General elections were held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 20 December 2023. Combined elections were held for the President, 484 of the 500 members of the National Assembly, 700 of the 716 elected members of the 26 provincial assemblies, and for the first time under the new constitution, 951 members of a scaled down number of commune (municipal) councils. On election day, the Congolese government extended voting to 21 December for polling stations that had not opened on 20 December.[1][2]Agence France-Presse reported that some polling stations would open as late as 24 December.[3]
These elections were the first of the 4th election cycle under the 2006 constitution. Six more elections are scheduled to follow in 2024, five of which are indirect.
President Félix Tshisekedi's election in 2018 was extremely controversial, with most independent observers, including the Catholic Church, believing that opposition candidate Martin Fayulu had actually won in a landslide. They believe that outgoing President Joseph Kabila, realising chosen successor candidate couldn't credibly win, struck a deal with Tshisekedi to make him president while Kabila governed jointly with him.[5]
According to Jacques Mukena, Senior Governance Researcher at Ebuteli Institute, the election will most likely not be completely free and fair, but believes Tshisekedi and the CENI are aware of the fact that they would be under closer scrutiny than in 2018 because more local and international observers would be watching. Additionally, candidates such as Delly Sesanga have already declared that they would believe the Catholic Church's opinion of who won the elections, not CENI's.[5]
According to the Crisis Group, there is a fear of a wider political crisis if losing candidates or their backers do not accept the presidential results. Any crisis, while not inevitable, could worsen the already dire situation in the east.[6]
On 20 November, Fayulu advocated for transparent and impartial elections, he insisted that the Congolese "must no longer accept someone stealing their victory."[7]
Map of the M23 offensive with Goma on the north shore of Lake Kivu at the bottom
The Democratic Republic of Congo has suffered from almost constant conflict in the east for the past 30 years. More recently, violence surged in the region after a new rebellion by the M23 group, supported by Rwanda, caused much of the North Kivu province to be occupied by rebels. This upsurge in violence comes as MONUSCO is expected to begin its "accelerated" withdrawal, as requested by Tshisekedi, after an almost 25-year presence in the country.[8][9]
Due to this, two territories of the province will not be able to vote normally, but if Goma were to fall as it did in 2012, the whole process would be compromised.[8]
With the possibility of over a million voters being disenfranchised from instability, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has proposed sending a regional intervention force into eastern DRC to try to stabilise the area. The SADC Mission in the DRC was first proposed in May and was meant to go in by September but has been postponed, with its most recent summit concerning finance.[5]
According to the Institute for Security Studies, it's hard to imagine the mission could go in and suppress all of eastern DRC's many armed rebel groups in time to enfranchise those voters.[5]
Schedule
Selected dates from the electoral calendar:[10][11]
24 December 2022—17 March 2023: Voter registration.
21 May 2023: Publication of registration statistics per electoral district—registration totals will determine the size of the provincial assemblies and of the local councils (commune, sector, and chiefdom councils). They are also used to apportion seats to electoral districts.
23 May 2023—15 June 2023: Proportional allocation of seats to electoral districts based on voter registration numbers; drafted and passed as a law.
26 June 2023—8 October 2023: Candidate registration.
26 June—15 July (20 days): Candidates for the National Assembly.
3 August—22 August (20 days): Candidates for provincial assemblies and commune councils.
9 September–8 October (30 days): Candidates for president.
19 November 2023—18 December 2023: Electoral campaigns.
19 November: Start of 30 day campaigns for president, National Assembly, and provincial assemblies.
4 December: Start of 15 day campaigns for commune councils.
20 December 2023: Election day.
20 January 2024: Presidential swearing in ceremony.
Electoral system
Presidential election
The president is elected by plurality voting in one round.[12] For the first time, some Congolese living abroad were able to vote in the presidential election. These were those living in Belgium, Canada, France, South Africa, and the United States.
National Assembly, provincial assembly, and commune council elections
Electoral districts and seat allocation
Except for the four National Assembly districts of Kinshasa, all electoral districts are simply administrative subdivisions of the country; the four exceptions are themselves groupings of administrative divisions of Kinshasa.
