Congo most important Africa poll since apartheid-UN
Source: Reuters
By Alistair Thomson KINSHASA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo's elections are the most important in Africa since a ballot in 1994 ended decades of apartheid repression in South Africa, the United Nations said on Saturday. Congo's first democratic elections in more than four decades reach a climax on Sunday with a presidential run-off and polls for provincial assemblies, protected by the world's biggest U.N. peacekeeping force and over 1,000 European Union troops. "We think these are the most important elections in Africa since South Africa in 1994," William Swing, head of the 17,600-strong U.N. force, told diplomats and election monitors. "These are the biggest elections the United Nations has ever supported ... it is a gigantic challenge that we have been able to face together," Swing said. The polls are the culmination of a three-year transition intended to establish peace and stability in Congo after a 1998-2003 war that spawned a humanitarian crisis in which an estimated 4 million died and 1,200 still perish every day. Clashes between supporters of President Joseph Kabila and vice president and former rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba in the run-up to the poll have stoked fears of further violence. The U.N. mission has helped Congolese electoral officials register some 25.7 million voters for a referendum and two rounds of elections, delivering voting equipment to more than 50,000 voting stations spread across a country the size of Western Europe with few roads and poor communications. "All the electoral kits have been deployed," Apollinaire Malu Malu, head of the Independent Electoral Commission, said on Saturday. "As you know, the country is vast. We have communications problems. However, we will try hard, despite the difficulties, to be up to your expectations," he said.
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