Election Observer Mission to the 2006 Provincial & Second Round of Presidential Elections, DRC

Arrival Statement

25 November 2006

EISA announces the official launch of its Election Observer Mission to the DRC Provincial and Presidential Second Round Elections scheduled for Sunday 29 October 2006. The Mission, which is led by Advocate Yusuf Aboobaker, Chairperson of the Electoral Supervisory Commission of Mauritius, is present in the country at the invitation of the Commission Electorale Indépendante (CEI) of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and continues EISA's observation of the DRC's transitional elections, a process begun with the observation of the DRC Constitutional Referendum of 18 and 19 December 2005.

The EISA Mission consists of 50 members drawn from Electoral Management Bodies (EMBs), academia, Civil Society Organisations, (CSOs) and political parties from different countries namely Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, the Netherlands, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The overall objectives for this Mission are to:

  • Assess whether conditions exist for the conduct of elections that allow the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo to freely express their will;
  • Assess and determine whether the elections are conducted in accordance with the electoral legislative framework of the DRC;
  • Determine whether the final results of the electoral process as a whole reflect the wishes of the people of the DRC;
  • Assess whether the election meet the benchmarks set out in the Principles for Election Management, Monitoring and Observation in the SADC Region (PEMMO), developed under the auspices of EISA and the Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC countries (ECF).

PEMMO was produced after 3 years of work by the ECF and EISA in consultation with CSOs who work in the field of elections. Subsequently the election principles, which serve as benchmarks in the conduct and assessment of elections in the SADC Region, were adopted on 6 November 2003 in Johannesburg, South Africa. PEMMO has been applied for the assessment of all elections held in the SADC Region since April 2004 to date.

This EISA Mission is composed of Short Term Observers (STOs) and Medium Term Observers (MTOs) and has been preceded by a pre-election team which was in the country from 24 September to 1st October and the advance team which arrived in the country on 11 October. The final group of observers began arriving in the country on 21 October. All observers attended a briefing session on Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 October. As from today, Wednesday 25 October 2006, EISA have deployed teams to all the provinces of the DRC where they are expected to meet with electoral stakeholders, including electoral officials, representatives of political parties, CSOs and voters ahead of the elections. On Election Day, Sunday 29 October 2006, the EISA teams will observe the voting and counting processes.

EISA's STOs will return to Kinshasa on the 30 October and will reconvene for a debriefing session which will produce an interim statement expressing the Mission's views on the voting and counting of votes at the polling stations. EISA's MTOs will remain in the provinces to observe the compilation of votes at the compilation centres. Following the announcement of provisional results, the MTOs will return to Kinshasa on 20 November for a debriefing session following which the Mission will express its views on the entire electoral process.

The Mission undertakes to continue to cooperate closely with the Congolese electoral stakeholders and other observers and strives to act, at every stage of the electoral process under scrutiny, with impartiality, objectivity and independence. EISA is a regional non-for-profit organisation established in 1996, with headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, and field offices in Luanda (Angola), Kinshasa (DRC) and Maputo (Mozambique). The vision is executed through the organisation's mission to strengthen electoral processes, good governance, human rights and democratic values through research, capacity building, advocacy and other targeted interventions. EISA services electoral commissions, political parties, civil society organisations, governments and other institutions operating in the democracy and governance fields in Africa.

Yusuf Aboobaker
Mission Leader