Reply To: Congo Paparazi

[Congo]

Of course, the stalemate that is increasingly eroding DRC Congo is the result of controversies arising, inter alia, from the interpretation of the Constitution between the policies and, at the same time, the logical consequence of the blocking of the electoral process, which, once relaxed, would religiously lead the country first democratic alternation.

Moreover, it is not without ignorance, urbi et orbi, that the first grabuges stemmed mainly from the failure to hold the elections in 2016. This marked the end of the second and last term of office President of the Republic. In spite of the concoction of several negotiations which first gave birth to the Agreement of the City of the African Union and, finally, that of the New Year’s Eve, considered a true springboard for the relaxation of the crisis which shook the Congo-Kinshasa, the line of arrival of the pilgrimage leading to the electoral games seems, however, far away.

While several believed that by December 31, 2017, the straight line of the modus vivendi signed at the Interdiocesan Center, the Independent National Electoral Commission, CENI, after having notified, on the other side of the earth, its the impossibility of organizing these elections during this year, has, this time, accentuated the uncertainty over these elections.

Its president, Corneille Nangaa, announced last Wednesday that this institution of support for democracy would need 504 incompressible days, counting from the end of the enrollment, to bring the Congolese to the polls. This, according to calculations made illico presto, returns these electoral challenges to after April 2019. And this, if only the operations of registration of the voters in the Great Kasai, the last area, ends by December or beginning January 2018. There, another question. For only God knows, at this moment, the outcome of this process. Will the Ceni experience any new or unknown contingencies? Already, in terms of reactions, the Rassemblement / Limete, the typical adversary of the current regime, declared his indignation in connection with this communication by Corneille Nangaa. This platform which does not even guarantee a passing of a few minutes of the year 2017 without the votes, has, consequently, amplified its attachment to its recently published road map, after its second conclave. That is to say, a transition without the current Head of State and even without the present President of the Electoral Center, Mr. Nangaa.

In doing so, DRC Congo is heading straight for a new crisis after 31 December 2017. The latter, according to the Laboratory of Political Affairs, will be linked to the non-organisation of elections in 2017, in accordance with the New Year’s Eve compromise and, also, to a certain obsolescence of the institutions covered by the said Agreement.

Subsequently, the new transition, not foreseen by the same act initialed under the auspices of the Bishops of the Cenco, should be concocted in order to free itself from the impasse.

Hence, the uncertainty about the holding of elections and the democratic, free and peaceful alternation will have, such as the symptoms of a moribund, reached its climax. No one, from east to west, can imagine the probable date of the elections.