Congo’s Senate Rules Out Census Before Vote After Protests
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The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Senate bowed to protests that left 40 people dead and abandoned plans for a revised electoral law to require that a census be held before elections next year.
Opposition politicians had warned that linking the census to the vote would delay the ballot and illegally prolong President Joseph Kabila’s mandate, which ends in 2016. Drivers in the capital, Kinshasa, honked horns and people cheered when the vote on the law was announced Friday on state radio. Many businesses reopened after four days of tension in the city of about 9.5 million people.