Millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) headed to the polls on Sunday in historic elections meant to craft a new stability for the Central African state after four decades of misrule and a devastating war that drew in the entire region.
Polling stations opened at 6am local time across the DRC for separate presidential and parliamentary votes.
Current head of state Joseph Kabila (35) is tipped to win the first round of the presidential race featuring 33 candidates, including former rebel leaders who waged a bitter five-year war that broke out in 1998.
At its height, the conflict in the former Zaire drew in seven foreign armies and, despite a series of peace deals and a transition process in place since 2003, ethnic strife and looting continues to plague the eastern part of the country.
Hundreds of eager Congolese lined up all night long on Saturday outside booths in preparation to participate in the first multiparty vote in 46 years.
”This is truly cause for much joy. I’ve never voted in my whole life. We want to vote to get a good government and good leaders,” said Jerome Amza (45) who had been waiting since midnight at a polling station in Goma, the main town in Nord-Kivu province.
”This is an historic moment which I am going to have to tell my children, and then my grandchildren, about,” added Marie Claire.
In rural Kabare, in Sud-Kivu province, patient lines of hopeful voters — most of them women — snaked outside the polling stations in the presence of police officers and European Union observers.
In addition to a security presence of about 80 000 police officers, the DRC vote is being overseen by 1 000 EU soldiers who are backing up the 17 600-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission in the country.
Kabila on Saturday called for a ”massive” voter turnout for the poll after a campaign period marred by deadly violence and electoral irregularities.
Eight people were killed in the final days before the vote, and on Saturday a truck carrying ballots to the central mining town of Mbuyi-Maji was set alight.
The UN has urged candidates to accept the outcome of the vote amid fears that losers might resort to violence.
Among more than 30 presidential hopefuls, Kabila’s strongest rival is Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former wartime rebel-turned-finance minister who is accused of war crimes.
Other contenders include the progeny of famous figureheads of the former Belgian colony, including the sons of long-time dictator Mobutu Seso Seko and slain liberation hero Patrice Lumumba.
Lumumba won the country’s last democratic election on the eve of independence in 1960 but he was deposed by Mobutu, who made the country synonymous with corruption until his ousting in 1997.
The international community, which is funding the elections at a cost of almost half a billion dollars, hopes the vote will not only bring stability to Central Africa but allow the DRC to become a regional economic power.
The country’s abundant mineral resources have been plundered to fund the war and for private gain while most of the population live in dire poverty.
With very little infrastructure for a nation that spans an area the size of Western Europe, the elections are proving a huge logistical challenge. In remote forest regions, officials have been walking for days to brings ballots to voting stations.
The DRC’s 50 000 voting stations will close at 5pm local time and ballot counting will follow immediately.
The results for the presidential race are expected in about three weeks, while parliamentary winners will be announced after the tallies of individual districts. — Sapa-AFP