Neither candidate received a majority of the votes, requiring a runoff election now scheduled for October 29. Kabila received 45 percent of the national vote while Bemba received around 20 percent, according to the official election results announced over the weekend.
However, in the capital city of Kinshasa, the voting decidedly favored Bemba, who received 60 percent of the vote, compared to Kabila’s 13 percent. “We don’t know why they are fighting, because they both qualified for the second round,” one 40-year-old told a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). “All we want is for them to go to the second round and for the president not to be chosen through weapons,” he said.
It was following the release of the vote totals that fighting broke out around Bemba’s residence in the Gombe neighborhood and spread to other areas of the city, despite containment efforts by United Nations peacekeeping forces. Some in Bemba’s political party charged voting fraud in the election, though a monitoring team from the United Nations reported the election appeared to go smoothly.
“All troops have moved back to their earlier position,” reports William Swing, the Special Representative for the United Nations Secretary-General in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in an update report published by the United Nations’ online Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) service.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Kabila and Bemba agreed to cede control of parts of the city to the national police force and have verification teams monitor their compliance, IRIN reports today. Each verification team will include officials from the UN Mission in the DRC, the European Union’s military force and police, the Congo national army, and Bemba’s and Kabila’s guards.
“We are reassured by the initial findings of the two teams after they returned to us last night (Tuesday),” Swing said.
Cars and pedestrians returned to Kinshasa on Wednesday for the first time in two days. Public transport is running again and many people could be seen waiting in front of banks, which had not yet opened their doors.
For an interesting look at what it is like for one family to be living amidst the turmoil of the past few days in Kinshasa, please see An Inside Look. To learn more about the presidential contenders, please see personal profiles for Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba. To read an earlier account of the turmoil, please see Violence in Congo.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.
