The group of parties led by Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) President Joseph Kabila has taken a commanding lead in parliamentary elections, according to partial results released on Monday.
The 31-party Alliance of the Presidential Majority, headed by the 35-year-old president, gained 169 out of the 340 parliamentary seats for which results have so far been counted, according to the results published on the electoral commission’s website and added together by Agence France-Presse.
The Rally of Congolese Nationalists (Renaco), the opposition bloc supporting Kabila’s main rival Jean-Pierre, was in second place with 47 seats.
There are 500 seats available altogether.
The July 30 elections — the country’s first multiparty polls in 46 years — were a key step in the political transition of the vast Central African nation after it emerged in 2003 from a bloody five-year civil war. — Sapa-AFP