Corneille Nangaa, Congo’s election chief, welcomes challenge of December vote

Corneille Nangaa laughs but doesn’t exactly disagree when it’s suggested he has been handed one of the world’s worst jobs.

The president of CENI, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s independent election commission, Mr. Nangaa is in charge of organizing and holding the country’s long-delayed presidential elections, now set for Dec. 23, amid widespread skepticism at home and abroad that the campaign will be fair and the final vote tallies legitimate.

If the government of President Joseph Kabila — who was supposed to have stepped down when his second term ended in December 2016 — and any of the huge central African nation’s 600 political parties have a complaint about the election, it will be the 48-year-old Mr. Nangaa on the hot seat.

But on a recent visit to Washington, Mr. Nangaa said he sees opportunity and hope for his country while carrying out a thankless task.

“I think no one would want my job,” he acknowledged with a smile. “But if you say my job is not easy, in another way it is the easiest job a person like me could take on,” calling the vote a “big, big opportunity” for democracy in the DRC.

He noted that the DRC, Africa’s second-largest country but also one of its poorest, has had only four heads of state since gaining independence in 1960, and not one leader was present to shake the hand of his successor.

“This election could be the first one we have in Congo with the prospect of a peaceful, orderly transfer of power,” he said. “This may be a common spectacle in the United States, but it would be a very big step for our young democracy.”

“For that, I get to be the referee, the one who gets to announce the good news,” he added. “Yes, it’s a hard job we have from now to December, but in another way it’s the easiest job in the world if there is political good will on all sides.”

The logistical challenges are immense, which is one reason the Kabila government repeatedly claimed it could not hold national elections earlier. Mr. Nangaa said CENI has finally completed the process to register the country’s estimated 40 million voters, identified 90,000 polling places around the country and begun training an army of 650,000 poll workers. With voters picking a president, their member of parliament and local representative, the sample booklet of candidates — complete with picture, party ID and party symbol of every candidate — is a tabloid newspaper of over 50 pages.

CENI’s goal is to have the full results compiled and released within three days, with a new president taking office in early January.

Some Congolese and international rights groups such as Amnesty International have expressed deep doubts Mr. Nangaa and his colleagues can pull it off, or that Mr. Kabila sincerely intends to give up power.

Human Rights Watch late last month issued a scathing report on the election preparations, warning that “government repression in the DRC six months before scheduled elections has heightened concerns of widespread political violence.” The group cited what it said was repression of opposition and Catholic Church-backed protests, mixed messages from the Kabila government, the large number of displaced voters and even suspicions that the new and untried voting machines could be a vehicle for voter fraud.

“There is still considerable uncertainty whether President Kabila will step down in accordance with the constitution and permit a credible vote that would mark Congo’s first democratic transition since independence,” said Ida Sawyer, Central African director for Human Rights Watch, in a June 29 statement. “Kabila’s failure to do so would heighten the rick of large-scale violence and instability, with potentially devastating consequences across the region.”

Mr. Nangaa bristles at the criticism, saying the DRC is being held to unfairly high standards while many of its neighbors escape similar criticisms. International observer groups will be welcome to monitor the vote, he said, although CENI will give priority to domestic poll-watching groups.

He even brings with him on a D.C. visit a prototype of the South Korean-made voting machine to be used in December, noting it will function as tamper-proof “printer” to help voters mark their three-part paper ballots. No votes will be stored or counted electronically, he added.

“The critics — none of them have even seen the voting machines or talked to us about our preparations,” he said. “I don’t need support from outsiders. I just want them to tell the truth.”