Democratic Republic of the Congo: Presidential Elections

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I totally accept that someone can only be an effective observer if they have the security around them, so the hon. Gentleman makes an important point.

With our regional and international partners, and through a variety of channels, including our seat on the UN Security Council and our embassy in Kinshasa, we have continued to impress upon the DRC authorities the importance of adhering to their commitments. I am pleased to say that this concerted pressure has helped to persuade Kabila to agree to hold elections this month, in which he will not be a candidate. This is welcome news, but we remain concerned about the credibility and openness of these elections. My hon. Friend the Minister for Africa raised these concerns with two of the three main presidential candidates in telephone conversations this week. She discussed the need for the parties to engage fully in the electoral process and to condemn any violence or incitement to violence. She hopes to speak to further candidates in the coming days.

In addition to engagement at ministerial level, the UK has committed significant resources towards practical support for the electoral process. This totals nearly £19 million, and it includes support for voter education programmes, for election observations and for strengthening institutions such as the justice and peace commission. UK-funded civic education programmes have reached nearly 3 million people through face-to-face campaigns and over 10 million more through various media campaigns. We have also trained 425 long-term observers to help to ensure the credibility of the elections, and we have funded 20,000 local observers through the local Catholic Church’s committee for justice and peace. This represents one third of the anticipated number of local observers.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend and to Her Majesty’s Government for all their support. Will he particularly commend the role played by the Catholic Church and other Churches in the Saint-Silvestre accord of 2016, and also their continued striving for peace and democracy in the DRC?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My hon. Friend has an amazing reputation for his interest in Africa, and I totally share his judgment. I agree with what he has just said.

We are concerned that some candidates have been prevented from moving and campaigning freely around the country, that activists from all sides have been subjected to violence, and that some candidates have used inflammatory language. The UK issued a joint statement with the American, Canadian and Swiss ambassadors in response, which condemned all forms of violence as well as expressing regret at the news of the recent fire at an electoral commission warehouse in Kinshasa, to which the hon. Member for Bury South referred.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the fact that electronic voting machines were being used for the first time in this poll. The DRC electoral commission—known as CENI—will be responsible for their operation. In response to a request from CENI in February, we funded the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to carry out a technical analysis of the electronic voting machines. The WFD’s report is publicly available on CENI’s website, and it notes that it is not best practice to introduce the machines on this scale without a pilot. However, it does not endorse or reject their use, because this is a sovereign decision for CENI and the DRC. The report provided a number of recommendations to mitigate the risks associated with using the machines, many of which have been adopted by CENI. All the major presidential candidates have now indicated that voters should use the machines.

In addition to our support for the electoral process, we also run an extensive programme to alleviate the humanitarian situation in the DRC. This includes our support for the World Health Organisation-led response to the Ebola outbreak in the east of the country, where we are the second-largest bilateral donor. More broadly, we are working to improve the humanitarian and human rights situation in the DRC through advocacy work, through bilateral projects and programmes and through our support of multilateral interventions such as the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO.

We help to fund a programme run by the UN’s Joint Human Rights Office to document human rights abuses. We continue to call on the DRC Government, as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, to demonstrate their commitment to the highest standards of human rights and to take decisive action against abuses and violations. With the EU, we have established a sanctions regime against members of the Government responsible for the violation of human rights. We have made it clear that we are prepared to take further action as necessary, including against those who seek to obstruct the democratic aspirations of the Congolese people. We will continue to use all channels available to us to end human rights abuses in the DRC, to press for accountability, and to demand a better future for the Congolese people. I hope I have shown that the UK is engaging closely with the electoral authorities and civil society in the DRC to support free, fair, safe and credible elections on Sunday.