The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Nov 28 presidential election “lacked transparency,” calling into question the credibility of the results, the European Union’s electoral observation mission said.
The Central African country’s electoral commission announced incumbent President Joseph Kabila as winner on Dec 9, a ruling that was rejected by runner-up Etienne Tshisekedi, who declared himself the true president. Opposition parties have challenged the results at the Supreme Court.
The EU mission “deplores the lack of transparency and the irregularities in the collection, the compilation and the publication of results,” it said in an e-mailed statement. The problems “cannot but affect confidence in the results and their credibility.”
“Several polling station results published the night of the count and observed by our teams on the ground ... do not correspond with those published by the National Electoral Commission,” it said.
It also said officials had failed to count 7.6 percent of the roughly 64,000 polling stations nationwide, which it estimated excluded about 1.6 million people’s votes.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s president, Joseph Kabila, had rejected statements by the opposition, Atlanta-based Carter Center and Catholic Church that last month’s elections returning him to power weren’t credible.
The Carter Center said on Dec 10 that the results “lack credibility.” Carter Center said that there is growing evidence of possible vote suppression in parts of the country favorable to the opposition, and vote inflation in regions known to support Kabila.
Before the election, 18 civilians were killed, mainly by the Republican Guard, Kabila’s personal protection unit, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Kabila, who won 49 percent of the votes to 32 percent for Tshisekedi, rejected the Human Rights Watch figures and insisted that Congo isn’t facing turmoil.
“There is not a crisis,” he said. “If Congo goes up in flames, you have nine to 10 countries going up in flames.”
The United Nations mission in the country urged the electoral commission to address the concerns of the Carter Center and other observer groups.
留言列表
