The Democratic Republic of Congo: The 2011 elections and its paradoxes

by admin on November 29, 2011

From Okapi Radio

BY: Fidele A. Lumeya

1. The majority of voters are women.

2. The majority of voters live in rural areas of the DRC.

3. Thirty two million Congolese have been registered to
vote, the majority of whom are illiterate.

4. The eleven presidential candidates are men.

5. Only a minority of the candidates can speak the four nationally-spoken
Congolese languages. Most candidates communicate in French when addressing the
illiterate electoral majority who listen to the candidates without
understanding what is said in French and then happily applaud.

6. Of the eleven presidential candidates, seven have chosen
to campaign only in Kinshasa and several additional cities, this for lack of
financial means. The candidates have been unable to reach voters living in
rural areas where the majority live.

7. These elections are being conducted in 169 electoral districts.

8. Three presidential candidates have campaigned in eleven
provinces but not in all of the 169 electoral districts.

9. Some presidential candidates made the required monetary deposit,
allowing them to campaign, but then they chose to stay in Kinshasa or didn’t
campaign at all.

1O. For the first time in the country’s history, a
presidential candidate had the audacity to proclaim himself president of the Republic
before the elections were held and he did so in South Africa on a
public/commercial radio broadcast.

11. Although these elections are being conducted in 62,000
electoral voting centers throughout the country, none of the political parties has
the capacity to place a representative in each of the voting centers.

 

 

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