Daily Archives: December 15, 2011

U.S. and other Western donors support review of election irregularities in DRC–offer technical assistance

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The U.S. appears to have paid attention and avoided the pitfall of glossing over the questions about the election.

BBC reports on remarks by the U.S. Ambassador:

But the results’ credibility has been criticised by the EU, the Carter Center and other election monitors.

The US ambassador to the country said there had been several “irregularities”.

“The United States believes that the management and technical execution of these elections were seriously flawed,” Ambassador James Entwistle said in a statement to Reuters news agency.

“[They] lacked transparency and did not measure up to the positive democratic gains we have seen in recent African elections,” he said.

Mr Entwistle said that the US and other Western donors were offering technical assistance to the Congolese to review irregularities identified by observer missions, an offer which has already been welcomed by the country’s prime minister, he said.

The country’s Supreme Court must decide by 17 December whether or not to validate provisional results.

.  .  .  .

And the VOA reports on official comments from the State Department in Washington:

In a statement Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. assessment is based on reports from observation teams fielded by the U.S. and other embassies, as well as by independent election monitoring groups.

Nuland said it was not clear, however, whether the irregularities and lack of transparency were enough to change the outcome of the election.

She calls on Congolese authorities to conduct a “rapid technical review” of the electoral process which she says will help determine whether the irregularities resulted from poor organization or outright fraud. She said the U.S. is ready to give its “technical assistance,” for the review.

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