The first reporter of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Dieudonné Mirimo confirmed this Friday, 11 August 2006, that the compilation results were slightly in advance with respect to the previsions and that the IEC will expect on the 20 August the announcement of the provisional result of the presidential elections.

INTERVIEW


There were problems with the collection of the tally sheets from the polling stations. Couldn’t it be prevented?

It was expected, that we have warehouses in all the territories and in all local result compilation centers. We have now organized visits to the Administrative Transport Service (ATS) warehouses in which all the ballot papers of Kinshasa are stored, in order for the journalists to see how it’s organized. We have been informed about a small number of problems in Ndjili.

An investigation mission has been established enabling us to find out exactly what happened. However these problems did not occur in the warehouses but rather during the transport of the tally sheets from Ndjili to the ATS warehouses. These are secured and it’s impossible to burn any ballot paper or document.

Is there a follow-up, concerning the IEC staff who burnt the ballot papers of the voters?

As I said, an investigation mission is already working on this case in order to clarify this issue and justice will be revealed.

Have these IEC staffs already been arrested?

In the case of Ndjili we first need the report. CEI staffs were caught in the act of falsifying tally sheets. They will be prosecuted.

And in the case of Ndjili?

I just received the report. I haven’t read it yet. I will know more at the end of the day and we will follow up on this.

Regarding the results which appear every day in the media, what is your message?

The message is: these are partial results and one should not speculate or extrapolate from these data. It is necessary to await the results from the whole national territory in order not to confuse people. The results which are currently given relate to only 32 districts out of the 169.

One needs to consider the actual expressed votes, the turnout in each district, those are the indicators. If already, on the basis of 32 districts, people start to say "X won, Y won", they risk to become disillusioned, because when the results of other provinces or other localities come in, all can change. We do not know yet the voters choice in other districts. We still do not have all the results.

Do you already know the nationwide turnout?

We do not know it yet because we are waiting for the results from all 169 districts. After that, we will put together the numbers to be able to publicize the nationwide turnout.

Will the CEI be able to respect the electoral calendar?

We are making sure we can respect the announced calendar. We will announce on August 20th the provisional results of the presidential election and on September 4 at the latest the results of the legislative ones. We organized mixed teams who are now working day and night so that we can meet the deadline.

Is the counting of the votes behind schedule?

No, the calendar is respected. In fact, we are a slightly ahead. We work to respect the deadline that we have fixed, i.e. on August 20 for the results of the presidential election and 4 September for the legislative elections. We thus invite the population to be patient and calm because the results that we will announce will reflect the image of what happened on July 30. The results that will be made public will be the exact expression of the will of the people.