The Congolese are not accustomed to having their landmark developments upstaged in world headlines. But as hundreds of thousands of people queued last Sunday to cast their ballot in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s first post-independence democratic elections, the world’s eyes were focused on the escalating Middle East crisis.
”This happy event has been overshadowed by the tragedy in the Middle East,” General Philippe Morillon remarked as he presented the European Union’s preliminary findings on the DRC process. ”We congratulate you for not having a tragedy.”
The 70 European Union observers supported by a dozen members of the European Parliament formed one of the largest units in the army of nearly 1 500 international witnesses to this historic progress.
Deputy Defence Minister Mluleki George, leader of the South African observer mission, echoed the EU’s sentiment in the mission’s preliminary report, released in Kinshasa on Thursday: ”The mission commends the IEC for the professional and impartial manner in which it conducted and managed these elections, thereby creating space for voters to express their choices freely and without fear of intimidation.
”The [mission] is confident that the Congolese political leadership will build on this historic achievement to take the country forward to lasting peace, stability and economic growth.”
Observer teams were uniform in their findings that there was nothing that undermined the integrity of the operation and that the voting represented an expression of the free and democratic will of the people of the DRC.
Most effusive of all was the African Union team, which found nary a fault with the process. But it must be kept in mind that observers from the continental body have in the past given the seal of approval to Zimbabwe’s polls that have retained Robert Mugabe’s ruthless grip on power.
It is this type of Pollyanna approach that could trip the Congo up at this delicate phase of its history.
With nine neighbours, linking Zimbabwe and Sudan, the best DRC analogy remains that of Frantz Fanon, who noted that Africa is shaped like a gun and the Congo is its trigger. That gun remains loaded and the trigger is of the hairline variety.
Happy, peaceful and orderly as they were, the elections in the DRC are far from over. Observers realised this on Monday when they began visiting compilation centres across the country.
Election officials toiled to reconcile the information from the presiding officers with the material on their database. It will be three weeks before this is completed — three weeks for the losers, who knew who they were on Monday, to cry foul and stir up supporters.
Presidential wannabe Azaria Ruberwa knew by dawn on Monday that he was light years behind Joseph Kabila in the eastern city from which his RCD Goma has taken its name and where he had set his hopes on making a good showing. Within a day he had held a press conference in Kinshasa alleging ”massive fraud”.
If he goes so far as to demand a recount, the parlous state of the compilation process would make it impossible, according to electoral specialists looking at the process.
”Every day delayed gives more room for tension and mistrust,” said George, who is pushing to get the official results declared as soon as possible.
One is tempted to predict that Kabila is going to win the presidency in the first round. He pulled more than 80% of the votes in Goma, an area that comprises 10% of the total electorate.
Even if Kabila loses the capital to Jean-Pierre Bemba, it will be by a narrow margin that could be offset by his strong showing in the Kivus and Maniema. Serious analysts advise caution in calling the results, though, given the size of the country and the absence of any precedent.
An outright Kabila victory would finally end the DRC’s long transition, which has stretched from 1995. But some Congo watchers fear a clear win for Kabila could split the country once again and drive it back to war,
”The danger now is that the international community says, ‘Okay, so the elections have been a success, let’s move on’,” says John Stremlau, head of the Carter Peace Centre, who was in Kinshasa this week. ”This is only the beginning of a very challenging process and the international community must stay the course.”
He adds: ”The key to the success of an election in Africa is that the winner behaves with magnanimity.”
It is feared that a comfortably triumphal Kabila will not need to make deals and that a marginalised Bemba will disregard the pleadings of the observer missions to confine his objections to the elections to the legal process.
Much better then to have the hassle and expense of a presidential second round to be held at the same time as provincial elections on October 29.
In a two-horse race, the contestants would be forced to make substantive promises to attract the voters who preferred other candidates in the first round.
This election, which focused sharply on personalities, has been lamentably short on manifestos that will commit candidates to measurable goals.