The Democratic Republic of the Congo held national elections yesterday under a cloud of violence after clashes on the final day of campaigning left at least two people died.
Incumbent Congolese President Joseph Kabila, 40, in power since 2001, is tipped to win a new five-year term running for the ruling People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy against a divided opposition field of 10 challengers.
The elections are just the second since back-to-back wars from 1996 to 2003 in a country that remains one of the least developed in the world despite a wealth of cobalt, copper, diamonds and gold.
Photo: AFP
Voting officially began in the east of the country at 6am and started an hour later in the west because of the different time zones in the vast central African nation.
Though voting began on time in some areas, but some polls were delayed in parts of Lubumbashi, in the southeastern province of Katanga.
Police said armed men had attacked vehicles carrying ballots to a polling station in Lubumbashi.
They said at about 3am the attackers swooped in on a convoy of eight jeeps and fled when police escorting the vehicles opened fire, wounding some of the assailants.
Two jeeps carrying nearly 1,000 ballots caught fire and burned in the attack, a correspondents said.
Lubumbashi had been a flashpoint of political violence in the run-up to the elections.
Logistical headaches in organizing the vote in a country two-thirds the size of western Europe — and whose roads network is crumbling and limited after seven years of war and decades of under-development — had raised fears the polls could be delayed.
The election commission had to bring in 81 aircraft to deliver 64 million ballot papers to about 64,000 polling stations across the country, in a process plagued by delays.
Elsewhere in Lubumbashi, voting was going ahead as planned.
Half an hour after polls opened, 50-year-old priest Benoit Tambwe came out of one voting bureau, his thumb blackened with the indelible ink used as an anti-fraud measure.
“There is no problem, everything is going well, calmly,” he said.
In the capital, Kinshasa, small groups of voters waited outside voting office 10189 at the Saint George’s school in the Kintabo district.
Helene Manbanda, a 22-year-old voting official, guided voters through the process, helping them find their name on the list.
The most senior electoral official showed the transparent voting box, as if to reassure voters that the process was above-board.
Incumbent Kabila is tipped to beat his main rival, veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, 78, running for the Union for Democracy and Social Progress.
The two men’s supporters have clashed several times in the run-up to the vote.
The last day of campaigning on Saturday descended into chaos as police banned all rallies. They used tear gas, water cannons and live ammunition to disperse Tshisekedi’s supporters.
At least two people died in the unrest, though the exact circumstances were unclear. The campaign violence has drawn condemnation and calls for calm from the international community.
The run-up to the vote also saw allegations of fraud against the Independent National Electoral Commission, from opposition charges of “fictitious” polling stations to a leaked report by a consulting firm that said there were tens of thousands of ghost voters on the rolls.
The central African giant has 32 million registered voters.
Provisional results of the presidential race are due next Tuesday, while national assembly results are due on Jan. 13.
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