Calm Prevails In D.R Congo
Calm Prevails In D.R Congo As First Parliamentary Election Results Released, Says UN
The situation in Kinshasa
remained calm over the weekend as the first parliamentary
election results from last month’s historic balloting
emerged, the United Nations mission in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) reported.
There
was no return to the deadly clashes that broke out a week
earlier following the release of presidential election
results, according to the mission, known by its French
acronym MONUC.
It said residents of the Congolese capital have been going
about their business as usual for the last several days.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) published
the first parliamentary election results from 35 of 169
districts over the weekend. The IEC said it will announce
the tally from all districts by 4 September.
Violence had erupted between supporters of the two
leading presidential candidates, President Joseph Kabila and
Vice-President Jean Pierre Bemba, after results from that
election were announced on 20 August.
Mr.
Kabila received 45 per cent of the vote, while Mr. Bemba won
20 per cent. They will now face each other in a run-off
election on 29 October.
The
Secretary-General’s Special Representative in the DRC,
William Swing, is continuing to encourage both candidates to
meet. He said they must maintain the process they undertook
in June 2003 with the inauguration of the transitional
Government.
The polls, the largest-ever
election support project by the UN, were the first free
elections in the DRC in nearly half a century. Millions of
voters went to some 50,000 polling stations to cast their
votes.
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