On 30 July, the Democratic Republic of Congo will hold its first democratic elections more than four decades. Local press freedom watchdog Journaliste en Danger (JED), has been monitoring the media in the lead-up to the election. Just days before voters will cast their ballots, RAP 21 spoke to JED’s general secretary in Kinshasa, Tshivis Tshivuadi about the obstacles to objective coverage and the media’s performance over the past few weeks.

RAP 21: What importance does the media have in this electoral process?
Tshivis Tshivuadi: The media been charged with an important role to play in this process leading-up to the elections, which will be the first democratic elections the country has held in more than forty years. These elections can only be considered as democratic and transparent if journalists are left the freedom to inform the general public in a climate of safety and freedom, and if the general public is widely informed on the different candidates and their respective programmes. Beyond this basic role of informing the public, independent media should also perform a role of scrutinizing the electoral process, so as to denounce any apparent shortcomings or irregularities.

RAP 21: What challenges have the media encountered in the lead up to the elections?
Tshivis Tshivuadi: The difficulties the media have encountered can be put into two general categories. In the first place there are difficulties of a political nature. There are no laws which oblige public officials to facilitate journalists access to official sources of information. This means that journalists are often forced to rely on second hand information or even rumours. As such many journalists are taken to court for publishing false information or are accused of defamation using an archaic law which allows their imprisonment whether what they have printed is true or not.

On the other hand journalists are equally confronted by difficulties of an economic nature. The financial instability of journalists, and of the media which employ them, makes it very difficult for journalists to travel throughout the country or to carry out investigations. Thus it is impossible for journalists to investigate many controversial issues relative to the elections, such as the exact number of ballot papers which have been ordered from South Africa, or the financing of the elections and of electoral campaigns using public funds, or even the signing of leonine contracts with mining companies.

RAP 21: How have the media performed in the weeks leading up to the elections?
Tshivis Tshivuadi: Dozens of newspapers appear each day, but they are virtually all politically aligned, or at very least defend the point of view of a particular party or political ideal. This is caused by the fact that these media are either owned by particular candidates, or are manipulated by those who give them their means of existence.

The fact is that today nearly 80 percent of the media that have been reporting on the electoral process have been created by politicians or are heavily influenced by one of the many electoral candidates.

This leaves independent journalists who have been working for these media very little room to manoeuvre. In addition, one must consider the general climate of fear in which journalists work and which results from the ever-present threat of arrest, physical violence and even murder; in the last eight months alone two journalists have been murdered. The combination of these two factors has resulted in the media giving voice to and disseminating the propaganda of political parties and individual electoral candidates as opposed to confronting important and “disturbing” questions such as massive human rights violations, corruption and the misuse of public funds in the financing of electoral campaigns.