AFRICA/DR CONGO - Voting extended for another day due to organizational difficulties

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - Yesterday, December 21, voting ended in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Voting operations that were to take place on December 20 were extended by one more day due to delays and interruptions recorded at several polling stations. This measure comes after a chaotic election day marked by delays in the delivery of electoral material, malfunctioning equipment, difficulties in registering voters and cases of violence. The opposition accuses the government of President Félix Tshisekedi of deliberately organizing "electoral chaos" in an attempt to stay in power, recalling that the DRC's electoral law stipulates that elections only last one day. The decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) to prolong the count has raised legal doubts, as the opposition argues that the president of the commission does not have that power. More than 44 million Congolese were called to elect the President, 500 deputies of the National Assembly, those of the 26 provincial assemblies and the members of some 300 municipal councils (see Fides, 19/12/2023). The Catholic and Protestant Churches jointly established an Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) of 25,000 citizens. On December 20, while the need to extend the vote for at least one more day was looming, those responsible for EOM indicated that the CENI had not informed the voters of the real situation of the vote. According to EOM, some polling stations had begun counting the ballots without witnesses or election observers. The first official results are expected today, December 22. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 22/12/2023)

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