Kinshasa, February 12th, 2026, (CPA) – A candidate disqualified after the 2023 national legislative elections took the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to court on Thursday for compensation for damages suffered, during a hearing at the High Court of Gombe, north of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). ‘The INEC invalidated the election of my client Sam Bokolombe without legal authority. The Constitutional Court ruled that the electoral commission does not have the power to invalidate a candidate,’ argued Mr Tshitshia Bokolombe, the plaintiff’s lawyer. He also pointed out that the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation had brought proceedings against the 82 invalidated candidates and that a rogatory commission had been sent to Basankusu to verify the allegations against his client, but that he had been completely exonerated after investigation. ‘The local electoral authorities (the president of the polling station and the president of the electoral branch) exonerated Mr Bokolombe, describing the accusations as completely false,’ insisted the lawyer for the disqualified candidate. ‘After three months of investigation, on January 22nd, 2025, the Attorney General issued a decision to dismiss the case due to lack of evidence,’ he added. He concluded his plea by asking the court, in view of the evidence, to order the INEC to pay his client the sum of CDF 12,500,000 in damages. For their part, the INEC’s legal advisers raised three major points in defense of the position of this institution supporting democracy: « There is a lack of jurisdiction on the part of the High Court, as the dispute falls within the scope of electoral litigation, which is exclusively reserved for the Constitutional Court. Article 73 of the Electoral Law limits the right to bring a case before the electoral judge to political groups, political parties and independent candidates.
According to them, this appeal was brought by the APA group, not by Mr Bokolombe in his personal capacity, and the Constitutional Court had already declared the application admissible but unfounded. The debate having been settled, there was no longer any reason to bring an action before the court, » the lawyers pointed out. They also pointed out the plaintiff’s lack of standing, given that votes are allocated to political lists, not to individuals, and the lis pendens, given that the Council of State is already seized of the same facts; there would therefore be lis pendens justifying the stay of proceedings. They concluded their argument by recalling the legal power of the electoral commission, citing Article 211 of the electoral law, which confers on this institution the power to regulate the electoral process and, consequently, to invalidate candidates. For his part, the civil representative (lawyer for the Republic) essentially agreed with the position of the defendant (INEC), reiterating the same arguments regarding the lack of jurisdiction of the High Court to deal with electoral matters. The public prosecutor rejected the objections of lack of jurisdiction, lack of standing and lis pendens raised by the electoral commission, but nevertheless considered that the action should be declared admissible but unfounded. After deliberation, the court took the case under advisement and promised to deliver its judgment within the time limit set by law.