The opposition in the DRC is fractured and two of its leading figures have been barred from standing

Campaigning will start in earnest this week for the much-delayed presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Observers hope the polls will bring the DRC’s first democratic transfer of power, but many fear further destabilisation and conflict in an already unstable region.

President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled since his father’s assassination in 2001, is backing his former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary against an opposition that is weakened both by disunity and the government’s moves to prevent key candidates from standing.

Observers describe Shadary as a political nonentity who will be easily manipulated by Kabila. “We are sure we will win, by what margin is up to the people,” Lambert Mende, the information minister, said. “It is enough to look at our adversaries to understand we will win for sure.”

Kabila had strongly resisted efforts to make him stand down but came under concerted pressure from Angola and South Africa, concerned by the prospect of further conflict in the resource-rich country.

Arrangements for the election on 23 December are highly controversial. There is deep concern about new electronic voting machines, which critics say are more vulnerable to rigging than paper and ink and could be compromised by an erratic power supply. In addition, two of the biggest names among the opposition have been unable to stand.

Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former warlord and vice-president who returned to the DRC in August after being acquitted of war crimes by the international criminal court, has been ruled out on legal grounds, while Moïse Katumbi, a wealthy businessman and former governor of Katanga province, has been stopped from returning home. He faces court cases in the DRC on charges that he says are trumped up and has been in exile in Europe for more than two years.

An agreement among leading opposition politicians to collectively back the widely respected parliamentarian Martin Fayulu to face Shadary fell apart within 24 hours. But on Friday Félix Tshisekedi, leader of the biggest opposition party, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, announced he would stand with Vital Kamerhe, a second significant opposition leader, as his running mate.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest President Joseph Kabila had strongly resisted pressure to stand down. Photograph: Kenny-Katombe Butunka/Reuters

An opinion poll in July, before Kabila came out to back Shadary, showed opposition leaders were favoured by about 70% of voters, but the ruling party enjoys significant financial and institutional advantages.

“The Congolese political class has demonstrated its venality, betraying a population that has repeatedly pushed for its right to elect a new president in a free and fair process,” Stephanie Wolters, an expert at the Institute for Security Studies in Johannesburg, wrote last week.

Kabila took over from his father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who was assassinated by a bodyguard in 2001. He remained in power despite his second term ending in 2016, under a constitutional clause that enables a president to stay in office until a successor is elected.

“Kabila was not a strong man. He has to balance elite interests. There was no elite consensus on who might replace him and there still isn’t,” said Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at Chatham House, a thinktank in London.

Many provinces are in the grip of armed conflict and millions have had to flee from their homes. Officials in the DRC claim only 230,000 people have been displaced, which is a fraction of the UN’s estimate of 4.5 million.

There has also been the country’s worst outbreak of Ebola. In an update published last week, the World Health Organisation reported 36 new confirmed cases. Officials have so far recorded 346 confirmed cases, including 175 deaths.

The fight against the outbreak has been plagued by security problems, with health workers attacked by rebels in districts around the town of Beni where the virus has been spreading. This month, Ebola containment operations were paused after seven UN peacekeepers and 12 Congolese soldiers were killed in clashes with one of the many militias operating in the east of the country, but all activities have resumed.