Elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been extended after widespread delays, opposition allegations of fraud, violence, and logistical setbacks.
Voting in the country’s presidential and legislative elections began Wednesday after almost a three-hour delay, as authorities scrambled to finalise preparations in an election facing steep logistical and security challenges.
While polls were scheduled to close at 5pm (16:00 GMT), hundreds of people were still waiting to vote after that time, as many polling stations had opened late, DRC’s Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) acknowledged.
The commission said voting will continue on Thursday in polling stations that were unable to open on polling day.
Civil society observers and opposition candidates have sounded the alarm about the delays and other issues, including malfunctioning electronic voting systems and violent attacks.
“It is total chaos,” said presidential candidate Martin Fayulu, runner-up in the disputed 2018 presidential election.
“If all the people don’t vote in all the polling stations indicated by the CENI, we won’t accept these elections,” Fayulu warned after voting in the capital Kinshasa.
Another presidential candidate, Nobel Peace laureate Denis Mukwege, also warned about the chaos at voting stations and condemned what he called “the proliferation of serious dysfunction and irregularities … which confirm our fears of evidently planned electoral fraud.”
We “fear that the results of such a chaotic vote will not reflect the will of the people”, he said.
Another challenger in the race, millionaire businessman and former Governor Moise Katumbi, urged his supporters to monitor the publication of results in each polling station.
“The only results that we will accept are results that must be posted at each polling station. For now, I’ll not judge the organisation of the vote but there are many failures,” he said after voting in the mining town of Lubumbashi.
The election commission has repeatedly rejected the opposition’s allegations of mismanagement and fraud.