First Carter Center Pre-Election Statement on Preparations in the Democratic Republic of Congo

The Carter Center has been closely monitoring the implementation of the electoral calendar that was released by the Independent National Election Commission (CENI) in April of 2011. Voter registration that was scheduled to begin February 28 was postponed until June, which meant that the work of reviewing and validating the voter registry of 32,024,640 could not be concluded before the publication of the annex to the electoral law, determining the number of parliament member seats per district. The delayed publication of the provisional voter register threatens to undermine the public's ability to confirm or challenge their details and lingering opposition party concerns about the quality of the register could be used to call into question the overall credibility of the voter roll. CENI must take rapid and convincing steps to ensure the transparency and credibility of the voter register to meet the state's obligation to ensure that all eligible voters are afforded the right to do so