BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of Congo (AP) — The Republic of Congo ’s President Denis Sassou N’Guesso, who has ruled for 42 years, was reelected for a fifth consecutive term, according to provisional results announced Tuesday by authorities.
Sassou N’Guesso won 94,82% of the vote, Interior Minister Raymond Zephirin Mboulou said on state television.
Click to Gallery
Voters check for their names at a polling station in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vivace Mambouana)
A voter cast his ballot at a polling station in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vivace Mambouana)
An election official check for the name of a voter in a register at a polling station in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vivace Mambouana)
President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou N'Guesso casts his ballot at a polling station in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vivace Mambouana)
FILE - President of Congo Denis Sassou N'Guesso looks on during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on May 23, 2025. Thomas Samson/ Pool Photo via AP, FILE)
Six other candidates challenged the 82-year-old for the top job in the Central African country that boasts one of the largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa.
The internet was shut down across the country as usual during the presidential election and traffic was restricted across the capital.
The election is the latest in a trend of octogenarian African leaders clinging to power. Sassou N’Guesso is the third-longest-serving African president, only behind Cameroon ’s Paul Biya and Equatorial Guinea ’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
The interior minister reported a turnout of 84.65% and 2.6 million ballots cast. But many polling stations in the capital Brazzaville saw short or non-existent lines, as locals said they did not believe the election would result in a change in leadership from Sassou N’Guesso, who has ruled for 42 years.
Mabio Mavoungou Zinga of the Alliance party came in second with 1.48% of votes, closely followed by independent candidate Uphrem Dave Mafoula who received 1.03% of the vote, according to the provisional results. The other four candidates got less than 1% of the vote.
The provisional results still have to be approved by the constitutional Court.
“By reelecting me by a landslide, the people have kept their word. Now it is up to us to keep ours. We promise to commit ourselves fully to doing everything possible," Sassou N’Guesso told reporters at his party’s headquarters. He said the high turnout reflected the population's “civic-mindedness” and “patriotism.”
Sassou N’Guesso, running for the Congolese Party of Labor, first came to power in 1979 and ruled until 1992 when he organized the country’s first multi-party elections. He returned to power as a militia leader following a four-month civil war in 1997.
The campaign period showed a vast mismatch between Sassou N’Guesso and his opponents, with the incumbent being the only candidate to travel around the country to canvass for votes. Roads in the capital city, Brazzaville, were paved with Sassou N’Guesso’s effigies.
Two other major parties boycotted the elections over allegations of unfair electoral practices.
A constitutional referendum in 2015 removed presidential age and term limits, allowing him to run again.
The country is struggling with high international debt, which stands at 94.5% of its gross domestic product, according to the World Bank, and skyrocketing unemployment rates for young people. More than half the country’s 5.7 million population lives in poverty and 47% of the country’s population is under 18.
In Brazzaville, the president's reelection did not surprise most residents.
“Everyone knew he would be reelected against candidates who were no match for him. The blame lies with the manipulated opposition, which failed to field a single candidate, thus leaving the field open to the presidential camp,” said Jean Baptiste Mahoukou, a taxi driver.
“Like many of my friends I didn’t vote simply because everything was rigged to ensure that President Denis Sassou N’Guesso continues to govern us," said Christian Sondou, 52, a carpenter. "Having been in power for over 40 years, Denis Sassou N’Guesso has failed to lift the country out of poverty. He should have stepped down and handed power over to the young people.”
“There’s no need to lament, we must be patient as he won’t be around forever,” said Elise Sonia, a vendor at the Makelekele market. “Nature will take care of this generation that clings to power without making the slightest effort to build and develop the country."
This story has been corrected to spell Sassou N'Guesso's first name as Denis, not Dennis.
Voters check for their names at a polling station in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vivace Mambouana)
A voter cast his ballot at a polling station in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vivace Mambouana)
An election official check for the name of a voter in a register at a polling station in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vivace Mambouana)
President of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou N'Guesso casts his ballot at a polling station in Brazzaville, the Republic of Congo, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vivace Mambouana)
FILE - President of Congo Denis Sassou N'Guesso looks on during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on May 23, 2025. Thomas Samson/ Pool Photo via AP, FILE)
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo will open three Ebola treatment centers in the eastern Ituri province, and the World Health Organization is sending a team of experts to the country, following an outbreak of a rare type of the virus that has killed nearly 120 people.
An American doctor in Congo is among the newly confirmed cases of the virus with no approved vaccines or medicines, Congolese officials said Monday, as details emerged about the government's delayed response to the outbreak.
The WHO on Sunday declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. As of Monday, there were over 118 deaths and 300 suspected cases in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, and one death and one suspected case in neighboring Uganda. Experts say the number of cases is likely to rise as health officials conduct more surveillance.
The Bundibugyo virus spread undetected for at least a few weeks, health experts and aid workers said. Cases have now been confirmed in Bunia, North Kivu’s rebel-held capital of Goma, Mongbwalu, Butembo and Nyakunde.
