(C) CONGO-B/EU: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION "NOT A PRIORITY FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L BRAZZAVILLE 000198


E.O. 12958: DECL: 7/1/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR CF
SUBJECT: (C) CONGO-B/EU: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION "NOT A PRIORITY FOR
BRUSSELS"

CLASSIFIED BY: Alan Eastham, Ambassador, EXO, USDOS.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)

1.(c) EU Ambassador Miguel Amado (Portuguese) told TDY poloff
that although the EU had sent observers to monitor
Congo-Brazzaville's 2002 elections, Brussels has decided not to
do so for the July 12 presidential election. Several factors
influenced the EU Commission's decision, starting with the
reality that the EU has limited resources and cannot monitor
every election. Second, the official story is that the EU
normally only monitors elections when it is formally invited and
the Brazzaville authorities did not invite the EU this time. In
reality, Amado said, if the EU really wanted to send a
monitoring team it probably could arrange the equivalent of an
invitation.

2.(c) Most important, he said, Brussels does not believe
conditions in Congo-Brazzaville are conducive for conducting
free and fair elections-the National Commission for the
Organization of Elections (CONEL) is clearly not independent of
the government and the electoral rolls are flawed. There has
been "no real positive evolution of the electoral process since
2002" and as a result, the Congolese elections are "not a
priority for Brussels."

3.(SBU) Though the EU would not be sending observers, Amado
noted that others would be taking up some of the slack. The
African Union would be sending a ten-person team while a group
from an African civil society NGO called the Observatoire de la
Societe Civile Africaine pour la Democratie et l'Assistance
Electorale (OSCADAE) would be sending a group of 25. The largest
contingent of observers is coming from an NGO affiliated with
the Francophonie organization. In addition, the UNDP is
providing two technical experts, one expert who is working at
CONEL and the other who is working at the Direction General des
Affaires Electorales (DGAE). The government, however, refused to
provide visas to a small group from the Federation
Internationale des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH) until after the
elections.

4.(c) Amado said the French Embassy has a more accommodating
point of view vis-`-vis the Congolese than the EU and that EU
engagement with Brazzaville is separate from France's bilateral
relations with Congo, but that on occasion they overlap. He
noted that as part of Article 8 of the Contonou agreement
between the EU and the African-Carribean-Pacific (ACP),the EU
engages in a regular dialogue with the Congolese government on
matters of mutual interest, including human rights, corruption
and other governance issues. The French ambassador is part of
the EU delegation in these meetings, but has made a conscious
decision to "keep quiet." (COMMENT: More likely this is
instructed from Paris. One of our other EU colleagues tells us
that in EU meetings, when meeting with the Congolese opposition
is mentioned, the French Ambassador "runs for the door." END
COMMENT.)

5.(c) In addition to his observations on the election monitoring
situation, Amado made a number of other comments on the
Congolese situation during the election season.

--He thought the elections process would pass off relatively
peacefully. Whatever their problems with President Sassou, the
Congolese people are afraid of a return to civil war. Moreover,
neither does the government, which had deployed a very strong
police presence.

--The major opposition figures are not very different from
Sassou himself. They are of the same generation, they were
active in the Parti Congolais du Travail (PCT) when Congo was a
one-party state, and they are all Masons. He thought none of
them had a vision of Congo's future that was different from
Sassou's.

--The top levels of the government is filled with people who
have little technical competence and who are more interested in
accompanying the president on his travels-and collecting per
diem-than in running their ministries.

--He mused that perhaps EU assistance to Congo, which has been
based heavily on support for health and transport
infrastructure, might be more productively directed toward
"human capital" and "capacity building," i.e. education to
change this mindset.

--The economy is characterized by extensive corruption with all
major business in the hands of the president and his family, the
gap between rich and poor is growing, and all Congolese are
penalized by an "inflation tax"-nine percent inflation has been
eating away at their purchasing power. On the plus side, the
government makes sure that civil servants and, especially, the
security forces are well paid and paid on time.
--Congo's election, the outcome of which is not in much doubt,
probably will not have much effect on stability and security.
Much more problematic with be the maneuvering amongst the
"sharks" around Sassou when he eventually passes from the scene.

6.(SBU) Amado looks forward to working with the US embassy
during the elections process and hopes we could coordinate our
observations and, perhaps, our statements.

7.(C) Comment: Without a strong EU monitoring presence and the
FIDH human rights observers excluded, monitoring of the
Congolese elections is left to African and Francophonie
observers who are likely to devote little effort and have little
influence on the conduct of the polls. With respect to the EU
presence here, only France, Belgium, and Italy are present with
bilateral missions (Germany and the UK, among others, cover
Brazzaville from Kinshasa). There is a striking gap between
the Commission's representative here and the bilateral missions;
Ambassador Amado is a human rights advocate frustrated by the
continual braking from Brussels and the hands-off attitude of
the country missions here.

8.(U)Drafted by POL: FEhrenreich.


EASTHAM