Missive from the Congo 005

Originally posted on Mon, 20 Nov 2006 06:11:55 +0000 (GMT)

This week’s event was the announcement of the presidential electoral results. The results of the vote were widely expected to be announced on Sunday 19 November. However, because the counting process went more quickly than planned and because false results were being released by various sources, the electoral commission decided to release the results early. The results were announced Wednesday evening. By the time the results were announced, the winner was pretty much already known as partial results were being released as they became available. The interim President, Joseph Kabila, beat Jean-Pierre Bemba 58.05% to 41.95%. A fairly significant victory. Unfortunately, the vote highlighted the polarization of the country with East voting massively for Kabila and the West supporting Bemba. A result that should be familiar to most Canadians.

The official announcement resulted in dancing and singing in the streets here in Kisangani, literally. You could hear cheering from all quarters of the city. From my driveway, you can see avenue 30 Juin, which is a main street leading to the downtown core. You could see hundreds of people running up and down the street. People were going by, honking their horns, jumping and shouting and generally celebrating the victory. Remarkably there were no reports of violence or vandalism. There was also, apparently, a lot of nudity. As the evening progressed, people disrobed, a typical occurrence during significant celebrations I’m told. I initially regretted my decision to stay home and out of trouble but was subsequently informed that the bulk of the naked people were men. So apparently I didn’t miss much, or at least I didn’t miss anything of interest to me. The pictures below were taken by on of the Public Information Officers (UN reporters). He is black and as such fit in to the crowd much better than a “mosungu” (white man in Swahili) ever could.

Unfortunately, the losing candidate has rejected the results of the election. He claims there were several “irregularities” and that he actually got 52% of the vote. He intends to contest the results by all available legal means. As long as they stick to legal means they can contest as much as they want. The results will stick as the election was scrupulously fair. But we’ll see. In any event, things are quiet for now and I expect they will stay that way for some time to come.


Have a good week.


John