Congo president says elections postponed to ensure millions of unregistered voters do not miss the chance to vote.

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) authorities have delayed elections to make sure the country is better prepared, President Joseph Kabila said on Tuesday, responding to accusations he is trying to cling to power.

Congo’s electoral commission said on Saturday that it expected polls to be delayed until December 2018.

“We have decided to delay the elections to avoid locking out a huge number of people – most of them young voters,” Kabila told journalists in Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar Es Salaam.

“As many as 10 million unregistered voters could miss out on the chance to vote if we proceed with the elections.”

Congo has not had a peaceful transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960. Protests over Kabila’s perceived attempts to extend his 15 years in power have led to clashes with security forces several times in the past year, with scores of people killed.

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Supporters of Kabila, who was in Tanzania to discuss oil exploration in Lake Tanganyika on the two country’s borders, deny he is behind the delays, which they say are due to logistical and budgetary constraints.

But diplomats and observers fear increasing anger among Kabila’s opponents could trigger a repeat of civil wars that killed millions of people between 1996 and 2003. Kabila brushed off such concerns.

“There is no political crisis in Congo … what is happening at the moment is just some political tension ahead of elections, which is a normal thing in many parts of Africa,” he said.