News
Congo vote: Kabila leads
On state television, coverage of a soccer match was interrupted so a statement from the election commission announcing the 48-hour delay could be read.
Congo is staging only its second democratic election and the process has been flawed at every step, from the late printing and delivery of ballots, to the chaotic counting centers where trucks were dumping containers filled with ballots and frequent power cuts interrupted the entry of data.
Over 3 million people registered to vote in the capital, Kinshasa, and observers say that only two of the four vote tabulation centers there had finished compiling results by Tuesday afternoon. Even at those two hubs, poll workers had misplaced results from hundreds of polling stations, said observers.
They were sorting through mountains of rice sacks containing ballots desperately trying to find them, said David Pottie of the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based observation mission established by former President Jimmy Carter.
Near the headquarters of the main opposition party, police fired tear gas and blasted water cannons to disperse supporters of 78-year-old Tshisekedi, witnesses said.
Election violence has already left at least 18 dead and more than 100 wounded, with most of the deaths caused by troops loyal to Kabila, according to Human Rights Watch.
Congo’s back-to-back civil wars in the 1990s consumed the region. The country is ranked dead last on the United Nations’ global survey of human development.
Although observers said they have not witnessed systematic fraud, only widespread irregularities, the impression among opposition supporters is that the vote is being manipulated in Kabila’s favor.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
