of who might replace him in 2031.

Members of his entourage have at times, mentioned the names of several potential successors -- notably that of Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, his son and international cooperation minister.

But the incumbent remains prudent on the subject.

"It's not a matter of grooming a particular man. It's about a whole set of things we are preparing in a holistic way for the country's future," he said.

Of the country’s young people, he said: "We will not remain in power forever and their turn will come."