DAKAR, Senegal – The opposition leader was too sick to reach his final nominations before Sunday’s elections.
“I am fighting death,” he said weakly on Friday, removing an oxygen mask from his face to film a message addressed to citizens of the Republic of Congo. “But I ask that you get up and vote for the change.”
Three days later, hours after the election, he was dead. He had tested positive for Covid-19.
The candidate, Guy-Brice Parfait Kolélas, was trying to oust President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has been in power for 36 years. But on Friday, Kolélas fell ill.
While voters went to the polls on Sunday, Kolélas was evacuated by air to France for treatment. But he died on the plane on the way there, his campaign director said Monday morning at a meeting of Kolélas’ political party in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital.
Few observers expected Kolélas to win the election. Still, his death is a blow to a Central African country mired in an economic crisis. The country has reported 9,564 cases of coronavirus so far and has averaged 34 new cases per day lately, according to a New York Times database. As in many countries, it is likely to be an underestimated estimate because test levels are low.
Several prominent African politicians died last year. Some, such as the right-hand man of Nigerian President Abba Kyari, and South African Minister Jackson Mphikwa Mthembu, are known to have died of Covid-19 complications. Official announcements for some others, such as President John Magufuli of Tanzania and President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, said that they died of heart problems, although it is rumored that the coronavirus played a role in their deaths.
In the video recorded on his hospital bed, Kolélas told Congolese voters that they owed their children to vote in the elections.
“To fight. I will not have fought in vain,” he said in the video. “Stand up as one people. Make me happy. I am fighting on my deathbed. You too are fighting for your change.”
The son of a former prime minister who also spent many years in the opposition, Kolélas served as Nguesso’s minister for six years. But in the race for this year’s election, he said the Republic of Congo had become a “police state”.
The internet was blocked across the country on election day, according to the monitoring organization Netblocks. Otherwise, the election seemed to proceed without incident. The results of the elections are expected later this week.
“Democracy is working in our country,” said Nguesso on Monday.
A former military officer, Nguesso came to power for the first time in 1977, after the murder of his predecessor. He lost the country’s first multi-party election in 1992, but returned to power in 1997. In 2019, the nonprofit campaign group Global Witness accused his son of stealing $ 50 million in state funds.
Almost half of the population lives in poverty in the Republic of Congo, one of the main oil producers on the African continent.