The independent national electoral commission (Céni) of the Democratic Republic of Congo announced on Sunday January 22 the extension of 25 days of the operation of identification and registration of voters in 10 provinces in the west of the country. Launched in these areas on December 24 for 30 days, the operation only registered a third of the expected electorate. Shortly before the announcement of the extension, the offices were packed on the last day before closing.
With our correspondent in Kinshasa, Pascal Mulegwa
The queues were longer than usual. Only the strongest and most courageous managed to find a place for themselves, like here in the heart of the capital, at the Gombe athenaeum. Even the rain did not get the better of the applicants’ determination, like Fabrice:
“ They must lengthen the duration because with this pace I’m not sure that we will all be served. This is not serious. If it continues like this, we will have no choice but to give up enlistment »
On this day, no privileges even for this majority deputy, Solange Masumbuko: “ I believe we have need a lot more time to organize well. Because there, I see the men who jostle each other, but the women have a hard time jostling each other “.
In the west of the capital as in other places, ignition problems persist. In this center near the national museum, only one of the three machines remained operational. It stopped working just before the enlistment of this teacher:
” Lots of people, machines break down all the time, the other machine, you have to wait 40 minutes for her to cool down a bit and resume enlistment. Today, I believe that if there is a good number of people who enlisted it is 30 %. This is insufficient to organize a transparent electorate. »
His estimate is close to that of the CENI, which claims to have registered only 37% of the 18 million voters expected. It also ensures recording less and less complaints and deplores the absence of witnesses from political parties in 3/4 of the 8,900 operational centres.
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