Elections

November brings to an end Joseph Kabila’s first five-year term as President, so of course there will be elections. He’s had plenty of time to plan his campaign, and last year huge billboards went up proclaiming his success and showing the prestige projects that had been developed by him. Most of the billboards carried futuristic pictures of the new airport, and massive roads which have not been started. Then a new organisation was announced: The Friends of Joseph Kabila which held rallies in his praise all over the country. Now, even though officially electioneering has not started, things are hotting up.

The politics of the DRC are crazy. A huge number of parties have registered for the election, and even in the current parliament there are 70 parties represented, not to mention over 60 independents.

Elections here are a far cry from the gentlemanly affairs of Westminster: success means access to undreamed of riches, failure means relegation to the dump of has-beens. If the stakes are so high so are the measures taken to deal with opposition. Recently in Kinshasa, the main opposition party was to hold a rally at the national football stadium. It was well publicised, thus giving an opportunity for sabotage which was duly taken: the entrance gates to the stadium were welded closed. Luckily, the party got wind of the ruse, and was able to cut open the gates in time for the rally. But this is nothing: as things heat up we can expect harassment, arrests and even killings. It has already started in the East (where fighting has been going on since the Rwandan genocide). The agent of one of the parties was killed in cold blood in Bukavu last week. Villagers in that area are being warned by armed gangs about which way to vote. The warnings are not subtle: if you don’t vote for X you’ll all be killed. In Katanga – the would-be secessionist province – the President of the Provincial Assembly has been warning people that if they do not vote for Kabila they had “better get back to where they come from”. That this threat was made in Kolwezi, the site of a terrible massacre in 1978, may not be a coincidence.

More recently, people marched to the offices of the electoral commission in the centre of Kinshasa to submit a letter of complaints about the registration of voters. Grievances include some people having more than one voter’s registration card, children as young as ten years old being registered, and registration for Kinshasa being terminated before everyone has had a chance to get their card. They were met be a veritable army of riot police who battered and tear gassed them mercilessly. Many people were injured and one killed. “All we were doing was delivering a letter”, they pointed out. “In any normal country the post office would do it.”

On the political party front things are really hotting up. Coming back from work the other day we were passing the offices of Kabila’s party, which are in a large house standing in its own grounds. There was a huge crowd waiting outside the gate which, (luckily) before we reached it, surged around a departing large black car with dark-tinted windows, followed by Land Rovers filled with armed guards and policemen on motor bikes. A hand appeared from the back window and threw out pieces of paper. “What a bad example – throwing litter like that,” one thought.

How wrong can you be? Not litter at all: money.

The cars sped away leaving crowds going through a three-phase struggle. The first phase was to scrabble for the money on the ground, the second was to fight people who had grabbed more than you, and the third was to wander away in deep disgust and disappointment at the tiny spoils. The elector’s loss was, of course the politician’s gain. The largest note in the DRC is worth only $0.50 which allows politicians to seem incredibly generous by scattering dozens of notes while actually giving practically nothing.

On that occasion it was the Vice-Prime Minister, but the President is also very fond of this tactic. Three days later I saw something similar. People had been told where to wait, and before long there was a massive crowd standing ten deep on the roadside in the hot sun. We missed the moment when he arrived, but our driver found the whole thing ludicrous. Make no mistake. They weren’t desperate to catch a glimpse of a much-loved leader: they were waiting for the money.

It made me recall a time in Kenya when we happened to find ourselves behind President Moi’s motorcade as we drove through the rift valley. He liked to appear to be a man of the people by driving in a VW Kombi, and wearing a golf shirt and trainers. Wherever he saw people, the procession would stop. He would get out, shake hands and say a few words, following which a minion would be instructed to bring gifts from the Kombi, which Moi gave to his admirers before speeding on his way.

We were intrigued, and stopped to ask the lucky recipients what they had been given. Interestingly enough the value was not that different from what Kabila gives: a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum. The difference was that Moi gave them out personally and I expect that many of those packets were treasured.

Kabila has already announced his slogan for the election, which is something like “You’ll get more of the same”. He probably thinks that thanks to the new roads and the occasional rehabilitated public building people will give him an enormous Obama-like “Yes, we can” affirmation of support. What he possibly hasn’t grasped is that for most people things haven’t changed at all, and for many they are worse.