Domestic Politics

On 31 December 2014, the ‘Parti Congolais du Travail’ Central Committee had convened to determine whether to support the constitutional referendum and, to no one’s surprise, the Committee announced its support on 1 January. Although the vote itself was a formality, it was the first clear signal that the regime planned to revise the Constitution to permit President Denis Sassou Nguesso to retain power when his second term expired in August. Congolese citizens quickly registered their disapproval. A month later, on 5 February, a range of civil society organisations and opposition parties launched the Republican Front for the Respect of Constitutional Order and Democratic Alternance (frocad), led by Paul Marie Mpouélé. frocad denounced the impending constitutional revision as a “constitutional coup d’état”.

The regime moved to shore up its repressive apparatus. In June, the government installed a video surveillance network throughout central Brazzaville and near the Maya-Maya airport. Although the government advertised the system as an effort to improve traffic circulation, its chief purpose was to monitor would-be protesters. On 6 July, as tensions in Brazzaville intensified, Sassou Nguesso removed the city’s long-serving prefect, Benoît Moundélé-Ngollo, who at 72 years of age was deemed unable to effectively oversee the city’s security apparatus. Moundélé-Ngollo was replaced by Pierre Cébert Ibocko-Onangha, formerly the prefect of Cuvette and a longstanding Sassou Nguesso ally.

Between 13 and 17 July, Sassou Nguesso convened a National Dialogue in Sibiti, Lékoumou, to discuss the “evolution of the country’s political institutions”, a euphemism for the constitutional revision. The Dialogue, presided over by André Obami Itou and Firmin Ayessa – among Sassou Nguesso’s most trusted allies – was denounced as a charade by the political opposition, who ultimately boycotted it. The Dialogue served to propose the government’s terms for a constitutional revision. Delegates conceded more legislative oversight to the executive, the appointment of a prime minister, and a reduction in the length of presidential terms from five years to seven. On the crucial question of the limit to the number of terms a president could serve, however, the Dialogue announced that participants were divided. Later in the year, the Dialogue’s failure to achieve consensus allowed Sassou Nguesso to justify a constitutional referendum as a principled deference to popular sovereignty.

Sassou Nguesso announced a new government on 11 August, dismissing the two ministers who had publicly opposed the constitutional revision: Claudine Munari, a former Lissouba ally from Bouenza region, and Guy Brice Parfait Kolélas, leader of the ‘Mouvement Congolais pour la Démocratie et le Développement Intégral’. As replacements, Sassou Nguesso selected a pair of young politicians whose family pedigrees would prove politically useful for the referendum ahead: Jean-Marc Thystère Tchicaya and Euloge Landry Kolélas, Guy Brice Parfait’s brother. Although Thystère Tchicaya was less popular in Pointe-Noire than his late father, the appointment removed the spiritual centre of the city’s opposition. By persuading Euloge Landry Kolélas to accept his brother’s place, Sassou Nguesso further undercut potential opposition from the Pool region. Sassou Nguesso also renewed his alliance with Laurentine Milongo, widow of the late André Milongo, founder of the ‘Union pour la Démocratie et la République’ (udr-Mwinda), who had remained among the Pool region’s most popular opposition leaders until his death in 2007. Just before their dismissal, Kolélas and Munari founded the Initiative for Democracy in Congo (idc), along with three other former Sassou Nguesso allies who staunchly opposed the constitutional revision: Charles Zacharie Bowao, René Serge Blanchard Oba, and André Okombi Salissa. The idc quickly agreed to an alliance with frocad.

