Elections in DRC: 200 African observers expected, Europeans Excluded

Some 200 African observers will be deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo to oversee the December 23 elections in tens of thousands of polling stations, several African organizations said on Monday.

“The African Union already has 20 long-term observers on site. And we are waiting for about 80 short-term observers to be deployed, “said the African Union representative in the DRC, Abdou Abarry.

The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) “will deploy 20 observers,” he added speaking to the microphone of the UN Okapi radio.

ECCAS brings together eleven countries in Central Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Gabon, Rwanda and Chad.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) on Monday presented a 94-member mission, including 73 on the ground in 16 of DRC’s 26 provinces.

Americans and Europeans excluded

These observers come from eight countries led by a troika Zambia, Angola and Zimbabwe.

The DRC has refused to send observers from the European Union or the United States.

“There will be more than 40,000 national observers, who have already been trained for this purpose, and also political party witnesses,” President Joseph Kabila said in an interview recently published by the Belgian daily LeSoir.

Some 40 million voters were registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) for the presidential, legislative and provincial elections of 23 December.

The International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) identified in May “the presence of voters without footprints up to 16.6%”.

The Ceni has planned to deploy more than 100,000 “voting machines” in some 80,000 polling stations.

The opposition rejects the use of this touch screen to click on the name and photo of the candidates and to print the ballots.