Legislative elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo are always a crucial moment in the political life of the country. And this year is no exception. The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) recently made public the provisional list of candidates declared admissible and inadmissible for national deputies.
Of the 28,791 applications received, the CENI declared 24,295 compliant. Of these, 23,653 are admissible and 642 are inadmissible. It is interesting to note that among the eligible applications, 83% are men and 17% are women. It is therefore clear that gender parity has not yet been achieved in Congolese politics.
The candidacies are distributed as follows: 155 independents, 3,785 presented by political parties and 19,713 from political groupings. Those inadmissible were disqualified due to multiple candidacies or non-compliance with the eligibility conditions established by the Constitution and the Electoral Law.
It is important to emphasize that political parties, political groupings and independent candidates have the possibility of contesting the validity of candidacies before the Constitutional Court within 5 days after the publication of the provisional list. The Constitutional Court then has 10 working days to rule on the disputes.
The next stage of the electoral process is the filing and processing of appeals challenging the lists of candidates, which will take place from August 11 to 28, 2023. The judgments of the Constitutional Court will then be notified to the CENI from August 29 to 31, before that the CENI take these decisions into account from September 1 to September. Finally, on September 5, the CENI will publish the final list of national deputies candidates.
For more transparency, the CENI will make the provisional lists of national deputies candidates available in the Provincial Executive Secretariats and the Antennas, as well as on their official website.
The legislative elections in the DRC are a major challenge for the country and for democracy. It is essential that the electoral process takes place in a fair and transparent manner, in order to guarantee the representativeness and legitimacy of future national deputies. We therefore hope that this crucial step will take place in accordance with democratic principles