In a press conference Tuesday, the Vice Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced that planned protests against the electoral commission (CENI) would not be permitted. The protest was organized by five oppositional candidates to incumbent Felix Tshisekedi following the December 20 election.
Preliminary results showed a significant 80 percent lead for President Tshisekedi. Despite this support, protesters feel that result was mitigated by various irregularities. Contextually, in some remote areas of the country, voting was extended due to logistics issues, on top of sporadic poll closures. It remains unclear how many of the 44 million voters were able to successfully cast their ballots as CENI is yet to release this information.
The protesting opposition candidates, early Tuesday, formally announced their intentions by signing a letter advocating against CENI’s handling of the election. Former governor Moise Katumbi was among the signatories and called for the election to be annulled. In response to this, Vice Prime Minister Peter Kazadi stated that the protests were banned due to their potential to undermine the ongoing electoral process before the final results are announced. He also announced the plan to deploy troops to the provinces to ensure the security of the people.
There has been an undercurrent of concern surrounding the security of the election process. Earlier on December 14, Katumbi suspended campaign events after a violent incident at a rally. Just a few days later, Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into the electoral violence in the DRC and the impact it has on the credibility of the election.
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