Vote-counting started in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after the vast, war-scarred state turned out to choose a democratically elected president for the first time in more than four decades.
Voting proceeded in a calm manner, with only scattered reports of violence after a tense campaigning period.
”We did not see the same level of emotion as in the first round,” said a spokesperson for the United Nations mission in the country (Monuc), Sylvie van den Wildenberg.
”People were not running round from dawn, but came to vote calmly in quite large numbers throughout the day,” she said.
More than 25-million citizens were registered to vote, choosing between incumbent President Joseph Kabila, the favourite to win after he took a lead in July’s first round, and Jean-Pierre Bemba, a businessman and former rebel.
In the capital Kinshasa, where European Union troops helped police the process, the start of voting saw torrential rain.
Elsewhere, in the northern province of Equateur, one person was killed when fighting broke out over reported ballot-stuffing.
The election was hailed as a success overall, however. The European Commission congratulated its peacekeeping force, EUFOR, and Monuc for their part in the ”sucessful roll-out of polling”.
Election officials and observers manned 50 045 polling stations across the country. Stations in the east closed an hour earlier than the scheduled shutdown at 5pm (4pm GMT) in the west. Opening hours were extended to 7.30pm GMT for centres affected by the earlier rain.
Counting started immediately after the close of polls, although provisional results were not expected until November 19.
Fears of violence had run high after a rocky electoral campaign period studded with almost daily clashes in the provinces and after fighting in Kinshasa in August between the presidential guard and Bemba’s militia, which claimed at least 23 lives.
The two candidates had pledged not to resort to violence and called on the voters to follow their example.
The chief of the Independent Electoral Commission, Apollinaire Malu Malu, said serious incidents were reported only in Equateur, where one person was killed.
Police said the violence erupted in Bumba, a border town on the Congo river, when a polling station chief was caught stuffing a ballot box on Kabila’s behalf and angry Bemba supporters retaliated, leading to clashes with police.
Malu Malu added that 12 polling stations were ransacked in Bumba and two in Bikoro, where voting would be rescheduled.
More than 1 000 international and 40 000 Congolese observers were monitoring the polls, while about 80 000 policemen, 17 600 United Nations troops and 1 200 EU soldiers were helping with security.
People were also voting for members of provincial legislatures, where 13 476 candidates were standing for 632 seats. Results from these provincial polls are due in December.
But it was the historic leadership race they talked about.
”Since I was born, I’ve never been able to choose my own president,” said Lionel, an unemployed 36-year-old voter in Kinshasa’s Bandalungwa district, adding that he hoped the elections would be fair ”so the loser will be able to accept his defeat”.
About 1 300km away, in Goma on the Rwandan border, Esther Kavumba recalled, at 75, how in the days of longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, ”there were always soldiers here to force us to vote” for him.
”Now we do it alone,” she said with relief.
The Mobutu regime, ousted in 1997 by Kabila’s late father, became infamous for plundering the vast mineral resources of the country, then called Zaire.
The regime’s downfall was followed by a 1998-2003 war when Rwandan-backed rebels and Bemba’s forces battled the government in Kinshasa, with foreign African armies intervening on both sides.
Some viewed the rain as auspicious, however. For Yvonne (57) a voter in Kinshasa’s Matonge district, it represented ”grace from God” that would ”cool tensions” between the camps of the two candidates.
In the eastern town of Kayna, in the strife-prone province of Nord-Kivu, 24-year-old Imaculee Uwimana was grateful to be able to vote at all.
”Before, I slept in the banana plantation because of the attacks, but now I sleep in my house. A vote for Kabila is a vote for peace,” she said. – AFP
