The long-awaited announcement of
the results of last week’s DR Congo presidential election, promised for Sunday,
will be postponed to next week, the head of the electoral commission announced
on Saturday.
“It is not possible to publish the
results on Sunday. We are making progress, but we do not have everything
yet,” said commission president Corneille Nangaa. An exact new date has
not been announced.
Last Sunday’s DR Congo
presidential election has proved most divisive. The United Nations Security
Council is split over how to react to this election process, according to an
internal report. The United States also condemned a lack of transparency, while
China, a major investor in DR Congo, lauded the process.
The election to pick a successor
to President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the country of 80 million people
since his father was assassinated in 2001, should mark the first democratic
transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.
But tensions have risen since the
vote after observers reported a litany of irregularities that the opposition
says is part of the ruling party’s effort to steal it.
Worried that the dispute could
spark the kind of violence seen after the 2006 and 2011 elections, the Security
Council met on Friday to discuss how to react.
“Tensions were mounting while the
CENI tabulated the results, notably in light of posturing by parties and
candidates,” Leila Zerrougui, head of the UN Stabilization Mission in
Democratic Republic of Congo, told the meeting, according to the internal
report.
But the 15 council members
“differed in their appreciation of the problems that beset the process and were
divided over the question of whether the Council should issue a press
statement,” the report went on to say.
A negative or cautionary
international reaction could be problematic for Kabila whose government has
defended the election’s organisation, and could weaken the legitimacy of
Kabila’s hand-picked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, should he be
declared winner.
Inflame the situation
In Saturday’s meeting, France
pushed for the publication of a statement that recognised that Congo’s election
allowed people to exercise their democratic right and called for calm, but
criticised the government’s decision to cut access to the Internet and some media
outlets.
The United States, which has
threatened to impose sanctions against those who undermine the election process
and has deployed troops to Gabon in case its citizens need rescuing from any
violence, backed the statement, alongside Britain, Ivory Coast, Belgium and
others.
South Africa, long a Kabila ally,
said the statement could “inflame” the situation if issued before the results,
the report said. Russia said it could be seen as an attempt to skew public
opinion. China “lauded the manner in which elections were conducted”, the
report said, and said a statement should not be published before the results.
Initial results were expected on
Sunday but the electoral board (CENI) said they could be delayed because vote
counts were slow in arriving. The opposition, represented by its two main
candidates Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi, and the ruling coalition say
their candidates have won.
Congo’s Catholic church body,
CENCO, said this week that it had identified the victor based on its own tallies
collected by 40,000 observers, though it did not name the winner. The
declaration was widely seen as a warning to authorities against rigging the
vote.
6, January 2019
Congo-Kinshasa election results postponed until ‘next week’ 0
The long-awaited announcement of the results of last week’s DR Congo presidential election, promised for Sunday, will be postponed to next week, the head of the electoral commission announced on Saturday.
“It is not possible to publish the results on Sunday. We are making progress, but we do not have everything yet,” said commission president Corneille Nangaa. An exact new date has not been announced.
Last Sunday’s DR Congo presidential election has proved most divisive. The United Nations Security Council is split over how to react to this election process, according to an internal report. The United States also condemned a lack of transparency, while China, a major investor in DR Congo, lauded the process.
The election to pick a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the country of 80 million people since his father was assassinated in 2001, should mark the first democratic transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.
But tensions have risen since the vote after observers reported a litany of irregularities that the opposition says is part of the ruling party’s effort to steal it.
Worried that the dispute could spark the kind of violence seen after the 2006 and 2011 elections, the Security Council met on Friday to discuss how to react.
“Tensions were mounting while the CENI tabulated the results, notably in light of posturing by parties and candidates,” Leila Zerrougui, head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo, told the meeting, according to the internal report.
But the 15 council members “differed in their appreciation of the problems that beset the process and were divided over the question of whether the Council should issue a press statement,” the report went on to say.
A negative or cautionary international reaction could be problematic for Kabila whose government has defended the election’s organisation, and could weaken the legitimacy of Kabila’s hand-picked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, should he be declared winner.
Inflame the situation
In Saturday’s meeting, France pushed for the publication of a statement that recognised that Congo’s election allowed people to exercise their democratic right and called for calm, but criticised the government’s decision to cut access to the Internet and some media outlets.
The United States, which has threatened to impose sanctions against those who undermine the election process and has deployed troops to Gabon in case its citizens need rescuing from any violence, backed the statement, alongside Britain, Ivory Coast, Belgium and others.
South Africa, long a Kabila ally, said the statement could “inflame” the situation if issued before the results, the report said. Russia said it could be seen as an attempt to skew public opinion. China “lauded the manner in which elections were conducted”, the report said, and said a statement should not be published before the results.
Initial results were expected on Sunday but the electoral board (CENI) said they could be delayed because vote counts were slow in arriving. The opposition, represented by its two main candidates Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi, and the ruling coalition say their candidates have won.
Congo’s Catholic church body, CENCO, said this week that it had identified the victor based on its own tallies collected by 40,000 observers, though it did not name the winner. The declaration was widely seen as a warning to authorities against rigging the vote.
(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)