Kinshasa, Congo – The climax of Congo’s long-awaited presidential election – the first free vote in this big, battered Central African country in more than four decades – hasn’t exactly been the stuff of civics textbooks.
For one thing, the top two candidates, incumbent Joseph Kabila and former warlord Jean- Pierre Bemba, maintain formidable personal armies, holdovers from their involvement in Congo’s recent civil war.
In August, as results from the first round of voting were announced, the armies squared off in the streets of the capital, Kinshasa, killing 23 people in three days of fighting.
Ahead of today’s runoff, Kinshasa, a decrepit riverside city of 9 million people, remains on edge. With their armies still stationed within striking distance of each other, the candidates have not ventured outside the city or made many public appearances.
Kabila declined last week to debate Bemba face to face, and Bemba canceled a major rally Friday for fear that the crowds could spark unrest.
It’s an uneasy finish to a yearlong campaign that’s intended to close the book on decades of war, dictatorship and corruption in a country that some have described as a hole in the heart of Africa.
In 1997, the coup that overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko plunged Congo into a civil war that eventually drew in the armies of six neighboring countries.
Four million people are believed to have died because of the conflict, mostly from disease and hunger.
A 2002 peace agreement installed a transitional government and paved the way for this year’s elections, which are being overseen by 18,000 United Nations troops, the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world.
Two thousand of those troops – along with an additional 1,100 soldiers from a European Union force – are stationed in Kinshasa to safeguard the election and the counting of votes, which is expected to last several days.
Both Kabila and Bemba have pledged to honor the result. But neither has reduced his armed forces.
Kabila is believed to control about 6,500 soldiers in Kinshasa alone, Bemba about 600.
“It’s a fairly explosive situation,” said Jason Stearns of the International Crisis Group, a research agency that studies global conflict. “I don’t think the international community has been energetically engaged in safeguarding Kinshasa to prevent violence from breaking out. The military situation hasn’t changed.”
Kabila is the heavy favorite, having won 45 percent of the vote in July’s first round from a field of nearly three dozen candidates.
The candidates
Joseph Kabila: 35-year-old interim president inherited his job from his father, Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated by a bodyguard in 2001. Joseph Kabila is credited with taking the initiative to end Congo’s 1996-2002 war by uniting warring rebels, including at least two other presidential hopefuls, to form a transitional government that paved the way for elections.
Jean-Pierre Bemba: The 44-year-old is one of four vice presidents in Congo’s transitional government. During the 1998-2002 war, Bemba ruled a large chunk of northeastern Congo with support from neighboring Uganda. He is credited with accepting the power-sharing agreement that ended the fighting. Bemba is strong in his native Equator province and in the capital, Kinshasa.
The Associated Press
