DRC officials count 2m votes

2006-08-11 12:55

Kinshasa - Election workers facing high logistical hurdles have counted just more than two million votes in the first 11 days since the Democratic Republic of Congo's historic vote, says the Independent Electoral Commission.

President Joseph Kabila held the lead in the presidential race, but the numbers were far from definitive, with only about 10% of ballots counted.

According to a report late on Thursday from the electoral commission, Kabila had about 48% of the 2 153 867 ballots counted so far.

His main challenger, vice-president and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, had about 20%. The remaining votes were split among some of the 31 others on the presidential ballot.

Poor roads, communications

In all, 80% of the DRC's 25 million registered voters - some 20 million people - cast ballots in the July 30 presidential and legislative election.

A preliminary countrywide tally was expected to be announced on August 20, and a final tally on August 31. The vote-counting, like the election itself, had been a logistical challenge.

Officials were hampered by poor roads and communications, with the DRC's infrastructure in tatters after years of colonial rule followed by corrupt dictatorship and later war.

It was reported that electoral commission workers in canoes were still gathering ballots.

The results so far reflected a regional split, with Kabila, as expected, doing best in the east, where he was born. Bemba was doing well in western provinces.

Bemba was expected to do particularly well in Kinshasa, but results from that western city had not yet been compiled.

No partial results 'will be released'

With the field so crowded, no candidate was expected to win a majority in the initial round. If that was the case, a second round would be held between the top two vote-getters, probably in October.

Officials had at first said no partial results would be released, but backtracked because of the uncertainty fanned by competing camps making claims based on their own compilations from figures posted outside polling stations across the country.

This week, election officials began releasing results compiled by 62 electoral centres, with Thursday marking the first time the count went more than one million.

Both Bemba and Azarias Ruberwa, another vice-president and former rebel leader running for president, had alleged fraud in the vote. Bemba had said he was leading Kabila in many parts of the DRC.

Kabila was seen as the front-runner because many in the DRC credited him with taking the initiative to end the country's 1996-2002 war by uniting warring rebels to form a transitional government that paved the way for the elections.

But, some were also suspicious that he was being forced on them by the international community.

- AP