Democratic Republic of the Congo gubernatorial elections, 2007

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Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Gubernatorial elections were held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 27 January (with 2007-01-30 planned as a possible date for a second round, if necessary), though they were originally scheduled for 16 January and 2007-01-19.^[1] The governors and vice-governors were be chosen through indirect election by the members of the provincial assemblies; the delay was a result of the difficulties in choosing traditional chiefs to fill the places reserved for them in the provincial assemblies.^[2] The second round of voting would only have been necessary in those cases where no candidate had received an absolute majority in the first round, which was not the case anywhere. However, voting was rescheduled in Kasai-Occidental and Kasai-Oriental on 2007-02-10^[3] to 2007-02-15^[4] due to the fact that the Union of the Nation candidates were disqualified because they held dual citizenship.

Elections were held only for the current eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; once the reorganisation into twenty-six provinces has been passed into law, elections will be held for the fifteen new gubernatorial and vice-gubernatorial posts.^[5]

1 Governors elected
2 Protests in Bas-Congo
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Governors elected

Alliance	Party	Seats	Provinces
Alliance of the Presidential Majority (AMP)	People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD)	7	Bandundu, Kasai-Occidental, Katanga, Kinshasa, Maniema, Orientale, Sud-Kivu
	Independents	2	Bas-Congo, Nord-Kivu
	Forces for Renewal (FR)	1	Kasai-Oriental
Union of the Nation (UN)	Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC)	1	Équateur
Total		11	(source1), (source2)

Both of the independents and the RCD governor are allied with Kabila, which means that the opposition managed to attain the post of governor in only one province.^[6]

Province	Governor	Party
Bandundu	Richard Ndambu Wolang	PPRD (AMP)
Bas-Congo	Simon Mbaki Batshia	Independent (AMP)
Equateur	José Makila Sumanda	MLC (UN)
Kasai-Occidental	Trésor Kapuku Ngoy	PPRD (AMP)
Kasai-Oriental	Alphonse Ngoyi Kasanji	Independent (AMP)
Katanga	Moïse Katumbi Chapwe	PPRD (AMP)
Kinshasa	André Kimbuta Yango	PPRD (AMP)
Maniema	Didier Manara Linga	PPRD (AMP)
Nord-Kivu	Julien Paluku Kahongya	RCD-K-ML (AMP)
Orientale	Médard Autsai Asenga	PPRD (AMP)
Sud-Kivu	Célestin Cibalonza Byaterana	PPRD (AMP)
		(source)

[edit] Protests in Bas-Congo

In the province of Bas-Congo, the pro-government independent candidate, Simon Mbatshi, won 15 votes against the opposition MLC candidate, Fuka Unzola, who obtained 14 votes. Opposition activists held protests alleging vote-buying and chanting "Congo can't be rebuilt on corruption". Clashes between the police and Bundu dia Kongo, an opposition secessionist religious group, lead to 134 deaths. ^[7]^[8] The results were annulled on 2007-02-08 by an appeals court,^[9] but its findings were then overturned by the Constitutional Court of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 17 February 2007.^[10]