Following an unplanned poll extension that lasted a whole day, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) announced a few preliminary results from the general elections on Friday. This delay has caused several opposition candidates to express their displeasure and demand a repeat of the election.

There were just a few thousand votes in the Congolese diaspora, and the provisional results revealed that President Felix Tshisekedi had a substantial advantage over his opponents.

The results of the elections held within Congo by its approximately 44 million registered voters will be made public beginning on Saturday, according to the CENI electoral body.

During a news conference held in Kinshasa, the country’s capital, CENI President Denis Kadima once again refuted criticisms by the opposition and independent observers, who said that the prolonged vote had been chaotic and lacked legitimacy.

In Africa’s second-biggest country, the world’s third-largest copper producer, and the top producer of cobalt, a critical component in electric vehicle batteries, controversial elections have frequently generated unrest. In addition, the country is the world’s most significant producer of cobalt.

The presidential and legislative elections scheduled to take place on Wednesday were thrown off because of problems with the equipment and delays in the delivery of election kits. Additionally, it was challenging for people to find their names on the registers, and violent crimes in some areas disrupted the voting process.

Small-scale demonstrations took place on Friday in eastern Lubero territory, where a failure to provide voting materials to distant locations resulted in 17,000 people still being unable to cast their ballots. These demonstrations served to highlight the widespread nature of the delays. The voting will take place on Saturday, according to a spokesman for CENI for Lubero, who spoke with Reuters.

The Carter Center, a United States election monitoring organization, made its first comment on the election on Friday. They stated that “there was a lack of confidence in the process, stemming in part from previous elections as well as from gaps in transparency, especially regarding the voter register.”

The process of voting for specific candidates was prolonged until Thursday, which prompted five contenders for the opposition presidential nomination to demand a fresh election, arguing that the delay violated the Constitution.

The Congolese independent observer groups and the opposition have both stated that the voting process was conducted in a manner that might potentially damage the legitimacy of the results.

In Kinshasa, the CENI established a results center called Basolo, which translates to “truth” in the Lingala language. At this center, it is stated that the results from each polling station will be shared with the public as they are received. The opposition and members of civil society argue that the lack of transparency during the most recent elections made fraud possible, so they are making this fundamental demand.

The CENI has established a deadline of December 31 for publishing full provisional results; however, it is unclear whether this deadline will be altered due to the unexpected extension of the voting period.

To ensure the process is credible, the Carter Center requested that the commission publish the results at the local level and upload them from polling stations to its website.

Didi Manara, the commission’s vice president, stated on Thursday that the logistical problems that occurred on election day were outside the control of the CENI and had nothing to do with poor preparation. He made this statement while speaking on Top Congo FM, a radio station.

During the election that took place in 2011, he mentioned that some areas of the Congo had allowed voters to cast their ballots on a second day.

According to estimates from the Carter Center, the tumultuous election day that took place culminated in a campaign that was also characterized by violence and resulted in the deaths of at least 19 people.

In a statement released on Thursday, Moise Katumbi, the opposition’s presidential candidate, stated that the results thus far indicated him to be in the lead. His team has been watching the vote count.

The powerful Catholic Church of the Congo has sent out more than 25,000 observers as part of the observer mission to compile election results. A similar action was taken by them during the 2018 election, when they challenged the results of the vote count conducted by the CENI.

After a first five years in power defined by economic hardship and spiraling insecurity in Congo’s rebel-plagued east, the vote will determine whether or not Tshisekedi serves a second term as president.

On Tuesday, the Minister of the Interior of the United Kingdom, James Cleverly, came to Rwanda to sign a new treaty. This was done to circumvent a court judgment that blocked the government’s contentious policy of transferring asylum seekers to the East African nation.

The Rwandan plan is at the core of the government’s attempt to reduce migration, and it is being closely monitored by other nations who are considered to be considering policies that are comparable to Rwanda’s.

In a decision handed down a month ago, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom stated that such a move would violate international human rights norms embedded in domestic legislation.

Following the decision, the United Kingdom has been making efforts to revise its agreement with Rwanda to incorporate a legally binding treaty that guarantees Rwanda would not remove asylum seekers brought there by the United Kingdom. This is one of the primary concerns of the court.

Several attorneys and charitable organizations have said that it is highly improbable that deportation flights will begin before the election. With a lead of more than ten percentage points in the polls, the opposition Labour Party intends to abandon the Rwanda policy if it is victorious.

A meeting between Cleverly, who arrived in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, on Tuesday morning, and Vincent Biruta, the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, is scheduled to take place to sign the agreement.

“Rwanda cares deeply about the rights of refugees, and I look forward to meeting with counterparts to sign this agreement and further discuss how we work together to tackle the global challenge of illegal migration,” Cleverly says.

