Congo heading to polls as Nguesso seeks to extend 36-year reign

Longtime president expected to see off challenge from six other candidates and win Sunday’s vote.

Voters in the Republic of the Congo will head to the polls on Sunday to elect a president in a vote boycotted by the country’s leading opposition party. President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has ruled the oil-producing country of five million people for 36 years, is seeking a new five-year mandate. The 77-year-old incumbent faces six opposition challengers but is widely expected to win. Nguesso first served as president from 1979 until 1992, when he finished third in the Congo’s first multiparty vote. But he retook power in 1997, following a brief civil war in which his rebel forces removed then-President Pascal Lissouba, and has ruled ever since.