2018 Democratic Republic of the
Congo general election
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
DR Congo presidential election, 2018
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
_2.jpg)
.jpg)
According to the constitution, the second and final term of President Kabila expired on 20 December 2016.[5] General elections were originally scheduled for 27 November 2016, but were delayed with a promise to hold them by the end of 2017.[6] This promise was subsequently broken, but after both international and internal pressure the elections were finally scheduled for 23 December 2018. They were, however, postponed for a week on 20 December 2018 due to a fire in the electoral commission's warehouse in Kinshasa destroying 8,000 electronic voting machines.[7]
Incumbent President Kabila was constitutionally ineligible for a third term.[8] He and his party, the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, supported the candidacy of Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, the former Minister of the Interior,[9] who formally ran as an independent candidate.
In opposition to Shadary's candidacy, seven opposition leaders, including Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moïse Katumbi, nominated Martin Fayulu as their candidate for president.[10] However, Félix Tshisekedi and Vital Kamerhe soon after broke this agreement and agreed that Tshisekedi should run for president while Kamerhe would serve as his campaign manager and become Prime Minister if he won. They also agreed that Tshisekedi and his party will back a candidate from Kamerhe's Union for the Congolese Nation in the 2023 presidential elections.[11]
President Kabila promised a peaceful transfer of power to Tshisekedi, which would be the first since independence from Belgium in 1960.[12][13]
Background
On 29 September 2016, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) announced that the elections would not be held until early 2018. According to CENI's vice president, the commission "hasn’t called elections in 2016 because the number of voters isn’t known."[14] The announcement came ten days after deadly protests against Kabila in Kinshasa saw 17 people killed. The opposition alleged that Kabila intentionally delayed the elections to remain in power.[5]An agreement reached with the opposition in December 2016 allowed Kabila to stay in office with a requirement to hold elections by the end of 2017. However, on 7 July 2017, CENI President Corneille Nangaa said it would not be possible to organize presidential elections by the end of the year.[15] Opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi condemned the announcement on Twitter, saying Nangaa had "declared war on the Congolese people."[16]
In November 2017 CENI announced that elections will be held in December 2018,[17] after previously claiming earlier that month that elections could not be held until April 2019 due to the difficulties of registering voters in a country with underdeveloped infrastructure.[18] Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala confirmed in March 2018 that the election will occur in December.[19]
According to the UN a total of 47 people had been killed at protests against President Kabila during this period, which occurred throughout 2017 and into 2018.[20][21]
According to Human Rights Watch, government security forces used live rounds to disperse crowds of opposition supporters throughout August 2018, stating that the total death toll by then since 2015 was 300 people. HRW also documented attempts by the Congolese government to persecute members of the opposition, such as banning Moïse Katumbi from entering the country and forcefully dispersing a rally in support of Jean-Pierre Bemba.[22]
In late December, the government further delayed voting in three cities affected by the 2018 Ebola outbreak as well as the ongoing military conflict until March 2019, while in all other regions it will still take place as scheduled on 30 December. The cities are Beni and Butembo in North Kivu province, and Yumbi in the western Mai-Ndombe province. This was criticized as these regions are known as opposition strongholds.[23]
Electoral system
According to Article 71 of the DRC Constitution, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is elected by plurality vote in one round. Article 72 specifies that the requirements to stand as a candidate for the presidency are being a Congolese citizen and at least thirty years old.[24][25]Article 101 of the Constitution provides the basis for electing a National Assembly.[24] The 500 members of the National Assembly are elected by two methods; 60 are elected from single-member constituencies using first-past-the-post voting, and 440 are elected from 109 multi-member constituencies by open list proportional representation, with seats allocated using the largest remainder method to all lists gathering more than 1% of the valid votes.[26]
