DRC election body blames finances for poll delay

By Hassan Isilow

PRETORIA, South Africa

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral authority said Thursday financial challenges delayed a presidential vote scheduled for November.

“We don’t see an election happening before 2018,” Nobert Basengezi Katintima, vice president of DRC’s Independent National Electoral Commission told reporters in South Africa’s capital Pretoria.

He said the country was facing a challenge of funding the election which will cost $1.2 billion.

“The European Union pledged to provide us with $1.2 billion for the elections but we have not yet received a cent,” he claimed.

Katintima also said the country’s voter’s register had not been updated. A registration process will end in July 2017, he added.

DRC, Africa’s second-largest country, has bad roads and requires planes to transport election materials, a costly exercise for the government.

Katintima said in the 2006 and 2011 elections, they did not face logistical challenges because neighboring countries and the United Nations provided them with aircraft.

However, opposition parties in DRC have accused the electoral body of delaying the November election so as to keep President Joseph Kabila in power after his term expires in December.

At least 50 people were killed this month in the capital Kinshasa as they protested the decision to postpone the election. Several opposition headquarters were also torched.

Katintima denied his body had deliberately delayed the poll: “We will have a peaceful, free and fair credible election, that’s why we are following all these [electoral] processes,’’ he said

The electoral chief also said the Congolese people were tired of rebellions and wanted lasting peace.

“It’s our responsibility to ensure next elections are peaceful,” he said.

The DRC has never experienced a peaceful transfer of political power.