The DRC electoral register is reliable and ready to be used for the elections scheduled for December this year. This is the conclusion of the audit carried out over six days by experts recruited by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) after four months of voter registration. The experts, including a Malawian, a South African and three Congolese, however noted some weaknesses.
With our correspondent in Kinshasa, Patient Ligodi
Prior to the audit, the file had just over 47 million voters. After this work of analysis, they are only 43 million authorized to vote.
Clearly, more than three million names have been removed from the list, including cases of duplicates, that is to say people who have registered several times.
This audit also made it possible to prune from the file nearly a million minors, children not being authorized to vote.
According to the audit mission, the shortcomings observed during voter registration have no significant impact on the quality of the electoral register. “ Here is the crucial question: do we believe that this operation was reliable? Do we believe that the results available and presented are credible taking into account the system? The answer of all the members of this team was yes explained the South African Janet Love, coordinator of the mission.
This operation was carried out in a climate of mistrust. The International Organization of La Francophonie – which withdrew judging the deadline too short – as well as opponents and members of civil society had estimated that it was impossible to audit the file in six days.
But Janet Love disagrees. “ For us, it is not a question of saying what is the ideal deadline for carrying out the audit of the electoral register. If we had had a lot more time, maybe we would have fallen asleep. Did we need to waste a little more time or get the job done? You talk to people who have already organized elections. This work must be done “.
The former president of the Ceni, Corneille Nangaa, was very severe regarding this delay. ” Claiming to audit a file in 6 days is a chimera, the height of farce, of lies “, he said about it.
For its part, the Ceni was delighted with the work carried out by the experts and validated the final statistics. She welcomed the progress made and insisted on the holding of elections in December of this year. ” We are within the deadline, welcomed Patricia Nseya, rapporteur for the institution. We want stakeholders and partners to also support us in respecting the electoral calendar that we published on November 26, 2022. The constitutional deadline must be respected. “. At the same time, it adopted the draft law on the distribution of seats.
The next step is the vote on the law on the distribution of seats in the National Assembly before the ballot.
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