For the first time, electronic voting machines will be used in a Congolese election. This has raised concerns about vote-rigging, particularly after a warehouse fire in Kinshasa destroyed 8,000 voting machines, which represent more than two thirds of the voting machines that had been planned to be used in the city.[27][28]
Candidates
In total, 21 candidates were approved for the presidential contest, and some 34,900 candidates were approved to run for the 500 national and 715 provincial assembly seats.[29]On 25 May 2018, businessman and former governor of Katanga Province Moïse Katumbi discussed with fellow opposition presidential candidate Félix Tshisekedi, son of the late opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, at the Atlantic Council about fielding a single opposition candidate.[30] In early September 2018, he again called on the opposition to unite behind a single candidate.[31]
As of August 2018, the country's Independent National Electoral Commission was reviewing candidates.[9] A preliminary list of candidates, including 25 names, was published on 10 August 2018. Another list was published on 24 August, and the final one was published on 19 September.[32]
- Vital Kamerhe, government minister and parliamentary speaker, Union for the Congolese Nation leader.[32]
- Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, former governor of Maniema Province and Interior Minister.[9][32]
- Félix Tshisekedi, opposition leader in the Union for Democracy and Social Progress and son of Etienne Tshisekedi.[32]
- Martin Fayulu supported by five opposition leaders including Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moïse Katumbi,[10]
Disqualified candidates
- Samy Badibanga, former Prime Minister.[34]
- Jean-Pierre Bemba, former vice president and rebel leader.[9][32][35]
- Antoine Gizenga, 93-year old former associate of Patrice Lumumba and former Prime Minister of the DRC under Kabila.[32][34]
- Marie-Josee Ifoku Mputa, the only female candidate.[34]
- Moïse Katumbi, former Governor of Katanga Province.[36] Katumbi has been purposely prevented from running because he has been sentenced in absentia to three years in prison for real-estate fraud.[9]
- Adolphe Muzito, former Prime Minister.[34]
- Bruno Tshibala, incumbent Prime Minister since 2017.[37]
Opinion polls
Opinion polling is rare in the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to poor roads and lack of electricity.[38] Nevertheless, the Congo Research Group (CRG) released a poll in October 2016 of 7,545 respondents in the country's 26 provinces. The poll found that 33% would vote for Katumbi, 18% for Etienne Tshisekedi, and 7.8% for Kabila.A May 2017 poll of 7,500 respondents carried out by CRG/BERCI found that 38% would vote for Katumbi, 10% for Kabila, 5% each for Félix Tshisekedi, Vital Kamerhe and Jean-Pierre Bemba, 24% for other candidates, and 13% would not vote.[39]
A March 2018 poll carried out by the CRG showed Katumbi obtaining 26%, Tshisekedi with 14%, Adolphe Muzito and Kamerhe tied at 9%, Kabila with 7%, and Augustin Mataya Ponyo and Aubin Minaku with 3% each.[40]
A June 2018 Top Congo FM poll amongst opposition supporters showed Katumbi winning 54% of the opposition's vote, with Kamerhe at 34%, Bemba at 7%, and Tshisekedi at 5%.[41]
In October 2018, the Congo Research Group released a poll that showed Tshisekedi winning 36% of the overall vote, with Kamerhe winning 17%, Shadary winning 16%, and Fayulu winning 8%, with 5% undecided or not voting. The remaining votes went to minor candidates.[42]
Post-voting process
On 31 December 2018, the Congolese authorities shut down internet access across the country and blocked the signal of Radio France Internationale, the most popular news source in the DRC, with a spokesman stating that it was to prevent the spread of "fictitious results" published on social media and maintain order.[2][43] The following day, representatives of the U.S., European Union, Swiss and Canadian missions in Kinshasa urged the DRC to restore Internet access.[44]On 2 January 2019, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU) observation missions stated that the voting went "relatively well" and was peaceful, despite the logistical problems in the DRC.[45]
