{"id":32598,"date":"2017-02-16T02:22:27","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T02:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/dr-congo-election-we-cannot-afford-1-8bn-cost\/"},"modified":"2017-02-16T02:22:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-16T02:22:22","slug":"dr-congo-election-we-cannot-afford-1-8bn-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/dr-congo-election-we-cannot-afford-1-8bn-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"DR Congo election: &#8216;We cannot afford $1.8bn cost&#8217;, says minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The Democratic Republic of Congo will not be able to afford an agreed presidential election this year, the government says.}<\/p>\n<p>Budget Minister Pierre Kangudia said the cost of organising the poll, which was said to be $1.8bn (\u00a31.5bn), was too expensive.<\/p>\n<p>Last year the government and the opposition agreed that new elections would be held by the end of 2017.<\/p>\n<p>President Joseph Kabila&#8217;s final mandate ran out in November 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Kabila&#8217;s opponents have accused him of repeatedly delaying the poll in order to remain in power.<\/p>\n<p>The plan to hold an election before the end of 2017 initially reduced tension between the government and the opposition,<\/p>\n<p>The electoral commission said last November that it needed at least until July 2017 to register more than 30 million voters in a country similar in size to Western Europe, but with one of the worst transport and communication networks in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, the death of veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi led to concerns about the country&#8217;s future.<\/p>\n<p>Elections in DR Congo are often controversial. Last year, protests against moves to delay the presidential poll resulted in at least 50 deaths.<\/p>\n<p>DR Congo has never had a smooth transfer of power since independence more than 55 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Kabila took power in 2001 following the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila. He has won two elections and the constitution bars him from running for a third term.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-18245 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_94663465_kabila.jpg\" alt=\"President Kabila&#039;s opponents have accused him of delaying the election in order to remain in power\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The Democratic Republic of Congo will not be able to afford an agreed presidential election this year, the government says.} Budget Minister Pierre Kangudia said the cost of organising the poll, which was said to be $1.8bn (\u00a31.5bn), was too expensive. Last year the government and the opposition agreed that new elections would be held [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32598"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32598"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}