The peaceful transition of power is always a serious issue, but especially in Africa where it is a rare event.  President Joseph Kabila’s second elected term officially ended in December 2016 yet he remains in power without having called an election as the constitution mandates.  It now appears that the government will claim that an election cannot take place until the end of 2018, at the earliest.  This will likely result in additional widespread discontent and violence as Kabila will remain president by political inertia.

The government has been claiming that the process of creating a proper voter’s lists and democratic process in Congo is beyond their capabilities of arranging without substantial foreign financial aid.  There are estimates of a general election costing $526 million to conduct which sounds absurd in a country where earning $1 a day is an above average wage.  Registration efforts, proper handling and distribution of ballots and voter security are the major costs.  While there clearly are a lot of expenses and challenges to conduct an election in a country lacking basic infrastructure there is also a lot of manipulation of foreign donors going on.  A billion people in India always seem to vote with minimal incidents.

President Joseph Kabila

President Joseph Kabila

Kabila’s opponents have long suspected he intends to repeatedly delay elections until he can organize a referendum to let himself stand for a third term, as his counterparts in the neighbouring Congo Republic and Rwanda have done.

Kabila denies those accusations, saying the election delays stemmed from budgetary constraints and the challenge of registering millions of voters.  Congo is moving toward “credible, transparent and peaceful elections,” he told the United Nations last month.