KINSHASA, Sunday
Residents are stocking up on food, the army is on alert and expatriates are dusting off evacuation plans, Congo’s capital is on edge as tensions mount over a delay to the first democratic polls in 40 years.
President Joseph Kabila last week called for calm but many fear peaceful demonstrations called by the opposition will explode into violence around the end-June original deadline for the polls in the vast Central African nation.
Officials have already said there is no way elections can be held by end-June as laid down in a 2003 peace deal that ended a five-year conflict, but many fear simmering frustrations may erupt when the deadline passes.
Kinshasa, the rundown and chaotic capital that his home to up to nine million people, could be at the eye of the storm.
"We have bought some oil and rice to stock up, just in case we have to spend a few days in the house and can’t go to buy food in the market," said Jerry Wamba, a 30-year-old salesman.
"After the 27th, I won’t come and sell things because I have heard there will be protests," the father-of-three said at his rickety market stall piled with shoes and cans of spray-on string.
The polls have been delayed for many reasons: wrangling between former belligerents in the transitional government; fighting and brutal massacres in the east and a decimated infrastructure in a nation the size of Western Europe.
Some of Kinshasa’s weary residents blame the politicians.
"We are going to march, there is no question about it," said Freddy Asumbu, who sells electrical products in the bustling market. "There is strength in the population, people may shoot and there may be chaos but we are going to stay in the streets."
Many residents think politicians are dragging their heels to savour the perks of power. This is all the more galling as the sprawling riverside city is gripped by an economic crisis.
"We are tired of these people who we didn’t even choose. In two years they have done nothing," Asumbu said.
On Friday, the head of the electoral commission said it would not be possible to hold the elections until next year. Parliament has also extended the mandate of the transition government for another six months from June.
Opposition parties say the delay means the government has failed and have called peaceful demonstrations to force change.
When a delay was first mooted in January, thousands rioted in Kinshasa. Now, anger is again spilling over.
Thousands of football fans chanted "Thief, thief! Kill him, kill him," when a vice president attended a recent match.
— Reuters