On 22 September, Sassou Nguesso finally announced the constitutional referendum. As expected, the Constitution would be advertised as “more democratic” than its predecessor. It reduced the length of presidential terms from seven years to five, called for the appointment of a prime minister, and gave the National Assembly greater oversight authority. Perhaps more importantly, from Sassou Nguesso’s perspective, the new Constitution forbade the extradition of Congolese citizens and granted presidents lifetime immunity from prosecution. The Constitution even specified that the transgression of these provisions would be counted as treason. By ushering in a new republic, the new Constitution enabled Sassou Nguesso to circumvent the term limits imposed by its predecessor. The timing of the announcement was strategic. It occurred just three days after the 11th African Games, held in Brazzaville, and after it became clear that both President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda would also brave international condemnation to secure third presidential terms. Having committed himself to the referendum, Sassou Nguesso moved quickly. It was scheduled for just five weeks later, on 25 October. Congolese citizens responded angrily. On 27 September, only five days after the referendum was announced, opposition leaders organised a protest attended by some 30,000 people, easily the largest since Sassou Nguesso’s return to power in 1997 and possibly larger than those that had forced him to convene the 1991 National Conference. Rather than suppressing protesters, Sassou Nguesso organised a ‘mega concert’, which was ultimately boycotted even by the headliner, Roga Roga. Congo’s pro-democracy activists coordinated their efforts via social media, and days later the hashtag “#SassouFit” emerged as the rallying cry, a clever phonetic play on ‘ça suffit’ (‘that’s enough’).

Protests intensified as the referendum approached. Sensing the possibility of a Burkina Faso style revolution, the regime responded brutally: one Pointe-Noire protest led to more than 30 deaths. The regime shut down sms text messaging, limited Internet access, and placed several opposition leaders under house arrest. Hoping that Western governments would force Sassou Nguesso to abandon the “constitutional coup d’état”, as they called it, the political opposition organised a series of protests in Paris and Washington. Finally, in the days before the referendum, the opposition called for a boycott.

The referendum was held on 25 October. Days later, the regime claimed that some 73% of eligible voters went to the polls, with 92% of votes cast endorsing the new Constitution. In reality, most Brazzaville polling stations were deserted until late afternoon, when the regime began bussing in its few supporters – many of whom had been paid to vote – to create the illusion of participation. The new Constitution was promulgated on 6 November and the presidential election was scheduled for 20 March 2016.

The year concluded just as Congo’s political parties were selecting their candidates for the March 2016 presidential elections. As they did so, Sassou Nguesso sought to placate the political opposition by appointing a prime minister from the country’s southern regions. Martin Mberi, among former president Pascal Lissouba’s chief aides and a senior minister in several Lissouba governments, emerged as the principal candidate. After having publicly opposed the constitutional revision in 2014, Mberi toured the southern regions of Niari, Lékoumou, and Bouenza between 12 and 23 December, attempting to generate public enthusiasm.

Foreign Affairs

Sassou Nguesso’s efforts to secure a constitutional revision dominated his foreign policy. Early in the year, Western governments voiced their opposition. On 3 June, the us State Department affirmed the Obama administration’s opposition and, on 7 July, French President François Hollande issued his objection directly to Sassou Nguesso. Indeed, the Élysée Palace broke protocol by not laying the red carpet at the palace entrance when Sassou Nguesso arrived.

Sassou Nguesso’s bilateral relationship with France was further strained by the ongoing ‘biens mal acquis’ corruption investigation. French authorities seized three major properties owned by the Sassou Nguesso family: in June, the French justice department seized Villa Suzette, a mansion located in Yvelines, just west of Paris and, in August, the French government seized two apartments, in Neuilly-sur-Seine and Courbevoie. In February, police officers searched a fourth property, also in Neuilly-sur-Seine, during which they seized more than $ 300,000 in cash alone. Sassou Nguesso continued in his efforts to persuade Hollande to block the investigation, but still to no avail. In September, Sassou Nguesso chose Alain Akouala-Atipault, who until August had served as the minister of special economic zones, to succeed Henri Lopès as ambassador to Paris; Akouala-Atipault, one of Sassou Nguesso’s most loyal aides, had been a frequent critic in Brazzaville of the ‘biens mal acquis’ investigation. Paris declined his credentials.

