Distrust of pollsters, villages changing places, ethnic codes to be respected. It was the Quebec firm Léger that took up the immense challenge of carrying out the most recent electoral survey in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The Léger firm is well known to Quebecers for its political polls, but few know that it also conducts polls abroad, as in several African countries.
Last February, 3,119 Congolese were polled by Léger on their voting intentions for the presidential elections next December.
But to achieve these results, a whole logistical challenge had to be met, explains Jean-Marc Léger, president of the firm of the same name.
About fifty interviewers from two local firms had to go to the field to interview voters face to face, sometimes in remote villages, in addition to the traditional telephone interviews.
“We are always precise. It’s just that you have to adapt culturally,” explains Mr. Léger.
“For example, if you enter a village, you have to seek the agreement of the chief, otherwise you will not be able to do the interviews.”
“You arrive in a randomly selected village. The problem is that he moved because the harvest moved. He’s not here anymore! So we have to find the village. It’s not always easy.”
Why a Quebec firm?
Why did the presidency of this former Belgian colony choose to do business with a Quebec firm, rather than a European firm?
“They are attracted by French and by North American technology” summarizes Jean-Marc Léger, who recalls that his firm is the largest French-speaking polling institute outside France.
The DRC is the most populous French-speaking country in the world, even before France. But beyond the official language, more than 200 different languages are spoken there, such as Swahili and Lingala.
To all these challenges is added the fact that the east of the country is currently in a context of great insecurity due to the actions of some 200 armed groups, including the M23, a rebel group supported by Rwanda.
According to the United Nations, hundreds of civilians have been killed and more than 5.6 million people have been internally displaced for these reasons.
young democracy
The DRC is a young democracy that held its first elections considered free in 2006.
“It’s an extremely vibrant democracy. A little cacophonous and sometimes chaotic,” admits Jason Stearns, professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and founder of the Congo Research Group.
The last elections were marred by irregularities that led to a coalition government.
The results of the Léger poll commissioned by the DRC government show that the current president, Félix Tshisekedi, collected at that time 43% of the voting intentions, far ahead of his two main opponents Moïse Katumbi Chapwe (21%) and Martin Fayulu (14%).
Félix Tshisekedi is also the candidate with the greatest notoriety, with 94% of respondents saying they know him.
Mistrust
However, there is no long tradition of polling in the DRC, agree to say the experts interviewed.
“There is a great mistrust. People are going to tend to think the results are biased in favor of whoever commissioned the poll,” says Stearns, whose research group has also conducted polls in the DRC in the past.
Denis Tougas worked for 25 years for a missionary organization in the DRC, until 2018.
According to him, the majority of people there are very aware of the flaws in their system. “They feel like they are sending someone to the capital Kinshasa who is not really going to act.”
“People are fighting to register to vote […] And even there, there is a lot of shenanigans. Some buy their cards”, illustrates Mr. Tougas.