DR Congo elections delayed by one week over warehouse fire

Elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been delayed by one week, the country’s electoral commission announced on Thursday. Presidential, legislative and provincial elections expected to take place on 23 December will instead be held on 30 December.

Electoral commission chief Corneille Nangaa during a meeting in Kinshasa about postponement of the vote, 20 December 2018. Photo: Luis Tato/AFP

“The campaign closes on 21 December as scheduled,” Corneille Nangaa, president of the electoral commission, told journalists at a press conference in Kinshasa, the AFP news agency reported.

Nangaa said the delay was necessary because of a fire at their Kinshasa warehouse last week. The fire resulted in the destruction of a large part of the voting materials destined for the city. The capital represents more than 10 per cent of the 40 million registered voters.

Some of the South Korean-voting machines would be drawn from a reserve kept in the interior of the country and sent to Kinshasa, Nangaa said.

The electoral commission has also ordered five million ballot papers that had been destroyed with the first batch arriving in Kinshasa on 19 December. However, the last batch will not arrive until the eve of the original vote forcing the electoral commission to delay the elections, according to Nangaa cited by AFP.

The delay to the long-anticipated polls comes just a day after campaigning was postponed in the capital Kinshasa. Opposition candidate Martin Fayulu had been expected to hold a rally on Wednesday, but was stopped from entering the city by security forces.

Kinshasa Governor André Kimbuta said security forces had received intelligence suggesting that “extremists” were preparing for confrontations in the street. Fayulu described the decision as “totally illegal” and without basis.

The elections are set to bring to an end the rule of President Joseph Kabila, who has held power for 18 years. But the vote has been delayed several times already, with the electoral commission originally setting 27 November, 2016 for presidential and legislative polls.

Rights violations

The UN Human Rights office in the DRC noted a slight increase in the number of rights violations of a political nature, in their latest statistics covering November. Members of the security forces were responsible for 63 per cent of total human rights violations including the summary execution of 50 people.

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor also published a statement on Thursday warning about pre-election violence in the DRC. Fatou Bensouda said she was “concerned by the growing tensions” and the “risk of escalating violence”.

Bensouda warned that anyone inciting or participating in mass violence could be brought before the criminal court for prosecution.

“Political leaders are equally obliged to ensure that the electoral process and the elections proceed in a calm manner and that they, their supporters and sympathisers, refrain from any violence before, during and after these elections,” she said.