DR Congo shuts borders on election day amid rigging claims

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have decided to close its land and sea borders for 24 hours in preparation for Wednesday's General Election.

According to the General Directorate of Migration, the borders will be closed from 12:00 on Wednesday morning until 23:59 on the same day.

The airspace will also be closed to unauthorised local flights, but international flights will continue as normal, the directorate said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

Internet access will not be cut off, however, Deputy Prime Minister for the Interior and Security Peter Kazadi reassured on Tuesday.

"We are not in a situation of war or popular uprising," he said.

Some 44 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots on Wednesday to elect a president from among 22 candidates, including incumbent Felix Tshisekedi.

Voters will also elect lawmakers and representatives in the municipal elections.

The government assured on Tuesday that police and other security services had been deployed to all 75,478 polling stations across the country.

However, Kazadi acknowledged that "there are political and security threats to the conduct of the elections".

In the east of the country, recent violence between armed groups and government forces has threatened the ability of one million voters to participate. A Washington-brokered ceasefire is expected to last at least 14 days from last Thursday.

"The defence and security forces have taken all the necessary steps to face these security challenges," Kazadi said in Kinshasa on Tuesday.

He called on the Congolese people to do their best to avoid violence.

 "Do not destroy what we have worked so hard to build. The elections are only a day away," he said.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister of the Interior, "the security services have already arrested 5 people of foreign nationality, equipped with sophisticated devices, who wanted to disrupt the elections".

Kazadi also said that those arrested had claimed that 50 other people had been recruited to do a dirty job.

 The five suspects, whose identities were not revealed, were said to be planning to "hack into the electoral commission's server and electronic system in order to falsify the results in favour of a presidential candidate", the official added, without naming the candidate.

Hack electoral commission's system

The deputy prime minister also accused the European Union Election Observation Mission, whose accreditation has been rejected by the Congolese authorities except for the city of Kinshasa, of also planning to infiltrate and hack into the electoral commission's electronic system in order to support a candidate.

European Union representatives in Kinshasa did not immediately comment on the allegations.

Deputy Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Bemba also made the accusations, saying he had been well informed by the intelligence services.

And although the campaigns officially ended on Monday, Bemba accused Moïse Katumbi, one of the candidates, of trying to illegally influence the vote.

"I speak as Minister of Defence. I am warning the population about what this man is up to.

"We have received information from Russia, where he has contacted a Russian organisation to give a lot of money and get into the electoral commission's system to publish false results. We have the proof."

"I say be careful! He's trying to set the country on fire. I say watch out for the backlash. The moment he tries to do that, we'll use the police to restore order," Bemba said.

Katumbi has recently been accused of holding a foreign passport, which could disqualify him from running. However, local courts have allowed him to run.

But he has faced other allegations, including the latest of being behind a hacking scheme.