East African Gazette
Kishansha DRC
The Commission Electorale Nationale Independante (CENI) Congo on Friday December 22,2023 released a few early results from general elections after an unscheduled daylong ballot extension that prompted some opposition candidates to cry foul and call for a rerun.
The provisional results from the few thousand voters in the Congolese diaspora in South Africa, the United States, Canada, Belgium and France showed President Felix Tshisekedi, incumbent with a comfortable lead over challengers but full outcome of the results will on Saturday December24, 2023.
Electoral authorities on Friday announced the results of voting by diaspora Congolese in South Africa, the United States, Canada, Belgium and France ahead of the release of the full outcome on Saturday.
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According to CENI 44 million people registered voters out of the 95million people Democratic Republic of Congo.
Tshisekedi, the incumbent is in race with 18 contestants but the tight race is between the current President Felix Tshisekedi, Moise Katumbi, and Martine Fayulu
At a news conference in Kinshasa, CENI President Denis Kadima, dismissed allegations by the opposition and independent observers that the extended vote had been chaotic and lacked credibility.
Disputed elections have often sparked unrest in Africa’s second-largest country. The presidential and legislative elections on Wednesday were derailed by delays in delivering election kits and malfunctioning equipment. People also struggled to find their names on registers, while violence disrupted the poll in other places.
Highlighting the scale of the delays, small-scale protests broke out in eastern Lubero territory on Friday where a failure to deploy voting materials to remote areas had left 17,000 people still unable to vote. A CENI representative for Lubero told Reuters voting would take place Saturday.
Commenting on the election for the first time on Friday, the Carter Center, a U.S. election monitoring group, noted “there was a lack of confidence in the process, stemming in part from previous elections, as well as from gaps in transparency, especially regarding the voter register.”
Voting for some was extended into Thursday, prompting five opposition presidential candidates to call for a new election, saying the extension was unconstitutional.
Both opposition and Congolese independent observer groups have said voting unfolded in a way that could affect the credibility of results.
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Tshisekedi’s election as president in 2018 was marred by accusations of vote-rigging and fraud, at least 34 people were killed and 59 others wounded in protests against the outcome, according to the United Nations
Results Center
CENI set up a results center in Kinshasa called Basolo “Truth” in the Lingala language where it says results from each polling station will be shared publicly as they come in. This has been a key demand of the opposition and civil society, who say the lack of transparency at previous elections enabled fraud.
CENI has set a December 31 deadline for the release of full provisional results, but it is not clear if this will change because of the unexpected voting extension.
The Carter Center called on the commission to post results at a local level and upload polling station results to its website to ensure the credibility of the process.
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Speaking on radio station Top Congo FM, the vice president of the commission, Didi Manara, said on Thursday the logistical setbacks on election day were out of CENI’s control and had nothing to do with bad planning.
He noted that Congo had extended voting to a second day in parts of the country during the 2011 election.
The tumultuous election day capped a campaign that was also marred by violence that led to the deaths of at least 19 people, according to figures from the Carter Center.
Opposition presidential candidate Moise Katumbi, whose team has been monitoring the vote count, said on Thursday that results so far showed him in the lead.
The observer mission from the Congo’s powerful Catholic Church has deployed more than 25,000 observers to do its own compilation of election results. They did the same during the 2018 election, when they contested the results of CENI’s vote count.
The vote will determine whether Tshisekedi serves a second term after a first five years in office marked by economic hardship and spiralling insecurity in Congo’s rebel-plagued east.
Security situation in DRC
The UN peacekeeping mission that has kept peace in DRC for more than two decades, has agreed to leave in a phased-out manner.
But it has raised fears of a security vacuum as their army may not be able to take on the numerous challenges of the rebel groups in Eastern DRC alone.
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The decision not to extend the troops’ stay comes as violence between the M23 rebel group and pro-government militias erupts in DR Congo’s troubled eastern region once more.
Burundi was the first of four countries to send its troops to DR Congo in August last year, followed by Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda, with Kenya in overall command.
The EAC said its forces were dedicated to working closely with the government to enable the safe return of internally displaced people to their homes and enhance the overall protection of civilians. Its mandate has been extended twice since the mission began.
Who is Moise Katumbi, the Tshisekedi amin competitor
Katumbi is a former governor of Katanga who has been living in exile in Belgium since May 2016 when he fell out with former President Joseph Kabila, he was born to a Greek businessman father and a Congolese mother, is seen as one of the strongest contenders in the Presidential race.
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Kitumbi was once given a three-year jail term for his alleged role in a fraudulent property transaction, he is also been put on trial for supposedly hiring mercenaries and for possessing an Italian passport against the laws of the DRC.
He was the founder of Mining Company Katanga (MCK), that was sold to French logistics giant Necontrans estimated to be worth over $130 million and owner of the Congolese football club TP Mazembe which has won the Central African Federation (CAF) Champions League.