Whoever wins the Democratic Republic of Congo’s presidential run-off on Sunday will take charge one of the most mineral-rich countries in Africa but also inherit a volatile cocktail of insecurity and social collapse.
The contest between incumbent President Joseph Kabila, the favourite to win, and former rebel Jean-Pierre Bemba is the last step of a process aimed at pacifying the DRC, which has been at war for most of the last decade.
But alongside control of huge resources, including copper, cobalt, gold and diamonds, the victor faces the daunting challenge of restoring basic social services and reining in thousands of gunmen still outside the government’s control.
”I don’t expect much from these people,” said Dr Mbwebwe Kabamba, head of surgery at Kinshasa’s general hospital, when asked how things would change with DRC’s first democratically elected president for 40 years.
”I don’t think this will lead to a major social change — there will be a lot of disappointed people,” he said, wandering through the emergency ward, where patients suffering from burns and broken limbs lay in stifling heat.
Under the watchful eye of a $- billion-a-year United Nations peacekeeping mission and with an international investment of over $500-million sunk into the polls, expectations are high among many less cynical people in the former Belgian colony.
According to Kabamba, during the last week of campaigning Kabila’s wife came to the hospital and handed out nearly $30 000 for unpaid hospital bills. But he fears the generosity may be short-lived.
”This is for today but what about tomorrow?” he asked.
Doctors earn between $50 and $100 a month, that is when their salaries are paid at all.
Before even the most routine care, patients have to pay for medicine and equipment. Those unable to pay their bills after treatment are not allowed to leave hospital, often for months.
DRC’s 1998-2003 war sparked a humanitarian crisis that has killed over four million people, more than any conflict since World War II.
According to aid agencies, most of the deaths were preventable, the result of war-related hunger and disease.
Little change
Kabila and Bemba’s camps have sent teams across the country, often promising change and sometimes even delivering it.
”They need to do elections every year and then maybe something will get done,” one UN official told Reuters after listing cash handed out for water and electricity projects.
”When it comes to elections, leaders are quite good at getting things done. Its just a shame that most of the time people are forgotten,” said the official, who asked not to be named.
Tensions are high before the vote. The announcement of a run-off was greeted in August by three days of fighting between Kabila and Bemba’s private armies that killed 30 people.
Kabamba, like many diplomats and ordinary Congolese, fears that the loser may try to contest the result by force and that the country’s myriad problems will not be tackled. .
”It is unlikely that whoever wins will … go and tackle social problems,” he said.
Private armies are not the only relic from the DRC’s war. Thousands of local and foreign rebels continue to roam the east, despite the UN peacekeepers and efforts to reform the Congolese army.
”This is not a problem of elections but mentalities,” said Phillipe Pili-Pili, a student in the eastern town of Goma.
”We can elect people but if their mentalities remain the same, the problems won’t go away,” he said. – Reuters