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| Léon Kengo wa Dondo, President of the Senate (Radio Okapi) |
On August 11 the Congolese senate passed a law apportioning
seats for the upcoming local elections. It was a technical law, ascribing seats
for local councils (conseil municipaux,
conseil de communes, conseil de chefferie/secteur) based on the population.
There were a bunch of important, technical controversies linked to the lack of
reliable demographic data. In addition, the opposition protested that the
senate could not hold two extraordinary sessions on the same issue––the same
law had been rejected two weeks earlier due to a lack of quorum.
But the real controversy is not that. The forcing through of
the law shows the Congolese government’s determination to hold local elections,
currently scheduled for 25 October 2015, before the presidential and national
parliamentary elections. This will almost inevitably delay the electoral
process, as the local elections are more complicated than any other before, and
the logistics and finances are simply not in place. As a result, President
Kabila will remain as president past his constitutional limit of December 2016,
potentially triggering a political crisis.
Although this calendar has been in place since February 2015,
things could have turned out differently. For the past several months, Kabila
has been holding discussions with a wide variety of actors––opposition parties,
religious and customary leaders, and members of his own ruling majority. These
discussions, which have flagged off over the past month, were supposed to
prepare the ground for a national dialogue. Time and again, the president’s
interlocutors said that the result of that dialogue should be the postponing of
local elections until 2017, so that the president and national assembly can be
elected on time. That was the message given by the Catholic Church, a variety
of opposition parties, and even a dissident wing––the so-called Group of 7 (here and here)––of
his presidential majority.
But the senate vote makes it fairly clear that the president
has chosen otherwise. The first time the law came up for a vote in the
senate––it had been passed by the national assembly––the chamber failed to
muster a quorum, with only 47 of the 108 senators supporting the bill and only
49 voting. Only XXX later, the exact same bill was put forward and there was a
unanimous vote: all 77 senators present voted in favor.
It is reasonable to assume that the difference between first
and the second vote––between 49 and 77 senators––was the result of extensive
pressure and possibly vote-buying, and that is what some senators are now
reporting in private. Even members of the dissident G7 faction are rumored to
have voted in favor of the law. It is unlikely that the presidency would have
deployed such efforts if it had not decided to double down on local elections.
And yet, there has been little reaction from the usual
quarters. As mentioned, opposition leaders voiced procedural complaints, saying
that it is unconstitutional to convoke two extraordinary sessions on the same
issue. Others have called for international mediation of a national dialogue.
But there have been no street protests and little explicit international
condemnation. Compare that with January, when another delaying tactic was put
before parliament: the holding of a national census before the presidential
elections. That law was amended following bloody street protests and the
mobilization of members of the ruling coalition and opposition against the
bill. This time there is little sign of that sort of protest.
One difference has been the attitude of senate president
Kengo wa Dondo, who played a key role in January but this time was in favor of
the law. The international community has also been relatively quiet recently, due
to the absence of a US Special Envoy for several months and the attention of
many countries on the crisis in Burundi.
Of course, it is not too late for local elections to be
postponed. And even if they are maintained––and even if the creation of new provinces
goes forward as planned––President Kabila may only gain an additional year or
two in power. But at the moment, it does not seem that anyone is operating
based on a longer time frame than that. Checkers, not chess.
1) Why stick with the term that the law was "rejected" when only one senator voted against the first time?
ReplyDelete2) Those people in the senate have been elected by the money they had, or other people gave them, in 2007. They are still there in 2015. Why exclude that the 29 people who were absent or who abstained at the first vote, were bought or inspired by other forces who want to impose the agenda that is also openly supported by the USA-government and the European Union? Its to say to postpone the local elections and give priority to the presidential elections.
3) Why exclude the possibility that some of those 29 senators were not present at the first vote for practical reasons, maybe trusting that there colleagues would vote for the law anyway?
4) Why not even mention the possibility that some people who were absent or abstained at the first vote, did so, because they want to stay senator as long as possible and they do not like the perspective of local elections who will lead to elections of new senators?
5) When one sees the imbroglio at the Majorité Présidentielle in passed months, with changing positions and even openly contradictory positions, why assume that "extensive pressure or vote-buying" was done by the presidency and exclude that people in the MP who disagree with each other could have had heated and intense discussions among themselves?
6) And finally: why avoid the question witch policy would be supported by the choice to postpone local elections after presidential elections?