Election snags in Congo

Pastor Ngoy Mulanda, president of the National Independant Electoral Commission - CENI, has systematically confirmed that elections will take place as scheduled on 28 November. But with less than three months to go, ballot boxes, voting booths and other equipment are unavailable. The material has not been delivered by Chinese, South African, German and Lebanese suppliers who have received 70% of their purchase fees. MONUSCO has committed to dispatching voting equipment within the country - but has refused to import it from abroad.

Ngoy has recalculated the budget. The new one is now $1.2 billion, up from $700 million. While international partners paid most of the voting costs five years ago, the brunt of the burden is on the Congolese government this time around. To generate money needed to carry out the polling, the government has proposed to sell of Gecamine state assets in what has been reported as shady deals.

There are growing concerns that the elections will consequently be delayed. While this is not a major problem for most of Congo’s international partners who are more preoccupied about fairness and transparency, delays would be severely condemned by opposition leaders. This is somewhat of a paradox because the opposition seems to timidly making progress in talks about presenting a single opposition candidate - so they could benefit from delays. Another concern about delays is that they will give the Kabila camp more time to figure out how to cheat on results reporting. This will be done by a sophisticated computer system that even the best intentioned elections monitors will be unable to control.