The Waiting Game

The provisional results of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s presidential elections were due today. In the centre of Lubumbashi, the main square was quiet. Usually abuzz with people after work, fear of unrest caused people to stay away. The rain didn’t help.

The giant screen outside the main post-office was showing advertisements. The guys in charge said they would not be showing the results here. The cinema opposite was closing early.

Driving to a bar usually bustling with the after-work crowd, a few danced indoors, but tonight the bar-tenders would not be busy. The streets outside were quiet.

And then came the announcement that the results would be postponed.

Counting the Ballots

Results from around Lubumbashi had been arriving at the CENI for several days, and the laborious task of collating results, verifying them and compiling them for Kinshasa was one I did not envy.

The centre was ill-prepared for the volume of material it would receive, not aided by the two burned out shells of the pick-ups attacked on voting day that sat in the courtyard for the first couple of days.

Sacks of ballots were stacked outside, under the cover of tarpaulin as rain soaked the ground. Days later, there would still be papers hanging out to dry.

Election observers from the European Union and the Carter Centre had complained of not being free to question election officials on their work, something they said was vital to their monitoring. As they voiced their complaints, access was increased. I was certainly never prevented from doing my work.

Claiming Victory

Driving past the offices of the Union pour la Democratie et le Progrès Sociale (UDPS - Union for Democracy and Social Progress), people were outside celebrating.

A blackboard outside the provincial party headquarters proclaimed victory for the presidential candidate, Etienne Tshesekedi, based on partial results.

Except that no partial results had been released, and indeed publication of such results was illegal under Congolese law.

Tshesekedi had already declared himself president before the elections began, but did offer the strongest challenge to incumbent president, Joseph Kabila.

His supporters outside the headquarters were clutching print-outs downloaded from the internet, which appeared to be tallies of voting centre results compiled by observer groups. None could prove the veracity of these results, but everyone I spoke to agreed that they were sure that these indicated that he would win the elections.

After the attacks, polls re-open

Looking at the Njanja polling station, where large queues of people were waiting to cast their ballot—some for a second time—I couldn’t help but glance across at a bare patch of grass. Yesterday, a man lay dead there.

The previous day, armed men had burst into the polling station, ordering people not to vote. According to various sources, whose veracity could not be confirmed, they were from a group calling for a referendum on the secession of Katanga; they wanted to the independence that the province had enjoyed in the early days of independence at the beginning of the 1960s.

Seven people had been reportedly killed, and the cast ballots burned. A day later, this was one of several polling stations across the country to open for a second day of voting.

People had been queuing all day, and as the afternoon drew on, tempers were fraying as staff prepared the classrooms-cum-polling stations and awaited the delivery of ballot papers. Burned ballots from the previous day’s attacks still lay on the grass.

As voting opened, a woman sat at a table ready to tick names of a list. Beside her, the wall was charred from the burning ballot papers of the previous day. “I’m scared they’ll attack again” she said, despite a strong army presence outside.

DRC Elections - A Long Night

Arriving at voting stations this morning, signs of yesterday’s logistical problems were evident. On the blackboard of one polling station were noted the start & finish times of their bureau:

Début: 14h22
Fin: 1h26

Polls were due to open at 7am, and close twelve hours later, and staff had been up through the night, tallying the votes. As results were finalised, noted, and confirmed, the electoral officials were starting to fall asleep. It had been a long day, and by the looks of it, an even longer night.