A South African observer team is to leave this week for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to monitor the country’s first multiparty elections in over four decades, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday.
The 128-strong contingent, which will leave on Wednesday, will be led by Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula, who is also mediating in peace talks for Burundi.
”The advance party for the mission is already in the DRC and the remainder of the party, numbering 128, will leave tomorrow [Wednesday],” Pahad told reporters in Pretoria.
”Minister Nqakula will not necessarily stay in the DRC. He will move up and down as necessary,” Pahad added.
He said the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) would send 200 observers, while the European Union was expected to contribute 70.
Pahad, who was in the DRC at the weekend, said: ”It was our impression that despite having little infrastructure and [given the] inexperience of the Congolese people in the electoral process, they are very, very eager to cast their votes.
”So we will not accept any call for delays. The elections must be free and fair and the losers should accept the outcome,” he said.
Millions of voters are expected to cast their ballots in the DRC’s presidential and legislative polls on July 30 — the vast Central African nation’s first multiparty elections since independence from Belgium in 1960.
At the weekend, the United Nations’ chief representative in the DRC, William Swing, assured SADC that the UN’s peacekeeping force in the vast Central African country ”would be able to deal with any problems that might arise” during the polls. — AFP
