DRC Elections 2011 Watch: CENI Chairman Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda holds a live televised press briefing in Lingala

In the evening of Thursday, October 20, Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda, chair of the national independent electoral commission, held a live televised press briefing in Lingala in the conference hall of CENI headquarters on Boulevard du 30 Juin--a stone's throw from the US Kinshasa Embassy and Consulate.

Among the members of the press corps who interviewed Rev Mulunda was reporter Jules "Zulu" Bulembi of Jean-Pierre Bemba's "Canal Congo TV" (CCTV).

The questions included, besides a short autobiography Rev Mulunda was asked to sketch for the viewers, precise questions about the calendar of the elections; the contentious issues of the lower number of registered voters in Kinshasa as compared to Katanga Province; the access to CENI's central server and the "cartography" of the 62,000 countrywide polling stations (issues over which UDPS continues to hold weekly demos); the registration of minors, security forces personnel and foreigners; as well as the last minute change in outsourcing the production of ballot boxes from Germany to China and the staggering electoral budget of more than $1b.

Rev Mulunda explained that CEI (Commission Electorale Indépendante), the now-defunct transitional body that had organized the 2006 elections had drawn an electoral calendar based on the "uncoupling" of legislative and presidential elections--with the latter to be held this year, whereas the former in January 2012. This calendar was being debated in November of last year in Lubumbashi by the members of the newly-appointed electoral body and CENI experts when calls issuing from the electoral class in Kinshasa made perfectly clear that politicos were rejecting flat out any notion of "uncoupling" presidential and legistative elections.

Upon their return to Kinshasa, CENI board members made the round of various leaders' residences and headquarters (including UDPS' Etienne Tshisekedi's and PALU's Antoine Gizenga's). All these leaders were unanimous in their rejection of the uncoupling of the legislative and presidential elections, arguing for instance that beyond December 6, the incumbent would have exceeded his constitutional mandate.

Fortunately, CENI experts had developed a "Plan-B" for "coupling" both elections. And this plan was the new calendar CENI announced in April. But by "throwing a rope around our neck," Rev Mulunda argued, the politicians weren't really expecting to see CENI pull off this challenge. Politicians' glaring unpreparedness was evinced in the way they only filed their candidacies in mass numbers at the last minute. This unpreparedness also showed in the unprofessional presentation of a large number of dossiers--as if some MP candidates were "asleep over their computer keyboards" while writing them!  Rev Mulunda revealed that he even violated the law "for the sake of national concord" so as to accomodate UDPS MP candidates, most of whom filed their candidacies past the legal deadline!

Rev insisted on several occasions in the interview that CENI is prepared and ready to organize general elections on November 28.

As regards the illegal registration of minors, security forces personnel, and even in some instances foreign nationals, Rev Mulunda said he'd be a liar and a crook if he were to deny that such irregularities did take place. But he said that political parties, who failed to deploy observers in 99% of the 10,000 registration stations, shared the blame. Besides, as the electoral registers were immediately posted in front of the registration stations, it was up to local communities, who knew their members, to denounce fraudsters to local authorities. Even then, these irregularities were minimal. (This claim of list posting is strange as what was actually posted was the tally of registered voters; but there were no follow-up questions.) For example, in cases of irregularities denounced by the opposition in Kalemie and Manono in Katanga, an investigative team comprising MONUSCO, Radio Okapi, UNICEF and the Congolese police went in and reported back that there was nothing to substantiate those irregularities.

Regarding the higher number of registered voters in Katanga Province in comparison with the lower number of them in the city-province of Kinshasa, Rev Mulunda directed the journos to look at the 2006 registration numbers as initial reference. As a matter-of-fact, in 2006, Katanga had 3,500,000 registered voters, and Kinshasa 2,900,000. What's more, at the start of the revision of the electoral register, Rev Mulunda and CENI met with 700 Kinshasa leaders (from governor, provincial ministers, down to quarters' chieftains) to urge them to motivate citizens in their respective constiuencies to register to vote. Unfortunately, said Rev Mulunda, Kinshasa authorities didn't campaign for voters' registration. Worse, they even impeded it by charging, for instance, 1,000 Congolese Francs for IDs needed for registration! By contrast, in Katanga and in Equateur (the second highest ranking province in number of voters registered), politicians across the political spectrum vigorously campaigned to maximize their constituents' participation in voters' registration. The city-province of Kinshasa has therefore its own politicians to blame for the lower number of registered voters than Katanga Province.

