Communications cut as Congo leader seeks to extend 32-year rule

Brazzaville (AFP) - Communications lines were cut in Congo for a second day Monday and business slack amid fears of post-election trouble due to President Denis Sassou Nguesso's bid to extend his 32-year rule.

The streets of the capital Brazzaville were less crowded than usual and there was little traffic on major roads linking the city's north-south quarters, an AFP reporter said.

Government offices remained open but business slowed down at the city's biggest market, Total, that sells anything from computers to caterpillars and traditional charms.

"People are scared, scared of the result," said a taxi driver.

And inside the market, a coconut seller said "there haven't been too many people ... people are scared the results will be released today and there could be tensions."

Congolese authorities shut down telephone and Internet links during the Sunday vote and on Monday for "reasons of security and national safety" and to prevent the "illegal publication" of election results by the opposition.

But Charles Zacharie Bowao, coordinator of the CTE opposition alliance, said the coalition was compiling results itself based on reports from counting centres.

Tensions have been high since an October constitutional referendum that removed a two-term limit on presidential mandates, allowing 72-year-old former paratrooper colonel Sassou Nguesso to run for office again.

The vote also removed a 70-year age limit for the presidency that could have forced one of Africa's five longest-serving leaders to step down.

- Poverty, squalor, unemployment -

But Sunday's vote passed off largely peacefully aside from an incident when police tear-gassed 200 opposition supporters demanding to be let into a polling station to observe the counting.

Sassou Nguesso has said he has no doubt he will beat his eight rivals, describing election day as a "penalty kick and then victory".

On Friday, five rival presidential contenders -- including former military chief Jean-Marie Mokoko -- signed an agreement to back the strongest candidate among them in the event of a second round vote.

Sassou Nguesso is accused by critics of rampant corruption and nepotism in the oil and timber-rich country which saw growth of five percent over the five years to 2014, but remains in dire straits.

Unemployment hit 34 percent in 2013, the last data available, and stood at 60 percent for 15 to 24-year-olds.

The IMF fears "domestic instability" without progress in the battle to eliminate poverty.

In the run-up to the vote, Sassou Nguesso acknowledged that youth unemployment was a problem, saying 60 percent of graduates from the country's sole university were jobless.

"Seven years were insufficient to fully make these solutions operational... which is why we need to continue the country's modernisation and industrialisation," his platform said.

But a large section of the population lives in grinding poverty, lacking basic amenities.

Sassou Nguesso served as president from 1979 to 1992 and returned to power in 1997 following a civil war. He won two successive mandates in 2002 and 2009, but both tallies were contested by opposition parties.