DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Congo tries ballots over bullets in country's first multi-party elections in four decades

Democratic Republic of Congo's people vote on Sunday (July 30) in their first multi-party elections in four decades, hoping that ballots rather than bullets can end years of war, dictatorship and chaos. The biggest international peacekeeping operation in the world is overseeing the most complex and expensive elections ever organised by the United Nations at a cost of 460 million US dollars. UN representatives in Kinshasa say the elections will be free and fair. Under the protection of 17,000 U.N. blue helmets and 2,000 European troops, some 25 million voters are due to elect a president and parliament in the former Belgian African colony, which has huge reserves of copper, cobalt, gold and diamonds. Since independence in 1960, the vast territory has known neither democracy nor peace. Ordinary Congolese hope the vote can offer a fresh start in the wake of a brutal 1998-2003 war that sucked in six neighbouring states and laid waste to a country already crippled by 32 years of misrule by dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. In impoverished parts of Kinshasa, like Kamongo Island, unemployed residents hope a new president will help them out of their predicament. They say they want a fair election and fear that any fraudulent activity will lead to a disaster. U.N. peacekeepers have been worried that rebel and militia groups who have terrorised much of the east of the country will try to disrupt the elections. They were relieved by news on Wednesday that two prominent eastern militia warlords, Mathieu Ngudjolo and Laurent Nkunda, had agreed to allow voting go ahead unhindered. The first said he was laying down his arms. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called Congo's polls "a symbol of hope for the whole of Africa". Apart from security concerns, the polls are an enormous logistical challenge in a country with few tarmac roads. 50,000 electoral booths will be placed in 12,000 locations across an area a little smaller than western Europe. . In some areas, voters will be trekking in from the bush on foot. In others, they will be travelling by dugout canoe to voting centres on the mighty Congo River. Viewed as frontrunner in a field of 32 presidential candidates, Congo's 35-year-old President Joseph Kabila is looking for a popular mandate to return to the job he took over in 2001 when his father Laurent Kabila was assassinated. Other leading contenders include former rebel leaders, such as Jean-Pierre Bemba and Azarias Ruberwa, who had fought against the Kabilas in the war but then served as vice presidents in the transitional government formed as part of the peace process. Also running as an outsider is a Harvard-trained cancer specialist, Oscar Kashala. The electoral campaign has been dogged by delays and sometimes violent protests by opposition groups who accuse the international community of trying to impose a Kabila victory. Critics say the young president, who is popular in the east but much less so in Kinshasa, has used state media and the security services to harass other challengers. One leading opposition figure, veteran politician Etienne Tshisekedi, has called for a boycott. If no one candidate gains more than 50 percent of the vote on Sunday, a second round at the end of October will decide between the two frontrunners. But there are fears the real threat could come after, not during the vote, from the former rebels who are standing.

ITN Source | July 29, 2006

Tags:. .complex. .joseph. .laying. .expensive. .disaster