Pitched battle on the streets of Kinshasa, ahead of a controversial election
Source: AP, via Yahoo! News

Ahead of Congo’s first democratic election in 45 years on Sunday, street battles are engulfing the capital of Kinshasa.

At issue is electoral fraud. And the indifference of the international community, which, having spent $400 million for supposedly free and fair elections in its most complex election ever, just wants to hold the thing, get it over with, pull up stakes, and get the heck out.

Opposition leaders to Congo’s incumbent Laurent Kabila regime say not so fast.

Congo’s authorities have overprinted ballots, a surefire prerequisite for stuffing the ballot boxes if the results just don’t quite seem to go the way the incumbent party wants. Another problem is missing voter registration details, something that ensures that no one can check out whether certain voters exist. All of this is groundwork for fraud, which Congo’s 25.5 million distrustful voters, having experienced this sort of thing, are pretty sure is likely to be going on right now.

The Catholic Church, which over half of the 40 million Congolese citizens belong to, has warned voters not to bother with this one, because they see a lot of flaws that need to be fixed first.

But the United Nations, which is organizing the election, has brushed off the voter concerns and told Congolese to just shut up and vote. That indifference, and the refusal of the Kabila regime to inspire any confidence, has turned the once-high hopes of Congo’s voters into a pit of despair. Even today, as pitched battles rage in the streets, a top UN officials travelling to Kinshasa, says he’s not all that worried about anything ahead of Sunday. Pitched battles? Ho hum.

And Congo is a land of despair. A foreign-correspondent friend who went there in 2000 told me the degree of fear and paranoia on this poor country was matched only by that which is found in today’s Cuba. Four million people have died in Congo’s 1998-2003 civil war, making it the world’s deadliest.

Now, this rapidly failing election is threatening to reignite it. Keep an eye on this story.

Congo’s security forces chase opposition children protesting electoral fraud
Source: AP, via Yahoo! News

Global Voices has a link to the UDPS opposition party Web site, detailing protests, in French, here.