Incumbent Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila still enjoys a substantial lead in the presidential poll, but his score has dipped yet further below the 50% needed to avoid a run-off election, latest partial results showed on Friday.
Figures based on 54% of the ballots cast gave him 47,6%, while his closest challenger, one of his vice-presidents and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, was credited with 17,2%, according to the independent electoral commission (CEI). The comparative figures on Thursday were 48,6% and 16,2%.
In third place with 11,2% was veteran politician Antoine Gizenga (80), while Nzanga Mobutu, the son of the country’s former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, and Dr Oscar Kashala, who has spent 20 years in the United States, were in fourth and fifth place with, respectively, 5,2% and 3,1%.
Provisional results of the July 30 poll are due to be announced on Sunday.
Only five of the 24 precincts in the capital, Kinshasa, where Bemba has so far picked up 51,7% of the votes cast, have so far reported.
If a second round of voting is necessary, as appears increasingly likely, with no candidate collecting 50% of the votes cast, polling in a second round will take place on October 29. The definitive outcome of the July 30 vote will be announced by the Supreme Court no later than August 31 after examination of possible objections.
Besides Bemba’s stronghold of Kinshasa and parts of his birthplace, the province of Equateur, Sud-Kivu and constituencies in Katanga, seen as favourable to Kabila, have still to report their results.
The presidential and legislative elections in the DRC on July 30 were the first fair and democratic polls there for more than 40 years.
The speaker of the DRC’s Senate condemned on Friday what he termed calls to hatred as the announcement of provisional results from the country’s presidential poll neared.
”An atmosphere of tension at the political level, created and maintained by a dangerous discourse of appeals to hatred … tends to plunge the innocent and peaceful spirits of the Congolese people into anguish,” Pierre Marini Bodho told reporters in Kinshasa.
Bodho called on the political class ”not to break the hope borne of the peaceful organisation of the presidential and legislative elections of July 30”.
”I launch a heartfelt appeal that all the social-political leaders must accept their responsibilities to … banish all temptations towards violence, which can only plunge our country back into the abyss from which we are now emerging.” — Sapa-AFP