VOTES BY SPECIAL DISPENSATION -- A REAL ISSUE?

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 001759

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV KDEM CG ELECTIONS
SUBJECT: VOTES BY SPECIAL DISPENSATION -- A REAL ISSUE?

REF: A. A. KINSHASA 1751

B. B. KINSHASA 1732

C. C. KINSHASA 1754


1. (U) Summary: DRC presidential candidate Jean-Pierre
Bemba and his alliance have raised concerns about the large
number of ballots by special dispensation ("derogation") in
the October 29 election. They claim these votes were cast
fraudulently by supporters of rival Joseph Kabila. Vote
breakdowns provided by the Independent Electoral Commission
(CEI) indicate that these votes were widely dispersed between
regions supporting Kabila and those supporting Bemba. The
high number of votes by special dispensation will be included
in a legal challenge to the electoral results which Bemba has
already announced. In no case, however, would these
contested votes affect the outcome of the presidential
election. End summary.


2. (U) Presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba, in a
November 9 letter to the Independent Electoral Commission
(CEI),raised questions about what he claimed was an
inordinate number of votes by special dispensation
("derogation") in the October 29 DRC elections (ref B).
Writing in his capacity as president of the Movement for the
Liberation of the Congo (MLC) party, Bemba alleged that the
high numbers were a sign of fraud committed by supporters of
his opponent Joseph Kabila. He charged that those who voted
in this manner did so primarily in the east and to augment
Kabila's totals.


3. (U) The high number of votes cast by special dispensation
remains one of the most contentious and complicated issues
raised by the DRC election. These votes accounted for about
6.6 percent of the total, i.e. 1.095 million of 16.6 million
cast. The DRC's electoral law provided this dispensation in
order to enable certain categories of persons not present in
their assigned polling district on election day to vote.
These include civil servants on official mission, candidates,
election observers, political party witnesses, CEI staff,
journalists, as well as wives and adult children of some
military and police.


4. (U) A tally of these votes by province provided by the CEI
to Bemba in a November 14 letter indicated that these votes
were widely dispersed among regions that supported him and
those that supported Kabila. Half were cast in western
provinces, with the remainder dispersed throughout the
eastern and central provinces.


5. (U) Provinces with the highest proportions of these votes
were in fact all carried by Bemba: Equateur, Bandundu,
Eastern and Western Kasai and Kinshasa. The highest number
of special dispensation votes was in the Bemba stronghold of
Equateur, which accounted for approximately 23 percent of
such votes nationwide, and ten percent of all votes cast in
the province. Katanga, a Kabila stronghold, recorded the
next highest number with 14 percent of national totals, and
about six percent of votes cast in the province. Figures for
Bandundu show some 13 percent of all "derogation" votes were
cast there, and represented more than nine percent of the
provincial total.


6. (U) International observer groups are reviewing concerns
about special dispensation votes. Both the Carter Center
(ref C) and the EU observer missions have confirmed
separately that they are analyzing the numbers to determine
potential impact on the election. The EU mission has
scheduled a formal statement about this issue for November 17.


7. (U) Statements to the press November 16 by Fidele Babala,
Bemba's current chief of staff, confirmed that Bemba will
include this issue in legal challenges to the election
result. His party has three days beginning the day after the
announcement of provisional results (which were published
November 15) to file any complaints with the Supreme Court.


8. (SBU) Comment. Bemba and his supporters are working to
reap political advantage in an area where the CEI might have
done a better job in communicating a complicated element of
the electoral process to the general public. It is
impossible that any decision regarding these votes will
change the outcome of the election. Kabila leads Bemba by a
total of 2,616,957 votes. The total number of votes by
special dispensation is 1,095,760. Even if all those votes
had been cast in favor of Kabila, and even if the Court were
to discard all of these ballots as invalid or fraudulent --

KINSHASA 00001759 002 OF 002


which will not happen -- Kabila's lead over Bemba would still
be 1,521,197 votes. Bemba's alliance is using this
non-issue as a red herring to draw attention away from the
fact that they lost in the elections. End comment.
MEECE