Contested electoral districts of the 2023 general election[13]
Notes: a) Postponed in the territories of Kwamouth, Masisi, and Rutshuru due to armed conflict. b) Kinshasa I: Lukunga, II: Funa, III: Mont-Amba, IV: Tshangu. c) Total single member districts in parentheses. d) Only the communes of Kinshasa and the 25 provincial capitals.
At the start of every five year election cycle voter registration takes place. The results for each province, including Kinshasa, are first used to proportionally distribute the 500 National Assembly seats and the 780 total seats of the provincial assemblies to the provinces. This determines the size of the provincial delegation in the National Assembly and the size of each provincial assembly. The second phase proportionally allocates provincial seats to each assembly district—in the case of the provincial assemblies, up to 10% of seats are reserved for the co-option of traditional leaders and are not allocated to an assembly district.
For the 2023 election, voter registration could not be carried out in some areas of the territories of Kwamouth, Masisi, and Rutshuru due to armed conflict. To deal with this, it was decided to postpone the elections in these territories, to reserve the same number of seats for these districts as they had in 2018, and to proportionally distribute the remaining seats to the other districts. The result was that only 484 National Assembly seats and 700 provincial assembly seats were to be contested.
In the case of a commune council election, the commune is the single multi-member electoral district with the number of members determined by the number of registered voters in the commune according to a fixed table.
Getting on the ballot
Each candidate for these elections are part of a three-person ticket which includes candidates for first and second substitute. It is not unusual for a candidate to run for both a national and provincial assembly seat in which case they can keep but one and a substitute takes the other.
A new rule requires participating political parties and alliances to contest at least 60% of the seats up for renewal in an election. So for example, each party/alliance had to register at least 290 candidates to participate in the National Assembly election.[15]
Election method
The method by which members are elected are different in districts having more than one seat, the most common case, from those that end up with only one seat.[16]
In multiple-member districts, members are elected by open listproportional representation, with seats assigned using the largest remainder method. Candidates who win more than half the vote in their district are automatically assigned a seat.[17] Otherwise, a party or independent candidate must meet an election threshold to qualify for seat assignment.[16] The election thresholds for the National Assembly, a provincial assembly, or a commune council are 1% of the vote nationally, 3% provincially, and 10% in the commune, respectively.[18]
Opinion polling is rare in the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to poor roads and lack of electricity. Nevertheless, a survey conducted by GeoPoll Socio-Political Barometer in the second quarter of 2023 found that voters expressed significant discontent with the governance under Tshisekedi, assigning him a satisfaction rating of 49.7%. Despite this, the survey also suggested that Tshisekedi would secure a second term thanks in part to perceived improvements, such as his free education initiative, and partly due to a divided opposition.[5][24]
An earlier 2022 poll by the same group found unemployment and insecurity to be the most cited dysfunctional areas, closely followed by the state of the country's roads and rising prices. On the other hand, free education was found to be the most favorable policy.[25]
Conduct
Pre-election violence
While the lead-up to the election was generally calm, several violent incidents were reported. On 14 July 2023, Chérubin Okende Senga, spokesperson for ENSEMBLE and former transport minister, was fatally shot in Kinshasa. The murder, described by Katumbi as a "political assassination," led to legal action by Senga's relatives in Brussels, accusing the head of the DRC's military intelligence of involvement.[26][27] Later in the year, a Katumbi rally in Moanda was broken up by live rounds, injuring several people. The provincial government blamed Katumbi's guards, stating that they fired warning shots after the crowd grew rowdy. Katumbi blamed the police.[28]
Violent clashes between supporters of different parties were also observed across various provinces, with candidates facing death threats on the campaign trail. On November 4, suspected UDPS activists attacked the convoy of Martin Fayulu in Tshikapa, Kasai province. On November 7, UDPS supporters clashed with ENSEMBLE supporters at a rally in Kasumbalesa, followed by ransacking of the local UDPS headquarters by Ensemble supporters. On November 28, a truck belonging to the campaign team of Maniema Governor Afani Idrissa Mangala ran over and killed Dido Kakisingi, leader of ENSEMBLE's Maniema youth league, in Kindu. Before the incident, UDPS supporters had attempted to block Katumbi's convoy and threw stones at Kakisingi.[29] At least 19 deaths, including two candidates, have been attributed to election-related violence.[30]
