michal_dubrawski

Last time he received 88% of votes cast, but that was when the opposition was boycotting the elections for unfair treatment. In the 2016 Elections he got 64% and was accused of rigging the poll, and now the opposition seem to be organized into at least two multi-party groups (see this article and this article) and there is also a parliamentary opposition (parties that were not delegalized or banned from the last parliamentary elections), so the opposition seem to be not as united as I initially thought.

The second article from 01/06/2025 says (translated using deepl.com):

"Congo-Brazzaville: Opposition forms new alliance ahead of 2026 presidential election

At least eight Congolese opposition parties, including Clément Miérassa's Congolese Social Democratic Party (PSDC), Jean-Jacques Serge Yhomby Opango's Rally for Democracy and Development (RDD), Dave Mafoula's Souverainistes, and Mabio Mavoungu Zinga's Alliance, announced on Saturday, May 31, that they had joined forces in a new alliance: the Rally of Forces for Change (RFC). Their ambition is to lead the Congolese people to change in 2026. "

Another article mentions some groups resigning from elections because of government not implementing biometrics and their refusal to establish consensual electoral register:

https://labreveonline.com/upads-les-raisons-du-retrait-a-la-presidentielle-2026/

Worth noting what FreedomHouse writes about Republic of Congo:

https://freedomhouse.org/country/republic-congo/freedom-world/2025

"President Denis Sassou Nguesso has maintained nearly uninterrupted power for over 40 years by severely repressing the opposition. Corruption and decades of political instability have contributed to poor economic performance and high levels of poverty. Abuses by security forces are frequently reported and rarely investigated. While a variety of media operate, independent coverage is limited by widespread self-censorship and the influence of owners allied with the government. Human rights– and governance-related nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) scrutinize state abuses, but also self-censor to avoid reprisals."

For me it looks like a situation where the government can use all the dirty tricks to stay in power, so I would be surprised if they would be able to remove him and replace him with an opposition candidate winning elections this time.

Slightly reducing as I am influenced by other forecasters here, but with almost 4 years till the resolution, I feel that I do not know enough to go closer to the 0%. There seem to be too many things which can surprise me during that time.

During my search for new signals I found this article "AI-designed pandemic is not science fiction" by Lotti Tajouri, a quote from it:

"Four steps towards proactive prevention
At present, most safeguards are reactive – we mobilise after a threat appears. That approach will fail if future biological risks are complex, fast-moving, and deliberately engineered for disruption. What is needed is proactive prevention.
First, governments must take the dual-use risks of AI-enabled biotechnology seriously and resource them accordingly. Dedicated, multidisciplinary research teams should anticipate and model worst-case biological threats.
Second, international cooperation is essential. Pathogens do not respect borders, and neither does data. Biosecurity requires shared standards, shared intelligence, and shared responsibility.
Third, we must accept a paradox: AI is part of the problem, but it is also part of the solution. The complexity created by AI-driven biological design is beyond human comprehension alone. Counter-AI systems will be needed to detect patterns, anticipate risks, and support rapid defensive responses.
Finally, public discussion must mature. Acknowledging hypothetical threats is not fearmongering, it is risk management.
As a scientist and parent, I find the thought that powerful biological tools could fall into the wrong hands deeply unsettling.
It is naive to assume that technological progress will always be used responsibly because history tells us otherwise."

My thinking was independently similar to @geoffodlum 's comment here. With Venezuela, Greenland, earlier Canada Trump is reinforcing the view which I believe is already widely accepted in the Kremlin, that the strong can dictate their rules to others, and weaker states in the sphere of influence of the US, China and Russia have to dance to the tune of those with power. To some point we can argue that the US governments already sometimes behave like that in the past, but now it is about so-called allies of the US being threatened with the use of force. Quite a wake-up call for those who still believed in a rule-based world order. Even if this was just a maintained illusion, I think that these situations initiated by Trump unfortunately work as an encouragement for China and Russia to be more aggressive in their neighborhoods/spheres of influence.