Rev Mulunda said that he was baffled by UDPS leaders' insistence to access CENI's central server, which, after voters' registration and the clean-out of the register, has pretty much turned into an empty shell: votes will be manually tallied and results immediately posted at each polling station. These results will then be compiled by provincial centers, which in turn will send them to CENI Kinshasa headquarters.

Be that as it may, said Rev Mulunda, CENI can open its central server to political parties--again in violation of the law that has the electoral commission as an independent body. CENI has however laid down a number of conditions for this access to its central server. Chief among those was that politicians from both the opposition and the ruling majority have to work within a "framework of consultation" comprising 5 representatives from each camp. Rev Mulunda was mystified to see that only UDPS politicians, including Valentin Mubake (Tshisekedi's political advisor)--and not the opposition's IT experts--are on the opposition list of auditors of CENI. As the opposition and the ruling majority have failed to come together within this "framework of consultation," Rev Mulunda rules out opening the central server to just one political group.

UDPS leaders have also been vocal in their demand for the publication by CENI of the "cartography" of polling stations, that is, their precise location. Rev Mulunda said that more than 140 scouting missions were deployed nationwide by CENI to identify locations for the 62,000 polling stations--schools, government buildings, or grounds where tents could be set up, etc. These scouting missions started returning this past week, and CENI technicians are working to design the polling stations' "cartography," which will soon be published. Rev Mulunda also revealed that when this mapping work will be completed, the "cartography" will have the following mobile phone interactive component: by sending an SMS with a voter's registration number, the location of the polling station will automatically be obtained.

Rev Mulunda also defused the controversy that erupted recently over the outsourcing of the production of ballot boxes from Germany to China. Some politicians and analysts (some, like the daily L'Avenir, close to pro-Kabila political coalition) feared that this change of production venue this late in the game could mean that the elections could be postponed.

Rev Mulunda forcefully repeated that elections will be held on November 28 and that the production of ballot boxes was being carried out according to plan and schedule.

He explained that CENI needs 3 ballot boxes for each one of the 62,000 polling stations--that is 186,000 ballot boxes. This means that the contractor has to produce between 800 and 900 ballot boxes a day.

At the outset, CENI wanted to award this contract to a local company. CENI thus initiated talks with the Kinshasa-based company "Plastica" that produces plastic chairs and other plastic appliances. But five days after this initial contact, "Plastica" went back to CENI to turn down the offer due to the company's inability to produce that number of ballot boxes within the required time frame.

CENI then went shopping for a contractor, first in Nairobi, then finally to South Africa, where it found a company able to produce that number of ballot boxes. The South African contractor has a German partner who can produce ballot boxes according to CENI and international standards. But producing that great number of ballot boxes on such short notice means working around the clock even on weekends--which is a non-starter in a European Union country where labor regulations are stringent. CENI's South African contractor had therefore to find a reliable subcontractor in China, where labor regulations are quasi nonexistent. Ballot boxes will soon arrive and be deployed countrywide.

Rev Mulunda reassured his interviewers and the viewers that CENI has secured its budget for this electoral cycle: 2 billion and 100,000 dollars. But this money is by no means to be solely consumed by the November general elections, whose budget is around $251m (I wonder whether Rev Mulunda was also factoring in MONUSCO's logistical contribution). The remaining money in the budget will fund provincial and local elections slated for 2012 and 2013.

Rev Mulunda was finally asked why CENI has recently upgraded its headquarters with iron fences and concertina, turning it into a fortress. He said that CENI is and should be an "inviolable institution." But at the start of UDPS demos in July, gas cans and Molotov cocktails were found in trash bins inside CENI headquarters. "You can't control masses," he claimed he'd warned UDPS leaders. CENI board members had accepted to serve their country but not to be its martyrs, he pleaded. "We do want to be alive" at the end of the process, he added in order to justify the security upgrade at CENI heaquarters.