By IPS Correspondents
KINSHASA, Aug 21 2006 (IPS)

Three weeks after their landmark election of Jul. 30, citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo are bracing for another poll: the run-off vote between President Joseph Kabila and former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, that will decide who is to be the next head of state in this vast Central African nation.

News of the second poll came Sunday, after the Independent Electoral Commission announced that no presidential candidate had won more than the 50 percent of ballots needed for a first-round victory.

As expected by many, Kabila performed best in last month’s poll – but still found himself short of the 50 percent threshold, winning just under 45 percent of votes cast. Bemba garnered fractionally over 20 percent of votes. In addition to holding the finance portfolio, the former rebel is also one of the DRC’s vice presidents under the power-sharing deal that ended conflict in Congo in 2002.

In all, 33 candidates contested the July election, in which 70 percent of voters participated. Some 25 million of the 60 million Congolese had registered for the poll, the largest and most complex ever overseen by the United Nations, according to officials at that organisation. The run-off election will be held Oct. 29.

“To all of you who chose me, I say thank you…It’s a great victory,” Kabila observed in a televised address late Sunday. However, his words were overshadowed by violence that had begun earlier in the day, when a fierce battle erupted on the streets of the capital, Kinshasa, between soldiers loyal to Bemba and Kabila’s presidential guard.

According to the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), at least one soldier was killed in the clashes, which delayed the announcement of results. Two civilians are said to have been injured.

The battle, which included light weapons as well as heavy assault fire, continued well into the early hours of Monday, with much of the city blockaded by European and U.N. armoured vehicles and armed peacekeepers.

Congo is host to the world’s largest peacekeeping force – about 17,000 MONUC soldiers – which are helping to secure the polls, and disarm militias who continue to operate in the east of the country.

More than 1,000 European troops are also present to maintain stability in the election period. Congo’s army, composed of former militiamen and rebels retrained at camps for national service, is an ill-paid and poorly-prepared force that often stands accused of plundering towns – and killing and raping villagers.

Even as Kabila used his Sunday night television appearance to appeal for calm, the violence highlighted tensions that continue to exist in the DRC, the largely peaceful vote of Jul. 30 notwithstanding.

Last month’s poll was the first multi-party election to occur in Congo in more than four decades, years during which corruption and civil war took a severe toll on the country.

From 1996, the country was the scene of conflicts that unseated long-time ruler Mobutu Sese Seko – and pitted rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda against the Congolese government, supported by Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. In the most recent conflict (1998-2002), nearly four million lives were lost to fighting, disease and hunger.

Laurent Kabila succeeded Mobutu, only to be assassinated in 2001 – after which his son, Joseph, assumed the presidency.

The junior Kabila, who spent much of his childhood exiled in Tanzania, has been dogged by rumours that he is not really Kabila’s son – and in fact not even Congolese.

Bemba has capitalised on this with a campaign in which he presents himself as “100 percent Congolese”. This approach has had resonance in Kinshasa, where the former rebel gained a majority of votes.

“Bemba expressed himself clearly; he has a plan for this country,” says Pierre Makengo, 24, a Congolese aid worker in Kinshasa. “Kabila hardly speaks to us. It is difficult to know what he thinks.”

While Bemba is proficient in Lingala – the language of the capital, and western DRC – Kabila’s command of Lingala is reportedly poor; he feels more at ease with the Swahili spoken in East Africa.

However, many in eastern Congo, where Kabila won convincingly, credit him with taking the initiative to end the country’s wars.

Bemba’s party has expressed concern about alleged improprieties in the electoral process.

“We are unhappy about the irregularities. Kabila’s supporters altered results, especially in eastern Congo,” noted Dully Sesanga, spokesman for Bemba’s Congolese Liberation Movement, which said it would take the matter further. The electoral commission has indicated that political parties are now free to send complaints to the country’s Supreme Court.

In Congo’s last multiparty vote in 1960, Patrice Lumumba emerged as prime minister – but was assassinated the following year, allegedly with American and Belgian involvement. Mobutu came to power in a coup in 1965, and remained in office for the next 32 years.

Decades of poor governance have left the country without roads, railways and other forms of infrastructure, something which complicated elections still further.

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