Erik Esbjörnsson: In the middle position between dictatorship and democracy is it possible to create enough confusion about the state of things

Of a total of 500 seats in parliament have political parties loyal to the outgoing president, Joseph Kabila secured 288 mandate against the opposition 141 when the 71 mandate left to distribute. It gives Kabila's coalition, an advantage of 67% against the opposition's 33 per cent. Would all the remaining mandate to go to the opposition will be styrkeförhållandet 58-42 to Kabila's advantage, which should be compared with the results of the presidential election where the two main opposition candidates together collected, 73%, and Kabila's proposal for a successor Emmanuel Shadary only got 24 percent of the votes.

Emmanuel Shadary is far more unpopular among voters than the party he represented, and that this is punished in the elections. Alternatively, voters want to see continuity and therefore have put their votes on the party that controlled the country since the turn of the millennium and seen beyond its inability to solve the most fundamental challenges that the country faced over Kabila's 18-year-old maktinnehav.

An alternative explanation to this strange result, with a diametrically reverse styrkeförhållande in the parliamentary and presidential elections, is that Kabila never intended to relinquish power. He and the electoral commission Ceni, who loyally stood by the outgoing president's side throughout the entire process, manipulated, therefore, the presidential oppositionskandidaten Felix Tshisekedis advantage when it became clear that his own horse Shadary was completely matchless and the most popular candidate Martin Fayulu was on the way to winning. Tshisekedis victory guaranteed a certain a continued role for Kabila in the policy, which had been impossible during the Fayulu, but for safety's sake he looked to clip the wings of the new president, who will not have a chance to push through some reforms during the next five years, but Kabila's consent.

Until all the cards are on the table, unfortunately, the latter explanation to be the case.

the Catholic church, the only major organization that guarded choice with 40,000 observers, have completely rejected the result and has received the support of the French ministry of foreign affairs and by the EU which is not allowed to be present during the elections. The various stakeholders requires a fully transparent accounting of the election results, so that the Cenis results in the capital Kinshasa can be double checked against the protocols from the polling stations.

In it where the middle position between dictatorship and democracy is it possible to create enough confusion about the state of things

it's about 19 million votes, which are distributed over 75,000 of polling stations. If the Ceni publishes the result it is enough with some random sampling to see the pattern of cheating and the likelihood that we shall get such an accounting is therefore very low. It is simply not possible to fake so many protocols and the catholic church's agency for cooperation Cenco has in this respect made a heroic effort with their observers.

Kabila has now ended up in the same situation as the president of Zimbabwe Emmerson Mnangagwa and his party Zanu-PF, which in the summer held an election in which they promised a legitimate process for that when it came to the crunch prove to be completely uninterested in relinquishing power. Zimbabwe remains isolated and the economy is in free fall. The same problem will characterize the Congo in the coming time.

Why take the trouble, they even put so much time and money to keep a choice? To Kabila's defence should be said that he did not actually wanted to do it – it was only two years delayed as it took place after it had first been considered to be ”too expensive”.

the Point was to create an illusion. It is much more difficult to stay in power in a pure dictatorship where it is obvious to all that there is something folkinflytande. But in the middle position between dictatorship and democracy is it possible to create enough confusion about the state of things.

is the Drc's 80 million inhabitants on the trick? It may in the near future will tell. The risk is great that the konfliktläge which already prevails in the eastern parts of the country (where 120 different armed groups ravaging in only two of the country's 26 provinces), it also affects the other landsändar and krutdurken Kinshasa with its 10 to 15 million inhabitants.

Outside observer can in the meantime draw the lesson that the choice is not to equate with democracy.

also Read: Kabila's coalition secures parliament