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KINSHASA. – As voting kicked off in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) yesterday, delays due to logistical and technical issues were recorded in some parts of the country, but things went smoothly in the metropolitan city of Kinshasa where the bulk of the voters are registered.
The head of the Southern African Development Community Election Observer Mission (SEOM), former Zambian vice-president Enoch Kavindele, spoke to the media at the Institut De La Gombe polling station at midday and urged eligible voters to come out in their numbers.
He added that the delay in starting the polls was not peculiar.
For the country that has two time zones and is the second largest in Africa by land mass, logistics turned out to be a big challenge.
Tshikapa, in the Kasai province, experienced heavy rain overnight, but voting started as soon as the rain stopped before 10:00, the local media reported.
According to the Xinhua news agency, witnesses and local officials in the southeast province of Haut-Katanga said electoral materials were still being brought by motorcycle due to poor road conditions in the morning.
Former Archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, who voted in Kinshasa, spoke about the challenges and was hopeful that a solution would be found by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI).
He said: “I am happy to see that the Congolese people want to go to elections. I note that out of the 11 offices, only four machines are working normally. The others have problems. Solutions will have to be found quickly. Otherwise, the elections will extend over several days.”
Preparation for the elections began two years ago with CENI having a budget of more than US$1 billion. Unlike in 2018, results from the more than 75 000 polling stations will be announced per polling station.
In Lubumashi, voters jostled to enter polling stations. Many said they had waited over an hour and a half for centres to open and vote to begin.
“There was a bit of a delay, we had been here for six hours but they just opened the office at 7:45 am, so it was that little delay that caused the chaos at the entrance,” explains one voter Roland Kapiamba.
For another, “it was quiet”. ‘You see the atmosphere is really at its zenith. People are determined to vote and get the leaders they deserve.” Gustave Mutati Mumba, national MP candidate said.
With the scheduled opening hours of 6am to 5pm local time, many voters say they had faced long delays that led to scrambles at the gates of a few polling centres.
Incumbent president Félix Tshisekedi is vying for a second term against 18 other candidates. During the campaign, he asked voters for five more years to “consolidate the gains”.
He also vilified the supposed “foreign candidates”, suggesting that they were not “patriotic” enough in the face of the “aggressions” of which he accused in particular the Rwandan neighbour.
His main challenger, Moïse Katumbi, 58, a wealthy businessman and former governor of the mining province of Katanga (southeast), was particularly targeted by his attacks. – Agencies
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