Congo Postpones Elections in Ebola-Hit Regions Until March

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral authority postponed Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections in three parts of the Central Africa country until March, citing an outbreak of Ebola, militia violence and inter-community clashes.

Opposition politicians denounced the delay as politically motivated, effectively disenfranchising the almost 1.2 million voters in the regions, which are known as strongholds of the current president’s critics, because the presidential outcome will be announced before those votes are even cast.

The election commission cited the Ebola outbreak and frequent attacks by militias in its decision to put off the vote in Butembo and Beni in the east, as well as the rural area surrounding Beni. Polls in the western district of Yumbi, where more than 100 people were killed in inter-community violence last week, will also be delayed, the National Independent Electoral Commission said Wednesday.

The delay means the votes in those regions won’t contribute to picking the new president because the elections will go ahead in the rest of the country on Dec. 30 as planned. Results for the presidential vote will be announced on Jan. 15 and the next head of state will take the oath of office three days later, the commission said. There are about 40 million registered voters nationwide.

Incumbent’s Choice

Government opponents said the delay was designed to suppress opposition votes in areas hostile to outgoing President Joseph Kabila and his chosen candidate Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary.

“It’s the Kabila regime which is doing this,” Jaribu Muliwavyo, an opposition lawmaker from Beni, said by phone, pointing out that election campaigning was able to take place in the region. “It’s a political decision to exclude a category of the population which doesn’t agree with the head of state,” he said.

Shadary, a former interior minister, is facing two major challengers. Felix Tshisekedi is the leader of Congo’s largest opposition party while Martin Fayulu heads an alliance backed by heavyweights Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi, who were been barred from pursuing their own presidential ambitions.

The polls were supposed to take place on Dec. 23 but were pushed back by a week after a fire on Dec. 13 in the capital, Kinshasa, which the authorities said destroyed election materials. Elections were initially due in 2016 but not organized on time, allowing Kabila to remain in office beyond the end of his second term, the maximum permitted by Congo’s constitution.

To contact the reporter on this story: William Clowes in Kinshasa at wclowes@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Gregory L. White, Larry Liebert

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