Elections

I mentioned earlier that I had a security briefing on Wednesday. And, for many reasons, I suspect most of that information should be left out of the blog. But a lot of it was common sense suggestions, popular scams to watch out for, ways of staying in touch in case of unrest or an evacuation, and other things of that sort.

Politically, as I wrote in the first posting, elections to replace the sitting transitional government were originally to be held at the end of June and there was some unrest here that, to the best I could tell, never made it into the US media. Four demonstrators in Kinshasa were killed by government security or military forces, who are operating under a new centralized command system that was put in place by EU forces last year. The four deaths is substantially less than the dozens that typically occur in demonstrations here (as in similar protests the year before), and is strangely seen as a successful campaign. The current election schedules are for a referendum at the end of December, in which folks will vote on a new Constitution. This will also serve in many regards as a dry-run for the Presidential elections which will be held at the end of June. The aim is to have everyone registered by then, which is a particular challenge in many regions of the country that are remote and difficult for outsiders to reach. The Dem. Rep. of the Congo is a huge country--it is the third largest in size in Africa (after Algeria and Sudan), and about the size of the entire US east of the Mississippi River.

The elections are being steadily promoted. Here at the guest house (which is pretty large and almost everyone else staying here is Congolese), we take our meals (breakfast “petit simple” which is bread, butter, jam, and tea, and for dinner a tasty fish and rice plate) in the restaurant, which is a comfortable room with plastic furniture. The décor is minimal. There are three things hanging on the walls: a painting of a river scene on one wall, a poster promoting AIDS awareness on another, and a Nelson Mandela calendar promoting the elections on a third wall. The calendar features a familiar picture of a smiling Mandela underneath the heading, “Wisdom has one voice.” Underneath are some slogans about the importance of free elections to free the Congo. (All in French.) And it looks like each month has a list of a couple of things to look for in a candidate--things like someone who has skills of diplomacy, someone committed to fiscal responsibility, etc. A Kinshasa-based group organized the campaign, which does not explicitly endorse any candidate, although it is possible that there is partisan innuendo in the material that I am simply not able to “read.”