The United Kingdom aims to transfer thousands of asylum seekers who came to its beaches without authorization to Rwanda under the plan that was agreed upon the previous year. This discourages migrants from crossing the Channel from Europe in tiny boats.

In exchange, Rwanda has been given an initial payment of 140 million pounds, equivalent to 180 million dollars, along with the promise of additional funds to cover the costs of housing and medical treatment for any deported persons.

THE PRESSURE
A great deal of pressure is being put on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to reduce net migration, which reached a record high of 745 thousand people in the previous year, with the vast majority of migrants entering through legal channels.

“Stop the boats” is one of the five goals that Sunak has set for his government. The influx of asylum seekers who pay people smugglers for their crossings of the Channel, which frequently take place in boats that are overloaded and not seaworthy, is one of the aims that Sunak has set.

The Supreme Court determined that the Rwanda plan should not be implemented because there was a possibility that refugees who were deported would have their claims incorrectly evaluated or that they would be sent back to their country of origin to suffer persecution.

In the latter part of this week, it is anticipated that the new treaty will be followed by the release of legislation declaring Rwanda a so-called safe nation. This law is intended to prevent legal challenges against the planned deportation flights.

Despite this, this will probably result in a fresh set of political and legal difficulties.

An immigration attorney at Harbottle & Lewis named Sarah Gogan stated that the government’s policy will be challenged due to Rwanda’s history of violations of human rights provisions.

“Rwanda is an unsafe country and this is not a quick fix,” added the politician. “You cannot in a matter of weeks or months reform a country and turn it into one with an impartial judiciary and administrative culture.”

Another “gimmick” was what Yvette Cooper, the spokesperson for the Labour Party’s home affairs department, called the most recent measures proposed by the administration.

Whether or not to design the law in a way that would avoid subsequent legal challenges is still up for debate by the administration.

Several members of the Conservative Party in parliament are putting pressure on the government to incorporate a “notwithstanding” clause into Rwanda’s policy. This clause would disapprove the domestic and international human rights commitments of the United Kingdom regarding Rwanda.

However, some politicians within the ruling party, such as Robert Buckland, have stated that such a move would be “foolish” and undermine the Good Friday Agreement, which is primarily responsible for ending three decades of carnage in Northern Ireland. This is because the European Convention on Human Rights supports the treaty.

According to statements made by Ghana’s Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta on Thursday, he expressed his confidence that the government will be able to negotiate a restructuring agreement with its formal creditors by the end of the following week.

The most significant problems that still need to be resolved, according to Ofori-Atta, are the “cut-off date” (the date after which new debts would not be restructured) and the comparability of treatment amongst creditors. She also stated that any cut-off date would be acceptable for Ghana.

Every creditor on the committee, which China and France co-chair, is concerned about their interests, and he claimed that not a single creditor opposes debt restructuring.

In December of 2022, Ghana defaulted on most of its foreign loans. This occurred after the country was prevented from accessing international financial markets and its debt expenses spiraled out of control, which exacerbated an economic crisis that had already been characterized by a decline in the value of its currency and an increase in inflation.

Additionally, to obtain the approval of the executive board of the International Monetary Fund for the subsequent $600 million payout from a $3 billion rescue loan, it must strike a restructuring agreement with its formal creditors.

“My hope is that by the end of next week we’ll have what we need,” According to Ofori-Atta. “One of the key issues is the cut-off date and ensuring that there is comparability of treatment.”

According to a story Reuters published in September, the official creditors, who hold around $5.4 billion of Ghana’s $20 billion external debt being restructured, were discussing dates in March 2020 and December 2022.

The date of March 24, 2020, was considered a cut-off date because that is when the G20 introduced its debt service suspension initiative (DSSI) to assist the world’s poorest countries in coping with the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, according to two sources at the time. Although December 31, 2022, is close to the date Ghana defaulted on its debt, another date being considered was March 24, 2020. In the DSSI, Ghana did not take part in any activities.

No matter what happens, we will be able to succeed. When Ofori-Atta was asked whether there was a date that Ghana would like, he responded by saying, “So the issue is for the membership of the OCC to get comfortable with how it impacts them.”

“Everybody is looking at comparability of treatment and China and France, certainly are the (official creditor committee) co-chairs, so they have a good impact on what will happen.”

By the G20 Common Framework platform, Ghana is in the process of restructuring its debt. This platform has been attacked for its delays and disagreements between different groups of creditors. Zambia’s process was interrupted earlier this month when the country’s official creditors rejected an agreement the administration had made with foreign bondholders.

Overseas bondholders amount to around $13 billion that Ghana owes. According to Ofori-Atta, they are having fruitful conversations at the moment.