The Republic of Congo started voting in a legislative election yesterday in which President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s ruling Congolese Labor Party (PCT) will probably keep its parliamentary majority.
Electoral commission president Henri Bouka said most voting locations in the country had opened. Mr Sassou Nguesso’s party and its allies had won 125 of the 137 seats in the 2007 vote, which was marred by fraud and irregularities, according to African Union election observers. “We expect the PCT and its satellites to secure a parliamentary majority,” Samir Gadio, an emerging-markets strategist at Standard Bank Group in London, said in a note.
Mr Sassou Nguesso has worked to build the economy through investments in mining and oil. – (Bloomberg)