Republic of Congo opposition to protest against constitutional referendum

Opposition leaders in the Republic of Congo on Sunday urged the population to hold street protests against a constitutional referendum announced by President Denis Sassou N'Guesso whose term ends next year.

The opposition leaders who met in the capital Brazzaville, vowed to resist any amendments to the 2002 Constitution.

They said the proposed constitutional amendments were meant to allow Sassou N'Guesso to contest for a third term, something the current constitution does not allow him to do.

"If he does not change his mind and if he does not drop the referendum idea, boulevard Alfred Raoul (where the meeting was being held) will become the center for our resistance," said Guy Romain Kinfoussia, the president of the Union for Democracy and the Republic.

Speaking during the same function, Rene Serge Blanchard Oba, a former supporter of the incumbent president who has since decamped to the opposition, warned that "once the constitutional referendum is announced, the entire Congolese population will pour into the streets."

A former member of the ruling party Andre Okombi Salissa said "time had come for the Congolese population to block any attempt to amend the country's Constitution."

The secretary general of the Congolese Movement for Integral Development, Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, appealed for a high sense of responsibility from the country's president and asked him to end the political impasse by calling off the proposed referendum.

Organized by the Initiative for Democracy in Congo and Front for Change and Respect for the 2002 Constitution, the two main opposition platforms in the country, the meeting was the start of a series of a nationwide campaign to oppose the proposed constitutional amendments. Endit