As the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) edges toward its presidential election on March 12 and 15, the country’s two parliamentary chiefs have placed one word at the center of the moment: peace. Their message, delivered at the opening of ordinary sessions on February 1, set a deliberate tone.
Parliament Opens Sessions With a Call for Maturity
Senate President Pierre Ngolo and National Assembly President Isidore Mvouba both used their opening addresses to urge restraint. Each framed the coming vote as a test of national maturity rather than a routine date on the electoral calendar.
The timing was pointed. With the campaign weeks away, both leaders chose to speak less about candidates and more about the climate in which the contest would unfold across the country.
Ngolo Asks the State to Guarantee Security
Pierre Ngolo said he wanted the March vote to take place in a climate of peace, security, order and calm, presenting it as proof of the progress of Congo’s young democracy. He addressed the government, political actors and ordinary citizens in turn.
“The Senate calls on the government to take all measures contributing to guaranteeing the security of the institutions and the population; to consolidate peace and national concord,” Ngolo said. He asked authorities to leave nothing to chance.
To political figures, he urged fair play and a refusal to commit acts that could endanger lives, disturb the peace or undermine public order. Citizens, he added, should act as conscious people, mindful of their future and ready to invest in their nation’s rise.
A Reminder Rooted in the Sovereign National Conference
Ngolo tied his appeal to a founding promise. He recalled the commitment made at the Sovereign National Conference to build democracy in peace, restoring political pluralism while rejecting personal ambition pursued at the expense of citizens.
“In choosing to restore political pluralism in Congo, the conference participants solemnly proclaimed their categorical opposition to the realization of individual ambitions through the sacrifice of the sons and daughters of Congo, who all have a right to life and well-being,” he said.
For Ngolo, the 2026 election remains a measure of the stature of leaders and their capacity to convince the largest number. Everyone, at their level, is called to ensure the contest unfolds under conditions of security and transparency.
Free Expression, But Within Limits
The Senate president looked ahead to the campaign as a moment of open debate. He described the opening of the campaign as an episode of optimal freedom of expression and movement in a united and indivisible Congo.
“Common sense dictates that the freedom of one stops where that of another begins,” he said. The framing acknowledged the energy of a campaign while drawing a clear line around it.
He also condemned the events at Mindouli, in the Pool, on January 11 and 12. He called such incidents intolerable, warning that they revive memories of bloody episodes from the country’s recent history and endanger a peace difficult to reconquer.
Mvouba Frames the Vote as a National Mirror
Isidore Mvouba struck a complementary note. He insisted the March election is a fundamental democratic appointment, a constitutional rendezvous demanding responsibility, political maturity and scrupulous respect for republican rules.
The election, he said, is a moment of sovereign expression of the people that cannot become a pretext for division or for calling peace into question. Political competition, he stressed, must remain a confrontation of ideas, never a clash of persons.
“It is a mirror. A mirror of our democratic maturity. A mirror of our collective capacity to organize this political competition in peace,” Mvouba said. The vote, he added, was about choosing a direction and a course, not only a man.
He hoped the people would inscribe their will in history “without violence, without tumult, but with the quiet strength of assumed sovereignty.” The phrasing captured the institutional anxiety beneath the ceremony.
The Assembly Pledges to Guard the Rules
Mvouba described the National Assembly’s responsibility as immense, an exigence meant to clarify decisions, soothe tensions and consolidate national cohesion. He positioned the chamber alongside those who frame and guarantee the rules of the game.
“At a time when some seek to oppose or to divide, we say forcefully that Congo is one and indivisible,” he said. He warned that competition should enrich democracy rather than threaten national concord.
He too condemned what he called recent security tremors in the Pool and the Djoue-Lefini, while welcoming the peace recovered there. The Republic, he said, opens its doors to all but does not negotiate its laws, and no lawless zones should remain on national territory.
Taken together, the two addresses read as a coordinated signal from the top of Congo’s legislature: the vote will be judged as much by its calm as by its result.
Publie : · Categorie : Politics · Tags : (none) · Auteur : Stephen Mbayo (#4) · Image #7841 · 2026-02-04