The old sporting cliché that nice guys come second is about to be rigorously tested in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Sunday if Jean-Pierre Bemba is named as the man in that position when the country’s election results are announced.
How nice he will be depends on whether he has another crack at the incumbent president, Joseph Kabila. Bemba’s defeat will be that much easier to swallow if he has a second attempt in a run-off on October 29.
On current showing Kabila is well ahead, with 55% of the votes already audited. Bemba, in second place, has a 17% share.
But that’s before the Kinshasa votes are taken into account. Bemba is acknowledged to have the biggest support in the capital, which comprises 12% of the country’s total population.
So Kabila is not certain of winning the 50% plus one vote required to give him a first round win and an inaugural ceremony on September 10.
The words ”nice” and ”Bemba” rarely appear in the same sentence. Charges against this ruthless former rebel leader — which could come before the International Criminal Court — include cannibalism.
The most telling impact he has made on Kabila is to question the president’s nationality because of his pedestrian use of the majority language spoken in the country’s west, Lingala, and the fact that his mother may have been Rwandan.
This is rich coming from a man who has spent most of his adult life in Belgium and whose mother is probably Angolan. To continue with the sporting metaphor, accuracy and reason came way behind passion and emotion in the DRC’s first elections in 46 years on July 30. Congolese police, the 17 600-strong UN peacekeeping force, MONUC, and the 1 000 troops from the European Union Force are all braced for the announcement on Sunday.
Henri Boshoff, military analyst with the Institute for Security Studies, says there could be street violence in Kisangani and Lubumbashi and other areas where the race was close. This could be from triumphal supporters of the winning candidate or angry supporters of the losers. Boshoff is confident the forces in place can contain this.