In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Kabila expressed certainty that the election would be held on time. The lead-up to the election has already been marred by widespread political violence and a ban on campaigning in the capital, Kinshasa. But the upcoming election is being held at the local, legislative and presidential levels in a country with more than 600 political parties. An Ebola outbreak in conflict-stricken North Kivu and Ituri provinces has now infected more than 500 people and presents a unique challenge to hygiene with the election being conducted on touch-screen voting machines. More than 100,000 voting machines were purchased from a South Korean company to streamline the voting process, but they have proved controversial and more than 7,000 were destroyed in last week’s fire.

Source: Washington Post December 20, 2018 13:42 UTC