Author: Emmanuel Mbala

Historical Resonance of the Anti-Fascist Struggle Speaking to Xinhua ahead of the victory-day commemorations in Beijing, President Denis Sassou Nguesso invoked the moral legacy of the Second World War to underscore China’s place in contemporary geopolitics. “Let us imagine, even for a moment, that fascism and Nazism had prevailed,” he reflected, noting that the People’s Republic “paid a heavy price to defeat those ideologies and has since become indispensable to the peace of the world”. He reminded listeners that Africa, too, forfeited “hundreds of thousands of lives” in that conflict. Congolese soldiers, he recalled, braved the Sahara and the Mediterranean…

High-Level Message Hand-Delivered In the discreet corridors of Gulf diplomacy, protocol is rarely a mere formality. On 9 September 2025, Congolese Minister of International Cooperation and Public-Private Partnership Promotion Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso was received in audience by His Excellency Dr Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Qatar. Acting as presidential envoy, he conveyed a sealed message from His Excellency President Denis Sassou Nguesso to His Highness the Emir of Qatar. The delivery, even though undertaken during a working mission to Kuwait, signalled Brazzaville’s determination to maintain direct channels with Doha at the highest level.…

A swift purge meant to restore cohesion In a communiqué released in Brazzaville on 17 August 2025, the Union of Humanist Democrats-Yuki (UDH-Yuki) announced the immediate expulsion of deputy Gérald Lone Bambi Goma, departmental councillor Massengo Sylvain and political bureau member Gilles Fernand Bassindikila. Party president Joseph Badiabio signed the decision following an extraordinary meeting of the political bureau that, according to participants, lasted less than two hours but reviewed months of written grievances and testimonies (party communiqué, 17 August 2025). The UDH-Yuki insists that the three cadres repeatedly violated the organisation’s statutes, ignored earlier suspensions imposed in April 2024…

Modernising the CSLC rulebook The quiet auditorium of the Conseil supérieur de la liberté de communication filled on 8 September with a sense of institutional renewal. Its president, Médard Milandou, declared that the inaugural session “opens a chantier of reflection”, a construction site in the intellectual sense, designed to modernise the Council’s internal, financial and procedural texts. Citing article 55 of the current rules, he reminded members that the meeting follows the 19 August election of the vice-president and secretary accountant and is devoted exclusively to foundational documents. In practice, the body wants to ensure that its mechanisms for deliberation,…

Brazzaville’s Strategic Messaging A few minutes past noon in the business lounge of the Hilton Brazzaville, Minister of Communication and Media Thierry Moungalla rose before a packed hall of local and foreign reporters and reaffirmed, with deliberative calm, the Republic of Congo’s “unshakable support” for Firmin Édouard Matoko in the forthcoming election of the UNESCO director-general. The statement, delivered on 5 September 2025, came amid a faint hum of cameras and laptops, attesting to the regional resonance of the contest. Flanked by Claudia Ikia Sassou-Nguesso, Special Adviser to the Head of State, the government spokesman framed the press encounter as…

Opposition voices renewed demands in Brazzaville A measured yet firm declaration delivered in Brazzaville on 5 September 2025 has reopened the public conversation on the mechanics of Congo-Brazzaville’s forthcoming presidential election. Before cameras and smartphone lenses, Marcel Guitoukoulou, president of the Congrès du peuple, read a joint statement on behalf of the Rassemblement des forces du changement, an opposition platform uniting six party leaders in a common front. Their central plea is unambiguous: a complete overhaul of the electoral wp-signup.php, compiled this time with biometric technology, accompanied by a broad civic dialogue capable of easing partisan mistrust. The rationale for…

Capacity-building underscores Brazzaville’s governance priorities On 3 September, within the marble halls of the Ministry in charge of State Reform, Minister Delegate Luc Joseph Okio placed freshly printed certificates into the hands of thirty civil servants who had completed a rigorous course in designing and implementing results-oriented monitoring and evaluation systems (Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 3 September 2023). The symbolic gesture crowns a blended training programme that unfolded between 12 and 16 May, coupling virtual modules with face-to-face workshops in Brazzaville. A results-based monitoring ethos takes root Addressing the recipients, the minister reminded the audience that modern public management is…

A Strategic Classroom Turned Battlefield Simulation For ten dense days in late August the usually calm campus of the Marien-Ngouabi Military Academy in northern Brazzaville was transformed into a command post alive with encrypted radio traffic, digital situation maps and the clipped orders of junior officers eager to apply a year’s worth of theory. The sixth Manoeuvre École, code-named “Tambo”, borrowed its name from the Kituba word for lion and its spirit from a doctrinal scenario that placed a composite Congolese force in control of a volatile, transnational corridor plagued by armed smugglers. According to the official programme released by…

A Carefully Timetabled Political Milestone In the measured rhythm of Congo-Brazzaville’s political calendar, the announcement by the Union panafricaine pour la démocratie sociale (Upads) that it will convene its second ordinary congress from 12 to 14 November 2025 has attracted considerable diplomatic attention. Communicated at the close of the party’s fifth National Council session, the timetable signals a deliberate effort to synchronise internal restructuring with the broader electoral horizon. National Council rapporteur Romaric Sidoine Moukoukou underlined that the gathering will take place in Brazzaville, allowing the movement to remain visibly anchored in the republic’s institutional capital. The congress, last organised…

Electoral Calendar Sets the Tempo With a little more than six months separating the Republic of Congo from its next presidential contest, the government opened the statutory revision of electoral rolls on 1 September. The banners that blossomed across Brazzaville are more than decorative; they constitute a formal reminder that the presidential election, slated for March 2026, already exerts its institutional gravity on the public space. Under national law, the two-month operation is designed to reconcile demographic change with the integrity of the voter wp-signup.php, thereby ensuring that the sovereign expression of the electorate is neither diluted by omissions nor…