The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) organized for three days, from May 30 to June 2, 2023, a consultation framework with the Superior Council of the Judiciary, in the presence of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The objective of these exchanges was to work on the various themes related to electoral disputes in order to stimulate a methodical and practical debate to make the electoral legal framework more explicit.
During the very fruitful exchanges, the participants, made up of 48 legal experts from the CENI, 10 members of IFES and senior magistrates of the judiciary, worked on issues related to the types of electoral disputes and the electoral system, in particular the multi-member proportional system with application of the largest remainder. The legal practitioners of the Superior Council of the Judiciary have admitted that Congolese law regulates three types of electoral disputes, in particular the dispute of the electoral lists, the dispute of the candidatures and that of the results.
In addition, the exchanges exposed related in particular to the impossibility of the double degree of jurisdiction in matters of litigation of the candidatures, the constitution of a special chamber at the High Court, the inapplicability of the procedure of the instruction of the unconstitutionality in matters of electoral disputes and the impossibility for a political party to seek the replacement of an elected candidate by another.
In his closing speech, the 2nd Vice-President of the CENI, Didi Manara Linga, stressed that the management of electoral disputes is very decisive for the elections and that the Congolese legislator wanted the CENI, which organizes the elections, to ‘announces only the provisional results, leaving the final decision to the competent electoral jurisdictions that he has exhaustively listed. He also confirmed that this time, the minutes will be available for witnesses from political parties and groups.
The Deputy Country Director of IFES, Rino KAMIDI, reaffirmed his institution’s commitment to support the Central Electoral Office in its mission to organize the elections in 2023-2024, by continuing to explore ways and mechanisms to support the electoral process. in progress.
General elections are scheduled for December 20, 2023. Those of previous years have been strongly criticized, in particular because of the lack of transparency and the inaccessibility of the minutes of the various results after the vote.