/ 4 November 2011

Crunching numbers

Crunching Numbers

Fifty-four page-long ballots, 62 000 polling stations, 18 000 candidates and a billion United States dollars: the numbers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Africa’s second-largest country, are large and the stakes high. On November 28 the country will hold its second round of presidential and legislative elections since the end of 10 years of war and crisis in 2003.

Eleven presidential candidates are standing, but the main rivalry is between incumbent President Joseph Kabila and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who is running for president for the first time after boycotting the 2006 polls.

Tshisekedi, who is 79 years old, has been the most prominent opposition leader for the past 30 years. In his heyday in the Eighties and Nineties, his Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) could shut down Kinshasa, the capital, in protest against dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

His party is convinced that he will taste victory. “It’s impossible that we’ll lose unless cheating trumps the truth,” said Jacquemain Shabani, the party’s secretary general.

Kabila is similarly confident, stating in a rare public television appearance in October that he would win the election. Vital Kamerhe, a former speaker of the National Assembly who fell out with Kabila, is another popular ­candidate who may take votes from both the main candidates.

The UDPS has been a vocal critic of the electoral process. Less than four weeks before polling it is not alone in expressing concern about ­logistical delays and the process’s credibility.

In a report last month the Carter Centre, which has monitored the process since August and will deploy observers to the polls, voiced concern about delays in key aspects of the process, notably the delivery of ballot boxes from China and the printing of the ballot papers in South Africa. “These and associated scheduling and logistical tasks pose a serious threat to the election date,” the report said. Given the size of the DRC and the virtual absence of roads, the logistical problems are huge. The distribution of polling materials to 62 000 polling stations is the most daunting task.

The United Nations’ mission in the DRC is providing air support in the distribution of materials, but unlike in the 2006 polls, which were almost entirely run and financed by the international community, the Independent National Electoral Commission is taking the lead and the Congolese government is financing 80% of the electoral budget.

Even government officials agree that this means the process will be less rigorous. “It will not be as well organised as in 2006 — The ­nightmare is the dispatching of the materials,” said a government official who asked to remain anonymous.

Can the process remain sufficiently credible for the outcome to be accepted by all parties? The UDPS seems almost determined to cast doubt on the process. “There is nothing credible in this process — Why are we in this position [of experiencing delays]? Because Kabila did not want to have elections,” said Shabani.

The UDPS is opposed to changing the election date, even in the interest of greater credibility.

For now the commission remains adamant that the elections will go ahead as scheduled. This week it said that ballot boxes had started to arrive in various parts of the DRC, and voters’ lists were posted in polling stations in several urban areas.

Another key concern is potential campaign violence between supporters of rival parties. In October several UDPS supporters were killed and dozens arrested in protest marches in Kinshasa.