Leading the Democratic Republic of Congo is a tough and dangerous job. For decades, this African country the size of Western Europe fluctuated between dictatorships, Wars and major humanitarian crises. Despite exceptional natural resources, it remains desperately poor. Two leaders were killed.

Still, about 20 candidates are still in the running to become Congo’s next president in Wednesday’s national elections, the fourth in Congo’s history. Another 100,000 people are running for seats in national, regional and local assemblies.

The vote will be closely watched by Congo’s nine neighbors as well as by foreign powers. International interest in the Congo has surged in recent years due to efforts to curb climate change, particularly in the Congo the second largest rainforest in the worldas well as deep reserves of rare minerals needed to build electric cars and solar panels.

A frantic cacophony filled the capital Kinshasa this week as rival campaigners marched through the devastated streets at the last minute to collect votes. Music was blaring. Rows of motorcycles splashed through puddles. Bombast flowed, as did money.

“We are victory before victory,” said Rovernick Kola, 29, a motorcyclist waiting for his $20 payment for riding around in a convoy waving posters of a parliamentary candidate.

The best known candidate is Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his work with victims of sexual assault. But the clear favorite is incumbent President Felix Tshisekedi.

A Voter poll released on Tuesday from Ebuteli, a Congolese policy research organization, and the Congo Research Group based at New York University gave Mr. Tshisekedi 49 percent support. His closest rival, Moïse Katumbi, a former governor of the mineral-rich province of Katanga, got 28 percent. Mr. Mukwege got less than 1 percent.

Behind the festive backdrop, however, there is fear of chaos in the coming days.

The candidates have stoked ethnic tensions with inflammatory language. At least one person has died in violent clashes between rival groups, Human Rights Watch said. Incomplete election preparations have fueled fears of possible manipulation. Official results may take up to 10 days.

A logistical nightmare

Organizing an election in such a huge country would burden any bureaucracy – least of all in the fifth poorest country in the world with a population of about 100 million people, and some Africa’s worst infrastructure.

To reach all 75,000 polling stations in Congo, authorities have sent Korean-made voting machines by boat on the Congo River, by plane long distances and on foot into some of the world’s most impenetrable forests – a journey that can take three weeks. say election observers.

Ballots for Congo’s 44 million registered voters were flown in from China. But the ongoing conflict in eastern Congo means at least 1.5 million people cannot vote.

The entire effort costs $1.2 billion, the National Election Commission says. Still, some polling stations are not yet ready: Western officials say Wednesday voting will likely be extended to Thursday or even Friday in some places.

Even if voting takes place on time, the cards that residents must show to vote pose a major problem. Congo’s hot, humid climate has seen ink on many cards issued earlier this year in recent weeks , worn. A survey of Kinshasa residents found that 73 percent of their cards were illegible – a potential recipe for chaos in Wednesday’s election.

Election observers fear unrest could encourage fraud.

“The government has created a system that allows the manipulation of numbers,” said the Rev. Rigobert Minani, the head of a Catholic organization that is deploying 15,000 election observers across Congo. “There is a lot of potential for fraud.”

“Fatshi”, the front runner

Promising to fight corruption and strengthen the press, Mr Tshisekedi was seen as a breath of fresh air at the time He came to power in 2019 despite a highly contentious election.

Although many Congolese believed another candidate had won the most votes in the December 2018 vote, Mr Tshisekedi struck a power-sharing deal with outgoing President Joseph Kabila that brought him to power.

The United States signed off on the deal, which some saw as the best way to end Mr. Kabila’s 18 years of unpredictable and often harsh rule.

But within a year the deal had collapsed and since then Mr Tshisekedi, known to his supporters as the diminutive “Fatshi”, has consolidated his power and, critics say, become less tolerant.

Last Saturday, Stanis Bujakera, one of Congo’s best-known journalists, sat in the sultry courtyard of Kinshasa’s main prison. Almost 100 days earlier, police had arrested him on charges of “spreading false information” and then pressed him for his sources.

Mr. Bujakera, 33 years old and based in the United States, refused to speak. “It’s not just me,” he said. “Especially in the last few weeks there has been a lot of repression.”

During the election campaign, Mr Tshisekedi has stoked anger against Rwanda, which he blames for the conflict in the east, and even threatened to declare war on the country at a rally on Monday.

He has sought to smear Mr. Katumbi, whose father was Italian, as an agent of foreign powers, and in recent days claimed his opponents paid Russian hackers to infiltrate the national electoral system.

For his part, Mr. Katumbi regularly criticizes Mr. Tshisekedi for failing to deliver on his promises to provide basic services to ordinary Congolese. At rallies, he often asks supporters if they have water, electricity or roads. When they say no, Mr. Katumbi says the blame lies with Fatshi.

The Shadow of Lumumba

A gold tooth is the last remaining trace of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first prime minister, who was assassinated in 1961 after barely a year in office.

Belgium returned the tooth to Congo last year after it was recovered from the home of a former colonial official who had disposed of Mr. Lumumba’s body after other Belgians executed the prime minister. Now it lies in a coffin at a monument at a busy traffic junction in Kinshasa.

The appointment of Mr. Lumumba is an article of faith for many candidates. For many Congolese, his fate embodies a tragic history shaped by foreign powers that have enriched themselves from Congo’s minerals or used it as a geostrategic battlefield.

In the 1960s, the CIA planned to assassinate Mr. Lumumba, believing he was a puppet of the Soviet Union. This assumption was wrong, Stuart A. Reid, author of “The Lumumba Conspiracy“, it says in an email. But there are striking similarities between that time and today.

“Now, as then, the central government is dysfunctional and cannot exercise control over the entire territory of the country. “Now, as then, UN peacekeepers have been sent in to provide security and Congolese leaders want to kick them out,” Mr Reid said.

“And now, as then,” he added, “the framework of geopolitical rivalry shapes Washington’s thinking” about Congo.

The wild card

Since leaving office in 2019, Mr. Kabila, the former president, has remained remarkably reserved — rarely appearing in public and even less likely to speak out.

As the election progressed, speculation grew that he could be on the verge of a comeback. His party has called for a boycott of the vote and he is in contact with Mr. Katumbi, the main opposition challenger, according to several Western officials.

Several visitors to Mr. Kabila at his large ranch in Congo’s far south said he was doing little to hide his resentment toward Mr. Tshisekedi, whom he accuses of treason.

This has raised concerns among Western officials and many Congolese that if this election descends into chaos, Mr Kabila could use his vast fortune – widely estimated to be in the billions – and his close connections within the security services to somehow exact revenge .

It is unclear whether this is more than speculation. But it adds an additional element of volatility to an already tense election.