DRC Elections 2011 Watch: 1) UDPS demo dispersed by riot cops; 2) Supreme Court of Justice dismisses UDPS petition against PPRD over a technicality; 3) ZETES rejects Jason Stearns’s fraud allegations but move shouldn’t cower observers into silence; and 4) US Kinshasa Embassy funds civil society’s website for phone tracking polls of presidential candidates

1) UDPS demo dispersed by riot cops

Another UDPS demo was dispersed with tear gas today—Thursday, October 6—by the riot police of the eastern precinct of Kinshasa. As per usual, UDPS members intended to march to CENI headquarters where their leaders intended to submit another memo on the still controversial subject of the access to CENI server and the audit of the electoral register.

2) Supreme Court of Justice dismisses UDPS petition against PPRD over a technicality.

In a controversial ruling rendered last night—Wednesday, October 5—the Supreme Court of Justice, siding with Public Prosecutor Kabwila Mavinga, rejected UPDS motion for the exclusion of PPRD MP candidates in some some constituencies  for that party stacking its lists.  The Supreme Court grounded its argument over a mere technicality: the motion wasn’t introduced within the legally allotted time for complaints of 4 days.

UDPS lawyers decried the ruling, claiming that the it showed the partiality of the Supreme Court of Justice and called on president Joseph Kabila to set up a Constitutional Court that should specifically deal with electoral matters. They also pointed out that they had filed their motion within the timeframe required by law: the provisional list was published on September 22, a day which shouldn’t count. Having filed their motion on September 27, UDPS lawyers assert they had filed their motion on time.

On its part, CENI says that the list of MPs it published on September 22 was a provisional list, which still needed to be cleared of errors, and therefore UDPS didn’t have a case to begin with.

3) ZETES rejects Jason Stearns’s fraud allegations but move shouldn’t cower observers into silence

Jason Stearns published on Tuesday, October 4, a post titled “Response by Zetes to allegations of fraud,” which gives the full text of Zetes to his suspicions of fraud in progress in the electoral register. Zetes is the Belgian company that won UNDP contract “for the creation of 10,000 kits for the identification and biometric enrolment of voters” as well as to “put together a team of 100 project managers and technicians to train 25,000 Congolese operators and technicians to be able to provide technical support during the registration phase.” Zetes had found and warned CENI over the now infamous “doublons” (duplicate registrations).

The argument of Zetes to reject Jason Stearns’s allegation is credible as it is steeped in sound statistical interpretation.  Though I agree with Zetes' explanations, I want to point out that this shouldn’t mean that Jason Stearns and other observers should be cowered into silence when they see matters of concern in the ongoing electoral cycle.

4) US Kinshasa Embassy funds civil society’s website for phone tracking polls of presidential candidates

It appears that the US Kinshasa Embassy is funding a new website called “Momekano” for phone tracking polls of presidential candidates. In an interview I monitored on the web portal of Radio Okapi , “Momekano”  director, Patrick Kabangiro Tafuta, said that the US Kinshasa will regularly publish the results of the tracking polls—though he didn’t specify the frequency of these publications. "Momekano" is a Lingala word which means competition or by extension election.