Elections in the Congo are coming!!

candidates per Party DRC -ZipfsLaw
Originally uploaded by moyogo.

Make haste Congolese people! Read up the list of Parties currently registered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (as of March 2006) and choose your deputies. There's only about 267 parties. Make your bets! Looking at the number of candidates -- a bit less than 9000 for 500 seats -- some parties stand out. These are Independants with 700+ candidates... er... oh wait... that's not a party, right? In the Congo you never know... there are so many parties ‘Indenpendants’ could be the name of the next best party. More seriously:

• Parti du Peuple pour la Reconstruction et la Démocratie, 420+ (Kabila's party, even though he's running as independant for the presidential elecitons


• Mouvement de Libération du Congo, 390+ (Bemba's party)


• Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie, 360+


• Mouvement Social pour le Renouveau, 320+


• Forces du Renouveau, 270


• Démocratie Chrétienne, 190+


• Parti Lumumbiste Unifié, 180+


• Union pour la Reconstruction du Congo, 180


• Parti de l'Alliance Nationale pour l'Unité, 170+


• Coalition des Démocrates Congolais, 160+

The little graph shows the logarithmic distribution of Candidates per Political Party in the legislatives. Funny thing: Zipf's law holds true once again (if you don't want to read up the math, I'll just say the a straight line can be drawn and be very close to the data -- and there's no explaination to it except it occurs in almost anything).