July 26, 2006 - Arguably, the most organized and credible institution in the Congo, the Catholic Church, has raised serious concerns about the July 30th elections. Catholic church leaders (Regional Committee of Abbots) in Kinshasa, DRC called for a boycott of the July 30th elections if irregularities in the organizing of the elections are not resolved. The outright call for a boycott is a stronger stance than that issued by the larger Catholic Church body, the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo (CENCO in French) on Friday, July 20th. CENCO noted that all the conditions were not in place for a free, transparent and democratic election. Therefore, if the irregularities are not resolved before the elections, CENCO will call on the people to abstain from voting and will not accept the results.

CENCO vehemently attacked the idea of élections coûte que coûte (elections at any cost). They argue that elections for the Congolese people are a matter of “life and death.” Therefore they can hardly be silent when they see that the elections are on a path to be fixed or outright stolen. Some of CENCO’s concerns are as follows:
1. Contradictory declarations about the exact number of voters.
2. The printing of supplementary ballots.
3. The absence of an official electoral calendar beyond July 30th.
4. The suspicious location of servers in the electronic counting system
5. The presence of European troops in the country, widely believed to be present to secure a Kabila victory.

Although not totally unified (Church representatives in the East –Bishop of Bukavu -of the country are encouraging their parishioners to vote), one has to take the declaration of the church seriously. Approximately 30 million of the 60 million Congolese are Catholic. The Church has demonstrated its power to shape the political landscape, its February 16, 1992 march forced Mobutu to reconvene the Sovereign National Conference and most recently the credibility that it lent to the referendum results when it put in place an observation mission in Kinshasa that validated the constitution referendum results helped to allay any questions about the legitimacy of the vote. Nonetheless, the Church is up against a formidable foe in an international community that has made an investment of over $4 billion dollars to stabilize the Congo.

Although, the electoral commission reflexively declared on Friday the 21st that all is perfect and everything is set for the elections, there are some stubborn facts that are hard to get around going back to the very start of the electoral process in March:
• The extraordinary cost of $50,000 non-refundable deposit to run for the presidency;
• The boycott of the elections by the major opposition party in the Congo for the past two decades;
• The murder of journalists Bapuwa Mwamba and Franck Ngyke Kangundu who wrote articles critical of the government and the imprisonment of Patrice Booto, managing editor of the "Le Journal" for “offending the head of state” and “insulting the government”;
• The expulsion of journalist Ghislaine Dupont of Radio France International;
• The call by 19 of the 33 candidates to delay the elections until the irregularities are addressed;
• Intimidation and beating of candidates;
• The lack of sufficient support both by the CEI and CIAT for a consensus among political players before the July 30th elections, which would have increased the chances of whoever is elected being legitimate;
• The scathing Carter Center report about the irregularities in the electoral process.

Whether the elections are fixed or not, one thing is clear, palpable and widely believed among Congolese both inside and outside of the country; should Kabila win, especially in the first round, the country will almost certainly become ungovernable and possibly slide back into conflict. Among the Congolese, there is almost no doubt that the international community wants Kabila to continue to rule the Congo; from alleged statements by Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, stating that Kabila has the right vision for the Congo to the mining company moguls praising Kabila for bringing “stability” to the Congo and creating an environment for investment.

At this stage, no attempts to delay or stall the vote on July 30th will be tolerated by the international community. With an annual budget of over $1 billion dollars and at least $400 million invested in the electoral process, it has too much at stake to allow any delays even if it were in the best interest of the Congolese people.

Many Congolese are clear about what is at hand (see Dr. Nzongola-Ntalaja’s Interview), the international community has not spent over $4 billion so the Congolese can elect a leader of their choice. One would have to be ignorant of history or devoid of any understanding whatsoever as to how great powers operate in order to entertain such fanciful thoughts. great powers (U.S. Belgium, France, and Great Britain for example) operate in their interests, which they call realpoliti k. The status quo in the Congo whereby major foreign companies (George Forrest International, Kinross Gold Corporation, First Quantum Minerals, Katanga Mining, BHP Billiton, Phelps Dodge, AngloG old Ashanti and others) have unfettered access to the Congo’s resources (copper, cobalt, coltan, gold, diamonds, casseterite, timber, etc) for generations to come is in the interest of the Great powers. The challenge for the Congolese is to organize themselves so that they will not be victims of Great powers or for that matter, lesser powers such as Uganda and Rwanda, nations that have the blood of millions of Congolese on their hands. For the West, the Congo is a geo-strategic game but for the Congolese it is a matter of “life and death” as the Catholic Church astutely stated.

The key question that remains is, will the international community be successful in imposing its will on the Congolese people and legitimize a client regime or will the Congolese political class and the masses of Congolese be able to play deftly the terrible hand they have been dealt and somehow determine and shape their destiny, in spite of the colossal forces aligned against them?

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