3 December 2011
As election officials in the DR Congo rushed to tally votes on Saturday amid growing fears of fresh unrest, a flurry of fake results and rumours swirled online, on cell phones and in the streets.
Monday’s elections are just the second since back-to-back wars that gripped the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1996 to 2003, and the long wait for results has filled with tensions as charges have swirled of vote fraud and plans for violence.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) published early results ahead of schedule Friday, saying it wanted to staunch the flood of fake numbers circulating since a vote that was marred by logistical chaos, deadly violence and rioting at polling centres.
The partial results, reflecting 15 percent of some 64,000 poll stations, gave President Joseph Kabila 52 percent and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi 34 percent, but included almost no polling centres in the capital Kinshasa, where Tshisekedi has strong support.
The first official numbers — originally not expected until Tuesday, when overall preliminary presidential results are due — have done little to stop the rush of speculation and chicanery.
On the streets of Kinshasa, a table of results from the non-existent International Democracy Observatory shows Kabila up by 22 points, citing “local and international election observer missions.”
The CENI said its web site had been hacked Friday and fake results showing Tshisekedi in the lead briefly posted there.
A fake news article circulating online has the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in DR Congo, Roger Meece — which it misspells “Roger Reece” — telling AFP that “the opposition is ahead of the ruling coalition in the votes already counted.”
That conversation never took place.
Nor did others cited in an article reporting that ex-national assembly speaker Vital Kamerhe, another of the 11 candidates vying for president, had declared his support for Tshisekedi.
Amid a rush of rumours and conspiracy theories circulating by text message — that the CENI has been flying in ballots pre-marked for Kabila, that the ink in CENI pens disappears after half an hour — the cell phone messaging service crashed Friday night on the country’s largest mobile operator, Vodacom.
In Kinshasa and second city Lubumbashi it was virtually impossible to send an SMS, adding to the paranoid climate.
“Vodacom’s customer service department says that (the interruption) is under government orders and that the same applies to the other networks,” one Internet user said in an online post.
“Internet and telephone service are still working. But for how many hours?”
Government spokesman Lambert Mende denied authorities had given any instruction to mobile operators to interrupt the service.
A Vodacom spokesman said the crash was a “system problem”.
Adding to the charged atmosphere — already heavy with opposition calls for the vote to be annulled and ruling coalition accusations that Tshisekedi’s party is plotting a post-poll insurrection — Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Friday that election-related violence had killed at least 18 civilians.
Most of the victims were shot dead by Kabila’s presidential guard in the capital during a crackdown on Tshisekedi supporters who had gathered for his final campaign event Saturday, said the New York-based rights group.
Other civilians were killed and wounded during clashes between rival parties, attacks by armed groups and mob violence, HRW said.
Mende told AFP the government would need to examine the report before responding.
The UN Security Council also added its voice Friday to the multiplying calls for peace, saying “all candidates should maintain a calm and peaceful environment, exercise restraint, await the results… and resolve their differences peacefully.” – ANP/AFP
AllAfrica – All the Time