“Because early tests looked for the wrong strain of Ebola, we got false negatives and lost weeks of response time,” said Matthew M. Kavanagh, director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy and Politics. “We are playing catch-up against a very dangerous pathogen.”
He criticized the Trump administration’s earlier decision to withdraw from the WHO and make deep cuts in foreign aid — “the exact surveillance system meant to catch these viruses early,” he said.
The severity of the symptoms and the rising caseload are fueling a growing sense of panic in the neighborhoods of Bunia.
“I know the consequences of Ebola, I know what it’s like,” said Noëla Lumo, a resident of Bunia. She previously lived in Beni, a region hit by former Ebola outbreaks. As soon as she heard about the latest outbreak, Lumo began making protective masks by hand.
Congo has said the first person died from the virus on April 24 in Bunia, and the body was repatriated to the Mongbwalu health zone, a mining area with a large population.
“That caused the Ebola outbreak to escalate,” said Congo’s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba.
When another person fell ill on April 26, samples were sent to Kinshasa for testing, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control. On May 5, the WHO was alerted of about 50 deaths in Mongbwalu, including four health workers. The first case was confirmed on May 14.
Samples from Bunia were initially tested for the more common type of Ebola, Zaire, Congolese officials said. They came back negative, said Dr. Richard Kitenge, the Health Ministry Incident Manager for Ebola.
The first confirmation of Ebola came on May 14, and Bundibugyo was confirmed the next day.
“The situation is quite worrying and is evolving pretty quickly,” Esther Sterk with the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group told the AP. “It was detected quite late.” But she said that was often the case with outbreaks of Ebola, which has similar symptoms to other tropical diseases.
The American doctor is among the cases in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province in eastern Congo, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, medical director of the country’s National Institute of Bio-Medical Research.
Dr. Peter Stafford had been treating patients at a hospital there when he developed symptoms, Serge, the organization he works for, said in a statement.
Three others employees of Serge were working at the same hospital — including Stafford’s wife — but are not showing symptoms.
Seven Americans, including the one who tested positive, are being transported to Germany for monitoring, Dr. Satish Pillai of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a call with reporters. Pillai said the American developed symptoms over the weekend.
CDC officials did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about the American doctor’s condition.
The CDC, which has said the risk to Americans was low, issued travel advisories urging Americans traveling in Congo and Uganda to avoid people with symptoms like fever, muscle pain and rash.
The CDC said that, for the next 30 days, the U.S. would ban entry of all foreign nationals who had visited Congo, Uganda and South Sudan over the past three weeks, and take measures to identify individuals with Ebola symptoms at ports of entry.
Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal.
“Ebola is very much a disease of compassion in that it impacts the people who are more likely to be taking care of sick folks,” said Dr. Craig Spencer, an associate professor at the Brown University School of Public Health who survived Ebola more than a decade ago after contracting the disease in Guinea.
“I suspect that the number of cases is going to go up pretty dramatically in the coming weeks as we do better surveillance and end up finding there were a lot more cases and probably a lot more deaths than we recognized," he said.
Although more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have taken place in Congo and Uganda since 1976, this is only the third time that the Bundibugyo virus has been detected.
The U.S. CDC says it causes fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.
The Bundibugyo virus was first detected in Uganda’s Bundibugyo district during a 2007-2008 outbreak that infected 149 people and killed 37. The second time was in 2012, in an outbreak in Isiro, Congo, where 57 cases and 29 deaths were reported.
The Africa CDC chief, Dr. Jean Kaseya, told Sky News on Sunday he is in “panic mode” due to a lack of medicines and vaccines, but some candidate treatments are anticipated in the coming weeks.
Ituri's Mongbwalu is in remote eastern Congo, with poor road networks more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa.
Eastern Congo long has grappled with a humanitarian crisis and the threat of armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in Ituri in the past year.
U.N. staff have been asked to work from home and avoid physical contact and crowded areas, said a Bunia-based U.N. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
Ituri has over 273,00 displaced people, according to the U.N.
Rwanda closed its land border with Congo on Sunday. Ugandan authorities said there was no evidence that Ebola was spreading within the country, and said that surveillance has been heightened along its border with Congo.
This corrects an earlier version of the story to note there is only one confirmed death in Uganda, not two.
For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Medical supplies are stacked inside a World Health Organization (WHO) warehouse in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, May 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Jackson Njehia)
People wait to have their temperature taken in front of Kibuli Muslim Hospital in Kampala, Uganda, Saturday, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/ Hajarah Nalwadda)
A woman wearing a protective mask sells fruit from a roadside stall in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
People wash their hands at the entrance to a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
A general view is seen of Bunia where ebola outbreaks have been confirmed in Ituri province, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
A woman wearing a protective mask stands in the corridor of a hospital in Bunia, Congo, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (AP Photo/ Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne)
