The Catastrophist

Hurrah! The elections are over and as far as I know there has been no major security incident.

From where I was, I observed many, many irregularities – if you apply strict, Western criteria. But none of it was deliberate, none of it was devious or calculating. It was just the natural consequence of the reality on the ground – in the mountain villages around Goma, most voters did not know how to read or mark their paper with an X. So in desperation, the electoral officers chose the twin principles of fairness and transparency over that of secrecy, and in front of political party witnesses and observers, asked people who they wanted to vote for and marked the ballot for them. Most voters did not know how to read or write, but they definitely knew who they wanted to vote for: Kabila, Kabila, number 7, Kabila. In fact, the only confusion arose when it came to choosing the candidate for the National Assembly: “But you can’t vote for Kabila, Sir, he’s a presidential candidate.” “Kabila.” “But Sir, you really can’t vote for Kabila for the National Assembly.”

It is quite clear what the result will be in North Kivu where I write from today: a landslide victory for Kabila. As I went from one polling station to another during the counting, the voices resonated in the dark, empty corridors of the schools they were using: “Numéro Sept”, “Numéro Sept.” In the polling station where I was, out of 407 votes only 21 votes were not for Kabila, 18 of which were void. The same is probably true of South Kivu, Province Orientale, Katanga. But in the West, the rumours are that the opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba is way ahead of Kabila. Now this is a problem.

Last night, I went to sleep basking in the excitement of a wildly successful, historical election, the start of a new era for DRC. This morning I woke up to more sobering thoughts: Could this mark the start of a new war? If Kabila gets elected after the first round thanks to this landslide victory in the east, will Kinshasa accept the result? Will Bemba lie low and accept defeat? Or is the stark contrast between voting in the east and voting in the west going to divide the country once again?

When I was a child, my mother used to call me Madame Catastrophe because I so enjoyed finding the dramatic side to every event. So I try to brush away any thoughts of impending gloom and go back to enjoying yesterday’s indisputable triumph. Bravo, Congo!