Going out with a bang?

What is 15 out of 1464, number 772 and page 29? It is the essential numbers relating to a parliamentary candidate. As it happens she works for me, but has decided that life as a member of the National Assembly would be more fun than being stuck behind a desk.

Maybe some interpretation of the numbers will help. 1462 is the number of candidates standing for parliament in the central constituency of Kinshasa. 15 is the number of seats allocated to that constituency. Because of the huge number of candidates, and the fact that each candidate is identified primarily by a colour photo, the voting papers are, in fact, books: the person I’m referring to has been given the number 772 to identify her, and appears on page 29 of the voting book.

This is partly explained by the fact that party politics mean very little. People don’t seem to like subjecting themselves to the party line or discipline, as a result of which there are over 70 parties in the current parliament. So it is each person for him- or herself.

What remains to be seen is how they will count the votes. It is hard to imagine how long it will take the enumerators to plough through the 50 or so pages to find each magic X. (Maybe they’ve got a system to overcome this problem, but we haven’t heard what it is.)

The official start of campaigning started last week: one month in advance of election day which is the 28^th November. Within hours the streets of Kinshasa had been transformed by banners, posters and billboards. Naturally, the incumbent President has the lion’s share: Everywhere you look there are 30, 40 or even 100 square metre ads for him. Some are hung on the sides of buildings – fully 5 (or even 10 in one case) storeys high. He has the advantage of huge resources, of course, and I would estimate that his ads outnumber his competitors by at least 500 to one. To have this amount of advertising, and mobilize the erection on so many sites within a matter of hours proves what huge resources have been put into his campaign. Dark stories are circulating about the pressure he has brought to bear on certain commercial interests to raise the funds. The television is much the same: his commercials showing happy prosperous people to the sound of popular music go on for several minutes and are repeated too frequently for anyone to be interested.

His campaign is a joke. Each poster has a theme, such as roads, railways, housing, agriculture etc. His somewhat smug picture sits at the bottom left. To his right there are three photos captioned “yesterday”, “today” and “tomorrow”. For example with boats, “yesterday” is represented by dugout canoes; “today” by small motor boats, and “tomorrow” by something that looks like a cruise liner. In the case of railways, "yesterday" is represented by a typical carriage: rusty, windowless and battered; "today" by a new carriage painted in the national colours of which there are about six in service, and “tomorrow” is represented by a bullet train. For the ordinary man in the street even the “today” pictures are a cruel travesty of the truth. Their life is still accurately reflected by the “yesterday” pictures.

He is rumoured to be quite scared that he will loose, and has organised support from the Rwandan army in case things go bad: news which has got people quite worried. People who were in Kinshasa during the last election in 1996 remember the battles which lasted a week between the armies of Kabila and his disgruntled competitor Bemba. It’s unlikely that this will happen again, as there is only one army these days, though there are many disaffected soldiers and the possibility of armed splinter groups is real. But when Rwanda soldiers were last active in the DRC they earned a nasty reputation for their atrocities.

Those responsible for our safety have been making plans to prepare for the worst for months. One Embassy has stocked enough food and tents to feed its fleeing citizens for at least a week. All spouses and children are being evacuated for a month, starting five days before election day. Non-essential staff are being encouraged to go on leave. Plans for emergency airlifts of the key staff have been finalized.

We are not involved in such dramatic plans, but have been given visas for Congo Brazzaville, so that we can slip over to the other side of the river if necessary. But we’ve been told that we must also be prepared for evacuation if matters get very bad. We’ve also been given instructions about how to prepare a safe haven within the house, which must be stocked with emergency supplies of food and water. We must have a grab bag containing passport, money and basic clothing with us in our safe room so that we can leave at a moment’s notice. Telephone tree systems for passing information, SMS and radio links to the embassy are tested to make sure that there are no communication problems.

It’s all quite exciting. I think it is very unlikely that the bomb will go up, but you never know. But if it does, what will happen to the dogs?