Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - The political debate rages in the Democratic Republic of Congo in sight of the presidential and legislative elections on 28 November. In a note sent to Fides, the Network "Peace for Congo", promoted by missionaries working in the country, says that after the promulgation of the electoral law and the formation of the electoral rolls by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC ) "everyone hopes that these elections can take place in a peaceful and calm political climate. But the numerous irregularities in the course of the voters registration regarding the electoral roll seem to put a strain on that hope".
"The INEC –continues the note - must put a remedy at the moment of the final inspection of the electoral roll, because the success of the elections and the acceptance of the results will depend largely on the degree of transparency in which this operation will take place".
The missionaries also point out that "in the East of the Country, even if we no longer speak of armed conflict or open war, insecurity, however, is increasing. Attacks on villages and motor vehicles, thefts in private houses, collective rapes, disappearances, murders and abuses of all kinds continue to be a part of everyday life. At the same time, one witnesses the arrival of strangers and foreigners, who present themselves as Congolese refugees returning home. The locals, however, openly say that they are Rwandans. The men of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (NCDP) and the Congolese Grouping Democracy (CGD), a former pro-Rwandan political military movement and now legally recognized political party, control the army, mostly from the local government and almost all of the mining trade".
"The population of Kivu is ready to have cooperative relations with neighboring countries, including Rwanda and to receive, in regular conditions, any immigrant, including Rwandans. What the locals will never accept is the Rwandan occupation of its territory through violence, the imposition of illegal infiltration", says the note. Lately, the protest against insecurity has taken the form of boycott of the 51st anniversary celebrations of independence, as what happened last June 30 in Bukavu (South Kivu) and in Butembo (North Kivu), because "one cannot celebrate such a recurrence, when the population is systematically killed, raped and brutally robbed of its wealth".
The new electoral law introduced a single ballot for the election of the President. In the event of a significant dispersion of votes among the candidates involved, the risk of a single ballot is to give the country a President with a legitimacy based on an extremely low social base. In the case of similar results, each candidate could contest the results to initiate a dispute", write the missionaries who fear for the destabilization of the DRC starting from regions in the east, called" the underbelly of the Country. For this reason "maximum transparency" on behalf of the Independent Electoral Commission is asked. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 07/27/2011)
