A Little More on the Referendum

The Constitutional referendum is scheduled to be held on Sunday, December 18, and Monday, December 19. As I hear more talk about the process, I think I may have been underestimating the extent of the opposition. There is a growing opposition coalition, and Tshisekedi called for an outright boycott two days ago. The Catholic Church is apparently opposed to the Constitution, though I am not clear on their specific rationale. One of the main concerns is that people have not been able to read the proposed Constitution that they are expected to approve or reject. This understandable frustration has really come to light during the past week. The Election Commission has spent its energies on some of the logistical matters, and seems to have neglected the dissemination of the document itself. I heard the results of some polls that showed the Constitution passing by a substantial margin, but the tally included more than 40% undecided, indicating to me that people are understandably cautious in expressing their opposition to the government. Even with this opposition and caution, Kinshasa is abuzz, and there is a lot of enthusiasm and energy in the reports from “radio trottoir” (pavement radio, or the word on the street). Everyone is talking about it.

From what I can tell from my internet reading, there seems to be very little, if any, coverage of the DRC elections in the US media.