Election preparations
The CENI was reportedly woefully underprepared for the election. Due to the state of the country's roads compared to its size and the lack of funding, the CENI was forced to resort to doing almost everything via plane. As transporting by air is costly, the CENI had to get Egypt to send two C-130 Hercules planes to help deliver ballot papers at the last moment. Additionally, the CENI begged the UN to use its aircraft.[31]
Election day
On election day voting offices were scheduled to open at 6 AM, but delays were observed nationwide, resulting in the formation of exceptionally long lines. Various logistical issues further compounded the situation, including the late arrival of materials, malfunctioning voting machines, failed batteries intended to sustain their operation, and instances of lost ballot papers. This prolonged waiting period reportedly led to frustration among poorly informed and/or impatient individuals, resulting in attacks on poll workers and polling stations. Additionally, 11,000 voting stations didn't even vote at all or were not counted.[31]
According to Schadrack Mukad, an adjunct executive national secretary of the Civil Society Organization for Peace in Congo, which deployed 75,000 observers during the vote, "there were cases of machines that were seized by certain candidates and others by certain agents of the CENI outside voting places.” He expressed concern about the involvement of certain politico-administrative authorities and electoral candidates, who he says diverted CENI agents away from polling stations for a significant duration. Mukad attributed these violations to members affiliated with Tshisekedi's coalition.[31]
Controversially, the election necessitated an extension into a second day, a move which was declared illegal by local observers and civil society, and parts of the country were still casting ballots five days after election day.[32]
The CENI recognised cases of fraud, vandalism and intimidation, as well as the use of illegal voting machines.[32]
Analysis
According to Nicolas Niarchos, in his piece for The New York Review of Books, the CENI's polling staton data, "although impressive in detail", showed "strange" results. In the Fayulu stronghold of Kinshasa, for example, only 1,756,303 votes were counted–just ten percent of the capital's population.[31]
Alternatively, Albert Kasanda, in his piece for The Conversation, partially attributes the opposition's failure to unite behind a single candidate and their campaign strategies, compared to Tshisekedi, who had the backing of major political figures which provided him a broad territorial network and a foothold in various regions of the country.[34]
Although the provisional results of the legislative elections were due on 3 January 2024, they were postponed for 10 days due to the fraud and irregularities denounced by CENI.[37]
According to the provisional results, 44 parties and/or political groupings have reached the representativeness threshold and should therefore have seats in the National Assembly.[38] The Independent National Electoral Commission has published the names of 477 of the 500 deputies, pending the results from constituencies where unrest and violence were recorded. This includes 177 constituencies, as the results of Masimanimba in Kwilu and Yakoma in Nord-Ubangi were annulled for fraud, and in the territories of Masisi and Rutshuru in North Kivu and Kwamouth in Maï-Ndombe, elections were not held due to the activism of armed groups.[38][39][40]
After CENI invalidated 82 candidates, the ruling UDPS/Tshisekedi party won the most seats, giving President Félix Tshisekedi a comfortable parliamentary majority.
On 6 January 2024, Katumbi released a statement disputing the results of the election on the grounds of "massive fraud and treachery" and calling for the resignation of Denis Kadima, the head of the Independent National Electoral Commission. Two days later, his party stated that he had been placed under house arrest, with a spokesman reporting the presence of "heavily armed soldiers traveling in armoured vehicles surrounding his house".[48] The security forces were subsequently ordered to withdraw by the provincial governor Jacques Kyabula Katwe.[49]
References
^Rolley, Sonia; Kombi, Yassin; Erikas, Fiston Mahamba; Kambale, Mwisi; Kyala, Crispin; Bashizi, Arlette; Prentice, Alessandra; Felix, Bate (20 December 2023). Richardson, Alex; Chopra, Toby; Maler, Sandra; Wallis, Daniel (eds.). "Congo extends chaotic election as opposition calls for rerun". Reuters. Kinshasa and Goma. Retrieved 20 December 2023.
^"Constitution de la Republique Democratique du Congo" [The Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo] (PDF). LEGANET.CD (in French). 20 January 2011. Article 71. Archived(PDF) from the original on 21 February 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
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