The National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) have pointed out the Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) as one of the reasons for the various irregularities that affected the 2023 General Elections.
Bishops of the CENCO held a two day workshop to evaluate the electoral process which was marred by several irregularities.
The CENCO noted that the chaos that characterized the elections was partly due to the obstinacy of the CENI who organized the elections by defiance thereby violating the national legal framework and electoral administration.
“After the preliminary declaration of the MOE CENCO-ECC, we subsequently discovered an impressive number of parallel votes with voting machines found in private homes. Some people wonder whether there is had not planned somewhere at the level of the organizing power” CENCO’s statement reads.
“The ease with which electronic voting devices (DEV) and rolls of ballot papers found themselves almost everywhere in the hands of individuals, surprises more than one. The CENI should question her role in this imbroglio, because it is she who has exclusive control of all these machines and she has never complained of any theft of her equipment.”
Furthermore, the bishops of CENCO wondered why the CENI has not acceded to the request for the establishment of a joint and independent commission for investigations.
“For what reasons? She arranged by positioning herself as judge and party to invalidate 82 candidates. She announced a second list of invalidates, which has still not been published. This opacity of the CENI seems to us a logical continuation cases previously observed, in particular the cases of registration kits found in the hands of individuals for which the CENI refused the Consultation Framework requested to clarify things, fictitious Registration centers for which we had no explanation , the refusal of an independent audit of the electoral register, etc” the statement reads.
Despite the various anomalies and acts of fraud that characterized the polls, the Congolese Constitutional Court confirmed the results of the CENI to proclaim incumbent Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi as president with a 73.47% margin of the votes cast.
