Violence erupted in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-January after the lower house of Parliament passed legislation that would delay the 2016 presidential election. Opponents of President Joseph Kabila took to the streets, clashing violently with government security forces. A watered-down version of the law was approved. Here are 12 things you didn’t know about election law protests in DRC.
Sources: ABCNews.Go.com, News.Yahoo.com, BDLive.co.za, VOANews.com, TheGuardian.com, Buzzfeed.com, Reuters.com, GulfNews.com, Bloomberg.com
Presidential elections, scheduled for 2016, would have to wait until after a countrywide census could be completed. The bill, passed by the lower house of Parliament in January 2015, is seen as a move to help Kabila stay in power past the original limits of his term. He assumed office in 2001, and is constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term.
While the government admits that conducting a census would be a lengthy process, it said elections would not be delayed beyond 2016. Regional analysts, however, estimate the process could easily take up to thee years, moving the election well into 2017. The DRC is roughly the size of Western Europe, with little infrastructure in place for conducting a census.
Supporters of the census say that it is a necessary part of the electoral process in such a vast country, with a population of more than 65 million people. The census would help determine districts for the election and representation of regions. The last formal census in the DRC was in 1983.
Logistical challenges to completing a census would delay the 2016 election, and opposition voices were quick to criticize the new measure. Opposition leaders such as Vital Kamhere, president of the opposition party, Union for the Congolese Nation, called on the party’s supporters to protest and rally against the new law.
As Congolese citizens took to the streets in Kinshasa to protest the new law, armed government soldiers met the protestors with warnings that they would not hesitate to open fire on crowds. Congolese security forces have been accused of human rights violations in the past. These include violence against civilians at polling stations in the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections, as well as summary executions during an alleged gang crackdown as recently as October 2014.
Vodacom executives confirmed that their company was ordered by the Kabila government to switch off all Internet and text message services in Kinshasa. Vodacom has an estimated 11 million subscribers in the capital city, and Luxembourg-based Millicom International Celluarl’s Tigo and India’s Bharti Airtel are also competitors in the area. All companies complied with the government order by Jan. 20, 2015.
An estimated 42 people died in the protests, though Congolese authorities put the death toll at 12. These included both protestors and policemen involved in the clashes. The protests quickly escalated from peaceful marching to looting and arson. A town hall in Ngaba was torched, allowing several prisoners to escape from a neighboring building. Looters stole police guns stored there.
Following the lower house of Parliament’s actions to pass the bill, the Senate met to discuss the vote. Security forces set up a broad perimeter around the Senate house to keep protestors from interrupting the session. The Senate eventually passed a watered-down version of the bill for members of the opposition, removing the census provision.
Youth were major opponents of the new election law and used social media to organize before Internet service was shut down. The hashtag “Telema” was used to help arrange protests, translating to a “call to ‘arise’ or ‘stand up’” in Lingala, according to The Guardian.
Source: TheGuardian.com
Jean-Claude Muyambo, a leader who defected from Kabila’s ruling party in November 2014, was arrested by the public prosecutor’s office for alleged embezzlement regarding a real estate sale in Lubumbashi. Government spokesmen assured media outlets that Muyambo’s arrest had no political link, but many are skeptical of this claim, as he had returned to Kinshasa to help organize protests.
The Catholic Church of the DRC was against the proposed election law, and supported Congolese citizens taking part in the protests, blasting security forces for responding aggressively. More than 4.5 million people in DRC identify as Catholic, making the Cardinal Mosengwo Pasinya’s backing of the opposition very influential. In a statement, he said, “We disapprove of and condemn any revision of the electoral law that aims to…illegally postpone the elections in 2016. We condemn these actions that have caused deaths and make an urgent appeal: Stop killing your people; don’t march on the ashes of your compatriots.”
Source: Buzzfeed.com
Many protestors in the DRC were inspired following popular protests in Burkina Faso that forced long-time leader Blaise Compaore to step aside after he attempted to change constitutional term limits. Jean-Paul Beya, a DRC protestor, told Reuters, “We demand that Kabila leaves. We think the people are getting there little by little and we will replicate Burkina.”
Source: VOANews.com
The final text of the new election law removed the provision that would delay elections until a census is conducted and a new electoral roll drawn up. However, it does not contain language that strictly enforces the country’s constitutional timetable for the next presidential election, which should happen in 2016.