However, as violence in Burundi spiralled out of control, Western governments softened their opposition to the constitutional revision. After Congolese protesters called on Hollande to block the revision on 20 October, Hollande stated that was Sassou Nguesso’s right as president to consult his people in a constitutional referendum and that the people would have to respond. “Then, once the people have been consulted [. . .] we must always be careful to unite, to respect, and to make peace.” Members of the Congolese opposition declared Hollande’s statement a “knife to the back”. Even the French daily ‘Le Monde’, normally friendly to Hollande’s Socialist government, led with the headline, “The African press denounces the complicit support of François Hollande to President Sassou Nguesso.”

As bilateral relationships with Western governments deteriorated, Sassou Nguesso redoubled his efforts to court regional allies. In April, he financed Faure Gnassingbé’s re-election campaign in Togo; Gnassingbé repaid his generosity by visiting him in Oyo, his native village, on 15 May. In September, Sassou Nguesso coordinated a $ 40 m transaction between Lucien Ebata and President Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire, which provided the Ivorian government with liquidity at a crucial moment. Sassou Nguesso continued to serve as the official mediator for the crisis in the car. Although his relationship with Transitional President Catherine Samba-Panza was strained by year’s end, Sassou Nguesso actively courted the two leading candidates to succeed her in the February 2016 presidential elections.

As in years past, Sassou Nguesso pursued ever closer bilateral relationships with China, Russia, Turkey, Brazil and India. In July, to much fanfare, the Sassou Nguesso government welcomed a delegation from the Agricultural Bank of China (abc), among the largest financial institutions in Beijing. The abc and the Congolese government jointly established the ‘Banque Sino-Congolaise pour l’Afrique’, with the Bank’s founding capital contributed in roughly equal measure by the two countries; local journalists reported that the Sassou Nguesso family owned roughly 12%. The Brazzaville office represented only the eighth international branch of the abc, and the first in Africa. In September, the Sassou Nguesso government signed an agreement with Turkish firm btp Summa to build a ‘Cité Gouvernementale in central Brazzaville, which would ultimately house the country’s central administration.

Socioeconomic Developments

As oil prices declined, the regime sought new revenue streams to purchase political support. On 25 March, Sassou Nguesso approved a new Hydrocarbons Law, which was designed to enhance his ability to distribute patronage. The law featured three critical provisions. First, the state oil company, ‘Société Nationale des Petrôles du Congo’ (snpc), was given exclusive authority to grant oil and gas concessions. In practice, this move gave Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, the president’s son and the snpc’s deputy director, even more authority to organise the oil sector to the regime’s benefit. Second, the law stipulated that the government’s share of oil revenue would be at least 35%. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, nationally held private companies would receive at least a 15% share in all production sharing agreements. Only two such companies enjoyed the technical capacity to participate meaningfully in production sharing agreements: Africa Oil and Gas Corporation and Orion Oil. Although owned by Denis Gokana and Lucien Ebata, respectively, both firms were effectively controlled by Sassou Nguesso.

Congo’s nominal gdp reached $ 14.2 bn, at a growth rate of about 1%. This represented a significant decline; in 2010, Congo’s growth rate had reached nearly 9%. The slowing growth rate was driven almost entirely by declining oil reserves and global market prices. The oil sector continued to account for some 75% of government revenue and 80% of foreign exchange earnings. Congo produced only 241,000 b/d, down from over 300,000 in 2013. Reflecting this, Congo’s total exports declined as well, from $ 10.5 bn in 2013 to $ 5.85 bn in 2015. China emerged as Congo’s chief export partner by a substantial margin, accounting for 52% of total exports. Australia, Congo’s second leading export partner, accounted for just 8.3%.

As commodity prices declined, the government’s fiscal position rapidly deteriorated. Although reserves at the central bank constituted 20% of gdp – the highest percentage in the region – external public debt increased to 47% of gdp, up from 20% in 2010. The government’s current account deficit reached 8% of gdp. Declining oil prices forced the government to take corrective fiscal measures. Based on an oil price assumption of $ 70 per barrel, in May the Council of Ministers adopted a supplementary budget based on an oil price of $ 55. As a result, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Congo’s bond rating from B+ to B, while Fitch downgraded Congo’s Issuer Default Rating from Stable to Negative. The inflation rate was 2.1%.