AFRICA/DR CONGO – Due to organizational difficulties, the vote is extended for another day
Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) – Yesterday, December 21, voting ended in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Voting, which was scheduled to take place on December 20, was extended for another day due to delays and disruptions at several polling stations.
The move comes after a chaotic Election Day marked by delays in the delivery of voting materials, equipment malfunctions, difficulties registering voters and incidents of violence.
The opposition accuses President Félix Tshisekedi's government of deliberately organizing “election chaos” to stay in power. She recalled that the electoral law of the Democratic Republic of Congo stipulates that elections last only one day. The Independent National Electoral Commission's (CENI) decision to extend the counting has raised legal doubts, with the opposition arguing that the commission's president does not have this power.
More than 44 million Congolese were called to elect the president, 500 members of the National Assembly, those of the 26 provincial assemblies and the members of around 300 municipal councils (see Fides December 19, 2023).
The Catholic and Protestant churches jointly set up an election observation mission (EOM) with 25,000 citizens. On December 20, when the need to extend the vote for at least another day became apparent, those responsible for the election observation mission stated that the CENI had not informed voters about the actual situation of the vote. According to the election observation mission, some polling stations had started counting ballots without witnesses or election observers.
The first official results are expected today, December 22nd.
(LM) (Agenzia Fides, December 22, 2023)
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