Civil society, elections, democratic governance, so many eminently important themes in the DRC. Indeed, many actors of change in the DRC believe that effective transformation cannot take place without popular sovereignty and democratic governance. This is how the AETA platform, intended to promote transparent and peaceful elections, opened a workshop for mobilization and citizen demands for the attention of civil society organizations such as trade unions, religious denominations and citizen movements. .
This workshop, which was held over two days, aimed to equip civil society organizations with mass mobilization strategies for the December 2023 elections. According to the permanent secretary of AETA, Jérôme Bonso, “our claims must relate to the electoral process, the financing of the elections, to what parliament has planned on the financing of the elections. This is why we want to equip the colleagues of the associative movements with the strategies of mass mobilization so that tomorrow we can claim certain things for the good of all”.
AETA has also defined its demands: a reliable and uncorrupted electoral file for the electoral lists, a distribution of seats respecting the legal and sociological specificities of each ballot, the mobilization of the electorate in proportion to each constituency according to the type of ballot , as well as the establishment of the legal arsenal required by the promulgation of the essential laws in relation to the elections.
It should be emphasized that the holding of a workshop of this kind several months before the electoral deadline demonstrates the will of civil society organizations to play their role as a counterweight to public authority. The elections, with symbolic value, must be a golden opportunity to renew the confidence of citizens in the country’s elective institutions. It remains to be seen whether civil society organizations will be able to implement the results of this workshop in order to achieve free and independent elections.