Global Dispatches -- Conversations On Foreign Policy And World Affairs

The Democratic Republic of Congo held elections on December 30th that would mark the country's first peaceful transfer of power since its independence in 1960. The long serving ruler, Joseph Kabilla had effectively delayed these elections for years, but finally promised to step down and cede power to the winner of these elections.  Votes were cast. Ballots were counted. A winner declared--and according to several reports a massive fraud was perpetrated.   The Catholic Church, which served as independent election monitors, said that the declared result do not match their data. And on January 15th the Financial Times newspaper obtained the raw data from electronic voting machines, which demonstrated a wide margin of victory for opposition candidate Martin Fayulu.    On the line with me to discuss what appears to be industrial scale election fraud in the DRC is Ida Sawyer. She is the deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division and a longtime observer of politics in the DRC.   In this conversation she