Corneille Nangaa, outgoing chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Céni), presented the general report on the election process for national deputies on Friday. This report covers the period 2012-2019. He also gave his opinion on the thorny issue of election reforms that feed Congolese news. He returned in particular to the local elections and the organization of Ceni.
as reported from Kinshasa, Patient Ligodi
Congolese law provides for 11 types of votes, including 6 at local level, which have never been organized since 2006. The Congolese authorities have always presented the budgetary argument to justify this situation. Ceni also considers their costs to be unaffordable.
The support of more than 11,000 elected officials and 734 municipal councils, more than 300 municipal councils and 32 city councils stemming from these elections has never been planned.
To remedy this anomaly, Corneille Nangaa proposes to maintain local elections but to return decentralized territorial units to the level of existing territories. This would reduce the number of tips and provide a huge budget benefit for the public purse. Otherwise, he proposes to decide on a moratorium on these elections for a reasonable period to be determined.
The second important reform concerns the election of senators and governors. Until then, the latter were elected by the province’s deputies. In particular, the small size of voters encouraged corruption and threatening voters. As a solution, Corneille Nangaa suggested to the deputies to consider expanding the electoral base.
Several questions remained unanswered, including whether or not to return from the second round of the presidential election and to maintain the threshold for representativeness in the presidential and legislative elections.
Corneille Nangaa will return in 48 hours to answer hundreds of questions from elected officials.
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