On the 10 of October 2024, Fabio Bargiacchi was interviewed by Jeff Fischer, Senior Fellow for the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University and electoral expert with more than 40 years of experience. The interview took place in the farmwork of the project “Stories of Democracy” implemented jointly by International IDEA and Georgetown University’s Democracy and Governance Program.
In the interview Fabio reflected on his personal experience and insights on the 2004-2006 biometric voter registration process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
These elections were the first democratic multi-party election in the DRC and served as a foundation for this narrative and gives further details on the voter registration process and elections. The DRC electoral processes between 2003 and 2006 marked an important milestone to introduce biometric voter registration in Africa showing the possibilities to implement such kind of voter registration.
Fabio detailed the operational, technical, and political challenges during the first democratic multi-party electionin the DRC back then, serves as a foundation for this narrative and gives further details on the voter registration process and election.
The lessons learned of that period and of the European Commission & UNDP Partnership on electoral assistance contributed heavily to the establishment of the European Centre for Electoral Support whose founders are Fabio himself and late Abbot Apollinaire Muhlongu Malu Malu who has been the Chairman of the SADC Electoral Commissions’ Forum and President of the Independent National Electoral Commission of DRC from 2003 till 2010, before to become the first President of ECES.
