A Continent-Sized Vote

As usual, a momentous event in Congo hasn't got the world's attention.

TODAY THE United Nations' largest peacekeeping mission will oversee one of the world's boldest experiments in electoral democracy in a country devastated by a regional war that has killed millions. Why have you not heard of this? Because the country is not European or Middle Eastern but African: the Democratic Republic of Congo, once known as Zaire. Riding on the outcome of this risky but hopeful enterprise will be the stability of a resource-rich swath of territory the size of Western Europe, with a population of 60 million.

Though the world may not be watching, global institutions have a lot riding on Congo. The U.N. force numbers 17,500, and its election administration has spent more than $400 million raised from international donors. The European Union, which provided much of that funding, has dispatched its own token force of 2,000 to help with electoral security. Advocates of democracy, from the Carter Center to the Bush administration, are hoping that elections will prove an effective way of stabilizing a country fragmented by scores of ethnic groups and by an inhospitable landscape with just 300 miles of paved roads.

The multinational effort has surmounted some formidable obstacles. Millions of ballots printed with the names of the 9,700 parliamentary and 32 presidential candidates have been imported and distributed to 50,000 polling stations, some of which can be reached only by days-long hikes along forest trails. Some 26 million people have been registered to vote. Considering that four years ago Congo was a battleground for myriad domestic armies, as well as troops from a half-dozen other African countries, this is a real achievement.

Congo nevertheless offers an extreme example of an election organized in the absence of surrounding democratic institutions. The transitional government, made up of former warring factions, is dysfunctional: According to a report by the International Crisis Group, between 60 and 80 percent of customs revenue is embezzled. Army factions that were once rebel armies continue to pillage and feud over control of mines and other resources.

Many in Congo suspect that the international community is using the election to ratify the rule of President Joseph Kabila, who has served since his father was assassinated in 2001. In fact, most diplomats don't see an alternative -- but the danger is that the elections will weaken rather than consolidate the country's fragile and spotty peace. The Crisis Group warns that armed factions that stand to lose power in the voting may launch new insurgencies.

At best, when runoffs are completed later this year, the vote will open a new era in what has been one of the world's most miserable places. But to that end, the international agencies and governments that have invested so much in ballots and voter cards must begin an equally aggressive effort to reform and train Congo's bureaucracy, its judiciary, its army and its newly elected politicians. The U.N. peacekeeping force should be expanded enough to stop the lingering fighting in eastern Congo. All of this will be terribly difficult to do and pay for at a time of multiple international crises. But without such follow-up, the value of this election will be lost.