Photo:  G. Dubourthoumieu/The Carter Center
A Congolese woman casts her vote in a polling station in Kinshasa on Nov. 28, 2011. The Democratic Republic of the Congo held national elections Monday.

The challenges are many. The Independent National Election Commission (CENI) must deploy all materials on time to 63,000 polling stations across the country, many in remote, inaccessible places. Security is also a big issue. The national police force must keep the peace and guarantee safety in a very contentious environment.

“The stability of DRC is the stability of the subregion,” said Baya Kara, director of the Carter Center’s election observation mission. “This election is a test of the strength of democratic institutions and the impartiality of CENI; it is important for us to be witness.”

Photo:  G. Dubourthoumieu/The Carter Center
A Congolese man talks with Carter Center delegation leader and former president of Zambia Rupiah Banda (L) in front of a polling station in Kinshasa on Nov. 28, 2011. The Democratic Republic of the Congo held national elections Monday under a cloud of violence after clashes on the final day of campaigning left at least two people dead.

Twenty Carter Center long-term observers have been deployed since August, and they are now joined by others to form a 70-person delegation to observe the polling and counting processes. The group is co-led by former Zambia President Rupiah Banda and Carter Center Vice President for Peace Programs John Stremlau.

To cover the most ground in a country the size of Western Europe, the Center is also supporting the deployment of more than 6,000 domestic observers. This partnership will allow observers to deploy to the furthest corners of the DRC and reach even the most inaccessible areas, and will also enhance the Center’s knowledge and understanding of political context in a very complex country.

Photo:  L. Curtis/The Carter Center
Carter Center long-term observers face challenging road conditions in Kasai Occidental in October 2011.

“One of the most challenging aspects of our work is the logistics,” said Serge Tambwe Badibanga of the domestic observation group Réseau National pour l’Observation et la Surveillance des Elections au Congo (National Network for the Observation and Monitoring of Elections in Congo).  “Some of our observers will travel for two days—by motorcycle, dugout canoes, and bicycle—to reach their polling stations.

Photo:  F. Afsharnia/The Carter Center
Lubakat men with grass skirts and painted faces dance in the streets in Katanga Province to support a presidential candidate in October 2011.

The Carter Center is committed to the long-term stability of the DRC. After observing the country’s 2006 elections, the Center remained engaged through the Human Rights House in Kinshasa to provide direct support to 154 Congolese NGO partners who work against child trafficking, shepherd victims of sexual and gender-based violence through the legal system, demand the transparent and equitable use of natural resources through mining policy reform, and promote electoral reform.

Photo:  G. Dubourthoumieu/The Carter Center
Congolese citizens look for their names on a list outside a polling station in Kinshasa on Nov. 28, 2011.

Quick facts:

DRC President Joseph Kabila’s biggest challenger in this election is opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress. Eleven candidates are running for  president.

DRC’s constitution no longer requires a candidate to gain more than 50 percent of the vote to win, so whoever receives the most votes on Nov. 28 is elected.

Ballots are each a bulging 56 pages; there are more than 18,000 candidates running for seats in the parliamentary elections.

There are 63,000 polling stations and polls will be open on election day from 7:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Read more:  Former Zambia President Rupiah Banda to Lead Carter Center Delegation to DRC’s Election (En anglais et en français)

Carter Center long-term observer Max Lockie is based in Matadi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The Center established an office in Kinshasa in August and deployed 10 long-term observers to seven  provinces: Kinshasa, Bas-Congo, Oriental Province, North Kivu, South Kivu, Katanga, and Kasai Oriental. In September, the Center deployed another 10 long-term observers to the remaining provinces.  They will be joined by an additional 40 observers to monitor events in the days before the Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections and the entire vote tabulation process.

Despite having studied French for six years in school, spending another year living in France, and taking six previous trips to Francophone Africa, my French vocabulary still can come up short.  In this instance, it was the word sourd-muet that left me smiling and nodding.  I overheard it in a meeting with officials in charge of voter education and civic engagement at the provincial office of the electoral commission.  Later in the car, I had to ask my perfectly trilingual colleague what our most recent interlocutors were talking about.  When she told me that we would be visiting a voter education seminar for the deaf, I didn’t know quite what to expect.

