Democratic Republic of Congo’s election board has told participants in Sunday’s presidential vote that it cannot organize the ballot on time. Electoral commission, CENI, summoned candidates to a meeting in parliament today after media reports of a delay due to problems with vote materials.
One of the candidates, Theodore Ngoy, who was at the meeting, said in a statement that CENI president Corneille Nangaa announced the commission was “technically unable” to carry through the election as planned on Sunday.
The election is meant to choose a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who is due to step down after eighteen years in power, in what would be Congo’s first democratic transition. There was no word on a new timetable.
Preparations for Sunday’s vote, already postponed repeatedly since 2016, were disrupted by a fire last week which the commission said destroyed 80 percent of Kinshasa’s voting machines.
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