One week after it's historic elections, the Democratic Republic of Congo nervously awaits the results. A lot is riding on these elections: a nation's hopes and fears for what the future might hold in this war-ravaged country. Up to this point I have been reluctant to talk too much about the elections, partly because of the explosive potential of speculation, and partly because my personal experience is limited to the region I observed. IF you read the article I pasted below about the east-west divisions you have a bit of an idea of the tension growing here. This morning I heard that the CEI(independent electoral commission) might be publishing some partial, provisional results very soon. This worries me, because many people will hold on to these results as gospel, rather than wait for the final total. There is a strong divide between Bemba's people who have strong support in Kinshasa, and Kabila's people, who are stronger in the east. Recent speculation is that these two will make it to the runoff election in October (I think), but We won't know until the full results are announced.
I had a chance to visit a compilation centre, one of the many centralized offices where totals from the region's polling stations are gathered. Wow. what chaos. Or so it seemed. All I saw were stacks and stacks of ballots, papers, reports, garbage, more garbage, and what looked like a whole lot of confusion. At one point I saw what must have been a million ballots thrown into piles against the side of a building. Now of course, it is important to remember that the Congolese do everything outside, so the fact that the ballots were being gathered outside isn't necessarily a problem. And what looked to me like a ridiculously disorganized mess was (apparently) a well organized piling system. As I made my way around the rest of the centre I saw the computers where each voting centre's results were compiled and entered into computers, and then those results were printed, manually verified against the original reports, and then compiled into a regional tally sheet. The reports themselves, covering polling station stats, vote allocation, results and the like, were put into about seven or eight black envelopes per polling station. I entered on of the warehouses at the compilation centre and saw a sea of black envelopes all over the floor, and was completely overcome by shock. I stood there in awe of the grandeur of the task, very thankful that I personally did not have to sort out this mess. But, in true Congolese style, not even an hour later I came back to the same warehouse to find that the majority of the pile had been neatly organized into groups, sorted, and sent to the appropriate offices in the centre.
This experience showed me just how dedicated these elections officials are to this process. No matter how big the task they all seem to just dig in, and work away at it bit by bit. It reminds me of election night, when everyone was litterally falling asleep (I watched one counter's head drop onto his arms between counted ballots), yet everyone picked themselves up and trudges on. and so this process continues, despite the odds, despite the naysayers and spoilers, with a whole lot of hope that the future will be different, that the Congolese will have their own government some day real soon. Then the real work begins -- rebuilding this destroyed country.