I am reducing due to the passage of time, and good arguments by @Plataea479 here about the ongoing purge in the Chinese security services and military making it less likely that they will focus on base in Africa now. They are likely focusing on Taiwan (as @DKC provided another argument for in her recent comment here) and the purge, by my logic, should make their military focused on internal restructuring and delivering what is a priority to their leadership - and this seem to be the Taiwan. However, on the other hand, changes in the military leadership may prompt new directions of thinking and acting, but it is a weak counterargument, more like my own red-teaming of the argument I agree with. My impression is that sometimes we (or at least I) really try to read too much from the news, like making the mistake of looking  at news and thinking: "how is this relevant to my question?". And sometimes I think I am guilty of being too creative in finding this relevancy. I think the updates should be coming more from indicators kind of thinking - where we have these mental models of how things really work, and we are only looking for things that are really connected to the forces at work in these models - like observable aspects of these forces at work - then this will be the signal and not the noise. 

Not relevant that much but with my search for relevant news from the last month I found this article from 2022 which was recently updated, likely because of these events: 

"Tory peers force UK to pause passage of Chagos Islands bill after US criticism
Donald Trump called plan to transfer sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius an ‘act of great stupidity’."

source: https://www.ft.com/content/d226cb01-3af5-41ea-9ede-1a6678ba1b48

Interestingly in that older article from 2022 there is speculation about possible Chinese military base in Africa:

"China looking for naval bases near Diego Garcia. 

There is worry that Mauritius may give China a part of the Chagos islands to get its debt to that country written off. This poses a threat to both India and the US. The island of Diego Garcia in the region is a US military facility. (...) During the presidency of Donald Trump, the Mauritius government offered Diego Garcia to the US on a 99-year lease in lieu of letting the locals come back to the Chagos islands. That offer is still on the table. However, what this offer does not state is whether China will be given a part of these islands in the coming years, especially in lieu of the debt that Mauritius owes to the Asian giant."

So, even if the current deal would be ratified, the US will keep the base for at least 99 years, but this doesn't mean that Mauritius would not offer another base to China. However that seem unlikely in this timeframe, not a priority, not worth the tensions, but Chinese leadership proves that they can think and plan in long term, not having to worry about winning next elections and without priorities changing that often with limited change in the leadership.

I read about North Korea's progress with their nuclear submarine (NPR.org):  

North Korea's state media revealed on Thursday a picture of what it called a "8,700-ton nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine." It's the first time North Korea disclosed the tonnage and the apparently completed hull of the submarine since it declared its pursuit for nuclear subs in 2021.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that the new vessel will help defend his country against "the negative security situation that has come as present reality," according to the country's state media. Kim criticized South Korea's plan to build its own nuclear subs as "an offensive act … that must be countered."

But I am not sure if this is a good reason for increasing the probability of the test happening within next 6 months. Working nuclear submarines combined with compatibile Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles would give North Korea a second strike capability, but unless we have expertise that they need to test new type of nuclear warheads specifically for this sub and others like it, I am not sure if this is a reason for increasing our forecasts. I can easily be wrong, and I don't have the expertise to judge if they need any tests related to this new submarine, so I am open to criticism. 

My web search has not resulted in any articles that would suggest that the probability of North Korea conducting the test should increase - but I may have missed something, not noticing relevancy. 

I was reading this article and I thought about a scenario when we as a humanity (or some nation or company) would use the new advances of bioengineering for some beneficial purpose like introducing geneticly modified plants or crops would be introduced to the ecosystem and will cause unintended consequences to the ecosystem (likely to plants or wild animals) leading to the biological event of high consequence. For example genetically modified plants may create environments that unintentionally favor certain pathogens. But still it wouldn't be a direct cause, so it may not trigger our "yes" resolution criteria. So I stay a 5% for now.