DRC goes to polls, but voting beset by problems
Print Edition
Presidential elections that will shape the future of one of Africa鈥檚 biggest and most unstable countries began yesterday in the Democratic Republic of Congo after a two-year delay.
But observers reported worrying problems, from long queues to hitches with electronic voting machines whose introduction caused a storm.
The vote gives the DRC the chance of its first peaceful transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.
Analysts, though, say the threat of upheaval is great, given organizational problems and suspicion of President Joseph Kabila, who refused to quit in 2016 after his two-term limit expired.
The election鈥檚 credibility has been strained by repeated delays, fears of problems on polling day and accusations that voting machines would help to rig the result.
On election eve, talks aimed at averting violence after the vote broke down.
Opposition frontrunners Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi refused to sign a proposed code of conduct with Kabila鈥檚 preferred successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. They accused officials with the Independent National Election Commission (CENI) of thwarting changes to the text.
The UN, US and Europe have appealed for the elections to be free, fair and peaceful 鈥 a call echoed by the presidents of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and the neighboring Republic of Congo.
Many voters said they were exhilarated to be taking part in the first elections after the nearly 18-year Kabila era.
鈥淚 feel liberated, freed,鈥 said Victor Balibwa, a 53-year-old civil servant, casting his ballot in Lubumbashi, the country鈥檚 mining capital in the southeast.
鈥淚鈥檓 excited to vote, to be able to choose at last. It鈥檚 my first election,鈥 an 18-year-old student named Rachel said in the eastern city of Goma, an opposition stronghold.
But there was also much evidence of problems.
An team of 41,000 election monitors set up by the powerful Catholic church said that 830 polling stations failed to open on schedule.
In some places, voting was held up by long queues because of a lack of electoral roll, voters who could not find their names on the list or technical problems with the voting machines.
In capital city Kinshasa, CENI chief Corneille Nangaa himself brought the electoral roll to a polling station at an opposition stronghold where voting had been held up. Hundreds of voters were waiting in line and many angrily shouted that he and Kabila should resign.
Twenty-one candidates are running in the presidential election , taking place alongside legislative and municipal ballots. The frontrunners include Kabila鈥檚 champion Shadary, a hardline former interior minister. His biggest rivals are Fayulu, until recently a little-known legislator and former oil executive, and Tshisekedi, head of a veteran opposition party, the UDPS.
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