KINSHASA: Votersin the Democratic Republic of Congo went to the polls yesterday in electionsthat will shape the future of their vast, troubled country, amid fears thatviolence could overshadow the ballot. Millions of electors are choosing asuccessor to President Joseph Kabila, who is stepping down two years after histerm limit expired - a delay that sparked bloody clashes and revived traumaticmemories of past turmoil. The vote gives DR Congo the chance of its firstpeaceful transfer of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.
But analysts saythe threat of violence is great, given the many organisational problems andwide-ranging suspicion of Kabila. The election's credibility has already beenstrained by repeated delays, the risk of hitches on polling day and accusationsthat electronic voting machines will produce a rigged result. On the eve of thevote, talks between key candidates to avert post-election violence broke down.
Oppositionfrontrunners Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi refused Saturday to sign aproposed peace pledge, saying election officials had failed to make suggestedchanges to the text. The announcement came after the pair had met with theIndependent National Election Commission (CENI) as well as Kabila's preferredsuccessor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. The UN, the United States and Europe haveloudly appealed for the elections to be free, fair and peaceful - a call echoedon Wednesday by the presidents of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and theneighboring Republic of Congo.
Oppositionchance?
Polling stationsopened in the east of the country a little after their scheduled time of 0400GMT and an hour later in Kinshasa and the west. Kabila voted in the capitalalong with his family, just minutes before Shadary also cast his ballot in thesame polling station. "I feel liberated, freed," said Victor Balibwa,a 53-year-old civil servant and one of the first voters to cast his ballot inLubumbashi, the country's mining capital in the southeast. "I'm excited tovote, to be able to choose at last. It's my first election," an18-year-old student named Rachel told AFP in the eastern city of Goma, anopposition stronghold.
Some pollingstations opened late in Goma and elsewhere. In one, electoral officials werestill adjusting voting machines and in another a technician needed to restart amachine that had broken down, an AFP reporter saw. The last polls are due toclose at 1600 GMT. Provisional results are due on Jan 6. Twenty-one candidatesare contending the presidential election, which is taking place simultaneouslywith ballots for the national legislature and municipal bodies.
The frontrunnersinclude Kabila's champion Shadary, a hardline former interior minister facingEU sanctions for a crackdown on protesters. His biggest rivals are Fayulu,until recently a little-known legislator and former oil executive, andTshisekedi, head of a veteran opposition party, the UDPS. If the elections are"free and fair," an opposition candidate will almost certainly win,according to Jason Stearns of the Congo Research Group, based at the Center onInternational Cooperation at New York University.
Opinion pollsindicate Fayulu is clear favorite, garnering around 44 percent of votingintentions, followed by 24 percent for Tshisekedi and 18 percent for Shadary,he said. However, "the potential for violence is extremely high,"Stearns warned. Between 43 and 63 percent of respondents said they would not acceptthe results if Shadary is declared winner, he said. And between 43 percent and53 percent said they did not trust DRC's courts to settle any election disputefairly.
However, Kabilasaid he was confident "everything will go well on Sunday". "Iwant to reassure our people that measures have been taken with the governmentto guarantee the safety of all sides, candidates, voters and observersalike," he said in his end-of-year address broadcast Saturday.
Frail giant
Eighty times thesize of its former colonial master Belgium, the DRC covers 2.3 million sq km inthe middle of Africa, behind only Algeria in area on the continent. Gold,uranium, copper, cobalt and other riches are extracted from its soil, butlittle of that wealth comes down to the poor. In the last 22 years, the countryhas twice been a battleground for wars drawing in armies from around centraland southern Africa. The legacy of that era endures today in the DRC's easternborder region, where ruthless militias have carried out hundreds of killings.
Insecurity and anongoing Ebola epidemic in part of North Kivu province, and communal violence inYumbi, in the southwest of the country, prompted the authorities to postponethe elections there until March. Kabila said the vote would take place "assoon as the situation allows it". Around 1.25 million people, out of anational electoral roll of 40 million, are affected. No explanation has beenoffered as to whether or how the delayed vote will affect the official outcome,and legal experts say the postponement is unconstitutional. - AFP