South Africa missing in action as DRC election results postponed

President Cyril Ramaphosa has spent most of his first 11 months in office shaking up government, but in foreign policy, much has remained the same. South Africa appears to have sided with China and Russia in the first meeting of its current term as non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, dashing the hopes of some Western powers that one of Africa’s strongest democracies could be a valued ally.

The meeting on the aftermath of the elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at the UN headquarters in New York on January 4 2019, took place behind closed doors. France called for the gathering amid concerns from Congolese civil society and the opposition, and some foreign powers, that a delay in the announcement of results could affect the legitimacy of the new government and spark tensions similar to those that followed the 2006 and 2011 elections.

Those in favour of the statement included the United States, Britain, Ivory Coast and Belgium. Those against included South Africa, which said the statement could “inflame” people ahead of the results, Russia, which said it was an attempt to skew public opinion, and China, which “lauded the manner in which the elections were conducted”, according to a report on the meeting.

He said those “who may feel otherwise” could follow the processes available after the announcement to object. He said all the candidates were called by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) beforehand to sign a code of conduct, which included “one, to allow free and fair elections, two, to respect the outcome of the elections, three, not to inflame the passions in the DRC, [and] four, to respect the constitution of the DRC”.

Department of International Relations and Co-operation spokesperson Ndivhuwo Mabaya responded to queries about South Africa’s position only by saying that it was the same as that of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) elections observer mission, which declared in its preliminary report on 2 January that the election went “relatively well”. The report said:

“Taking into account the range of challenges posed by these elections, the mission has concluded that the elections were relatively well-managed. The election allowed the majority of the Congolese population to exercise its right to vote.”

“Any other body of civil society should refrain from announcing any results of the elections which may undermine peace and stability in the DRC, as well as multilateral processes.”

The National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO), which represents the country’s Catholic bishops and which had 40,000 observers at the country’s 70,000 polling stations on election day, said it had already tallied the results. It declined, however, to name the winner — which it said had more than half the votes — as the country’s electoral regulations forbid anyone but CENI to announce the results. There have been reports that opposition candidate Martin Fayulu won.

“At each polling station the witnesses and observers signed the accounts of the ballot, and everything was done on the same day. All the offices have already counted the votes, and if CENI says they are still busy compiling the results, it is a fake story.”

Many in the opposition and civil society in the DRC considered Zuma to have been close to Kabila because of Zuma’s family business interests in the DRC, and commentators said Katumbi’s move was an attempt to signal to Kabila that he could no longer count on South Africa as an ally. The DRC opposition, as well as members of the governing party, have since met, on separate occasions, with ANC leaders to discuss the elections.

A senior South African government leader has admitted that South Africa has been “seriously missing in action” on assisting the DRC in achieving a peaceful election outcome.

Kabila’s humiliating rebuttal to Ramaphosa’s appointment of former president Thabo Mbeki as special envoy to the DRC might have had a significant chilling effect. Kabila refused any outside help or funds for organising the recent election, which took place two years later than it should have.

Mbeki has previously worked closely with Kabila, having been the main convenor of a process that led to the signing of the Sun City Agreement in 2002, which helped end the Second Congo War and which set out a roadmap towards democracy.

South Africa has invested millions of rands in tax money on this process, as well as in assisting the DRC in its 2006 and 2011 elections — all of which could again go to waste if the worst of the DRC’s history repeats itself. DM