TITLE III. OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND OF THE STATUS OF THE OPPOSITION
Article 57
The political party is an association endowed with moral personality which assembles citizens for the peaceful acquisition and administration [gestion] of power around a project of society dictated by the concern [souci] to realize the general interest.
Article 58
The political parties are created freely around an ideal of peace, of national unity and of socio-economic development. They enjoy juridical [morale] personality.
The affiliation with a political party is free.
None may be the object of discriminatory measures by virtue of their affiliation with a political party or by the fact that they do not affiliate with any political formation.
It is prohibited to the political parties to identify themselves with a department, with a commune, with a district, with an urban or rural community, with a religion, with an ethnic group [ethnie] or with a clan.
The magistrates and the agents of the public force may not affiliate with political parties.
Article 59
The political parties benefit from the financial participation of the State.
Article 60
It is prohibited to the political parties to receive any form of participation [concours] of a nature that infringes the national independence and sovereignty.
Article 61
The political parties must, to be recognized, conform to the following principals:
- the respect, the safeguarding and the consolidation of the national unity;
the protection and the promotion of the fundamental rights of the human person; the pursuit of the satisfaction of the general interest of the Congolese people; the promotion of a State of law founded on the respect for and the defense of democracy, of the individual and collective freedoms; the defense of the integrity of the territory and of the national sovereignty; the proscription of intolerance, of ethnicism, of sectarianism and of the recourse to violence in all its forms; the respect of the republican, secular and indivisible character of the State.
Article 62
The other conditions of existence of the political parties as well as the modalities of their financing are determined by an organic law.
Article 63
The political opposition is recognized in the Republic of Congo.
It may not undergo limits, regarding its existence and its democratic activities, except for those imposed to all the political parties by this Constitution and the law.
The law determines the status [statut] of the political opposition.
