The Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral authority on Thursday announced that improved security in the restive Kasai region had enabled preparations for the delayed election to replace President Joseph Kabila to continue, though the poll may not still happen before the year-end deadline.
Kabila’s mandate ended in December last year, though failure to conduct an election meant he stayed on as president.
The electoral authority said it could not hold the vote then due to logistical challenges and that it needed more time to ensure every eligible voter registered for the election.
The country’s opposition however denounced the move, saying it was President Kabila’s plot to cling on to power beyond his constitutionally allowed mandate.
The conflict in the Kasai region is now reported to have subsided a little, with fewer reports of unrest.
“We’ve seen that security has returned,” Reuters reports election commission head Corneille Nangaa to have said in an interview in the capital of Kasai-Central province, Kananga, a town of dirt roads and iron-roofed buildings surrounded by thick bush and palm trees.
“The question of enrolling voters is nearly behind us,” he added.
Earlier this month, Nangaa said that the vote would probably not be possible this year due to delays registering voters, particularly in Kasai.
The war in that region has killed more than 3,000 people since August last year and forced 1.4 million people to flee their homes.
The United Nations earlier this week named three international experts to investigate atrocities in the Kasai region, some of which have involved government troops.
