By IPS Correspondents
KINSHASA, Oct 30 2006 (IPS)

Two people were reported killed and three injured when police in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) shot at supporters of Jean-Pierre Bemba, one of two candidates in Sunday’s run-off presidential election. The supporters were said to be protesting ballot stuffing in the northern city of Lisala.

However, polling got underway peacefully in eastern DRC, still volatile after the country’s recent civil conflicts. Voters were waiting quietly outside polling stations hours before the official start of balloting at 06.00 local time (05.00 GMT), although there were visibly fewer in queues than during the first round of voting Jul. 30.

Heavy rains disrupted polling in the west. City roads were flooded in the Bas Congo province and in the capital – Kinshasa – which is riddled with clogged-up sewers and poor drainage, preventing voters from reaching their polling stations.

Some 25 million people registered to cast ballots at over 50,000 polling stations, in the DRC’s first democratic elections in over forty years.

The vote will decide whether incumbent President Joseph Kabila or Vice President Bemba inherits the leadership of a country that endured consecutive wars between 1996 and 2002. Nearly four million people lost their lives in the fighting, and as a result of the famine and disease provoked by conflict.

Kabila received 45 percent of ballots in the first round of polling, more than double Bemba’s 20 percent. Electoral rules called for a second round runoff if no candidate won a simple majority in the earlier election.

The president is widely expected to win Sunday’s ballot, having made alliances with other key candidates since the first round was concluded.

His allies include Nzanga Mobutu, son of long time head of state Mobutu Sese Seko. Nzanga Mobutu was captured by Bemba’s soldiers last week, while he was campaigning for Kabila in Gbadolite, a former stronghold of Bemba. He was later evacuated in a United Nations tank.

Many Congolese are voting in the hope that elections will lead to the establishment of a responsible government, and bring positive change to a country that has been badly affected by war, and the poor governance of Mobutu Sese Seko (ousted in 1997).

On Saturday, William Swing, chief of the U.N peacekeeping mission in Congo, said the Congolese polls were the most important on the African continent since the 1994 election held in South Africa that brought Nelson Mandela to power – and ended apartheid.

The U.N. has deployed 17,000 peacekeepers in the Central African country, while the European Union has sent another 2,000 troops to secure the DRC.

On election day, armoured personnel carriers teeming with peacekeepers in blue helmets and carrying guns, trundled down roads in Kinshasa and other Congolese cities.

Still, security remains a concern. Troops loyal to Bemba and Kabila clashed repeatedly after the announcement of first round results in August during three days of fierce gun battles in Kinshasa, killing more than 30 people.

The capital remains heavily armed, and troops with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders can often be seen. Kabila keeps an estimated 5,000 soldiers of the presidential guard on hand, and Bemba is reported to have 600 of his own fighters in Kinshasa.

Both camps accuse each other of provoking pre-election violence, which has included fistfights at several rallies in Kinshasa and in other provinces between supporters of the two candidates.

“Bemba’s people are determined to bring this country to ruin,” said Chikaya Bin Karubi, a top counselor to Kabila.

“Kabila wants to sell our country, and he’ll do anything to keep power in his hands,” observed Sesanga Dully, spokesman for Bemba.

Neither Bemba or Kabila made as many public appearances as they did before the last vote in July, with Bemba canceling a rally in Kinshasa, Friday, the official end of the campaigning period.

While popular in the Swahili-speaking east, where he grew up, the president is disliked by many in Kinshasa, where Bemba is the favorite.

Both candidates are former belligerents, Kabila having served as a rebel soldier under his father, former president Laurent Kabila, who led forces that overthrew Mobutu with the help of neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda. Bemba was a rebel leader backed by Uganda during the 1998-2002 war’; he also stands accused of war crimes for supporting a failed coup in the Central African Republic.

The track records of the two candidates have sparked concerns on the part of certain Congolese, who fear that Sunday’s vote may lead to more fighting.

“I think our candidates are ill-prepared to govern the country,” said Fannie Mboyo, a commerce student in Kinshasa. “How can a young rebel and a warlord be our leader?”

But Emmanuel Bushashire, an election observer in the eastern city of Goma, sounded a more positive note. “I vote for peace, so my country can reach its potential and become a star in Africa,” she said. “Our country has had the worst luck. Maybe now things will change.”

Peace in the DRC could also herald stability for the troubled heart of the continent, and the start of large-scale foreign investment, which all but disappeared during the times of conflict. The DRC borders nine African countries, and its wars drew in six different armies, some with an eye to exploiting the Congo’s rich reserves of gold, diamonds, coltan – used in cellphones – and uranium, amongst other resources.

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