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Polls Open in Post-War DRC Election
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?r=279&c=667750&l=1009&ctl=149C877:A6F02AD83191E1606A3564C753327BB99574F7DCC14957C0 Transitional
President Joseph Kabila, the son of a slain coup leader, faces off
against Vice President Jean Pierre Bemba, a former Uganda backed rebel





An election worker processes voters at a polling station in Bumba in
Congo's Equatorial province, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2006Polls have opened in
a decisive second round, post-war presidential election in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.  Transitional President Joseph Kabila,
the son of a slain coup leader, faces off against Vice President Jean
Pierre Bemba, a former Uganda backed rebel. 

Borders have been ordered closed since early Sunday, while officials
for both candidates have called for calm, following a campaign that
saw little actually campaigning by candidates because of security
concerns.

Some residents in the capital say they did not vote in the first
round, because there were more than 30 candidates. But they say, now,
the choice is clear, and that they will vote.

The first round in July was marked by attacks on polling centers in
central mining areas, while first round results were followed by
deadly clashes in Kinshasa.

Mr. Kabila did well in the east and overall with 45 percent of the
vote, while Vice President Bemba got 20 percent, but dominated in
western areas. They have both worked hard to build alliances, and
their private militias remain eerily present in the capital, as voting
gets underway. 

A spokesman for the large United Nations peacekeeping mission, Jean
Tobie Okala, believes, despite, the many security challenges, it will
be a success.

"A lot of people have concerns about the security," Okala says. "But
we say that there are a lot of rumors. We learned a lot from the
incidents of August.  There are 70,000 national police that will be
deployed to secure the polls, and, besides these 70,000, you have our
own forces, which means 17,600 blue helmets, including also some EUFOR
forces, 1500."

Some of those forces from the European Rapid Reaction Force are
actually based in nearby Gabon, but also ready to intervene.

Forty-thousand national and one-thousand international observers will
be criss-crossing the vast Congo as monitors.

Twenty five million Congolese are registered as voters in an election
seen as an opportunity to end decades of misrule and years of war.

Voting in July also led to the selection of a new parliament, and,
now, voters are being asked to choose new provincial representatives,
as well as who will be their first elected president in four decades. 


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