2023 Democratic Republic of the Congo general election

General elections were held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 20 December 2023. Combined elections were held for the President, 484 of the 500 members of the National Assembly, 700 of the 716 elected members of the 26 provincial assemblies, and for the first time under the new constitution, 951 members of a scaled down number of commune (municipal) councils. On election day, the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), in violation of electoral law, extended voting to 21 December for polling stations that had not opened on 20 December. Some polling stations stayed open on their own accord for up to six extra days.

The election saw President Félix Tshisekedi win in a landslide victory with 73% of the vote, far ahead of his closest rival, former Katanga Province Governor Moïse Katumbi, who only won 18%, mostly from Katanga region. In the parliamentary election, while Tshisekedi's party only won 69 of the seats, his governing coalition, the Sacred Union of the Nation (USN), won nearly 450, more than 90% of the seats in the National Assembly. As Tshisekedi is dependent on his coalition, he had to compete for other key offices for his party through complex, time consuming negotiations, taking five months to form a government.

Preparations for the election were marred by significant shortcomings, including the distribution of poorly printed voter cards, many of which had become unreadable by the time of the election as they were issued earlier in the year. Voting was further disrupted by missing voter lists and other essential paperwork, broken or absent machinery, delayed openings of polling stations, and intimidation by security forces or individuals acting on behalf of candidates. These widespread issues contributed to the lowest voter turnout ever recorded, potentially disenfranchising millions of voters.

The election, while not excluding any candidate from running and being comparatively peaceful relative to previous elections, had extensive fraud. A domestic observation mission led jointly by the Catholic and various Protestant churches stated that "numerous irregularities affected the integrity of the results of all the polls in some places," such as reports of candidates acquiring voting machines and placing them in their private residences. The opposition called for a rerun of the presidential election but did not take their case to the Constitutional Court, which they see as lacking independence, instead urging street protests that failed to gain momentum. Riots did break out in Katanga over the parliamentary election, as USN members, sometimes fielding no-name candidates, had performed well compared to the presidential election. Katangan elites, excluded from national power in favor of Tshisekedi's allies from his native Kasaï region, are among Tshisekedi's most prominent critics and clashed with Kasaïans, whom many see as "immigrants," over local power in the region. International Crisis Group (ICG) predicted that Katanga could later oppose Tshisekedi more strongly, as opposition could call for greater power and resources to devolve to provincial authorities or "create momentum behind demands for secession, which [had] been largely rhetorical" prior to the ICG's report.

While election irregularities played a part in the opposition's poor performance, other factors included the opposition's failure to unite behind a single candidate, the decision of prominent opposition figures Martin Fayulu and Joseph Kabila to have their coalitions sit out the election, their campaign strategies, and the failure to build grassroots party structures in other regions. In contrast, Tshisekedi had the backing of major political figures, which provided him with a broad territorial network and a foothold in various regions of the country.

CENI later cancelled results in two constituencies and disqualified 82 candidates, mostly members of the USN, from national and local races for fraud. While the move to target mostly USN members may appear to further accountability, analysts, as well as the Catholic Church, stated that it created a precedent for CENI policing its own work and may have underestimated the amount of fraud.

Elections were not organized in the territories of Kwamouth, Masisi, and Rutshuru due to ongoing armed conflict.