Congo plans to hold presidential elections in December 2018

Bloomberg

The Democratic Republic of Congo will hold delayed presidential elections on December 23, 2018, the electoral commission said, a year later than opponents of President Joseph Kabila have demanded.
National and provincial parliamentary polls will take place on the same date,
Independent Electoral Commission Rapporteur Jean-Pierre Kalamba told reporters in the capital, Kinshasa. A series of other votes including senatorial, gubernatorial and mayoral ballots will be held from March 2019 to January 2020, he said.
The elections will take place subject to “legal, financial, political and security constraints” being overcome, Deputy Rapporteur Onesime Kukatula said at the briefing where the electoral calendar was unveiled. “The non-respect of the critical dates can lead to the modification of the calendar’s implementation.”
Kabila, who’s led Africa’s biggest copper producer since 2001, was supposed to step down at the end of his second term in December 2016 after an election to find his successor. That vote was delayed and Kabila remained in office, sparking protests in which dozens of people were killed by security forces.
The central African nation, which gained independence from Belgium almost six decades ago, has never had a peaceful transfer of power.
Opposition groups struck a deal with Kabila’s coalition on Dec 31 accepting he could remain in power if presidential and parliamentary elections were held this year.
That accord suffered a major blow last month when
the electoral commission, known by its French acronym CENI, indicated it wouldn’t be able to hold elections before April 2019.