[ 2011-12-03 ]

DR Congo opposition charges bias in early vote results
KINSHASA (AFP) - The party of President Joseph
Kabila's top rival accused the DR Congo's election
commission on Saturday of releasing biased poll
results as officials rushed to tally votes amid
fears of fresh unrest.

Monday's elections are just the second since
back-to-back wars that gripped the Democratic
Republic of Congo from 1996 to 2003, and the long
wait for results has filled with tensions as
charges have swirled of vote fraud and plans for
violence.

The Independent National Electoral Commission
(CENI) published early results ahead of schedule
Friday, saying it wanted to staunch the flood of
fake numbers circulating since a vote that was
marred by logistical chaos, deadly violence and
rioting at polling centres.

The partial results, reflecting 15 percent of some
64,000 poll stations, gave Kabila 52 percent and
veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi 34
percent, leading the nine other candidates.

But the figures included less than one percent of
polling centres in the capital Kinshasa, where
Tshisekedi has strong support, while in Katanga
province, a traditional Kabila stronghold, 27
percent of polling centres were reported.

Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social
Progress (UDPS) called the tally "a crude attempt
to mislead the Congolese people and the
international community by publishing results from
areas favourable to Kabila."

UDPS general secretary Jacquemin Shabani called
the results a "provocation".

"It's irresponsible," he told AFP. "Why only 0.02
percent of polling centres from Kinshasa, when we
know -- and we have witnesses -- that at 90
percent of polling centres the result is already
known?"

The CENI said it would release more figures
Saturday at 4:00 pm (1500 GMT).

The first official numbers -- originally not
expected until Tuesday, when overall preliminary
presidential results are due -- did little to stop
a rush of speculation and chicanery around the
vote.

On the streets of Kinshasa, a table of results
purportedly from the non-existent International
Democracy Observatory showed Kabila up by 22
points.

The CENI said its website had been hacked Friday
and fake results showing Tshisekedi in the lead
were briefly posted there.

Amid a rush of rumours and conspiracy theories
circulating by text message -- that the CENI has
been flying in ballots pre-marked for Kabila, that
the ink in CENI pens disappears after half an hour
-- the cell phone messaging service crashed Friday
night on the country's largest mobile operator,
Vodacom.

In Kinshasa and second city Lubumbashi it was
virtually impossible to send an SMS Saturday,
adding to the paranoid climate.

"Vodacom's customer service department says that
(the interruption) is under government orders and
that the same applies to the other networks," one
Internet user said in an online post.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende denied
authorities had given any instruction to mobile
operators to interrupt the service. A Vodacom
spokesman said the crash was a "system problem".

Adding to the charged atmosphere -- already heavy
with opposition calls for the vote to be annulled
and ruling coalition accusations that Tshisekedi's
party is plotting a post-poll insurrection --
Human Rights Watch said Friday that
election-related violence had killed at least 18
civilians.

The New York-based rights group said most of the
victims were shot dead by Kabila's presidential
guard near the capital's airport during a
crackdown on Tshisekedi supporters who had
gathered for his final campaign rally Saturday.

Other civilians were killed and wounded during
clashes between rival parties, attacks by armed
groups and mob violence, HRW said.

The government denied there had been any deaths
near the airport.

Source - AFP

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