The Catholic Church in the DRC, which deployed 40,000 election observers, announced on 3 January that by their observations it was clear who the winner of the election was. A government spokesman condemned the Church's statement as "irresponsible and anarchic."[46][47] Western diplomatic sources speaking with Church officials reported that they identified Martin Fayulu as the winner.[48] However, Rev. Donatien Nshole, the church's secretary general, later retracted the church's allegations following a meeting with Kabila on 8 January, claiming that "we said there was a winner but we did not mention any name nor give any figures."[49] Nshole also said that the church now would trust Kabila to lead any transition of power, claiming "he insisted on the fact that he wants to maintain peace and unity...we want the same."[49]
On 4 January, United States President Donald Trump deployed 80 U.S. troops to the nearby country of Gabon to stand by in case violence broke in the DRC over the election results.[50] On 9 January, the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa warned American citizens to leave the country due to possible election-related violence.[51]
On 5 January, election commission chairman Cornielle Nangaa announced that preliminary results would not be announced on the scheduled date of 6 January, as the commission had only received less than half of the ballots.[3] The following day this was confirmed and no date was given for the publication of the preliminary results, which was criticized by members of the opposition.[52][53] On 8 January, Kabila adviser Kikaya Bin Karubi denied an allegation made by two aides of Felix Tshisekedi which claimed that Tshisekedi was the presumed winner and that Kabila officials had been meeting with aides of Tshisekedi since the end of the election so Kabila would hand power to Tshisekedi.[54][55]
Police in anti-riot gear were deployed in front of the electoral commission headquarters in Kinshasa on 9 January.[56] That same day, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other members of SADC urged the Congolese government to finalize the results quickly.[57]
Announcement of results and aftermath
In the early morning of the following day, 10 January 2019, the commission announced Felix Tshisekedi as the winner of the vote.[4] An advisor to Joseph Kabila had said that the President accepted the loss of the ruling party candidate, Emmanuel Shadary.[58] Tshisekedi vowed to become "the president of all DR Congolese."[59]Second-place candidate Martin Fayulu claimed that the results were rigged later that day, stating "In 2006, Jean-Pierre Bemba's victory was stolen, in 2011, Étienne Tshisekedi's victory was stolen. In 2018 victory won't be stolen from Martin Fayulu." He also said he believes that Tshisekedi and President Kabila made a secret agreement. According to foreign diplomatic sources, the Catholic Church had claimed that Fayulu was the winner, and both the SADC and African Union observation missions had also believed him to have been the winner.[13][60] The Catholic Church in the DRC made a statement questioning the result as well, stating that it did not align with their findings. Tshisekedi denied making any power-sharing agreement with Kabila or his ruling party.[61] Fayulu told the BBC that he will challenge the result in the Constitutional Court.[62]
On January 11, Fayulu claimed he received 62% of the vote and said he would challenge the result in the country's Constitutional Court.[63] The Court could confirm Tshisekedi, order a recount, or cancel the results and call for new elections. But Fayulu admitted that he did not believe he would have any success, saying the court is "composed of Kabila's people." He also claimed that "Felix Tshisekedi has been nominated by Mr Kabila to perpetuate the Kabila regime. Because today the boss is Kabila." Tshisekedi's spokesman denied that there was any deal between them.[59]
Four people, two police officers and two civilians, were killed in the western city of Kikwit during protests.[64] The following day, January 11, at least one protestor was killed in Goma.[63] There were also reports of protests in Kisangani and Mbandaka.[59]
The governments of France and Belgium also issued statements questioning the official result. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian claimed that Fayulu was expected to be declared the winner. Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders also doubted the result, saying that Belgium would use its temporary UN Security Council seat to investigate the situation.[65] British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he was "very concerned about discrepancies" in the results.[66]
In an official statement, the United Nations urged all parties to "refrain from violence" and "live up to their responsibility in preserving stability."[13] African Union leader Moussa Faki said that any disputes should be "resolved peacefully, by turning to the relevant laws".[59]
No comments:
Post a Comment