Kabila fails to secure majority

2006-09-08 11:57

Kinshasa - A bloc led by President Joseph Kabila won the Democratic Republic of Congo's landmark polls, but failed to secure a legislative majority, according to Independent Electoral Commission results announced on Friday.

According to the last of the provisional results of the July 30 election, Kabila's Alliance of the Presidential Majority bloc emerged as the biggest single political force in the country, capturing more than 200 of the 500 seats in the new national assembly.

In second place with about 100 seats was the DRC's main opposition movement, the Rally of Congolese Nationalists (RCN), an alliance of parties led by Kabila's archrival and the country's vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba.

Kabila gets 45% votes

The division reflected the results of the first round of the presidential election, also held on July 30, in which Kabila received nearly 45% of the vote and Bemba 20%.

The situation in the capital, where UN and European Union peacekeepers were patrolling the streets, remained calm after the final results were announced.

Clashes between Kabila and Bemba supporters ahead of the release of the provisional results of the presidential election on August 20 claimed 23 lives in the Kinshasa.

The legislative and presidential elections were the country's first free, multiparty party polls in more than 40 years since the former Zaire won independence from Belgium 46 years ago.

IEC provides results by party

The Unified Lumumbist Party, whose leader Antoine Gizenga placed third in the presidential race, finished in third place in the legislative election with 34 seats.

In fourth place with 30 seats was the Coalition of Congolese Democrats (CCD) led by Pierre Pay Pay, who served as governor of the country's central bank when the DRC was ruled by dictator Sese Seko Mobutu.

The Independent Electoral Commission had provided provisional results by party, but not by electoral alliances.

More than 9 700 candidates ran in the legislative election and 32 stood in the first round of the presidential election.

Kabila and Bemba were to face each other in a second round run-off that was scheduled to take place on October 29.

It was hoped that the elections would complete a three-year period of political transition that followed the country's five-year civil war from 1998 to 2003. The brutal conflict drew in six foreign armies and claimed more than three million lives.

- AFP