Elections in Congo will continue for an extra day after ‘chaos’

The elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo were hectic on Wednesday and will continue for a day longer. Some candidates have already said they will not accept the results.

At most of the 75,000 polling stations, ballots arrived hours late or not at all due to delays in the delivery of election materials or problems with the electronic voting machines. According to Symocel, observers from churches influential in Congo, almost 60 percent of polling stations opened late and a third of the ballots were incorrect.

Opposition candidate Martin Fayulu spoke of “total chaos” and candidate Denis Mugwege called it “the election fraud of the century”. A spokesman for former President Joseph Kabila’s party described election day as a “parody.”

Observers had warned about this disorderly situation because the Electoral Commission had not got its affairs in order, but the chaos appears to be greater than feared. For example, voting took place in a room in a school in the capital Kinshasa while counting was already taking place in another. In the medium-sized city of Tshikapa, voters attacked a polling station because they suspected staff of fraud. In Bunia, in the east, voters similarly expressed anger over alleged counterfeiting and soldiers shot in the air.

Batteries empty

In the eastern regional capital Goma, many polling stations also opened late and in other places the batteries of the voting machines appeared to be dead. “If there are any logistical problems in easily accessible Goma, there is a good chance that many rural communities have not been able to vote,” says a resident of Goma, who wishes to remain anonymous. Voting was not possible in the Masisi and Rutshuru areas due to great insecurity, just as hundreds of thousands of other Congolese elsewhere in the east were not allowed to vote due to violence caused by numerous militias.

Half a million people have been displaced from their homes in recent months, leaving a total of seven million civilians displaced across the country, a global record.

Half of the approximately one hundred million Congolese are entitled to vote. They can choose between nineteen presidential candidates and one hundred thousand candidates for seats in provincial parliaments and municipal councils. At the forefront of the presidential race are current president Félix Tshisekedi and opposition candidates Moïse Katumbi, Denis Mugwege and Martin Fayulu. Katumbi called on his supporters to remain at the polling stations until all votes have been counted. In some places voting took place late into the night.

There is only one round, the one with the most votes wins, even if the candidate receives less than fifty percent of the votes. The results are expected before the end of the year.

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