{"id":71219,"date":"2018-12-13T14:45:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T13:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2018\/12\/13\/fire-destroys-new-voting-machines-ahead-of-drc-election\/"},"modified":"2018-12-13T14:45:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T13:45:36","slug":"fire-destroys-new-voting-machines-ahead-of-drc-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=71219","title":{"rendered":"Fire destroys new voting machines ahead of DRC election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Opposition supporters accuse Kabila regime of trying to postpone historic voteA fire has destroyed much of an election commission warehouse in Kinshasa as tensions rise in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with just ten days to go before historic presidential elections which could see the country\u2019s first ever democratic transition of power or bring further instability and violence.The fire damaged thousands of controversial new voting machines and has stoked fears that the poll will be undermined by logistic challenges and fraud.Barnab\u00e9 Kikaya bin Karubi, a presidential adviser, blamed unidentified \u201ccriminals\u201c for the blaze, which destroyed about 7,000 of the 10,000 voting machines due to be used in the capital Kinshasa, but said preparations for the 23 December election were continuing.Kikaya said police guarding the warehouse \u2014 located in the upscale and usually secure Gombe riverside area of Kinshasa, the capital\u2014 had been arrested but made no further comment on what or who might have caused the blaze.Opposition supporters claimed the fire was the result of arson and accused Joseph Kabila, in power since 2001, of seeking an excuse to postpone the poll.\u201cWe are dealing with a criminal regime. This is not a fire that is accidental. The prime suspect must be the regime itelf,\u201d said Valentin Mubake, a former secretary general of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UPDS), the principal opposition party. Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/dec\/13\/fire-destroys-new-voting-machines-ahead-of-drc-election-kabila\" target=\"_blank\">Fire destroys new voting machines ahead of DRC election<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opposition supporters accuse Kabila regime of trying to postpone historic voteA fire has destroyed much of an election commission warehouse in Kinshasa as tensions rise in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with just ten days to go before historic presidential elections which could see the country\u2019s first ever democratic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}