ALL PHOTOS:  M. Lockie/The Carter Center
Matadi, a hilly riverside town 350km west of Kinshasa, that serves as a provincial capital.  This billboard contains an image of the Pont Maréchal, which–with a length of 722 meters–is the longest suspension bridge on the African Continent.

There are a great many muggy Saturday afternoons in Matadi, the hilly riverside town 350km west of Kinshasa that serves as a provincial capital, but few that I will remember as clearly. We arrived in the general area that the elections official told us about and with the aid of our driver, made our way through a hilltop neighborhood away from the central downtown.  A dusty path led us to a basement classroom where the training was being held.  Upon entering the dark and narrow room, we could feel the eyes of the room fix on us–this is normal.  Matadi, and much of the Bas-Congo region, has an alarmingly low level of international partners working on the ground, and our presence almost always turns heads. What was different this time was that we didn’t hear the usual cries of “Mundele!” the Kikongo word for a white person, which follows us wherever we go.  Instead we simply waved, and 30 pairs of hands instantly popped up to greet us.

A deaf voter–one of 30 who participated–raises his hand to ask a question during a voter education seminar in October 2011. Trainers used flipbooks of illustrative animations to explain electoral elements such as voter eligibility, legal contentions after the vote, and how to mark a ballot.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), voter education is at once a crucial and enormous task.  The country occupies a landmass approximately the size of Western Europe, with much of the
population not easily accessible due to a lack of good roads.  This means most projects require cooperation at all levels, and today was no exception. The voter education session itself was organized by the electoral commission but conducted by Antenne de Formation a Distance (AFAD), a local group funded by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), an international body that funds electoral activities worldwide.

IFES had furnished AFAD with a flipbook of illustrative animations that covered the whole range of electoral elements  from voter eligibility to profiles of good candidates to legal contentions after the vote. A good while was also spent on the more technical aspects such as how one moves through the different desks in the polling station and the mechanics of marking a ballot.  There have been only three previous democratic exercises in recent years after 40 years of authoritarian rule in DRC, so no aspects of the democratic process can be omitted or taken for granted.

The voters were engaged every step of the way; asking questions, clarifying points, and often speaking amongst themselves to ensure mutual understanding of the material…all without saying a word.

An AFAD trainer presents IFES-developed voter education material with the aid of a sign language interpreter to his left.

As an international elections observer I meet with individuals, officials, and organizations focused on voter education every day.  Without fail they tell me about the low level of education of the general public, that many are illiterate, and voters are susceptible to charismatic politicians with big promises and trucks full of sugar, beer, and bread.  But on this day, my partner and I couldn’t help but feel that something was going right in the DRC as we watched those who literally have no voice gain the capacity to express themselves on election day.

Click image below to watch video.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, human rights activists often face intimidation and threats of violence, a situation expected to worsen as November 2011 national elections approach.

“I often get calls in the evening or at night from human rights defenders who have been threatened and who are scared,” said Sophie Borel, field office director for The Carter Center in DR Congo. “Last month, we had to hide one person in a safe location as he was too scared to go back to his house.”

The problem caught the world’s attention last June, when prominent Congolese activist Floribert Chebeya was murdered.

In the aftermath of that event, The Carter Center partnered with local Congolese NGOs to create an alert system for human rights defenders. If someone feels threatened, they send a message by phone, text, or e-mail to four of the 12 partner organizations, including the Center, and the groups convene to decide next steps.

“We will go to the defender’s house as a group and stay with them until the threat dies down,” said Borel. “The idea is that if we are more than one or two people around them, the threat will not be taken further. Not only do we provide support in terms of physical security, but the system also boosts the defenders’ morale; they know that both local groups and the international community are engaged and looking out for them.”

Center staff meet regularly with local partners to exchange information, analyze threats to defenders and journalists, and decide how best to minimize dangers faced.