2018
Democratic Republic of the Congo general election
General
elections are scheduled to be held in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo on 23 December 2018, to determine a
successor to incumbent President Joseph Kabila. They were originally
scheduled for 27 November 2016, but were delayed with a broken promise to hold
them by the end of 2017. According to the constitution, the second and final term of
President Kabila expired on 20 December 2016.
Incumbent
President Kabila is constitutionally unable to participate and a cabinet
minister has said he will not run.[4] He and his party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, support
the candidacy of Emmanuel Ramazani
Shadary, the former Interior Minister.[5]
In
opposition to Shadary's candidacy, seven opposition leaders, including Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moïse Katumbi, nominated Martin Fayulu as their candidate for
president
Contents
Background
On
29 September 2016, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI)
announced that the elections would not be held until early 2018. According to
CENI's vice president, the commission "hasn’t called elections in 2016
because the number of voters isn’t known. The announcement came ten days after
deadly protests against Kabila in Kinshasa saw 17 people killed. The
opposition alleged that Kabila intentionally delayed the elections to remain in
power.
An
agreement reached with the opposition in December 2016 allowed Kabila to stay
in office with a requirement to hold elections by the end of 2017. However, on
7 July 2017, CENI President Corneille Nangaa said it would not be possible to
organize presidential elections by the end of the year. Opposition leader Felix
Tshisekedi condemned the announcement on Twitter, saying Nangaa had "declared war
on the Congolese people.
In
November 2017 CENI announced that elections will be held in December 2018, after
previously claiming earlier that month that elections could not be held until
April 2019 due to the difficulties of registering voters in a country with
underdeveloped infrastructure.[11] Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala confirmed in March 2018
that the election will occur in December.
According
to the UN a total
of 47 people had been killed at protests against President Kabila during this
period, which occurred throughout 2017 and into 2018.
According
to Human Rights Watch,
government security forces used live rounds to disperse crowds of opposition
supporters throughout August 2018, stating that the total death toll by then
since 2015 was 300 people. HRW also documented attempts by the Congolese
government to persecute members of the opposition, such as banning Moïse Katumbi from entering the country
and forcefully dispersing a rally in support of Jean Pierre Bemba.
Electoral system
According
to Article 71 of the DRC Constitution, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is
elected by plurality vote in
one round. Article 72 specifies that the requirements to stand as a candidate
for the presidency are being a Congolese citizen and at least thirty years old.
Article
101 of the Constitution provides the basis for electing a National Assembly. The
500 members of the National Assembly are elected by two
methods; 60 are elected from single-member constituencies using first-past-the-post
voting, and 440 are elected from 109 multi-member constituencies
by open list proportional
representation, with seats allocated using the largest remainder
method to all lists gathering more than 1 % of the valid
votes.
For
the first time, electronic
voting machines will be used in a Congolese election. This has
raised concerns about vote-rigging, particularly after a warehouse fire in Kinshasa
destroyed 8,000 voting machines, which represent more than two thirds of the
voting machines that had been planned to be used in the city.
Potential candidates
On
25 May 2018, businessman and former governor of Katanga Province Moïse Katumbi discussed with fellow
opposition presidential candidate Félix Tshisekedi,
son of the late opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi,
at the Atlantic Council about
fielding a single opposition candidate. In early September 2018, he again
called on the opposition to unite behind a single candidate.
As
of August 2018, the country's Independent National Electoral Commission is
reviewing candidates.[5] A preliminary list of
candidates, including 25 names, was published on August 10, 2018. Another list
will be published on August 24, and the final one will be published on
September 19.
·
Vital Kamerhe, government minister and
parliamentary speaker, Union for
the Congolese Nation leader.
·
Emmanuel Ramazani
Shadary, former governor of Maniema Province and Interior Minister of
the Democratic Republic of the Congo
·
Félix Tshisekedi,
opposition leader in the Union for Democracy and Social Progress and
son of Etienne Tshisekedi.
·
Martin Fayulu supported by five
opposition leaders including Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moïse Katumbi, On September 3, the Constitutional Court of the DRC upheld the national election
commission's decision to ban six potential candidates from taking part in the
election, including opposition leader Jean Pierre Bemba.
Disqualified candidates
·
Samy Badibanga, former Prime Minister.
·
Jean-Pierre Bemba, former vice president and
rebel leader.
·
Antoine Gizenga, 93-year old former associate
of Patrice Lubumba and
former Prime Minister of the DRC under Kabila.
·
Marie-Josee
Ifoku Mputa, the only female candidate
·
Moïse Katumbi, former Governor of Katanga Province. Katumbi has been
purposely prevented from running because he has been sentenced in absentia to
three years in prison for real-estate fraud.
·
Adolphe Muzito, former Prime Minister
·
Bruno Tshibala, incumbent Prime Minister since
2017.
Opinion polls
Opinion
polling is rare in the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to poor roads and
lack of electricity. Nevertheless, the Congo Research Group (CRG)
released a poll in October 2016 of 7,545 respondents in the country's 26
provinces. The poll found that 33% would vote for Katumbi, 18% for Etienne
Tshisekedi, and 7.8% for Kabila.
A
May 2017 poll of 7,500 respondents carried out by CRG/BERCI found that 38%
would vote for Katumbi, 10% for Kabila, 5% for Félix Tshisekedi, Vital Kamerhe and Jean-Pierre Bemba, 24% for other candidates,
and 13% would not vote.[31]
A
March 2018 poll carried out by the CRG showed Katumbi obtaining 26%, Tshisekedi
with 14%, Adolphe Muzito and
Kamerhe tied at 9%, Kabila with 7%, and Augustin
Mataya Ponyo and Aubin Minaku with 3% each.
A
June 2018 Top Congo FM poll amongst opposition supporters showed Katumbi
winning 54% of the opposition's vote, with Kamerhe at 34%, Bemba at 7%, and
Tshisekedi at 5%.
In
October 2018, the Congo Research Group released a poll that showed Tshisekedi
winning 36% of the overall vote, with Kamerhe winning 17%, Shadary winning 16%,
and Fayulu winning 8%, with 5% undecided or not voting. The remaining votes
went to minor candidates.
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