CONGO: Millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo voted yesterday in the first free presidential elections since independence in 1960, and in the hope of ending a decade of invasion and civil war thought to have killed four million people.
The ballot was orderly, with a steady stream of enthusiastic voters and few irregularities reported. There is widespread anxiety though that the promise of the election bringing peace, even laying the foundation for a new prosperity across central Africa, could be lost in conflict over the result.
Both candidates in yesterday's ballot, a run-off between the leaders in July's first round, have wielded power mainly through the barrel of a gun. The incumbent president, Joseph Kabila (35) is favoured to win after taking 45 per cent of the first-round vote. Mr Kabila was installed in 2001 after the assassination of his father Laurent, who was put in power by Rwanda's invasion of Congo.
Mr Kabila's only opponent in the run-off, Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel chief accused of war crimes who has served as vice-president in a transitional government since a 2002 peace deal, won 20 per cent in July. The final results are not expected until about mid-November because of the difficulties of collating votes in a country the size of western Europe, but with only 200 miles of paved roads.
Officials with the UN peacekeeping force in Congo, the largest in the world at 17,600 troops, say they want to see the results released as soon as possible to head off destabilising speculation, particularly in the capital, Kinshasa, where about 30 people were killed in three days of fighting after the first round.
The EU has sent 1,400 troops to Kinshasa for the vote with a second force on standby in neighbouring Gabon.
The election has divided the country along regional lines. Mr Kabila has strong support in the east, where the war has been fought, because he is seen as having calmed the conflict through a 2002 peace agreement that brought Mr Bemba into the government. Mr Bemba is widely regarded in the east as a warlord with a lot of blood on his hands.
In Kinshasa and western Congo however, Mr Kabila is derided as a foreigner because he grew up in Tanzania and does not speak the local language, Lingala, proficiently.
Mr Bemba has said he will accept the result provided the election and count is "transparent". However, his officials have already accused the president of unfair practices because Mr Kabila has dominated state radio and television. Mr Bemba's television studios in Kinshasa were burned down in September.
Calming eastern Congo after years of conflict will not be easy. One prominent warlord, Laurent Nkunda, has been responsible for mass killings, rapes and other crimes in the Masisi region north of Goma. Mr Nkunda has thrown his support behind Mr Bemba and could make serious trouble.
However, some Congolese politicians question whether Mr Bemba has the desire or capability to resume the conflict, and say Angola's offer to send troops to back Mr Kabila would be a serious deterrent to his taking up arms again.