1) Dollar plummets against Congolese Franc; 2) Row over phantom polling stations; and 3) Small tribal war in "Chine"

1) Dollar plummets against Congolese Franc


Electoral campaigns have been ravenously gobbling up Congolese Francs--what with MP candidates rounding up passersby in the streets of their constituencies and handing them money and other crazy expenses related to their campaigns (buying beers to bar patrons, distributing.t-shirts, campaign flyers, etc.).

This has resulted in the Congo Democratic Franc (CDF) turning into a hot commodity for "cambistes" (street money changers) and Asian & Chinese shopkeepers. Shopkeepers are shunning these days the dollar, Congo's de facto default currency, preferring to be paid--unbelievably--in hard Congolese currency!

Three days ago, $1 sold for CDF 910 to CDF 920. Yesterday, it went from CDF 870 in the morning down to CDF 850 in the evening. By midday today, the dollar had plummetted to a paltry CDF 800,

This downward spiral of the dollar is hitting poor households pretty bad as merchants have raised prices of basic commodities to shift the burden of their losses to consumers.

"I've never seen something like this," a cambiste whose profits were halved in the past three days told me. "It's going down by the minute. We've already hit the dollar rate of 3 years ago. And if it keeps up the same pace, by the week's end we'd get down to the dollar rate of 5 years ago, which was 400 to 500 Congolese Francs."

But he added that this was hopefully a temporary hectic and articial situation that would correct itself soon after the end of the electoral campaigns.

2) Row over phanton polling stations

The electoral commission is in the midst of yet another controversy, this time over the discovery of phantom polling stations in the "cartography" of polling stations CENI recently published. Some opposition groups and journalists have given CENI Chair Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunda 72 hours (commencing yesterday) to come up with a coherent explanation for those phantom polling stations.  Pro-opposition RLTV, which is airing again after a short ban stemming from the infamous phone interview with Tshisekedi in which the UDPS leader proclaimed himself DRC president, gave evidence of a half-dozen of those phantom polling stations in Kinshasa alone, including bars and private residences whose occupants were flabbergasted to find out that their homes were listed as polling stations, and there was even one instance where CENI cartography gave the address of a polling station on a non-existent street in the Bumbu Commune.

RLTV is demanding that CENI show them voters registered at those phantom polling stations. It also speculated that there might be hundreds of those phantom polling stations countrywide.

Some opposition leaders don't mince words and claim that they've just uncovered a vast vote rigging operations. As can be expected, the ever restive grapevine of Radio-Trottoir has gone wild over this report, adding some unsavory spice to it--like the rumor that more than 3 million pro-Kabila phantom votes already stuffed into ballot boxes at the manufacturer in South Africa.

Well, the explanation of these phantom polling stations may not be nefarious. According to Kinshasa pro-Kabila daily L'Avenir, CENI technicians might have been doing a "copy and paste" job on the 2006 electoral cartography instead of doing the new cartography based on voters' registration stations where voters were actually registered. This new glitch could fizzle out when Mulunda will hold his next press briefing or it could be seized by UDPS Secretary General Jacquemain Shabani to launch another wave of demos in Kinshasa. (Though sanctioned a few days ago by his own party for "gross misconduct," Shabani remains active as UDPS secretary general and its spearhead.)

3)  Small tribal war "Chine"

Tshangu is Kinshasa eastern electoral constituency comprising some of the most populous communes of the Congolese capital--namely Kimbaseke, Kingasani, Masina, and N'Djili. Due to the huge mass of people living in the area, Tshangu has long been dubbed "Chine" (China) by the Kinois.

Most "Chine" dwellers are from Bandundu Province. Now, as it turns out, Bandundu is the stronghold of "Patriarch" Antoine Gizenga's Parti Lumumbiste Unifié (PALU), the oldest and arguably the best organized Congolese political party. PALU is part of the political coalition in government (Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito is a member of PALU).

As a matter-of-fact, PALU may actually be the only political party where dues are mandatory to members. What's more, it is the only political party to have freely contributed to Joseph Kabila's campaign war chest, to the tune of... $500,000!

However, PALU.members are reputed to behave like sect members--blindly toeing the party line. A pack mentality, as it were. These past few days, violent small packs of young PALU members are roaming the streets of "Chine" in an attempt to interdict UDPS and other anti-Kabila forces from campaigning in Tshangu. So far, a half-dozen pro-Tshisekedi supporters have been grieviously wounded by PALU members. As most pro-Tshisekedi supporters and UDPS partisans are members of the Luba ethnic group, this spate of violence in "Chine"  has the hallmark of a small tribal war...