Elections Could Destabilise DRC

Mélanie Gouby

DRC Multimedia Producer

Wednesday, 9 November, 2011

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Mélanie Gouby
IWPR Journalist and Multimedia Producer in DRC

Just over a month before presidential and parliamentary elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, the perilous nature of the enterprise is becoming increasingly obvious.

Rather than providing an opportunity to consolidate peace and the development of the DRC, these elections may in fact set the country back if – as seems likely – the results are contested, and if violence ensues.

The ballot is set for November 28, but hardly anything is in place for it, and tensions are mounting.

This will be only the third time Congolese voters have gone to the polls since independence in 1960, and the second time since the nationwide civil war ended in 2003.

One cannot overemphasise the powerful psychological impact that this opportunity to vote someone out of office could have on people who, for the most part, do not know what having this kind of choice means.

However, the chances of this actually happening are slim.

After a controversial and badly-managed voter enrolment process in the spring, the election date itself looks improbable since most of the equipment required to make it happen is still abroad waiting to be shipped. The ballot boxes are still in China, and the ballot-papers in South Africa. Not to mention that in a country the size of western Europe but devoid of roads, transporting these items will present a logistical nightmare.

Yet since these elections were scheduled five years after the last ones, there can be no excuse for being caught unawares.

The ballot will most likely go ahead, but may well be fraught with problems.

The lack of preparedness, coupled with the government’s refusal to have the electoral rolls audited following allegations of fraud, has given the opposition enough ammunition to contest anything that happens during the electoral process as well as the results.

This risks plunging the country into turmoil, reminiscent of what happened in Côte d’Ivoire earlier this year.

Several violent incidents have already occurred, especially in the capital Kinshasa where rallies organised by supporters of the opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress, UDPS have been brutally dispersed by the police. In August, one person was shot dead during a rally.

Congolese human rights groups have deplored the alarming rhetoric used by the UDPS as well as the violence perpetrated by the police.

In Goma, the main city of North Kivu province in northwest DRC, the dusty, unpaved streets are testament to the lack of progress under incumbent president Joseph Kabila’s rule.

North and South Kivu served as his strongholds in the 2006 presidential election, electing him with 98 per cent and 96 per cent of the vote, respectively.

That enthusiasm is now gone. But voters have little doubt about the results of the poll.

Kabila is likely to benefit from a constitutional reform that limits presidential elections to one round and could allow him to be re-elected if he wins as little as 25 per cent of the vote.

At the same time, people expect fraud to play a large part in the polls. The word on the street is matter-of-fact – “Kabila will be re-elected no matter what the true results are.” Voting is viewed as pointless.

For its part, the opposition has failed to make the case for change.

Eleven candidates are running for president, though the contest really is between Kabila, Etienne Tshisekedi of the UDPS and Vital Kamerhe of the Union for the Congolese Nation, UNC.

At 78, Tshisekedi has a long career in politics behind him, and this would seem to be his last chance of becoming head of state. Of all the candidates, he presents the most credible challenge to Kabila.

Kamerhe, lagging somewhat behind, is a former speaker of DRC’s National Assembly.

A Kabila supporter in the 2006 ballot, Kamerhe entered opposition in 2010 after being pushed out from the speaker’s job by the president, according to United States diplomatic cables revealed by Wikileaks.

As the election will employ the first-pass-the-post system, the opposition might already have harmed its chances by spreading the vote too thin between several candidates – but both Tshisekedi and Kamerhe have deeply personal motives for standing, leaving them unable to unite and choose a single contender to take on Kabila.

Perhaps even more disheartening is that an opportunity to have a real debate about the future of the DRC has been missed. Congolese political elites have not even tried to address the questions that are most pressing for their nation – security, the economy, education, reform of the army and the public sector. The electorate largely remains in the dark about what the various candidates and parties might do if they are elected.

The opposition’s disunity and the paucity of solutions on offer from it create the impression that if elected, it might be just more of the same. That leaves voters uncertain about whether the opposition would necessarily be a better choice than the ruling parties, or whether either Tshisekedi or Kamerhe is a real alternative to Kabila.

The international community, too, must assume some of the responsibility if these elections turn into a fiasco.

A country only just emerging from war, DRC is one of the largest recipients of international aid, and hosts the UN’s biggest peacekeeping force, MONUSCO. After playing an important role in bringing the war to an end and stabilising the country, the international community organised the 2006 presidential and parliamentary elections – only the second national ballot since 1960.

In 2006, the international community funded 80 per cent of the electoral budget and the UN managed much of the process, providing election monitors and other elements needed for free and fair polls. By contrast, barely 40 per cent of the budget for this year’s election is coming from the international community. MONUSCO has removed itself from any major involvement in the electoral process, pledging to remain neutral and act as a go-between of the outcome is a stalemate. Election observers are being deployed by the European Union and the Carter Center, but on a much reduced scale compared with 2006.

At this crucial moment on DRC’s path to peace and stability, the international community has given free rein to an administration with a troubling record of poor governance. The lack of attention to ensuring the elections are properly prepared and run is alarmingly short-sighted, given the millions of dollars that have been poured into DRC in the form of aid, debt relief and peacekeeping.

DRC suffers from poor governance, lack of leadership, and an absence of accountability. As the elections loom, the international community has lost a chance to push the country in the right direction.

With the electoral process badly damaged before voting even begins, the most that DRC’s citizens may be able to hope for is that the status quo is maintained.

Mélanie Gouby is an IWPR journalist and multimedia producer who has been leading IWPR’s transitional justice project in eastern DRC.

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of IWPR.