Just days before the presidential election in the Republic of Congo, an internal crisis appears to be brewing within the campaign headquarters of two opposition candidates, Destin Gaves and Uphrem Daye Mafoula. According to testimonies gathered by journalists, dozens of campaigners, coordinators, and technicians hired to run the campaign claim they have not received the salaries promised to them since the beginning of the year.
These associates, who say they believed in the “new faces” of Congolese politics, now claim to feel deceived and do not know if they will ever be paid, even after the election.
“I joined the team last November. Gaves had just announced his candidacy, and we were introduced as the ‘renewal’ team. They told us: ‘We will pay you properly, because we respect work.’ They promised 300,000 francs per month, with bonuses based on our commitment. I believed it; I quit my odd jobs to dedicate myself fully to the campaign. The first month, I was paid 250,000 francs—they talked about temporary difficulties, assuring us the rest would be better. Since January, nothing. Nothing at all,” states a 25-year-old campaign worker for Destin Gaves’s team, who requested anonymity.
According to him, the campaign headquarters currently has around thirty permanent staff members, or even up to forty.
A young woman on Mafoula’s campaign team also expressed her dissatisfaction.
“Mafoula talks a lot about sovereignty, about the fact that Congo should belong to the Congolese. But he is incapable of taking care of his own people. I worked from December to February, calling voters, encouraging them to come to the campaign rallies. They promised me 200,000 francs per month. I haven’t received a single franc. The team leader tells us: ‘It will be settled after the election.’ But what guarantees do we have that they will remember us after the vote? If they lose, they’ll scatter; if they win, they’ll find new people,” she writes.
The teams of both candidates did not wish to comment on this information reported by their collaborators.