DRC ELECTIONS: CAMPAIGN OFFICIALLY BEGINS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 001033 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM KPKO CG ELECTIONS SUBJECT: DRC ELECTIONS: CAMPAIGN OFFICIALLY BEGINS ¶1. (U) The official campaign period for the DRC's presidential and legislative elections commenced June 29, marking the beginning of the final electoral phase before the country's July 30 elections. In total, 33 presidential candidates are running for office, as well as 9,709 candidates (from 213 political parties) for 500 seats in the National Assembly, representing 169 electoral districts. The campaign period is scheduled to last 30 days, ending at midnight July 28. According to the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI),polls are planned to open at 6am July 30 and are scheduled to close at 5pm, unless voters are still waiting at that hour to vote. CEI officials have said voting stations must remain open until the last voter in line at 5pm has cast a ballot. Immediately following their closure, voting sites will begin counting ballots, which subsequently will be sent to regional centers for compilation and verification. The CEI has not said when the final election results will be known. ¶2. (U) While the first round of presidential and legislative voting will take place July 30, the CEI has not yet set a date for the second round of elections. (Note: The CEI is expected to announce the next phase of the electoral calendar the week of July 3. End note.) The second round of voting will consist of provincial legislature elections, plus a runoff in the presidential contest if no candidate receives a majority of votes in the first round. The top two vote-getters from the first round would face off in the second. The 25 provincial legislatures (plus Kinshasa),once seated, will then elect the country's 108 senators (four per province and eight for Kinshasa) and 26 territorial governors. ¶3. (U) As the elections approach, significant logistical hurdles remain for the CEI and MONUC in preparing for the DRC's first free elections in more than 40 years. The size of the country and its electorate are enormous. The DRC's territorial size is roughly 1.45 million square miles -- or approximately the size of Western Europe -- and lacks a roads system, making the transport of goods and election materials especially difficult. Equally daunting are the number of potential voters from the country's 11 provinces. The CEI registered 25.6 million voters in 2005 out of an anticipated 28 million eligible citizens. Comparatively, the DRC has five million more registered voters than South Africa, and more than seven times as many as Haiti. In the capital of Kinshasa and its surroundings alone, there are approximately three million registered voters, roughly half of Sierra Leone's entire population. In the DRC's northeastern Ituri District (roughly two-thirds the size of Liberia),1.4 million Congolese registered to vote, compared to Liberia's 1.35 million registered voters. ¶4. (U) Putting into place the DRC's electoral system has required a massive logistical effort. The budget for the CEI and the UNDP (which is helping organize elections) has reached approximately USD 470 million. (Note: This is separate from MONUC's logistical contribution to elections, which currently is around USD 100 million per year. End note.) To assist with this organization, the CEI has recruited some 300,000 poll workers to operate voting stations and other regional electoral offices. The government of South Africa is printing (at a cost of some USD 25 million) 170 different types of ballots for the elections -- one for the presidential vote and one for each of the 169 electoral districts -- which will weigh nearly 1,800 tons. According to the CEI, it will take 75 round-trip flights from South Africa to 14 distribution points in the DRC to deliver some 50 million ballots. In addition, 2,500 tons of material for election kits (comprised of forms, ballot boxes, collapsible voting booths, and lanterns, among other materiel) have been delivered. ¶5. (U) Following the initial delivery of ballots from South Africa, material is being dispatched to 166 regional centers of the Electoral Commission, via MONUC air transport. From these liaison offices, voting kits and ballots will be distributed to nearly 11,000 voting centers, and then finally to a planned 50,000 actual voting stations. The CEI, which has the responsibility of delivering material from the liaison offices to the voting sites, has reported that approximately 24,000 people nationwide will be involved in the distribution of this material. This distribution phase is scheduled to begin July 14. Because of the lack of reliable roads, and insufficient transport means, election material will be delivered in a variety of ways: canoe, bicycle, motorbike and even by foot. It is worth noting that each kit KINSHASA 00001033 002 OF 002 (of which there are some 50,000) weighs about 15 pounds. ¶6. (U) According to CEI officials, nearly all election kits have reached the CEI's 166 liaison offices. CEI officials also report that presidential and legislative ballots for the majority of electoral districts have been delivered to the initial 14 distribution sites. The remaining ballots yet to be delivered are from three of Kinshasa's four electoral districts; CEI officials said these ballots needed to be reprinted because they contained errors. ¶7. (U) Election security will be provided by the Congolese National Police (PNC) and MONUC peacekeepers, in addition to troops being provided by the European Union. Approximately 50,000 Congolese police will be used as the first line of defense on election day to provide security at the country's polling sites. MONUC currently has nearly 17,500 peacekeepers deployed in the DRC -- of which some 14,000 are located in the eastern part of the country -- to provide additional security, particularly in locations where the PNC does not have sufficient forces. (Note: MONUC has fewer peacekeepers than the UN's mission in Liberia did at its peak in 2005, for a country more than 20 times the size of Liberia. End note.) Lastly, the European Union has begun sending 800 troops to Kinshasa to assist MONUC in elections-related security missions, while an additional 1,200 troops will be positioned in Gabon. ¶8. (SBU) Comment: As SRSG William Swing has said, the DRC's elections are the largest undertaking of its kind ever supported by the UN. Given the size of the DRC and its lack of infrastructure, the logistical aspects of the elections are a nightmare, and problems will invariably arise. Ballots and election kits will arrive late, and in some cases, not at all. Some voting centers will not open on time, and some election workers will likely not show up on election day. Because of the complicated nature and size of the ballots (particularly for legislative elections),there will inevitable be errors in tabulating votes, and many voters will likely have difficulty understanding how to vote in the first place. The country's December constitutional referendum demonstrated, though, that the CEI can organize elections on a grand scale. End comment. MEECE