The previous day, the Vice-President of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), Bienvenu Elanga, after the completion of voting, invited the presidential candidates, observers, witnesses and accredited journalists to see a comparison of the results.
Voting continued on Thursday at polling stations across the Democratic Republic of the Congo that had not opened the day before, due to various problems such as delayed arrivals of electoral materials.
In most voting centers, the results have already been counted or published, however, INEC plans to officially announce them school by school, district by district, and broadcast live on the public channel RTNC.
This decision comes in response to concerns that arose during the 2018 elections, when the results were only published globally.
In general, the presidential elections for national and regional representatives and members of municipal councils passed calmly, although they were characterized by delays in opening polling stations, malfunctions in electronic devices, and difficulties in voter lists.
The monitoring mission of the Catholic and Protestant churches indicated that 27% of schools were not operating on Wednesday, which prompted the Independent National Electoral Commission to extend voting until Thursday in those specific cases.
Nearly 44 million registered voters were called to the polls, as voting for the first time since the country’s independence in 1960 reached expatriates in Belgium, France, South Africa, the United States and Canada.
It will take some time for the final results of the elections to emerge, and the president-elect is expected to be sworn in on January 24, 2024.
After seven presidential candidates withdrew, 19 candidates remained in the race for this position, including the current president, Felix Tshisekedi, who is considered the main candidate.
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