Kinshasa – During his visit to the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI in French acronym) Monday 21 April, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of Congo pledged MONUSCO’s support for the organization of the upcoming elections.

Martin Kobler assured Reverend Apollinaire Malumalu of the United Nations’ support in terms of technical and logistic assistance as well as good offices. MONUSCO’s contributions will focus on three areas: “1^st technical assistance: the 2011 errors shall be avoided; 2^nd logistic assistance: this must well planned; I bear in mind Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s experiences: it takes several months to plan such operations; we raised that issue today. The elections must be funded. We have a task force chaired by my deputy Moustapha Soumare on the logistic issues,” he said.

In 2011, MONUSCO assisted CENI in deploying electoral kits to polling stations by using its air fleet. “ It is in the best interest of MONUSCO to bring its support to the electoral operations, to provide good offices and to maintain good relations with all political parties, both opposition and majority,” said Mr. Kobler, echoed by Radio Okapi.

Reverend Apollinaire Malumalu, on his part, echoed by Radio Okapi, said the timeframe for the urban, municipal and local elections would be announced in a few weeks, “INEC and the parliament will update the public opinion on the different steps of the upcoming electoral process.

Joseph TSHIMANGA/MONUSCO